test-drb September 1998

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

154 participants
649 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

that CP/M could have possibly been our main stream OS.. How could so ma < great ideas get lost in the big shuffle..? Yes I ahve a lot of the 8bit stuff like DRGRAPH. < I know everyone has been talking about GUI's, and according to this arti < Digital Research did alot of work in this area. And real product for both 8 and 16 bit systems. < Also Digital Research back in 1989 released a very good DOS called DRDOS < used this for awhile back in 1990 and was very impressed with its featur < then MS came out with a clone of it called MSDOS ver 6.0.. I still own < several original copies of DRDOS in unopened packages.. What you missed is MPM-86 and CCPM that DRI did before DRDOS! Btoh of wich were a significant advancement over DOS. Allison

25 years, 10 months

GUIs 'forced' on people (was Re: Here's something to consider.)

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 04:19 PM 9/16/98 -0700, Sam Ismail wrote: > >Anyway, sorry for the rambling. But I hope you see my point. The >majority of people buy stuff because a disembodied voice on TV or a >caption in a magazine compels them to. Buy my stuff. Buy my stuff. Buy my stuff. Is it working yet? This isn't an ordinary disembodied voice. Only *you* hear it in your head, so it should be extra-effective. The usual technoid misanthropy aside, "buy what everyone else is buying" isn't a bad strategy if it's something that's not central to your life. Do you spend as much time researching, optimizing and comparing your decisions for buying food as you do with buying computers? > The majority of the people buying >into your propaganda (marketing) is what it takes to make a successful >product. I could sell dogshit if I marketed it right. Like <http://www.doodoo.com/> ? Someone's beat you to it. - John

25 years, 10 months

GUIs 'forced' on people (was Re: Here's something to consider.)

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 09:10 PM 9/16/98 -0500, you wrote: >There was never any O/S or GUI war. After the PC and MS-DOS, Apple never >owned any serious hearts and minds except for a few niches like desktop >publishing and graphics design. DR's GEM was never a serious contender, I disagree. There are plenty of people who are mac fanatics (or Atari/Amiga/Etc fanatics) but because their employer/school/software requires MS/PC stuff, they switch. The vast majority of people who really don't care one way or another; they just use whatever they have at work/school/etc, or whatever their grandson said they should get, or even what the guy at circuit city said they should use. Personally, I feel the lack of Mac Clones is what kill^h^h^h^h wounded the Mac. An awful lot of people 10-15 years ago looked at buying a full-price Mac, a Full-price IBM/Compaq/Etc, and a PC's Limited clone, and let their budget do the choosing. I know I did -- I bought a used clone motherboard and case, added a disk drive, brand-x video card with a composite monitor, and so on. There's no way I (or a lot of other people) could afford, let alone justify the cost of a name brand computer. (The same is true, to a lesser extent of the Atari ST (which was also hampered by Tramiel) and possibly the Amiga.) >nobody has mentioned the real reason for the success of Windows 3.x: >Solitaire. Just as sex videos made VHS a standard, Solitaire is the one >thing that kept users from simply deleting Windows 3.0 after the standard I agree completely on this. Although, I explained its inclusion as a tool to help people get used to the concept of and to practice with the mouse. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

25 years, 10 months

Oh no, not another imporvement!

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

Over the course of the next two weeks, here at Power Tech, we are being migrated from Lotus Cack-mail to Lotus Not. It just happens that I shall be on holiday in California at the time, doing things like vintage computer festivals. The concurrence of these two happenings means I am going to POSTPONE the list for the time being... no saying how long it will take me to get back on, though! Nice knowing you all! Philip.

25 years, 10 months

CP/M-86 / MSDOS / DRDOS / GEM / Windows

by mbg＠world.std.com

I have to admit that I'd love to know (from Gary) whether the similarities between CP/M PIP and RT-11 (or even OS/8) are simply coincidental or if there is something more to it... It sure looked like a PIP from V3B of RT-11 (I remember we did some comparisons back in the 80's...) Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

25 years, 10 months

new interesting addition

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

since im known at work as a packrat of old computer junk, someone gave me something called a microsoft <!> mach 20. turns out it's a full length 8 bit card that has a 286-8 and 2 meg and high density floppy controller on it. it has a cable that plugs into the 8088 socket and the board does all the processing. basically turns an xt into an at with lots of memory. i got everything, disks manuals and the special cable. i guess for a fun vacation project, i'll see about getting win3.1 running in standard mode or maybe even os2 1.3 for a challenging project... david

25 years, 10 months

GUIs 'forced' on people (was Re: Here's something to consider.)

