On Jan 15, 18:00, Max Eskin wrote:
> Besides for this example, what do you feel is wrong with PINE? What do
you
> prefer? I would like to know since I'm an inexperienced Linux user, and
> this is on-topic since PINE is over 10 years old.
Mostly that it has a very broken idea of how to handle dates; it insists on
parsing the date in the "From" line in order to validate it, and gets upset
if it can't. When things go wrong, it has a habit of believing that two
messages are in fact one (the one with the unparsable date being
concatenated to the preceeding one).
I also fail to see why pine, alone amongst the dozens(?) of mail programs
around, has to have a control message at the top of a mailbox: a message
which confuses anyone who subsequently uses another mailer; which gets
moved to a different place if another mailer re-sorts the mailbox (making
the control message useless to pine, which inserts another copy and
actually displays the old one); and which typically gets removed by any
POP3 server that accesses the mailbox for a remote user (so pine has to
replace it again).
It has a crazy insistence on having certain terminal capabilities in order
to work... and refuses to run if they are not detected, despite the fact
that it actually contains code to get round many of the things it claims to
need (such as clear-to-end-of-line). There are also some bugs to do with
clearing lines on terminals with a minimal set of capabilities -- notably
when going backwards and forwards from the setup and addressbook menus.
It's possible to get pine into a state where the display is unusable until
you quit, reset the display (usually scrolling a screenful is enough,
though) and restarting.
It doesn't let you add headers other than a small set of pre-defined ones,
which are sometimes necessary -- though beginners might not need to do
that.
IMNSHO, a mail program and a news program are two different things -- and
pine's news capabilities are pretty poor.
And, of course, it's BIG. Compare the size of a pine executable to the
size of other MUAs on the same platform.
It *does* have some nice features -- but for me, both as a user and a
sysadmin, they're far outweighed by the shortcomings.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
<This is definitely off-topic (who was that said I was single-minded?) but
<for a fine example of bletcherousness, try the source to the pine mailer
<(here also known as pain, or Pain In Neck Email). Find the 70K source fil
that proves any tool is a hammer. I've written good code using BASIC but
for the most part the early BASICs were weak in string and file handling
so they were not the first choice for a lot of things. Also the early
BASICs didn't have local variables and recursive routines were a PITA
as a result. Add to that most were interpreted (slow) so fast IO was out
of the question. I forced me to go to PASCAL (via UCSD p-SYSTEM) and that
was a real eye opener as I started looking at the PASCAL code and writing
assembler to look like that. C was interesting as it was efficient for
machine level things but I still find it criptic. Along the way there was
also algol, PL/M(PL/i) and some stabs at FOCAL. Forth(and PostScript) was
amoung the stack languages and I like them for some things. There were the
hybrid basic C-basic, E-basic and S-basic, they offered some fo the features
of Pcascal and C in the familiar Basic form. But when I'm working with 8085
or Z80s assembler just usually happens.
Allison
All this noise about the younger OSes (Linux, FreeBSD)
got me thinking. I vaccilate between amused and annoyed
over the bickering between the Linux and FreeBSD contingents.
That kind of thing is part of the reason Windoze owns as
much of the matket as it does. I realize nobody could
predict the way it would take off, but when MS first started
to own the desktop, the *users* of UNIX should have started
cooperating. But instead, they went along with the vendor
factions, and Windoze won.
Yeah, I know, it was somewhat inevitable. But I don't think
it would have been quite as bad as it is. So learn from
history. Feel free to argue in private, but in public, I'd
push the overall UNIX-like OS, with just a recommendation.
Of course, it's a good feeling to even have the option.
Because 10 - 12 years ago, what were your UNIX options, if
you weren't the government or a university?
1) You could buy expensive hardware that ran a UNIX variant.
2) You bought a workstation from Sun or Apollo - still not cheap.
3) If you were lucky, you got one of the few Cromemcos or
Perkin-Elmer desktops, that ran UNIX. But they weren't
much less expensive than the Sun, Apollo, etc workstations.
(Fortune's desktops were in the workstation price range.)
4) If you were really lucky, you found a good deal on a used
PDP from someone with a UNIX license who forgot to wipe the
disks or tapes - but then you were illegal.
5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
6) If you were *really* lucky, you got a good deal on a working
workstation.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone have a Perkin-Elmer desktop
running Linux? IIRC, it was pretty much a straight port of
whatever was current from bell Labs at the time - or maybe an
older version.
-Miles
Well, I remember the teacher telling me that he found the computer in his
basement, and just brought it to the school to show the kids how the
computers used to be when you had to program them, and you didn't just stick
in a disk and turn it on. Apparently, I was the only one (well, there was
one other person) that was interested in it.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 16, 1999 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: Anyone have an extra IBM 5155 laying around??
