Now THIS qualifies as 'classic...'
Found on Usenet. Anyone have the system disk he's looking for? If so,
I bet he'd be Really Happy to hear from you.
Attachment follows.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
On 2 Nov 1999 03:47:43 GMT, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc you wrote:
>>From: "Thomas" <thomas_job(a)hotmail.com>
>>Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
>>Subject: Help.. AcerAnyWare 386S laptop system disk
>>Date: 2 Nov 1999 03:47:43 GMT
>>Organization: VSNL
>>Lines: 4
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>>Path: news1.jps.net!news-west.eli.net!uunet!ffx.uu.net!newsfeed.mathworks.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.vsnl.net.in!not-for-mail
>>Xref: news1.jps.net comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:405
>>
>>Hello...
>>Pl. help me if you have the system disk of old AcerAnyWare 386S laptop.
>>
>>Thanks..
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com
Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com
"...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object,
event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."
In a message dated 10/31/99 9:19:47 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mikeford(a)socal.rr.com writes:
>
> Heresy beyond heresy I would actually like to see people with eprom burners
> be able to make a few bucks by burning the eproms. I think it would make a
> DANDY little web business. Now obviously the database and the burning
> businesses need to be completely separate, people would be all over us if
> we "sold" burnt eproms, but what would be wrong with burning customer
> supplied data and printing a label with supplied text?
i could burn/read eproms with my BAL500 card that's in my apple ][+ if
someone can tell me how to use it...
DB Young Team OS/2
--> this message printed on recycled disk space
view the computers of yesteryear at
http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/museum.htm
(now accepting donations!)
Well . . . the 6834, IIRC, was a two-ported RAM plus some I/O. Its features
were designed into the MC68121, which was a 6803 with the two-ported RAM and
I/O built in. It was not, to the best of my recollection, available in an
EPROM version.
The 5203's were really tricky to progam, but they were pretty! I made
several into jewelry. I did that with a couple of 1702's also, and an
i8008, having plucked them directly from working applications.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Dameron <ddameron(a)earthlink.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 6:54 PM
Subject: Re: EPROM sideline
>At 06:50 AM 11/1/99 -0800, Bruce wrote:
>
>> <snip>
>>
>> <snickering>
>>
>> Dave, take a look at www.bluefeathertech.com/devices.html
>>
>> I'm way ahead of you. I've only had a few jobs along those lines
>but I've.
>
>Hi Bruce,
>Can you program 1702A's? How about the similar National part 5203? Both are
>256 Byte EPROM's. There was also a Motorola part, 6834(?).
>-Dave
>
I agree on both points, but if the cable is not longer than a foot or so,
it's likely to work fine. Certainly it's likely that one could figure out a
better way, on a case-by-case basis, but I just wanted to throw a very
general solution at the problem, one which everyone would easily understand.
It won't be hard to improve on that one.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: EPROM issues, who can burn?
>>
>> I agree, mostly, with what you've said here, Tony. The easy fix, in many
>> cases will be to program the code into several larger but readily
available
>> and easily programmed parts, then wire an adapter from the target board's
>> socket to the physical EPROM on the board on which the EPROM resides,
with a
>> pair of appropriately sized IDC ribbon cable headers crimped on the ends
of
>> the cable. That should work, even if you have to hang the adapter board
>
>I'd be a little careful about hanging lengths of ribbon cable off an
>EPROM socket (the signals on which may well not be buffered). I am not
>saying it won't work -- many times it will, but I'd not do it unless
>necessary.
>
>Many times there's enough space around the EPROM socket and/or between
>the boards in the cardcage to allow for a simpler replacement method. The
>fact that most EPROM pinouts are similar helps here. Tricks include :
>
>1) Bending out those pins of the EPROM that are different (high-order
>address lines, for example), plugging the rest into the socket and
>soldering wires to the ones you've bent out
>
>2) Replacing the socket on the board with a wire-wrap socket. Wrap wires
>around the pins that are different, and cut those pins short. Then solder
>the remaining pins to the board so that the 'different' ones don't touch
>the tracks (the socket is probably about 0.5" above the board). Solder
>the ends of the wires to appropriate points. Insert the EPROM.
>
>3) Make an adapter. In the UK you can get pin strips designed to plug
>into turned pin IC sockets. What I normally do is replace the EPROM
>socket on the PCB with a turned-pin one of the same size. Then take a
>piece of stripboard and solder a socket for the new EPROM to it (cutting
>the tracks down the middle). Then solder pin strips to the track-side of
>the stripboard with one spare hole between the socket pins and the pin
>strips. Then cut tracks for the pins you don't want to connect straight,
>and then solder wires (wire-wrap wire is good for this) on the track side
>of the stripboard to make the necessary connections. Plug the adapter
>into the socket on the PCB and plug the EPROM into the socket on the
adapter.
>
>4) Ditto, but etch a PCB rather than using stripboard.
