This is the last call for folks interested in pooling resources to get a
copy of Teledisk Pro. So far, counting myself, we've got nine people in on
it. This dropped the per-person price down to around $17.00 each (shipping
included).
Sydex was willing to go along with the group buy on two conditions: First,
that there be one central point of contact (a person) that they can encode
the copy to; And second, that this same person be POC for all tech support
questions. I have volunteered to be this POC.
Given that the license would be for up to 25 users, we have sixteen slots
left. In the event we actually do get 25 people interested, it will drop
the per-person price down to around $6.00.
For those that may not know, Teledisk is a marvelously handy utility that
will read any floppy format that can be read using PC-based hardware,
including PCs equipped with such hardware as the well-known 'CompatiCard,'
and turn the data on said floppy into a single image file that can be
archived or sent to anyone else.
Once sent, anyone with similar hardware can reconstruct an exact image of
the original floppy using a freely redistributable extractor program.
As one might imagine, this has a lot of possibilities for preserving old
boot and application floppies for such things as KayPro's, Commodores,
Apples, DEC hardware, and God only knows how many other pieces of gear that
used floppies. The image files can be easily stored on long-lived media,
such as CD-R discs, and recreated at will.
Again, the only limitation is that a PC's floppy drive be able to, at the
hardware level, read the original diskette.
The current version runs under DOS, or under a DOS window in W95 or NT
Workstation. One caveat: Since it is possible that the program makes direct
hardware calls to the floppy drive, it may not perform as it should under
NT, thanks to NT's security features. Other than that, I know of no problems.
Will anyone else who may be interested in getting in on the group buy
please drop me a PRIVATE E-mail, so we don't end up cluttering the list?
Thanks in advance.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio:(WD6EOS) E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
SysOp: The Dragon's Cave (Fido 1:343/272, 253-639-9905)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
Hey,
Not all of us can find Altairs. So I had to brag about whatever it is that I
got. (I would prefer to brag about an Altair though)
How many of have the IBM PCjr Carrying Case?
Francois
>Francois,
>
> Whatever floats your boat!
>
> Joe
>
>At 09:25 AM 2/27/99 -0600, you wrote:
>>Fine,
>>I got a complete PCjr with pretty much all of the peripherals ever made
for
>>it, two joysticks, color monitor, a box of software and the carrying case.
>>So there!
>>Francois
>>
>>
I was feeling nostalgic tonight, so I went out to the loft in the shop
and dug around and found an old TI Silent 700 portable terminal that I
picked up somewhere along the way.
It needed a little bit of work...the paper-advance stepper had seized
up, but a little TLC there got it happy again, and the solenoid that
pulls the thermal printhead away from the paper when the paper advances
was way out of adjustment. After tinkering with it for a while, I
powered it up, and it seems to work great.
The machine is a "Model 745 Portable" with built-in acoustic coupler
cups at the rear of the machine. It works at 300 or 110 baud.
I actually dug out an old Western Electric phone (most of the new
telephones today have handsets that won't fit into an acoustic coupler
cup) and dialed up my Sun Unix system (which has a couple of 28.8 modems
hanging off it), and stuffed the phone handset into the cups, and viola...
a (upper case only) LOGIN: prompt! Heck, there was even a termcap for it!
The terminal works great...I loaded up the PDP-11 simulator, and loaded
the image for RT-11, and played around for a while. It brought back
some memories, no doubt! The acoustic coupler worked fantastic...no
glitches, except when the dog barked at a noise outside...and I got a few
@'s printed.
The first question for y'all is this: On the rear panel of the machine is
a DB-15 male connector...my assumption this is for hooking up a (RS232 or
current-loop) 'direct connection' to the terminal. I don't have any
documentation
for the machine, and am wondering if anyone out there might know the pinout
for this connector.
The next question is: Anyone know where I could find the thermal paper for
this
thing? I've got a good sized roll of it in the machine, and a spare roll
still
in the wrapper, but my guess is that as time goes on, it's only going to
become
more and more difficult to find. Anyone know if thermal FAX machine paper
in
roll form would work?
Happy retrocomputing,
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculators Web Pages
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510
Upon the date 03:21 AM 2/24/99 -0800, Sellam Ismail said something like:
>
>Did Hans Franke die or something? I haven't heard even a peep from that
>loquacious Bavarian in a while.
Yeah, it has been a bit quiet around here :)
I wonder if he's away from home on business. He works for Siemens Business
Services (www.sbs.de) in Munich and I think I recall that he manages
software development projects. SBS is a rather large systems integrator,
consultant and outsourcing provider, so he could be anywhere on a job.
