test-drb June 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

158 participants
941 discussions

by archive＠navix.net

Woops... sorry, I didn't include my e-mail address, name, etc., on the header of my first e-mail here. Again, problems with my mail software and just some tempory settings. I'm really not anonomous, just appear to be on my last e-mail. Thanks, CORD COSLOR archive(a)navix.net -- ____________________________________________________________ | Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |\ | Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net | | | on AOL Instant Messenger: DeannaCord | | | http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4395 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421 - (402) 872- 3272 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | If you don't have AOL (like us) but want a great instant | | | chat feature, just go to http://www.aol.com/aim | | |____________________________________________________________| | \_____________________________________________________________\|

26 years, 6 months

Mini-Monitors?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Which reminds me of a hardware question: I can get lots of nice LCD <displays very cheap. How hard is it to convert one to a VGA display (or <even to convert an old laptop with built-in VGA controller to something <that will accept VGA input)? Reduce the number of variables and we may have a shot... I have one >from a dell laptop. It's rather interesting to drive and it ain't VGA or even mono! Allison

26 years, 6 months

IIRC

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

What IS up with them? I don't get "their" reference to themselves in plural. Was it really a group? >On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Francois wrote: > >> Well, "If I Recall Corectly" that's what it means. > >BTW, whatever happened to lisard/communa? The consistency with which >"they" used pronouns was impressive: IIRC -> iwrc. > >-- Doug > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 6 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<BTW, as a bit of trivia, a friend of mine who worked for the CIA in <Vietnam had the job of actually grinding off all the oxide on retired <disks and drums, so there would be no possibility of recovering data Along the same lines the A6 aircraft in the Vietnam era used a drum based computer for the bomb targetting computer... a 10g turn could really mess up the computer. Allison

26 years, 6 months

Early Mac Clones

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

How does this soft-microcode thing work? Doesn't it imply that there is some kind of "sub-microcode" needed to load and process the soft one? Or was there a completely separate storage subsystem that booted first (which would essentially make it two computers)? Also, where was the microcode stored? Could you upgrade special "microcode cache" to store more complex microcode? Sounds pretty unusual! >and with a somewhat interesting design. > >The PERQ 1 was first sold in 1979 for (I think) $30000. For that you got >a personal computer (!) with about 1MIPS of computing power. You also got >a megabyte of memory, a bitmapped display (768*1024 points, portrait), >a blitter, a 20 bit CPU, a Z-80 based I/O processor, a hard disk, a >pointing device (normally a Sumagraphics bit pad 1), etc. Options >included networking (ethernet came out pretty soon after the first >machine) and a laser printer. > >All 'classic PERQs' (everything apart from the PERQ 3a) have a >soft-microcoded CPU that loads the microcode (and hence the instruction >set) from disk when the machine boots. Writing your own microcode is fun. >The PERQ 1a introduced the 16K CPU board with 4 times the control store >and other improvements (multiply/divide support, indexed addressing of >the _registers_) over the original 4K board. > >The PERQ 2's all had a revised I/O board with an extra serial port, >battery-backed real time clock and ethernet as standard. The multitasking >I/O software was only present on these boards AFAIK. You could add the >same I/O option boards to the PERQ 2's, so in theory you can have a PERQ >2 with 2 ethernet ports. > >Older PERQs were 20 bit. The rare PERQ 2T4 was 24 bit. > >If you're interested in finding out more, look at Bob Davis's PERQ web >page (a web search should find it). There's a number of text files there >which explain a few things. There's also a somewhat dead Usenet group, >alt.sys.perq, which would love some on-topic messages again :-). > >> here on the rebellious side of the Atlantic? (I know _nothing_ of > >They were a USA machine (3 Rivers Computer Corporation). But some bits >of the design were done by ICL in the UK, and they were sold by ICL. >They were also one of the standard machines supplied to UK universities, >which may explain why they're more common over here. > >> these machines beyond your messages, if I saw them advertised the >> references went into brain cells that have been foully murdered). > >> Ward Griffiths > >-tony > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

