Finally acquired a MindSet pc this weekend, way cool. So now I'm looking for
anyone who has _anything_ for this unit (docs, specific software, carts,
anything). Any useful links would be handy too.
TIA
George
>I know I can type it as: "You know, the 00's really suck!" But how the
>heck
>are we supposed to pronounce it?
>
>Simple, as anyone who owns a .30-06 deer rifle can tell tell you, it
>will be the "double ought" decade. Same as 100 years ago, the first
>year will be "ought zero". BTW, .30-06 is a US rifle caliber, .308
>inches (7.62mm), designed in 1906, or "thirty ought six". 20 years from
>now, we'll be talking about that old 500Mhz P II made back in "Ought
>One".
> Jack Peacock
>
>
Hi guys & gals!
Uhh, lets not confuse .308in bullet size with bullet caliber.
The .308 Winchester cartridge was introduced in 1952 and adpoted in 1954 by
the U.S. military. It was designed with a reduced overall weight(a little
shorter).
The idea was that a G.I. could carry more ammo into combat! The correct
military designation for this cartridge was 7.62x51mm NATO.
BTW, I believe it's "aught" with an A!
Sorry, computers are not my only hobby.
Cliff Boyer
The point is that it's possible to just "figure it out" by looking.
If you don't know what a cam is for, by process of elimination, it's
possible to eventually understand. On the other hand, if you're
staring at a board of custom chips, you'll never figure it out without
a computer to read the code in them.
>
>And integrate and differentiate! That is _really_ had to do if you do
not
>know the functions of the cams! The trig functions can also be
completely
>non-obvious!
>
>William Donzelli
>william(a)ans.net
>
>
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If I remember right, those were the 1st computer manuals I ever got my hands on as a kid,
it was incredible stuff and caught my interest. Might even still have a few in Mom's attic.
-----Original Message-----
From: William Donzelli [SMTP:william@ans.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 1998 3:51 PM
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Re: Re[2]: What is the first computer?
> Ah yes! The (then) ubiquitous Mark 1A (One Able) fire control computer.
> Probably the only greater marvel were the fire controlmen who were able
> to keep them in operation when repairs were necessary.
Most of the computers were very hardy things and rarely broke down. When
they did, these highly trained technicians would be called in to do the
repairs, using all sorts of special tools (like really thin wrenches and
other "not-at-Home-Depot" type things.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
John Higginbotham (or someone) wrote:
>>2) First human made computer (program given for input, so abbacus doesn't
>>count, output given)
>
> I think there was an automated loom that was invented in the 17th century
> that wove a pattern based on a template, but I don't recall if this was a
> hole punch reader, a specially shaped gear, or other apparatus. It did
> exist though. Although most definitely not a computer as we see them
> today, it did take a program for input, process it, and output it in the
> form of fabric. (I think this was right before CGA was made a standard...)
:-) Someone has mentioned Jacquard, I think. He didn't invent punched
cards, afaik, he got the idea from a Brit. I'll try and find out more,
but I don't think either was a computer. The Jacquard loom doesn't run
a program - it transfers data from cards to fabric. Full stop.
I'd give the honours of 1st computer to the Zuse Z1 - a relay machine
between the Wars, I think. But some mechanical calculators at that date
were quite sophisticated. Comments, anyone??
>>5) First digital computer
>
> Didn't someone just post a link about the "first digital computer" turning
> 50 years old? It was on the BBC website, I believe.
They may have done, but the Manchester SSEM (Small Scale Experimental
Machine) was the first computer to STORE ITS PROGRAM IN MAIN MEMORY,
i.e. answer 4.
Again, Konrad Zuse's pre-war relay computers were digital. Go and watch
them running the Z4 in Munich...
Philip.
Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> writes:
> I recently acquired a 9825B, and I've got some questions:
>
> Can I get some docs from somebody?! I can't figure out how to program the
> thing.
Heh. I spent a couple of evenings trying to figure these things out
(have two, an A and a B) with mixed results. HPL is definitely case
sensitive.
The little dinky manual that fits under the printer cover is not enough
documentation to learn how to program it. That is all the docs I have
though.
> The keyboard on mine appears to be different than that of another 9825B on
> the net. How many different 9825B variations were there? A pic of mine
> juxtaposed with somebody else's is at:
> http://www.yowza.com/classiccmp/hp/
In spite of what the hpmuseum.org web pages say, there are at least
two 9825Bs out there with the calculator-style keyboard. Mine's like
that too. I'm not sure whether it's a 9825A->B field upgrade or what.
> BTW, it seems like a great machine! I like the LED display. Did anybody
> ever make a similar model, but with, say, an 80x24 character LED display?
