test-drb May 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

174 participants
659 discussions

by zmerch＠30below.com

Rumor has it that Aaron Christopher Finney may have mentioned these words: >For the browser impaired, Dell is hosting a contest to find the oldest PC >still in use in a small business. The winner will receive 15K in computer >equipment. Businesses have to be < 400 employees and you have to show >proof with a receipt, warranty card, or other proof of age/purchase... Actually, I was first thinking of someone who still runs his accounting business primarily on Tandy Color Computers (1's and 2's - tho he might have a 3 floating around)... However, I won't; here's why: From what it looks like on the web page, you have to donate the old computer setup back to Dell so they can give it to a museum. If the person I had in mind actually won, he'd kill me - he doesn't want to upgrade. Pentium Xeon servers won't print the checks any faster >from a daisy-wheel printer any faster than a CoCo can!!! The other downfall to this is if someone was still using 3-4 Altairs for their business setup, with the speculation over these machines the company might actually take a loss thru Dell than selling the machines via auction. Think about it. Disgusting, ain't it? Just a thought, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.

25 years, 2 months

68020 vs 68EC020

by gareth.knight2＠which.net

Pete Turnbull wrote: >> > An A1200 question: what's the difference between the 68020 and 68EC020? >> >> I believe the 'EC' version is for Embedded Control, and lacks some of the >> functions of the plain 68020 (probably MMU-related or something). > >I'm not sure of the other details, but "EC" = "Embedded Control", as you >say. According to my Motorola cribsheet, it's a 68020 with only 24-bit >addressing, without the dynamic bus sizing, ands restricted speed range. > It does have the co-pro interface, though, and probably most if not all of >the instruction set (the crib sheet doesn't get very detailed). Yup. In real terms the choice of EC by Commodore restricted the standard A1200 to just 10Mb fast RAM. This can be overcome with an accelerator that plugs into the trapdoor. On a slightly related note, a friend of mine in the US has found that his washer machine contains a 020 processor. Those things sure get around. -- Gareth Knight Amiga Interactive Guide | ICQ No. 24185856 http://welcome.to/aig | "Shine on your star"

25 years, 2 months

Space, the next frontier

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> > The HD controller was 8x300, teh floppy was on the main board and relie <> <> I thought it was a Western Digital chipset, but I can't find a board to <> check at the moment. < <I just looked at one of mine and the major chip is a WD1010AL-00. I was going by the proto (likely) that I have that does have 8x300 like the DECMATE and a few of the other DEC systems. I thought it went WD as well but the board I have was scrounged from a system in the mill back in the crazy days. Allison

25 years, 2 months

Space, the next frontier

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> All rainbows had both that was the base configuration. The later B and B < <Sure. I was commenting about Tim's comment of a dedicated Z-80 for the <FDC. AFAIK there isn't. There is a Z80, but it can run user programs. The z80 when not running user programs is dedicated to floppy IO. When it is running CPM80 code it's still servicing the Floppy. <The colour graphics card was pretty nice as well. It's got a 7220 <graphics copro on it... I know... I was at NEC when we sold it to DEC. we were trying to get them to use the 765 floppy but the alreay had to many WD chips. Allison

25 years, 2 months

Interesting thing on slashdot

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<For the browser impaired, Dell is hosting a contest to find the oldest PC <still in use in a small business. The winner will receive 15K in computer <equipment. Businesses have to be < 400 employees and you have to show <proof with a receipt, warranty card, or other proof of age/purchase... I gotta go collect... I'm running a 286 for an oven control system and also a XT turbo clone for a measurement test and logging system. Being ISO 9001, PMA, and FM those system are well documented (and have to be eco'd if a part is replaced!). Allison

25 years, 2 months

non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier)

by edick＠idcomm.com

It's odd that SUN, then, having declared the SCSI on the skids, would have been the ONE with the most sensible and least fragile connector on their external cable harnesses. If I had $1 for every time I've had a problem with external SCSI cable connectors, I could retire in luxury. I've NEVER had trouble with the D-types, in this case, the DD-50, breaking off contacts, etc. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 4:13 PM Subject: Re: non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier) >At 02:51 PM 5/26/99 -0700, Frank wrote: >>Sun did this too. [scsi to MFM] ... >>I think I remember reading somewhere that this was done because the >>SCSI-to-whatever interface had the intelligence for bad-block >>remapping. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that the cost of the >>drives had something to do with it; > >Cost has more to do with it than bad blocks, the 4.1BSD disk driver knew >how to remap bad blocks but with Adaptec and Emulex solutions you could put >_two_ cheap drives behind a SCSI interface (logical unit 0 and 1) and when >you did that the costs were significantly less for the scsi+ESDI solution. >Of course Sun was a huge proponent of IPI, claiming it would wipe SCSI off >the planet. > >--Chuck > >

