test-drb June 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
941 discussions

Inventory Control (was Re: "No name" S-100 computer)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> wrote: > Well, the DMV seems to have solved this problem -- I can never get my > license plate stickers off, even after 10+ years :-) Ha! I got an 8-year stack off mine late last year. Not because the adhesive let go though, the reflective paint on the plate did! But while I don't mind sticking that stuff on my license plates (after all, they're DMV property), I don't think I'd want to use it directly on artifacts! On storage bins/boxes, bags, and tags would be OK though. > And there's always good card stock tags and steel wire. Good choice, though I've been using the ones with string (vs. wire) to tag printed-circuit boards and some other things that look susceptible. > For the most part, I'm getting by > now with cardboard boxes and magic markers, but that renders my barcode > scanners useless, and it means that I usually stop short of writing the > entire contents on the box (due to laziness). Y'know, I've thought about barcode tagging a little bit, and I'm not sure how it would help, besides saving me from keying an object's item number to find the database record for this thing which I must be able to at least see, after all I can scan its barcode tag, right? > > OK, that said, the schema of my database looks something like this > [...] > > Looks good. I'll probably steal this, if you don't mind. No problem. If you have ideas for improvement feel free to share. Right now I'm thinking about whether the "notes" field should be split out into several note/memo fields for notes about relationships with other items, condition, work needing to be done, and other miscellany. That I lumped all this together in one note was part lack of knowledge about how I was going to use the note field in practice, and part architectural limitation of the in-ROM database software on the 100LX/200LX (which won't let you have more than one note field per record). > I'm a portable, wireless, and web zealot. I'll probably run the database > on one of my home Linuxboxen, which I can talk to via various > wireless-networked portables. (I have to admit that most of the wireless > portables are non-classic, but one of them is an early NEC CP/M portable > with a late 80's AirShare device.) This would free you from the memory > constraints of your HP200LX. (Did I mention that I have some PCMCIA > wireless LAN cards available for sale or trade?) Memory constraints? Don't be fooled by that "2MB RAM" logo above the screen, this 200LX has a 32MB RAMdisk daughterboard from Times2Tech. It's like having a turbo PC/XT in the palm of my hand. I'll give you points for using k00l technology to solve your problem, but I don't think it'd work for me. Most of my collection is not stored where I live, and between the storage locations, home, work, and some of the places I go in pursuit of Stuff, I think it'd be hard to pull off a "wireless LAN". They just aren't that local, nor are they line-of-sight in any way, nor are they all inside coverage areas excepting maybe cellphone coverage. Not that I care much -- my solution is aimed at answering my decaying-neuron questions, namely "have I got any of these?", "where are they?", and "are they so screwed up that I should be looking for another example?" As it happens it also will work pretty well for answering "what's in this box?" because I've got the box's ID in the location field, so can pull up all the records with a given box ID to get my answer. Well, it'd work that way if I actually had the inventory *done*. That's the other part of the problem, I think I'm less than 1/5 there, and what is done is in several pieces that correspond to various points in the evolution of this thing. The further I go, the more I learn. -Frank McConnell

26 years, 5 months

FS: OLD calculators, computers, telephones, & software.

