The subject says it all... Anyone have a copy that they could be parted
from?
-jim
---
jimw(a)computergarage.org
The Computer Garage - http://www.computergarage.org
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>>> Coming soon to www.computergarage.org - the CBBS/NW on-line archives
>>> Coming to VCF III (2-3 October 1999) - CBBS/NW live!
>> As far as publication is concerned, if you publish sensitive information
about a
>> person, there may be an action for defamation or some similar offence even if
it
>> is true.
>
> Unless that person is in the 'public's eye', like the president? Please
correct me
> if i'm wrong.
I have no idea what the legal situation is for a public figure, but I had always
assumed that in such cases things are published simply because the (financial)
benefits of doing so outweigh the (also financial) punishments imposed by the
law. I didn't think that the law actually made an exception.
>> > I wasn't talking about morals. I'd probably find the previous owner and
give
>> it to
>> > them, if they wanted it. otherwise I'd trash it. I have no use for old
>> letters and
>> > bank statements....
>>
>> So you weren't talking about morals. Maybe you should have been thinking
about
>> them, though. If someone makes a mistake and you discover it, what should
you
>> (morally) do? Exploit it for financial gain? Or help them put it right?
>>
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> If you read past my first sentence you would have seen my answer.
I read several of your sentences. You said something about what you would
probably do and something about what you considered you had a right to do, but
little about what you _ought_ to do.
That said, this is a mailing list, not a private letter. Such questions are
often inserted for rhetorical reasons, not merely to extract a particular
correspondent's answers. Should I have written "IAMTA" against it or something?
IAMTA.
>> There have indeed. Generally after copyright has expired, which in most
>> countries now happens 50 or 70 years after the death of the writer. In the
case
>> of war diaries and the like, these are usually published with the permission,
if
>> not the active co-operation, of the author. This is a useful guide for when
>> personal data ceases to be sensitive - 50 to 70 years after the death of the
>> person concerned.
>
> How long is the copyright for software?
If the law doesn't specifically fix a different period, and I would be surprised
if it did, it will be just as long as for anything else.
A legal grey area looms here. What is software? The text of a personal letter
as typed in a word processor isn't; the source of a program is; but things in
between like spreadsheets, databases, even text formatter source code could have
problems in defining software. (In this context. In the context of the
Hardware vs Software debate, for example, all the above are soft)
> Regardless, I still _believe_ that it is the seller who is responsible for the
data,
> if not morally or legally, than just for personal safety and/or fear of
> embarrassment, or just paranoia. This of course is my opinion. I've never
sold a
> computer without first wiping everything off of it, and i don't have any info
i
> would consider sensitive or very private stored on there.
I agree that the seller has a duty to keep sensitive data safe, and off the
machine if he can. But I claim that the buyer also has such a duty. This may
be a cultural difference - in the UK it is still exceedingly impolite to read
someone else's mail without first being offered it by the person concerned, no
matter how close your relationship (genetic or social) with them (I think
husbands and wives may be an exception - still impolite but not exceedingly so)
> On the hypothetical about the drug dealer and his buyers, sellers and account
info:
> As a (insert your country) citizen, isn't it your duty to inform the
authorities of
> such crimes? Obstruction of justice comes to mind, for one (U.S.A).
That is a very nasty moral grey area. A similar question has been asked by
people repairing video cassette machines: if I find evidence that someone has
gone to great, even destructive, trouble to remove a jammed cassette from a
machine, should I report a suspicion about (e.g.) obscene videos?
I don't have a solution to this moral problem. I don't know whether I have a
stronger duty to my country (or the laws thereof) or to the person I'm dealing
with. But I don't think I have a duty to pry where I'm not wanted in order to
incriminate people. Police detectives are employed for that purpose.
> And that situation about the 'shrink' failing to wipe his drive of very
private and
> sensitive info before selling it was just plain irresponsible. Would he throw
out
> letters or whole files without first shredding them? It is _*HIS*_
responsibility
> for those papers, as is it his ethical duty to guard those papers and files he
> stores in his office. Heck, the police needs a search order to gain access to
those
> files, why should one have access to those files, paper and other types,
simply
> because he/she failed to delete or shred them before a sell? <( or he/she
moves to
> another office and leaves her filing cabinet at old office?) If my
information
> were in that drive and i found out about it, I would demand he lost his
license for
> incompetence.
You seem to be pointing to a view almost opposite to that you expressed earlier,
here. If the police need a warrant to examine these files, someone who
accidentally stumbles on them (say on the hard disk of an old machine) surely
cannot have a right to do very much with them...
There is certainly a lot of incompetence there. And for some of it the cure is
education. People should know if there is sensitive stuff on the drive. But
they should be able to trust us to delete it if they can't do so. I wouldn't
expect the psychiatrist to know how to wipe the drive in a computer that no
longer boots, for example. But they should know enough to ask us to delete it
when they give us the machine.