25 years, 2 months

non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier)

by edick＠idcomm.com

-----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 4:21 PM Subject: Re: non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier) >OMTI (SMS) and ADAPTEC made quite a few of these SCSI-HOST to MFM or RLL >devices. It seems to me that NOVELL capitalized on this proliferation of >these bridge controllers as well, providing a configuration utility for use >with their SCSI board. I don't know how well they worked, but I imagine >they had "little" problems with them as did nearly everyone else. > >Has anyone ever used a SCSI-hosted bride controller of this sort with OOPS! . . . er . . . that's BRIDGE controller . . . <sorry!> >essentially no problems at all? If so, I'd surely like to know which one >and how it was implemented. > >Dick

25 years, 2 months

non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier)

by edick＠idcomm.com

OMTI (SMS) and ADAPTEC made quite a few of these SCSI-HOST to MFM or RLL devices. It seems to me that NOVELL capitalized on this proliferation of these bridge controllers as well, providing a configuration utility for use with their SCSI board. I don't know how well they worked, but I imagine they had "little" problems with them as did nearly everyone else. Has anyone ever used a SCSI-hosted bride controller of this sort with essentially no problems at all? If so, I'd surely like to know which one and how it was implemented. Dick -----Original Message----- From: Frank McConnell <fmc(a)reanimators.org> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 3:58 PM Subject: non-SCSI disks on a SCSI disk interface (was Re: Space, the next frontier) >ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: >> Most later workstations had SCSI interfaces for the hard disk (even if >> they then broke that by insisting on an ST506 drive on the other side of >> a SCSI->ST506 interface, as ICL and Torch both did). Some older > >Sun did this too. It wasn't 'til SunOS 4.0 that the SCSI-disk driver >would actually talk to SCSI disks. Before that, it wanted to talk to >an Adaptec ACB4000 or an Emulex MD21 (for ESDI disks). > >I think I remember reading somewhere that this was done because the >SCSI-to-whatever interface had the intelligence for bad-block >remapping. But I wouldn't be surprised to find that the cost of the >drives had something to do with it; I remember Amiga folks scheming to >use ACB4000 boards with their SCSI interfaces because it was cheaper >than buying a SCSI disk, and I've opened a few Mac SCSI hard disk >boxes to find the same sort of thing inside. > >-Frank McConnell >

25 years, 2 months

Space, the next frontier

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<All my 'bows have 2 processors. An 8088 and a Z80. The Z80 runs the VT100 <emulation from ROM, etc, _but_ it's also possible to run user programs on <it (CP/M on a rainbow will run CP/M80 or CP/M86 programs). All rainbows had both that was the base configuration. The later B and B+ versions were allabout adding hard disk and hard disk booting, IE firmware. IT did run CPM80/86, that was the base OS and the system was set uyp so that you could run z80 or 8088 code. in z80 mode the 8088 was idle. In the 8088 mode the z80 was doing IO processing. Obviously the 8088 mode hard far more performnce than many turbo PCs as the z80 is a pretty good io processor. <I don't recall there being any processors on the disk daughterboard (and <I think I'd remember that), unlike, say, the Pro where there's a <microcontroller between the system bus and the FDC chip. The HD controller was 8x300, teh floppy was on the main board and relied on the z80. Formatting was possible on all models. Only that the early OS packages didn't include the formatter(Pournelle got a first off the line). For a long while Rainbows were popular for formatting rx50s. That and people that had them really liked them. Allison

25 years, 2 months

confidential info on old harddrives.

by steverob＠hotoffice.com

On Wednesday, May 26, 1999 5:39 PM, Chuck McManis [SMTP:cmcmanis@mcmanis.com] wrote: > So what's the problem? Any responsible adult would simply delete/erase the > personal data and move on. Yep... That's what I do. Besides, I've never seen any info that was any particular interest to me. I'll admit, I don't generally erase other peoples source code without inspecting it. I find it invaluable when trying to learn a new OS or the specifics of a programming language. Steve Robertson - <steverob(a)hotoffice.com>

25 years, 2 months

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test-drb May 1999