>Right... That makes sense....
>
>I still wonder if a cheap clone floppy controller or drive (whichever was
>needed) wouldn't have been cheaper/easier than putting a 5150 board in
>there. I assume that 5150 came out of a PC, so why didn't he use the
>controller or drive from that machine. A full-height drive kludged on
>externally would have worked and been a lot nicer than a cassette-based
>machine.
>
>Of course fixing the original parts probably wouldn't have been too hard
>either, but then a lot of people seem to be frightened by a simple
>schematic...
>
>-tony
>
>
Hi!
Want to sell one of the Convertibles? It doesn't matter that there's no
power supply, or even if it works or not. I collect old laptops, and the
Convertible is one of the ones that I don't have.
ThAnX,
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 16, 1999 2:03 PM
Subject: Todays Finds
>I got a call on the radio from another ham checking out garage sales, and
he
>told me about a Unix machine. When I went over, the machine turned out to
>be an IBM RT with docs and disks! There was also a Compucorp 675 that I
was
>told was a dedicated word processor (no docs.) The guy wanted $15 for the
>RT and was giving away the Compucorp so I gave him $20 *after* I told him I
>have so many machines I don't usually buy them, and we had a nice talk. He
>will see if there are any docs for it and he will be talking to others that
>have been in the business since the late '70s and early '80s. Went to the
>club station where I was given a Mac IIvx (OT? as I have no idea what era
it
>is from.) Another guy had just visited the local scrap yard and gave me 3
>IBM Convertibles w/ no power supplies. All in all, not a bad day!
>
>Anyone know anything about the Compucorp 675?
>
At 06:23 PM 1/15/99 -0500, you wrote:
>> Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40. This is a lot like the TRS-80
>> PC-4 in appearance, but a bit bigger. It has BASIC in ROM and a
>> connector for cartridges. Is there anything actually useful for this?
>> THe keyboards too small to do any actual word processing.
>
>I have one of these too. TI supposedly made a thermal printer, an RS-232
>interace, and a 70KB tape drive, which would plug in to the six-pin BERG
>connector on the back, next to the power jack. I use it as a programmable
>scientific calculator.
>
The thermal printer and RS-232 interface were both produced, but not in
large numbers. They're hard to find. A few pieces of cartidge software (or
as TI liked to call it, "Solid State Software") were produced, AFAIK, but
also not in large numbers. I've never seen any in six years of looking.
The tape drive, called a "Wafertape" drive, was pretty much vapourware.
There were a few prototype units sold, but it was never in full production,
because TI couldn't get the bugs worked out. The box for my CC-40 has a
sticker attached that says "Tape drive not available". The lack of
secondary storage pretty much doomed the CC-40 as a computer; it never
caught on.
I think there was an article in the book "The Best of 99'er Magazine" on
how to build a cable to connect a CC-40 to a TI-99/4A. I also used mine as
a programmable calculator.
Cheers.
Mark.
>
>
Oops...
That last message wasn't supposed to be posted to the list.
Sorry...
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
Well, I think the only card that was in it was the video card (HD and floppy
controllers had been removed). The first slot (closest to the side of the
case) on the XT and PC motherboards do match up. I think for the cassette
port, he just drilled a hole in the case, or cut something. I'm not too
sure how he did it, because it's been 5 years since I've seen it.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 16, 1999 3:49 PM
Subject: Re: Anyone have an extra IBM 5155 laying around??
>
>Ouch... That takes a lot of metal-bashing to (a) make a hole for the
>cassette connector) and (b) get the 5 slots on the PC motherboard to
>attempt to line up with suitable holes in the case. No thanks... It would
>have been a lot less work to fix that floppy....
>
>-tony
>
>
<> 5) You bought Minix. Minix was cheap, and you got source, but
<> it was really meant to be a teaching tool. It was well done,
<> but extremely limited. (Nevertheless, Tanenbaum's _Operating
<> Systems Design and Implementation_ is still an excellent book.)
<
<Minix 1.3 was very limited. V1.5 was better.
2.0 is better still and MINIX-vmd is supposed to be hot.
I finally picked up the book/cd at Boarders for $53.
Allison
> I don't know where you heard that but its nonsense.
>
> FreeBSD = Cathedral development
> Linux = Bazaar development
>
> Read "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond to understand what I
> mean.
Oh, so you're saying that Linux will defeat FreeBSD solely because of its
possibly superior development model. So, where does the DOS\CP/M comparison
come from?