26 years, 6 months

FA: Various systems

by rcini＠email.msn.com

Auction services have their place, but I think that we on the list should be given the "right of first refusal". If one of the list members has something to sell, give the others a first crack, with some time limit (like a week), before listing it on eBay or Haggle. Just my $0.02. Rich Cini/WUGNET <nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use) ClubWin! Charter Member (6) MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking Preserver of classic computers ============================================

26 years, 6 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> wrote: ] That used to be one of my interview questions for Unix programmers: your ] buggy program just created a filename with {control characters, leading ] dash (-), leading slash (/), '*', etc} in it. How do you delete it? Oh shoot. And I thought I was Unix-competent. I thought the only way to put a slash in a filename was with a low-level filesystem hack. I mean, the OS calls themselves will take "a/b" to mean file "b" in directory "a", right? It isn't up to your program to parse the filename that way. That isn't something you can get get around, even with any ordinary sort of bug. Is it? Of course, given root permission, you could run the appropriate disk utility, open /dev/root as a file, find the directory block, and put anything you like in a filename. But then you would have to do the same thing to access that file or get rid of it, wouldn't you? How could 'rm' get around that? ObCC: I just noticed /dev/drum on a Dec here. Now I *know* there is not a drum on this thing, so this must be a holdover from some earlier implementation of some Unix. True? Were filesystems on drums managed the same as those on disks? I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be, offhand. But I thought drums died out before Unix appeared. Does anyone still have a functional magnetic drum memory? That would be one _awesome_ peripheral. :-) Bill.

26 years, 6 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by franke＠sbs.de

> ObCC: I just noticed /dev/drum on a Dec here. Now I *know* there > is not a drum on this thing, so this must be a holdover from some > earlier implementation of some Unix. True? Were filesystems on > drums managed the same as those on disks? I don't see any reason > why they wouldn't be, offhand. But I thought drums died out before > Unix appeared. Does anyone still have a functional magnetic drum > memory? That would be one _awesome_ peripheral. :-) No, no functional drum, but I own _parts_ of a drum from an SIEMENS 2002 - this wasn't a storage drum like later on, this computer stored the (working) REGISTERS on the drum (Background: the 2002 was the first fully transistorized computer). Thats prior to core memory tek. Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

26 years, 6 months

Heathkit replacement manuals

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

I just received the H-11a manuals that I ordered last week from the Heathkit's manual replacement service and I just wanted to let any one who is looking for old Heathkit manual know how I made out. I'm very happy with the manuals I received! First I ordered just the Assembly and the Operations manuals. One was $35 (I think) and the other was $45. After I hung up I realized that I had not asked about any schematics or illustration booket that usually comes with these manuals. (By the way, I asked about any EC-1 manuals and she said I was the fifth person to ask about those in the last week, no they don't any manuals for the EC-1) I received the Assembly manual and the Illustration Booket xeroxed DOUBLE sided on 11"x17" paper (also folded but not stapled). The Assembly manual did not have the traditional brown jacket, but I could take one off an old color TV assembly manual. I also received one schematic of the chassis power supply, front panel, and backplane on what seen to be about 20"x25" paper. (It does not look like it's been reduced in size). The Operation manual is about 3/4" thick and most likely came originally in a loose leaf binder. It is xeroxed again double sided and on 8 1/2" x 11" paper. (You can see were the 3 holes were punched) In their letter with the manuals they state that the manuals are nonreturnable but they will "attempt to correct any problem with the quality of the copy". I found they friendly, helpful, and fast. Their number is 616-925-5899 The only problem I've seen so far is with thw xray views of the circuit boards, the RED circuit traces on the foil side of the board do not xerox at all. ========================================= Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com Senior Software Engineer Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA Curator Museum of Personal Computing Machinery http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum =========================================

26 years, 6 months

Files as files

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 11, 23:25, Doug Yowza wrote: > On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > And "rm -i *" prompts even with "-f". > > Not on Linux, at least. > > > AFAIK, all rm's have -r. > > I know -r is a fairly recent addition to "cp", but you may be right about > "rm". Anybody have a V1 system they can test on? :-) I wish :-) "-r" certainly was an option to "rm" in 7th Edition, and IIRC (see other thread :-)) "-i" overrides "-f" there too. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

26 years, 6 months

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test-drb June 1998