test-drb March 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

191 participants
1003 discussions

by mikeford＠netwiz.net

I was roaming the local GSA surplus depot and have the following to report; Pallet lot of DEC manuals about 5 feet high, boxes and boxes of ringed binders, and a bunch of paperbacks still in shrinkwrap. labeled $60 System Industries tape drive, like a VAX used in a 5 foot high 4 foot deep very nice cabinet. label $100 Large box of tapes 600 to 6250 bpi, I didn't notice a price. Pallet of 11 items, including old printers, but also a Tandy 1000, and a commodore Amiga, and other stuff I didn't ID. label $250 The routine discount from labeled price is 60 to 70% off, but they want to get rid of these items, so be creative. GSA surplus depot is listed in the phonebook and has a web page. http://www.pd.dgs.ca.gov/materials/surfull.htm

25 years, 3 months

Reading old SCSI tapes

by JRichardson＠softwright.co.uk

>> What Mark needs is a program that talks to the ASPI DLL to get access to >> the SCSI bus directly. Sure it can be done under Linux or any other UNIX >> like operating system on x86 hardware but when the tape drive is connected >> to a PC running windows and there is no opportunity to install a different >> OS, then this problem arises. Hmm, well presumably a Linux bootdisk can be made that'll have dd on it as well as a SCSI-based kernel and MSDOS filesystem drivers, that way no OS needs to be installed and the tape data can be written to one of the PC's hard disks... of course, this assumes that dd is sufficient to read the tape (as somebody pointed out), and that the PC is using a FAT-based filesystem on its disks, not NTFS. cheers, Jules >

25 years, 3 months

Uncle Emery's Funniest Computer Songs

by jim＠calico.litterbox.com

Dunno about the build a mainframe from things you have at home song, but Frank Hayes' S100 Bus is a hoot. I find myself singing it every time I get into the guts of a PC, especially the verse: There's a board for the modem line and one for every port and a printer board and a keyboard board and as a last resort for every problem we will add a board that is the cure it's not too damned efficient but it's a mother, that's for sure. Well it's Cheer up me Lads, let your hearts never fuss When you're implementing systems on the S100 bus. -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

25 years, 3 months

Classiccmp digest #698

by mark_k＠iname.com

Hi, Could someone who is subscribed to the digest version of the list please (compress and) email me a copy of digest #698? I lost it due to problems with my mail software. Somewhat on-topic question: can someone recommend a program, to run under MS-DOS (or maybe Windows) that is capable of reading a file (in the tape sense) from a SCSI tape drive. Not interpreting the file at all, just being able to copy it to disk. -- Mark

25 years, 3 months

Reading old SCSI tapes

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>>Somewhat on-topic question: can someone recommend a program, to run under >>MS-DOS (or maybe Windows) that is capable of reading a file (in the tape >>sense) from a SCSI tape drive. Not interpreting the file at all, just being >>able to copy it to disk. >What sort of tape drive? If it's supported under Linux, and it probably is, >then 'dd' would certainly do it. 'dd' will also throw away all the original blocking information on the tape. Many platforms and OS's will depend on finding tape marks and varying record lengths, and if you just 'dd' the tape all this information is lost. I've made a good amount of money over the years recovering RSX-11M BRU tapes where someone transferred the tape through a Unix system with 'dd' and lost all the blocking information. Most Unix-like OS's come with "tc" or a variation that will display tape blocking information; often folks take the output of "tc" and use this to create a script of "dd" commands that will handle the various block sizes on a particular tape. Under RSX-11M and VMS, I much prefer "TPC" format, which allows exact tape images to automatically be made with all the blocking information preserved. -- 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

25 years, 3 months

Cursor newsletter

by musicman38＠mindspring.com

>> Anyone heard of the old newsletter Cursor? Is there anyone out there >> with backissues that might be persuaded to photocopy a few? >I seem to recall - I was about 15 at the time so I could never afford it - >Cursor was a newsletter for the Commodore PET that came on (or accompanied >by) a cassette full of fun programs. >Does this tally with other people's memories, or am I thinking of some'at >else? >Philip. Yes I have a couple dozen of the Cursor Magazines, They used to be one of my favorites, Also Run Magazine, and the very best was Transactor Magazine. All published in the 80's Phil..