by kstumpf＠unusual.on.ca

I'm trying to practice what I preach. I've written a book called A Guide To Collecting Computers and Computer Collectibles: History, Practice, and Technique. In it I recommend you should define and refine your collection to help maximize the pleasure you can obtain from it. Well I've decided to stick with my first love - mainframes with big control panels - and sell the rest. Sample of what you'll find in this message: o Millionaire calculators o Xerox Star o MOS Technologies KIM-1 o Convergent Technologies Workslate o Northern Telecom DV-1 telephone terminal o IBM PC LAN software. PLEASE SEND YOUR OFFERS AND QUESTIONS DIRECTLY TO ME - NOT THROUGH THE LIST OR NEWSGROUP. P.S. I thought the Classiccomp list would like to see the calculators and telephones built into terminals also. I have the following items for sale: CALCULATORS ----------------------- Burroughs huge, black, hand crank, wide platten, 9x9 keyboard, window between front edge and keyboard, extra ribbon, Made in Canada seems to work and in good condition Egli, Hans, of Zurich Millionaires - one 16 digit (#1776) and one 20 digit (#2607) good condition Facit CI 13 working and in very good condition Friden STW Automatic Calculator with plastic cover no power cord, but in very good condition Monroe 145, made in Western Germany good condition National model 750207, 67-HX-5" huge, brown, hand crank not working, but in very good condition Remington Rand black, hand crank, wide platten not working, but in good condition HP HP-25 in original box and carrying case owner's manual, applications programs manual, quick reference guide, and ac adapter not working, but in very good condition Olympia CD 71 in carrying case with instruction booklet, ac adapter without plug to the calculator very good condition TI TI 30 with carrying case very good condition TI TI Programmable 59 Solid State Software lots of original keyboard templates, Master Library Modules, magnetic storage strips and read head cleaning strips, pocket case for templates, modules, and strips 9 calculators, but only 2 battery packs very good condition COMPUTERS --------------------- Apple III, 256K with monitor the following is all original manuals, diskettes, jackets, and boxes: o System Software, SOS, Utilities, and Emulation software and documentation. o Universal Parallel Interface and software driver, Visicalc sampler, Apple Writer III, Business BASIC, Business Graphics, System Demo, Maillist Manager, Letter Quality Printer Demo all in very good condition Apple Lisa 2 in original box only powered on twice original brochures and demos very good condition Convergent Tech Workslate original everything! working, in mint condition Data General One (2207) all original accessories and software: o carrying case, AC adapter, battery recharger, no name acoustic coupler cups, expansion adapter, DOS 2.11, Owner's Manual, Pocket Reference works in very good condition Dynalogic Hyperion 3032 - Agile OEM version (also Bytec) the following is all original: carrying case, Setup Guide, User Guide, Technical Ref Guide, Multiplan, In:Scribe, BASIC, In-Touch, Aladin working in very good condition Epson QX-10 (Q701A) no keyboard or monitor cables loaded with Valdocs software and user and developer documentation in good condition HP 150 Touch Screen PC w/9133D very good condition HP 150 Touch Screen PC w/9122D and HP-IB cable very good condition HP Portable Plus with original carrying case, AC adapter, Owner's manual IBM 5100 (C02), 5103 dot matrix printer original carrying case (weighs 60lb!) IBM 5100 binder containing: o original sales literature o original invoice o BASIC manual and 12 s/w or data tape cartridges works, but keyboard has problems very good condition IBM PCjr in large IBM attache case includes original AC adapter, TV Receiver VHF Terminal, Operating Instruction manual, and sampler diskette. MOS Technology KIM-1 original everything! in mint condition Modular Micros Zorba (Gemini GC-200) (div of Modcomp) works, very good condition North Star Horizon very good condition Xerox Star (8010) not working displays xxx msg very good condition Zenith ZFL-171-42 portable original carrying case and Owner's Manual, but copy of DOS 2 boot diskette. not working, in very good condition TELEPHONES ---------------------- AT&T very good condition Bynamics PhonePad original everything! not working, in mint condition IT&T InfoStation very good condition Northern Telecom Alex good condition Northern Telecom Displayphone missing AC adapter very good condition Northern Telecom DV-1 mint condition SOFTWARE ------------------- Aldus PageMaker 1.2 for Mac complete and original good condition Ann Arbor Softworks Full Paint complete and original good condition Apple MacDraw complete and original good condition IBM DOS 2.00 w/diskettes good condition IBM DOS 3.00 w/diskettes good condition IBM DOS 3.10 & 3.30 no diskettes poor condition IBM DOS 4.00 w/diskettes unused very good condition IBM OS/2 Warp Version 3 w/diskettes and CD unused very good condition IBM PC Local Area Network 1.10 complete and original good condition IBM PC Network Program 1.00 still shrink wrapped very good condition IBM PC Network Hardware Maintenance and Service complete and original good condition IBM PC 3270 Emulation 3.00 complete and original good condition IBM PC 3270 Emulation 2.00 original missing shelve good condition IBM PC/Host File Transfter and Terminal Emulator 1.10 complete and original good condition IBM BASIC manuals shrink wrapped very good condition IBM Pascal compiler complete and original good condition IBM Guide to Operations 2.02 complete and original good condition IBM Technical Reference PC very good condition IBM Proprinter maintenance manuals very good condition idd MacDraft 1.2 complete and original good condition Symantec Grandview complete and original good condition Vestronix Pro C complete and original good condition Trilogy complete and original good condition Xerox Ventura Publisher 2.0 complete and original... all 19, 360K diskettes! very good condition Zenith Z-100 PC Service Guide complete and original good condition Zenith Z-100 Disk-Based Diagnostics complete and original good condition ----------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin Stumpf kstumpf(a)unusual.on.ca +1.519.744.2900 (EST/EDT GMT-5)