> I would think that computer files are considered the same as paper files under
the
> law, again US law. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Under UK law, specifically the Data Protection Act, controls on computer files
are stricter than those on paper files. I don't know all the details of the act
- I suppose now is the time to find out...
> Anyways, if we really wanted to find the legal thing to do, one of us should
contact
> a lawyer friend that specializes in this. What category does this fall under
anyway
> (the personal information bit, not the software licenses)?
The American approach. Whatever you do, ask a lawyer :-)
I'd err more on the side of Least said, soonest mended. But I really don't
think this problem will go away. People who use computers need to be educated
in such matters. And - I claim - better not by frightening them too hard.
Philip.
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I've finally found all the pieces to bring up my HP2000/TSB system (the last
pieces I need are being shipped to me in August). For those interested, it
will be the "Access" version. One thing I recently found out is that I don't
have enough disk space to load the contributed library on my single 7900A
drive.
Would anyone happen to know of a source (or have any to spare) for 7900A,
7905, 7906 (non-H), or 7920 HP drives? One more drive would go a long way
towards getting a TSB system up and running. To my knowledge (and believe me
I've searched high and low) mine would be the only running TSB system left.
Can anyone help me? I saw these drives for sale at crisis, but they want
$2300.00 each - a difficult pill to swallow :(
Jay West
The Xerox 3700 is a high speed laser printer of the first generation. It has
a built in terminal/controller. The 5 1/4" 360K floppy was used to load fonts
and emulation software. Most of them were based on the Dataproducts printer
interface. It was built on the chassis of a Xerox copier of the times.
Usually they have a nice 5-7mw laser tube and power supply in them. I don't
know of any other current use for them.
Paxton
There are two valid and conflicting points here. The first is
legal: I (not being a lawyer or anything) believe it is probably
legal to take data from any system you legally acquire. The
second is pragmatic: if people know that you do this, none of us
will ever again get any meaningful parts of a classic machine.
The ethics of the matter are another matter, but in view of the
pragmatics, that seems moot. Making use of any such data is
suicide, at least in the long-term. Even if you are ethically
impaired enough to do this, please don't admit it in public.
This list, BTW, is archived and publically available at two web
sites that I know of, and maybe others that I don't.
Cheers,
Bill.
On Sun, 30 May 1999, bluoval <bluoval(a)mindspring.com> wrote:
] Tony Duell wrote:
] > >
] > > I wasn't following this thread but here's my opinion.
] > > A buy a house and everything it contains. There just happenes to be a treasure
] > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
] > There's the first difference. In most cases you're _not_ buying a computer
] > and all the data on the hard drive.
]
] If I buy a computer w/ a hard drive, what ever data it might contain is mine also.
] The seller is/was responsable for the data on there, not the buyer. the seller
] should've deleted what he thought was sensitive information. Unless the data is
] copyrighted, I have every right to do as i please with it, which would most likely
] be erasure.
Actually, this point isn't entirely right. Most likely the software
on that disk was under license, which couldn't be legally transferred
to you even if the seller wanted to. If you really believe you own
it, try taking some not-so-terribly-old Micro$oft product from a
scrap PC, making copies and reselling them. If you really own it,
no big-company lawyers will have a thing to say about it. :-)
] > If I buy a computer and the seller says 'Here's the master disks for all
] > the software I installed, and here are the licenses which I'll help you
] > to transfer to your name', then I think it's reasonable to assume that
] > you're getting that software as well. If he says 'BTW, I've left the
] > source code to a <whatever> that I was working on on the hard disk,
] > please take a look' then, again, I have no problem in reading said source
] > code.
] >
] > That is _not_ what we're talking about.
] >
] > > map in there leading me to a pot of gold. who owns the gold? ME.
Fine. If the seller of the computer agrees to sell you the data
as well the machine itself, you own it. But when somebody sells
you a house, the contract is not likely to say "house and all pots
of gold contained therein", nor is the seller of a computer likely
to agree that you own all data he forgot/was unable to delete.
Since nobody sane would ever agree to that, you are probably on
shakey ground assuming that it was part of the sale. So knowingly
using it for profit or to the seller's detriment would probably
put you on the losing end of a lawsuit.
] > Suppose you buy a house+contents. Stuffed down the back of a chair are
] > some old personal letters, bank statements, etc. Do you really think you
] > have the moral right to publish them? I certainly don't.
]
] I wasn't talking about morals. I'd probably find the previous owner and give
] it to them, if they wanted it. otherwise I'd trash it. I have no use for old
] letters and bank statements....
]
]
] > I must admit that if I bought a computer and found some previous repaired
] > had left the schematics or a diagnostic module inside, I might be tempted
] > to keep them and make use of them. That's a far cry from personal data,
] > though.
