test-drb April 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

170 participants
1190 discussions

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Apr 7, 22:38, Chuck McManis wrote: > Subject: Q-bus pinout > Hello, is the Q-bus pinout on line? I've got an extender card and I'd like > to know if it was compatible or not. There's a PostScript file showing the pinout at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/QBusConns.ps (and a larger copy there also). Can't help with the PDP-8 PSU, though. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 2 months

Hallelujah!

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

Erm, I really don't think Smalltalk began with Lisp in any way. The key idea in Smalltalk is encapsulization via class definition; Lisp is all about lists and (to a purist) functional programming. Both are very cool, and generally cleaner than the more "practical" languages, maybe because they define a model that isn't so close the the hardware. But they are really wildly different from each other, right down to the bone. Lisp is not at all object oriented, and Smalltalk is nothing but. If all the languages you've used are the close-to-hardware procedural kind, then these will seem novel. In that case, you might also check out ML, Prolog, APL, SNOBOL, and Icon. APL and Icon are still comfortably procedural, and SNOBOL is crude by modern standards, but each of those has its own way-out-of-the- mainstream aspects. Maybe none have the simplicity of pure Lisp, though. There is something attractive about a language that does just one thing, but does it well. Bill. PS. As a bonus, these all pass the ten-year rule. (Well, I'm not 100% sure about ML, but I *think* it does.) ] From: Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> ] To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers ] <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> ] Date: Saturday, April 03, 1999 11:44 PM ] Subject: Hallelujah! ] ] ] I've finally gotten around to reading a LISP book that I had bought months ] before, and I can see why people refer to LISP as a religious experience ] (I've seen that said at least twice). It's really a wonderful language. I ] wonder how it is worse than BASIC or Perl. Also, although I didn't really ] take the time to really understand smalltalk (Squeak is slow and ] unstable), I can see the beginnings of smalltalk in LISP. Wow. This thing ] really is pretty amazing. This should be taught in every computer ] programming course, along with PAL-8, C, and Perl. I am now certain that ] if a language is hard to learn (C++ comes to mind), there's something ] wrong with it :) ] ] --Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)

25 years, 2 months

Two 4869 floppy drives

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

Cheap would be cost of postage. I've been trying to get rid of three of them for that price for, oh, probably a year now. Finally, as of last week, I may have a taker. Though I haven't heard back from him, and it has been several days now... Bill. On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Mike Ford <mikeford(a)netwiz.net> wrote: ] In todays wanderings I found two seemingly very nice condition 4869 ] external floppy drives, they were not cheap, but then I don't know what ] cheap for them would be. If anybody is interested email me as I will return ] to that haunt on Thursday.

25 years, 2 months

SA-400's (was: Heatkit 5 1/4 floppies

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote: <> I don't believe those were the earliest of the 5-1/4" types. The early <> SA-400's I remember used a lead screw just like the 8" drives, but that w the SA800 was lead screw but, the sa400 was the spiral groove disk. I know as I still have the working SA400 (not the later L) that came with the Northstar* MDS purchased in 1977 (very low sn#). Allison

25 years, 2 months

A little OT? Sun PS questions...

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list(a)lafleur.wfi-inc.com> wrote: > Speaking of sparcs, > > This might be a little OT, but it does *involve* a Sun 3/50. At least the > dead shell of one. John Lawson was kind enough to donate the mainboard > from a Sparcserver 600MP to the cause today, but I don't have anywhere to > put it (no comments on that, please). The question is this: can I put this > board into the 3/50's case? From what I understand, the old VME chassis > only provided power. Of course, the capacity of the 3/50's ps is a > question too; I think it's rated somewhere around 20A at 5v, and the 600MP > board requires something like 15A @ 5v, with no RAM or Mbus modules. I tried that with no good results. I'm told that the 3/50 PSU doesn't provide both +12v and -12v on the single power connector, or that the 6xx/MP board doesn't get comm voltages from that particular connector or some other power-related reason why RS-232 doesn't work in that configuration. I was also told that the 6xx/MP board wants to see some kind of termination on some of the VME signals or it won't past self-test. As I said, I could never make it work, and the original 3/50 mainboard _does_ work in my 3/50 chassis, so it's not an overall PSU problem. Further, I am also told that a 6XX/MP board _will_ work in any sort of Sun VMS cage, including a 4/110 tower, one of the smaller configurations that Sun sold. BTW, don't try to run a newer version of Solaris on that board... Solaris 2.6 has checks for the 6XX/MP line and halts on startup. 2.7 (Solaris 7) is completely missing kernel support for any VME machines. If you find out any of this is wrong, I'd love to hear it; maybe someday I could get my configuration working. For now, I'll restore the 3/50 as is. -ethan _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