I doubt it...those little dot-matrix LEDs were expensive compared to a
CRT.
-Frank McConnell
>> There have been several extension to the Alphatronic PC.
>> floppy boxes and even a HD box. THe base for CP/M was
>> the dual floppy box.
I'm amazed - someone who's heard of these things! :)
>>> They were made by Triumph-Adler, from what I remember. Any information
>>> on these boxes would be most helpful!! (I have the original manuals, but
>>> they don't exactly go into a lot of detail)
>>
>> Just Tell me whats missing - I think I maybe have some of the
>> stuff. Including Flopyy and Hard Disk drives.
Well all I have are the basic Alphatronic PC units (three of these I
think, although I seem to remember that the keyboard status on two of
them is far from perfect - these things used to be really abused when
used as terminals), one original shipping carton, two manuals, and
that's it.
Oh, did these things come with monitors at all? Most of the ones we had
at university had 12" mono screens hooked up to them, but I don't know
if they were original or not (I have a couple of these - similar shape
to DEC VT320 terminals).
The manuals I have (IIRC) both mention that the systems can be expanded
to run CP/M, but no mention of how or what was needed; there's no
pin-outs of the expansion port, cartridge slots or anything.
>
>> Owning a Alphatronic PC and 2 Alphatronics
hmm, so what's the difference between the two? Mine are all badged
"Alphatronic PC", but I checked with the university staff before I left
and they never had any floppy / hard drive systems with them...
(This is where I really hate not having my collection around at home,
it's been so long since I've powered one of these things up I can't even
remember what CPU they had. I vaguely recall that they had a lot of
fairly non-standard chips inside though; the CPU may have been a
rebadged part of some description)
cheers
Jules
>
<> Apple is weird with their formats, nearly hardsector. C-128 has a few
<
<Actually, Apple was the _ultimate_ soft-sector, as it didn't pay any
<attention to sector detect at all -- it had to read the whole track
<then figure out where it started. It's a major reason why database
<applications were never a big thing on Apples until hard disks showed
<up -- updating things by record was only possible by writing whole
<tracks.
My comment was that apple format is not unlike hardsector in that it's
not readable with most softsectored controllers. For all intents it
was not unlike the usually vendor unique hard sector formats.
Also DBASEII ran well on apples with floppies. The only penelty of
reading an entire track was memory space. The payback was speed as
there was an implied track level caching.
Allison
16 blank lines deleted.
<Did MP/M run on Z-80s? BTW, is there a reasonable chance the CP/M on
Yes and 8080s as well. The later version for 8088 were called CCPM
(concurrent cpm). IN both cases they were multiuser/multiprocess OS
that were really better than most. The z80 version was pretty decent
on a 6 or 8mhz banked machine that had DMA for disk IO. The DMA was
important as some hardware sued the cpu spinning in tight loops to
do PIO to floppies and HDs, very inefficient used of cpu cycles.
A common use for MPM was to use it for disk services to multiple slaves
running cpm2(or 3) or CPnet. A crate constructed that way could easily
have a z80 per user plus the MPM server and provide excellent response in
a compact box. TELTEK, KONAN, macrotech and others offered cpus boards
for both services. The difference in the boards were generaly amount of
ram and presence of disk interfaces.
<one micro w/5.25" disks be compatible with another with 5.25" disks,
<i.e. my apple with a C-128? Also, if a computer can run CP/M 3+ can it
Apple is weird with their formats, nearly hardsector. C-128 has a few
compatable and incompatable formats. The rest were all over the map.
Allison
Do you have any diagrams of the mechanical fire control computers?
>
>The line is always grey...
>
>> Didn't that have something to do with RADAR? Or was it cryptography?
>
>No, not radar.
>
>Radar, incidently, was just about the first use of digital electonics.
>Although there was no computation at the digital level*, vacuum tube
>flip-flops and counters were used in the timing circuits, as well in
IFF
>codes (The NRL even tried out a pre-1940 IFF box that used a real
binary
>word for the codes, with the hope that encryption would follow. It
turned
>out to just be a lab rat, however, and most of the war years saw the
>horrible British MkIII system in use.).
>
>*The mechanical fire control computers, on the other hand, are truely
>awesome devices. They would accept a bunch of real time input data
(some
>from the radars, some from the ships' gyros, some from the gun pointers
>(sailors), and even internal data like how many times the gun was
>fired (wear on the barrels)) - and output a bunch of data to set up the
>shot. It worked well - incredibly well - 20 mile hits on the first shot
>were not uncommon. It took YEARS before an electronic computer could
rival
>them.
>
>Tons of metal, but built like a Swiss watch.
>
>William Donzelli
>william(a)ans.net
>
>
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