Christine works there too in the Human Resources dept.
>
>Maybe John Zabolitzky has heard from him in the past few weeks?
>
>Christian, do you have his telephone number by any chance?
No, I haven't yet got his number although Beverly and I plan to _someday_
get back over there (depending on my job schedule whenever I find a new
job) and should get it anyway. I find there are seven phone listings for
Hans Franke in M?nchen and I don't know his exact address either. John Z.
could dig deeper over there I'm sure.
He'll reappear sometime I'm sure. I think this group is a bunch he can't
stay away from now :)
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/awa
I'm curious, has anyone ever sat down and figured out how best to define a
database that would hold info on all thier Classic Computer documentation.
You know stuff like DEC Fiche, DEC Handbooks, manuals, catalogues,
brouchures, etc.?
Does anyone have any thoughts on what info should be captured? For
example, a randomly selected piece of Fiche yields the following info:
Colour: Brown Bar
Title: Mini Index 83-05
???: Hardware Documentation Library Index, Updateing and User Information
Part Number?: EP-0MINI-IX-05
Copyright: 1983
Fiche 1 of 1
Produced By: Digital
I can see needing a field that is something like machine type that would
be; PDP-11, PDP-8, VAX, Terminal, Printer, Tape Drive, Disk Drive, etc.
Properly defined this database could be used for more than just DEC Doc's,
which is my primary concern at the moment.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
<Does anyone here have any 30-pin SIMMs as often found in i386 computers
<that are more than 1 megabyte? I have 1-mb SIMMs but I've never seen
<bigger ones
You can still buy 30pin simms (256k, 1mb, 4mb) from JDR. the 4mb parts are
scarce and finding them for less than 10$ is hard. The 1mb parts are like
flies and they can be had for nearly nothing.
Allison
On Feb 28, 0:08, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> >Chuck wrote:
> >> On the tape drive in the BA123, it has a plain black front with a
button
> >> and two LEDs, one orange and one green. TK50? Where could I get media
for
> >> it? What does it look like?
> >
> >Maybe an Exabyte 8200 drive (8 mm)? But those aren't standard equipment
on
> >the uVAX II, and would require a SCSI controller.
>
> Yipes, looking over at my _Exabyte 8500_ it has a little black button
that
> has a green LED above an orange one directly to the right of the button.
> I'd guess the drive in question is a 8500, all the 8200's I've seen have
> beige faceplates. This makes sense seeing as how the MVII in question
has
> SCSI Hard Drives.
Both of my ExaByte 8200's have black faceplates. However, the LEDs are
side-by-side about 1.25" from the left side of the drive, and the button is
on the right.
When the drive is powered up, what do the LEDs do? If you press the
button, does the front open to allow you to insert a tape, like a miniature
VHS machine? Or does it just have an open slot to slide a cartridge into?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
<Which simply means, carry a screwdriver with you at all times :) In fact,
<PC clones sometimes have interesting software on them. I once saw a Compaq
<Portable that had a network card and had apparently been used in some sort
<of DEC network.
Yes, DEC sold cards and networking software to work with the VAX (DECNET)
systems. The software started as PCSA, later known as PATHWORKS and
TEAMLINKS. Since I have and use vaxen the software would be a find. The
net cards are standard eithernet.
Allison
>>I have absolutely no RT-11 documentation, although I have two systems
>>running it (both 11/23s). Does anyone have any online documentation on
>>the command language, configuration, device drivers, sysgen, etc? I'm
>>fumbling around without it.
>There is no on-line documentation... if there is, I'm sure Mentec
>would be a little bothered by it.
Actually, an "on-line" version of the RT-11 mini ref nearly made it into
the 5.7 release. Space considerations on the floppy distributions is
what axed the idea in the end. And all the manuals are "on-line" here,
just not publicly accessible :-(.
> There might be HELP available on
> the system, depending on the version and whether all the required
> files are still there...
If it's not there, then an web-accessible version of the same information
(albeit for RT-11 5.7, the Y2K compliant version) is available from
http://www.trailing-edge.com/~shoppa/rthelp/
or
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/rthelp/
The second reference will be faster to view, though slower to type in :-)
The above references have been available for well over a year and a half
now.
> Megan Gentry
> Former RT-11 Developer
Gees, should I start signing myself "Tim Shoppa, Current RT-11 Developer,
Former Nuclear Astrophysicist?" ? :-)
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