>
>5) Read the tech manual for the machine (!). It's not uncommon for
>machines that use mask-programmed ROMs to have some way of using EPROMs
>instead. There may be links for this on the board, for example.
>
>> from a hanger in the rack. Packaging problems are what the REAL
engineers
>> work hardest at, while the youngsters conjure up the fancy circuits.
This
>> is mostly a packaging problem. The higher speeds of today's common and
>> cheap parts will compensate for the few nanoseconds lost in cables, even
if
>> some form of termination has to be introduced.
>
>I'd be more worried about the stray capacitance and noise pickup from the
>ribbon cable than the delay it introduces.
>
>-tony
>
The reality of this quandary is that the answer lies not in the legality of
copying the EPROMs, but in the likelihood of getting caught. Now, an EPROM
burner for 2716's is DIRT SIMPLE to make, and the same goes for most of the
28-pin parts, and I might guess it's true of the 32-pin parts as well. The
1702's, 2708's, and others of that ilk (mainly due to the multiple power
supplies) might cause minor problems. Those however, can be dealt with in a
number of creative ways.
1) if the goal is to have an "authentic" system, one has to have the
authentic EPROMs with the binary images in them. The spec's for programming
pre-32-pin eproms were not kept secret.
2) if the goal is simply to have a working system, there are several ways to
get around the ancient EPROM oddities. All of these involve wiring and
maybe even soldering something. The easiest of them, however, is to build
an adapter board with the binary images residing in battery backed rams
intended for substitution for EPROMs, and a simple programmer for them for
those situations when things go wrong.
3) Now comes the hard part . . . You have to choose.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, October 31, 1999 5:28 PM
Subject: Re: EPROM issues, who can burn?
>> > Ahhhhh... now THAT might get me around the copyright issues! Set it up
>> > such that only the folks who own equipment that can use the images can
get
>> > to it...
>>
>> Well, certainly those folks would be entitled to a copy of what they
>> have already, and it shouldn't be of much value to others.
>
>The time when that's not strictly true is when machines came with
>optional EPROMs...
>
>The classic case is the BBC micro. It has 4 (IIRC) 'sideways ROM
>sockets', one of which is normally filled by the BASIC ROM, and there are
>add-on cards to provide more such sockets.
>
>Various companies (Acorn and others) sold software (disk filing systems
>-- like DOSes, languages, applications, etc) in EPROMs to go into these
>sockets. And while all BBC owners will have had the Acorn MOS (Machine
>Operating System) ROM and BBC BASIC, the same is certainly not true of
>all this other software.
>
>Practically, I suspect that a lot of this software is of little
>commercial value today, but it is still copyrighted, and can't be just
>stuck on a web site.
>
>-tony
>
If interested, please reply directly to the original sender.
Reply-to: nwhite(a)stern.nyu.edu
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 17:19:46 -0500
From: "Norman H. White" <nwhite(a)stern.nyu.edu>
Subject: Vax 3100 Runs good
I have a Vax 3100 workstation that still runs, I hate to trash it and am
looking for somone to take it off my hands.
It is running VMS 5.1 and has 3 internal 100MB hard drives, a CDROM, an
external TK50 and a 1 gigabyte scsi drive.
Interested?
---
Sellam International Man of Intrique and Danger
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF East? VCF Europe!? YOU BETCHA!!
Stay tuned for more information
or contact me to find out how you can participate
http://www.vintage.org
I agree, mostly, with what you've said here, Tony. The easy fix, in many
cases will be to program the code into several larger but readily available
and easily programmed parts, then wire an adapter from the target board's
socket to the physical EPROM on the board on which the EPROM resides, with a
pair of appropriately sized IDC ribbon cable headers crimped on the ends of
the cable. That should work, even if you have to hang the adapter board
>from a hanger in the rack. Packaging problems are what the REAL engineers
work hardest at, while the youngsters conjure up the fancy circuits. This
is mostly a packaging problem. The higher speeds of today's common and
cheap parts will compensate for the few nanoseconds lost in cables, even if
some form of termination has to be introduced.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 1:50 PM
Subject: Re: EPROM issues, who can burn?
>> Thats simple, if emulation will make you happy, why stop at the eproms,
>> just run one of the emulators for the whole system on your PC. My goal is
>
>Oh, come on, there's a heck of a difference between replacing an EPROM
>with a more modern (and larger) one containing the same code and running
>an emulator for the entire machine on a PC. Well, certainly to a hardware
>hacker there's a difference :-)
>
>> to get old systems running at a low cost, and I think that means original
>> or functional equivalent parts.
>
>Ah, but the modern/larger EPROM _is_ a functional equivalent part.
>
>Yes, obviously you use the original type of EPROM if at all possible. But
>if you _can't_ get the part, then it makes a lot of sense to use (say) a
>2764 with the same code in it.