26 years, 5 months

Mayday! PDP-11/44 Power supply

by kyrrin＠jps.net

Hi, folks, My PDP-11/44 has a power supply problem. Symptom: A rapid flashing of the 'DC ON' light, indicating (according to the users' guide) that one or more DC voltages is not up to spec. The kicker is that I have nothing in the way of service manual or maintenance print set. I'm kind of puzzled about why the thing died. It's been functioning perfectly well at St. Martins College for years, 24/7, without so much as a burp. The only thing I can think of is that this continuous running had one or more components stretched to their limit, and when I powered it on after over a month of power off, it pushed it over the edge. Anyway... I have no way of knowing even where to probe to see which voltage died. Even if I did manage to find it, that fscking power supply's about as complex as the CPU! If anyone's got service docs for the '44, and can help me out with some copies, that would be just grand. I'd also be open to troubleshooting via phone or E-mail. If you've got spare parts, of course, that would be ideal. I could swap modules until the bad one's isolated. ;-) This is one I really want to get working. Please give me a hand if you can. Thanks in advance. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272) (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net) "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

26 years, 5 months

OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac Classic prob (was Macintoshes..

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 27, 16:50, Hotze wrote: > Most Windows CE devices are based on HP/NEC PA-RISC (IIRC) > processors, or SGI MIPS processors. Or Acorn/Digital StrongARM. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 5 months

SE30s and IIX machines- Packet monitors and Home Automation

by thomas100＠home.com

I suppose SE30s and Mac IIs are 11 years old now! Yow. I still think of antique computers as 8-bit micros- that's just my own deluded sense of history. I bought an SE30 w/ Ethernet recently for $80 through the net. The owner showed up at my office one day recently and delivered it. The next week I also bought a Mac IIx w/ 8 megs of RAM for $25 at a Silicon Valley swap meet. A friend gave me a couple of Asante SCSI <-> Ethernet adapters which can normally be had for around $20 on eBay. I hadn't figured out much useful to do with these slower machines until... I found a very nice TCP/IP, etc packet monitor that runs on these machines. The "trial" version of this product (EtherPeek) is pretty hot in itself and is worth checking out. The full version is... unfortunately $700. I wish they'd sell the demo version with the 30-day time-bomb turned off for $100 as it's already more than what I need to monitor my cable-modem connection. Oddly... the Win32 version of EtherPeek is just so-so... I should add that in the case of SE30s, these things can sit on your desk, won't get knocked off like a laptop and are available for less than $100 with an ethernet card. This is an ideal niche machine for a packet monitor! http://www.aggroup.com - you have to download the app and then wait for the password to be e-mailed to you. ---- There was an article in the May issue of Popular Home Automation which piqued my interest in acquring these machines originally. It was entitled, "What I Did With The Mac in the Closet" and features a very vancy Macintosh/BSR controller system. This system can talk to wireless speakers in every room in the house. After taking the magazine home from the store where I found it, I realized this would be a social faux-pas in my house and decided to nix the idea. The software application that drives it is "XTension" by San Hill Engineering. It might still be fun to play with since the application is scriptable and can handle motion detectors and such. The application looks pretty nice. I wonder if the motion detectors would detect the squirrels I hear are supposed to gather from time to time in my detached garage. Hmm... The only other application I tho't of for the older Macs is as a dedicated Quick-cam machine. I must admit I use them for scanning in pictures occasionally - waiting for the images to be converted to JPEG is a hassle tho'. Thomas

26 years, 5 months

Info wanted: Digital RZ23 SCSI Drive

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 27, 9:56, Zane H. Healy wrote: > I think some drives, includeing the RZ23 have a jumper setting to spin them > up, and some PC controllers might do this for you. Some of the RZ series do have a spin-up on power-up jumper, but the RZ23 isn't one of them :-( However, as someone else (Tim?) pointed out, most workstation controllers or OSs (as opposed to PC controllers/OSs) will take care of that. I have RZs on Acorn and SGI machines, but not, oddly, on any of my DEC ones. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 5 months