]
] There have been many books published from people's personal data... diaries,
...
] Do you think these people would have wanted their data published by some person
] who just happened to find it in an attic, in a house he just bought? probably
] not, but historically they're priceless.
But to publish that sort of discovery before it has properly aged
would put you in the category of tabloid rather than history buff.
Still legal, *maybe*, but certainly not likely to inspire future
donations.
> I have some DRAM boards that I've used with my Poly88.
>These are 64K boards and I thought I'd use them but the disk's
>DMA doesn't seem to write to them. I'm able to read and write
>from the front toggles, just not from the DMA to the RAM.
>
> Does anyone know what the problem is here? Is there some
>timing or pin out issue with DRAMs that would cause this
>to happen in a standard IMSAI 8080? I'd really like to use
>this DRAM because I trust it more than the statics in the
>system, at least until I get things fully functional.
Welcome to the world of S-100, where DRAM boards often didn't
support DMA controllers properly. In some cases, you can rejumper
them so that the DMA vs refresh timing conflict isn't such a problem.
But many of us just went to pure static RAM systems where DMA
was being done.
What disk controller are you using, BTW? In some cases the problem
isn't so much the memory, but it's the disk controller.
> In any case, I think just getting to the A> prompt is
>a major mile stone. I had to completely write a boot loader,
>CBIOS, disk formatter and serial data transfer to get this far.
It certainly is a major milestone. Congratulations!
--
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
Heads up in Oz, mates....
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 15:55:25 +1000 (EST)
From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
To: Unix Heritage Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Free to a good home... (fwd)
----- Forwarded message from John Dodson -----
From: John Dodson <johnd(a)physiol.usyd.edu.au>
Subject: Free to a good home...
Free to a good home...
Complete set of RSX11-M manuals. (Yes it ran on a PDP11 ;-)
Complete set of Ultrix manuals. (Oh Ok so it ran on Vaxes ;-)
One or 2 PDP-11/23's + some i/o cards (I'm not making a list, YOU must
look, decide & negotiate with me to let them go...)
A volunteer prepared to make a list would be OK.
Contact:
John Dodson, Dept of Physiology, (F13)
johnd(a)physiol.usyd.edu.au & Faculty of Medicine,
http://www.physiol.usyd.edu.au/johnd University of Sydney,
Phone +61 2 9351 3277 NSW 2006
Fax +61 2 9351 2058 Australia.
Bring a strong friend when you pick it up. You have a week before the docs are
trashed. The machines & cards I'll keep for a while till they find a good home.
Sorry I cannot (will not) deliver.
----- End of forwarded message from John Dodson -----
<Even if you don't intend to use PROMs in your final device, I'd certainly
<recommend you build a few PROMS which make the processor do rudimentary
<things and perhaps which make the DMAC do the same things. You then have
<simple tools with which to troubleshoot your memory interfaces.
that can be helpful. I just use the CPU executing junk FF/00 or whatever
else the bus lets it see,
<After reading about the problems you're having, I think I'll fetch the 124
<LA out onto the patio as well.
I troubleshoot 90% of my s100 problems with a good logic probe and
a DVM. The rare case I've dragged out the scope it was handy but usually
because I missed something stupid. The recent NS* bring up required the
logic probe, its where I spotted a missing Mwrite/ (jumper smeared off the
cpu board).
With rare exception and all if a board doesn't work scoping it may or may
not help. just follow the logic with a logic probe as likely it's a chip
or socket failure. The reason is the board worked, was sold working and
if it were good it should still work. The exception is when you have bus
incompatability problems and a scope will not help unless your going to
alter the board to make it work assuming it was not also broken.
Allison
<correctly. Hence, DRAMs before '83-84 were somewhat iffy on the S-100. B
<then, of course, the S-100 was, more or less, history. One of the things
There were a few that worked really well but one look at the design said
why, good designs work. One of the worst ones used gate delays for the
ras-muc-cas timing...
<may be, but DRAMs are not as difficult or fussy as a lot of people have
<said. I've designed literally dozens of different DRAM circuits which in
The ones that work were near unbreakable, there wer a few notables by 1980
and by 82 a swamp of them.
<DMA was popular for early FDC's in the mid '70's because 8080 processors
<were too slow to get around the loop fast enough to transfer data from
Not true for S100 systems. DMA was hardware intensive and the 8257 was
too expensive and too difficult to use with the rather helter skelter
signals. The 8080 would do SD 8" no problem and DD5.25 with not much
difficulty but the programming tricks were basically ugly.
CP/M only moved 128 bytes at a time, so moving multiple sectors was wasted
for the most part unless you were caching.
In the multibus and STD bus worlds things were quite a bit saner.
Allison