>
>A secondary issue occurs when the original part was a mask-programmed
>ROM. They can fail as well... Or you might want to make some changes to
>the code. In that case you virtually have to use an EPROM and make an
>adapter.
>
>>
>>
>>
>
>-tony
>
I've got to disagree with the remark that "Adaptec stuff works." I
participated in a year-long beta test of some of their CD authoring software
four or five years back, and found, (1) they didn't care whether their doc's
were synchronized with their software, often leaving out key words like
"not" and equally key words and phrases, and (2) the happily made claims,
both oral and written, which not only they, but anyone who understood the
technology, knew were totally false and would not and could not be made true
by technological innovation anytime soon. They happily ship software which
can't possibly achieve what they claim to be routine.
I remember that, shortly before the release of their PCI SCSI adapters, they
claimed to be able to effect sustained transfers of 80MB/sec via their 2940.
While I completely agreed that that was a theoretical figure, obtainable in
bursts, perhaps, I challenged them to prepare a demo in which one of their
2940's effected data transfers both in and out of a PC at that rate, or even
half that rate for a relatively short test, say 100 hours without losing
data in vast quantity. The problem, of course, is that a claim of this sort
is simply useless, since it assumes that the SCSI channel gets all the
bandwidth and the rest of the system gets none. Keep in mind, BTW, that at
that time, (1994-95) the PC was not looking at 133 MHz PCI rates.
Adaptec, for years, shipped a series of ISA-Bus controllers, the 15xx
series, which worked VERY well. Their BIOS was a mite weak, perhaps, but
the things did work, day in and day out, and I still use them in my
home-office Network Server. I've had one running for nearly eight years
without a hitch in that box. The only problem I ever had with it was that
the power supply failed. That was probably because their BIOS wasn't smart
enough to spin the drives up one at a time as they presently do. The
450-watt PSU probably wasn't comfortable with all the load on +12 while they
spun up.
Once they went to PCI, their advertisement, always a mite "over the line" as
far as I'm concerned, their claims being a little too good to be realistic,
even in the days of the 1542.
Once they determined that Trantor had a few good products, particularly in
their firmware, and in their Parallel<=>SCSI port adapters, they bought them
up. A couple of years back, I tested a number of these products, finding
that, not only did their AHA358 fail in every test to equal their previous
AHA348 (a Trantor design) but it failed in every way to match the
performance they claimed.
I look for them to buy up the BELKIN Parallel<=>SCSI before long, since it
works so much better than their own. It gets better performance on my
Toshiba notebook than their PC-card (AHA1460) does and holds its own in the
WINBOOK.
When ADAPTEC found that NCR/Symbios was producing cheaper PCI adapters, not
to mention lots of ISA versions, they quickly bought them up. Now all that
remained was the RAID market and you see what they've done there. I guess
the only thing to do is buy shares in MYLEX.
When NT4 was released, ADAPTEC didn't have NT drivers for their multi-port
PCI boards. They claimed to have RAID support, but had no NT Drivers for
their 3940 (dial-port) or 398x (triple-port) boards. After a while, a
driver popped up for the 3940, but I still haven't managed to get mine to
work properly in a fully loaded box. It does work (mostly) in a meagerly
equipped system like a server, though, so that's fine. I don't worry about
the 398x series any more.
Observation has taught me that their tech support is intended to "get rid
of" customer complaints, not to rectify them and it's also taught me to
monitor on-line refunds from them VERY closely. They still owe me for a
defectively designed device I returned to them back in '95 and the freight,
which was charged to me.
<end of RANT>
...sigh...
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, November 01, 1999 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: A sad day for DPT...
>> While not directly related to classic computing, I know a lot of us use
>>more modern systems for numerous duties, and I know I can't be the only
one
>>using DPT's 'legacy' products from the early 90's. Anyone care to wager
>>what Adaptec will do to DPT's well-stocked FTP site, or their support of
>>said legacy gear?
>
>Go to the front of the ftp and select download site. Wait to find out what
>will happen at your own peril.
>
>BTW Adaptec is certainly interested in profit, but they otherwise seem a
>far cry from MS, Adaptec stuff works.
>
>
On 10/31/99 18:35:52 you wrote:
>Most likely a generous soul will step forward and offer a set for postage.
>I hope to one day have all my stuff set up so that i could easily answer
>just such a request myself.
I wonder if any of those disks (system esp.) and manual are copyright and
if Apple cares. Anyone know if Apple still can provide?
>
>OTOH you know a lot of the old software doesn't need another floppy with
>DOS etc. on it to run. You boot from the "game" disc and its all on that
>disc. The system discs are for utilities, formatting new floppies, etc.
I have found 1 game disk that will boot the machine and play several
"Racing" games but I also don't have paddles (pinouts and parts anyone???)
aren't paddles just 100ohm pots?
I want to do some programming in BASIC on a simpler machine than my laptop.
I have an emulator too is there a way to copy the images from the emulator
to the real machine?
Thanks all!
ron