Overhyped Innovations (was Re: OS's In ROM's (was: Re: Mac

by tomowad＠earthlink.net

>> Bob was just a dumb program. > >Bob was touted by Microsoft as the way user interfaces would work from >that point on. It was seen as a way to bring computers to mere consumers, >and launched at CES with great fanfare IIRC. What exactly is Bob? I've often see it mentioned, but never with any background to what it actually does. Thanks, Tom Sysop of Caesarville Online Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>

26 years, 5 months

OS's In ROMs

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 27, 14:41, Hotze wrote: > Would it be possible to have a control chip and a OS chip? You've got the > control chip, which contains address information on the OS chip, as well as > other EXTREMELY basic ssytem info. Then you've got the OS chip, which > contains the OS. Because of the control chip, it could be as large as you > wanted it. > I've also heard of a "Windows 98 on a chip" system, with 75MBPS through > put. Sounds like the first decent way to load Windows... Well, you typically need 4 chips, since most ROMs are 8-bit wide, and most current processors are 32-bit, but allowing a little poetic licence, Windows on a chip is possible (and Windows CE is just that). > PS-Did any computers have GUI's built in? I think that I recall that > a Tandy did, but nothing else... Amiga? Archimedes/RISC PC? Atari ST/MegaST? all those have the GUI in ROM. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 5 months

Wang Thang

by blindpete＠stratos.net

On 1998-06-27 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said: cl{On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Don Maslin wrote: cl{> Cannot help on the pinouts, but I think their monitor connector cl{>was unique. You need to boot it with Wang disks. They are in PC cl{>format, but the DOS is different. I have a set that I can copy cl{>when you get video going. cl{Great! I'll get various Kaypro stuff from you at the same time. ;) cl{Do you know what the monitor connector looks like? The only cl{possibilities are the DIN plugs on the back of the IBM Emulator cl{card. Unless the monitor was some kind of terminal that attached cl{to the serial port. cl{The 8-pin DIN plug has a little symbol next to it which might cl{represent a CRT. (It looks kind of like a pie slice.) cl{> As I recall, the IBM Emulator board really hacks the WangDOS to cl{>be more like PCDOS and it will then run many - but not all - cl{PCDOS programs. cl{Pretty big hack. A whole PC could fit on a card half that size. :) cl{> Don't believe the D-subs on the back are for monitor and keyboard, cl{>but it may be a different board than I ever saw. cl{Well, I don't know where else to put a monitor. The Wang keyboard cl{plugs into the 4-pin DIN socket connected to the machine's cl{motherboard, I can only guess what the other things are for. I'm cl{just scratching my head trying to figure out how to get a picture cl{from the thing. cl{> > The sticker on the side (top) of the machine says it's a PC-002, cl{>but the > sticker on the back says it's a PC-P002. cl{> > cl{> > The keyboard has a lot of word processing functions on it. cl{> That is what Wang really got established in. cl{Too bad the keyboard doesn't have the greatest feel. And some of cl{the keys are in the wrong places, but that's a holy war I don't cl{want to get into. ;) cl{> > Anyway, I haven't opened it up yet, or done anything with it cl{>but look at > it. Disassembly looks like it might be difficult, cl{>because I have to slip > the innards through the full length cl{>metal sleeve. I won't be up to that > until my arms recover. cl{>I've even got bruises and some kind of blood > blisters or cl{something, from carrying that thing. :/ > cl{> Stand it up on its face and lift the cover off. Everything cl{>inside is in a heavy guage wire frame. cl{Yeah, it took me a few minutes to figure it out, but it opened up cl{easily once I decided to pull from the back instead of the front. :) cl{> - don cl{Doug Spence cl{ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca cl{http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/ Hi I used to have an old wang whith a 8086 cpu in it, it had a monotor whith two cords coming out of it. one was power and the other one was for the data, they both pluged into the card whith two plugs on it. the one I had used the round ps2 stile plug maybe a little bigger, like a keyboard plug. Pete Net-Tamer V 1.11 - Registered

26 years, 5 months

GOOD LORD! VARNISH?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

HOW DO YOU POUR *VARNISH* IN THE BACK OF A COMPUTER AND DON'T KNOW IT???? Just stuck my screwdriver in the back of that Mac 512, trying to open the lid and remove a sorely jammed floppy. (No, I've already tried the little button. It's jammed good.) Pull my screwdriver out - Minus the ending and COVERED IN WET VARNISH! It's all over the place! These morons DUMPED A CAN OF VARNISH in the computer, and didn't know about it! It does power on though... It comes up with the "insert a boot disk" icon. -------

26 years, 5 months

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test-drb June 1998