25 years, 2 months

Heatkit 5 1/4 floppies

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

These were in common use on Z89's and Z-90's. Heathkit used drives made by Tandon and Siemens. The Siemens drives were kinda unique: It used a disk with a spiral groove for the head positioner. The cabinets are among the best floppy enclosures ever made IMHO (although they can be a bitch to put back together). I have several of them myself. The (linear) power supplies in 'em are fairly beefy. Jeff On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 10:35:59 +0000 "Lawrence Walker" <lwalker(a)mail.interlog.com> writes: > I made a curbside rescue of a dual ext. fdd. Two FH 5 1/4 floppies >mounted >vertically. ZenithDS Heathkit H77 with ribbon cable connector. Looks >more like >an 8" mechanism than your standard floppies. I'm assuming these were >for a >Z-100 guaged by the ZDS H-K label timeframe . Any info on them ? > Judging by the mechanism that I can see , like Rainbow drives but not > >laterly opposed , they're SS. > >ciao larry >lwalker(a)interlog.com > >Collectors info http://members.xoom.com/T3C ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]

25 years, 2 months

SoCal TRW Swap and DEC Open House

by dogas＠leading.net

From: Christian Fandt <cfandt(a)netsync.net> >>Anyone know if there's ever anything like this in/near/around Western PA >>(Eastern Ohio, Northern VA)? nope but here's an open invitation for anyone passing through Jacksonville anytime. - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

25 years, 2 months

Apple GCR

by edick＠idcomm.com

This is one of APPLE & wierd Woz's patents. It's in almost every well equipped electrical engineering library. There's also an ANSI standard for GCR as applied by the 9-TRACK TAPE people to get up to 6250 bpi, which will shed some light as well, should you choose to look it up. I used that information to lay a groundwork for my APPLE HDC, which never made it to market. Dick -----Original Message----- From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 7:12 PM Subject: RE: Apple GCR >>Can someone explain how the Apple II GCR worked? I tried deciphering this >>several years ago and I could figure it out (the only references I found >>were very vague). > >There's one reference which is extremely non-vague: _Beneath Apple >DOS_, by Don Worth and Peter Lechner. In it you'll find wonderful >illustrations featuring Sir Isaac Newton and leading you through the >wonderfully intertwined world of the Disk ][ state machine, 6502 >machine code, and modulation formats. This book is still available >new (see my past posts to comp.sys.apple2 for details on how to buy it.) > >If you're too cheap to buy the book (again, buy the book! It's >worth every last cent!), the relevant section of it (minus the >cute drawings) is online at > >http://www.umich.edu/~archive/apple2/misc/hardware/disk.encoding.txt > >But, again, buy the book! Woz is not my super-hero, but he could do >amazing things with a half-dozen TTL chips, that everyone else was >doing with a hundred or more... > >-- > 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, 2 months

vacuum tube circuits

by lemay＠cs.umn.edu

I saw a hardcover book from 1957 at the used bookstore, that discussed digital computer circuits, and had chapters on vacuum tube logic circuits, corememory circuits, some transistor circuits, etc. If this is something that someone here is dieing to have, perhaps because you're designing a vacuum tube computer circuit, just let me know and i'll try to get it before someone else does ;) -Lawrence LeMay

25 years, 2 months

FW: FREE! Motorola VME-10 System and Motorola Development Hardware

by kyrrin＠my-dejanews.com

Grab it before it's gone! Good chance for someone in or near Chicago to mess with VME hardware. -=-=- <snip> -=-=- On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 18:32:42 GMT, in comp.arch.bus.vmebus you wrote: >>From: mike(a)gmx.com >>Newsgroups: comp.arch.bus.vmebus >>Subject: Free! Motorola VME-10 System and Motorola Development Hardware >>Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 18:32:42 GMT >>Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion >>Lines: 20 >>Message-ID: <7eg8ca$gmi$1(a)nnrp1.dejanews.com> >>NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.179.170.230 >>X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Apr 07 18:32:42 1999 GMT >>X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.01; Windows 95) >>X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x17.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 199.179.170.230 >>Path: news1.jps.net!news.pbi.net!206.190.128.10!newsfeed.yosemite.net!news1.ltinet.net!news.he.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news-feeds.jump.net!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail >>Xref: news1.jps.net comp.arch.bus.vmebus:23 >> >>We have the following equipment which is going to be scrapped in the next >>week or so unless someone in the Chicago area (we are in Northbrook) is >>willing to come and pick it up (sorry, no shipping available). >> >>1 Mot VME10 System w/monitor & keyboard >>1 Mot HDS-400 Hardware Development Station >>1 Mot HDS-400/BSA 68020 Emulator/Analyzer >>1 Mot HDS-300 Control Station >>1 Mot Benchmark 20 >>1 Mot ExorTerm 155 >> >>Plus miscellaneous manuals, cables, etc. This equipment was all working when >>put in storage so years ago, but there are no guarantees... If interested, >>contact me via email. >> >>Mike Magnus >>mike(a)gmx.com >> >>-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- >>http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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..."

25 years, 2 months

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test-drb April 1999