25 years, 3 months

Z3 builders?

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

In einer eMail vom 03.03.99 09:57:34 MEZ, schreibt Doug: << On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Bill Yakowenko wrote: > Is anyone out there actually tinkering with building a relay machine? > The other day I found SPDT relays for less than a buck each in a > Digi-Key catalog. Seems to me they were $0.81 each in quantities of 100 > or more; maybe $1.06 each for 25. I know NPDT (N>1) is better, but for > less than $1 each, this seems pretty good. I've created a small private mailing list for a few people (including me) who are (thinking about) building relay machines. You can get relays pretty cheap at surplus electronic shops, but that doesn't sound like a bad deal for matching new relays.... >> Hi Doug, would you mind to keep me informed ? Before turning to tube equipment, I studied relays. In my way of doing things, strict register transfer logic, a computer is no more general than a counter (on the base level), so I built two different relay counters to see how the technology feels like. It did not agree with me, so I turned to tubes. But still, I would find it quite interesting to see what you do ! You are aware of the Halle site on Zuse Z3? www.informatik.uni-halle.de\~thurm\z3 Regards John G. Zabolitzky

25 years, 3 months

Book Review: How to Build a Working Digital Computer

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

John Lawson <jpl15(a)netcom.com> said: > I take this trenchant opportunity to remind the Assembled > Faithful that > > www.abebooks.com > > is, IMHO a rilly bitch'n place to score Olde Computer Books. > > I have just today gotten my copy of "Digital Techniques for >Computation and Control, 1958... full of killer pix of cool old >iron, which will go to swell the many megabytes of scans I'm I prefer to use BookFinders http://www.bookfinder.com/ because they search Powell's Books, Amazon.com, Bibliocity, YourBooks.com, Antiqbook AND Advanced Book Exchange with just one search. My latest score? "BRAINIACS: 201 Small Electric Brain Macines, and how to make them, Including all 33 Geniacs (1955), All 13 Tyniacs (1956), and 155 Brainiacs (1957-1958-1959). Illustrated by Ann B. Baker. Berkeley Enterprises, Inc., Newtonville, Mass. (1959). FIRST PRINTING." When I received the book, I found that 3 of the chapters in pamphlet form (published before 1959) were also included. --Doug ========================================= Doug Coward Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA =========================================

25 years, 3 months

Z3 builders?

by steverob＠hotoffice.com

>But still, I would find it quite interesting to see what you do ! I am also interested in relay driven logic. This seems to be more OT than much of the discussion here so, I'd like to see updates posted to the group. Does anyone have objections to that? Steve Robertson - <steverob(a)hotoffice.com>

25 years, 3 months

Q: RL01 --> RL02 switching mods

by cfandt＠netsync.net

Hi folks, A week or so ago there was discussion of modifications to switch an RL02 drive to read (only) RL01 discpaks. I want to perform this mod to one of my RL02s as I have RL01 pacs I want to keep on hand. Could any of you provide the details to this mod? That's why I want to trade an RL01-A printset for an RL02 as seen in my previous msg. I could use a 'roadmap' to help me with this and for future repairs if needed. The SN's of the two RL02s are CX 34389 and CX 34390, if that has any relevance to the modification. Thanks for your help! Regards, Chris PS: I'm getting back into trying to get the 11/34A system up and running. I have the rack and components down in my basement shop now. (My body is still sore. That empty BA-11K and empty 6-foot rack are heavy! :) I will likely be asking a few questions as to why I wasn't able to get a bootup going last autumn and how to fix it. I'm really just a hardware newbie for now. -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/awa

25 years, 3 months

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test-drb March 1999