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 05:05 PM 9/16/98 PDT, you wrote: >Indeed, that's the way it should be. Would you buy an item that's >never been reviewed or advertised? The only problem is that there's Never advertised, sure. Never reviewed, possibly. Don't think I ever saw an ad for the Sony Mavica I've got, and I know I never read a review. Bought it because a friend had one. I don't recall seeing much advertising for the Voicemail system I have. Saw a mention of it somewhere, got info, compared what it could do to others, and bought it. It's still the only consumer-priced system I've seen that can do what I need it to. The mechanics I take my (non-Land-Rover) cars to doesn't have an ad in the phone book. Doesn't need one; they get all the business they need by word of mouth. If you need a big ad, your customers aren't doing your selling for you. Which of course does not mean that the majority of the idiots out there don't buy things simply because some guy in a fancy suit says they should. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

25 years, 10 months

GUIs 'forced' on people (was Re: Here's something to consider.)

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Indeed, that's the way it should be. Would you buy an item that's never been reviewed or advertised? The only problem is that there's a tradeoff between product quality and marketing quality most of the time. Back to GUIs, I think that a GUI is very useful for some things. For example, let's say I want to look at the files in a directory and copy five certain ones. It's easiest to do with a GUI. Graphical software can use either. AutoCAD had a CLI up to the latest version, not sure if they took it out. It was a Command-line drafting program, usable very efficiently. Only now have they jumped on the Windows buttons-pop-up-when-mouse-moves nonsense. One GUI I really appreciate is the early Mac GUI, for being almost as simple and clear as a CLI. That was really a user-friendly computer. But the lessons of PARC and early Apple were forgotten and turned into a who-can-make-the-nicest- 3d-menu competition. >Oh, I disagree. > >> If anything, Sony had better marketing. Many people continued to refer >> to VCRs in general as "Betamax" even into the mid-80s. It is widely >> believed (but of course unproven) that VHS was preferred due to the >> longer recording time per tape. JVC rarely even mentioned this feature >> in advertising. > >M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G > >Mac vs. Windows - who won? Microsoft. Why? Marketing. > >PowerPC vs. Pentium - who won? Intel. Why? Marketing. > >Those are simply two of the most obvious examples. > >Anyway, sorry for the rambling. But I hope you see my point. The >majority of people buy stuff because a disembodied voice on TV or a >caption in a magazine compels them to. The majority of the people buying >into your propaganda (marketing) is what it takes to make a successful >product. I could sell dogshit if I marketed it right. > >Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Ever onward. > > September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 > See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! > [Last web site update: 09/12/98] > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 10 months

PDP-11/84 & Cipher tape drive questions

by rexstout＠uswest.net

Lets start with the PDP-11/84... What is that console distribution board connected to the DB-25 port in the back? Remote power control, dumb terminal or what? What's the pinout of the connector? And about terminals... What do I need to hook up a dumb terminal? It'll be either a VT-220(after a good cleaning of the keyboard and a switch or two replaced) or WY-99GT. OK, when I turn on the system the DC on light turns on and the LED's just show a boring "77" every time... What does that mean? Anyone have a list of error codes for the 11/84? And then Cipher... Got two of them actually, the nicer one is labeled as an IBM 4968(goes with my IBM Series/1). The big noisy one says it's a Cipher 0920640-98-125OU. So, what kind of interface do I need to hook it up to my 11/84? And is there any easy way to use them with a PC or Mac? And while I'm talking about drives, does anyone in the PDX area have any cheap or free drives or Unibus cards laying around they don't need? -------------------------------------------------------------- | http://members.tripod.com/~jrollins/index.html - Computers | | http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1681/ - Star Trek | | Orham(a)qth.net list admin KD7BCY | --------------------------------------------------------------

25 years, 10 months

Gooeys

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Uncle Roger wrote: > And therein lies one of the main reasons I use a GUI (and would have a hard > time going back to DOS-only.) Yes, it's possible to run multiple > programs/sessions/etc. under a CLI (use to do it with a terminal and a > CompuPro 8/16 under MPM16 -- that was a great system!) but a GUI, with the > ability to arrange windows, cut and paste, etc. is a definite advantage. Certainly. One of the most useful aspects of Linux when I was using it way back when was the virtual terminals. I could switch between something like 32 different virtual terminals and be doing all sorts of stuff on each. Very powerful, very useful. Its what a computer was intended to allow one to do with it. Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever onward. September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 09/12/98]

25 years, 10 months

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test-drb September 1998