In a message dated 7/19/99 7:09:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de writes:
> As we know, TV sets have been a very common display solution.
>
> can people forget that fast ?
> Isn't the C64 still (somewhat) around ? Where did these
> museum people live in the past 20 years ? some south sea
> island ? the moon ? or beyond ?
Oh, probably Mars, which is almost as far away as the Moon ;>)
They can't forget because they never knew. As has been pointed out here
before, to most folks "computers" were mysterious, faraway giants controlled
by trolls -- a totally abstract idea -- until the PC. So to most people a
"computer" is a PC, and they have 8 MB SVGA display adapters, 56K modems,
etc. What does a TV have to do with that (they ask) ???
Tony Duell wrote:
> DOubtless they'd think the same thing about using audio cassettes/normal
> cassette recorders for data storage....
The first thing people ask me about my old computers is "Where do you put the
disks in?" Most people these days would be shocked to learn that the
original PC could load programs from cassette.
> A TV display (US TV) was supported on the IBM PC with a CGA card. There's
> an internal connector for an RF modulator, and a composite output on the
> back.
Yeah, we've got a junk bin full of those cards at the shop, but who remembers
that there was an RCA jack in the back of their computer 15 years ago?
Moral of the story: the public knows very little, and has a very short memory.
Glen Goodwin
0/0
Now, hold on there, slim . . .
The GDM1950 that I had for a couple of years required negative-going sync.
The PC may not be generating negative-going sync, but you can bet it will
generate negative-going composite blanking! What's more, the GDM1950 I had
was complete with a switch which enable sync-on-green decoding, and it's
likely this one has it too. That provides an alternative to figuring out
how to switch the polarity of the sync the card puts out. I've never been
particularly good at that sort of thing, hence once built a little adapter
with XOR buffers, each of which could serve either as a buffer or as an
inverter, depending on how its "other" input was jumpered.
I'm also not convinced that the notion of "seeing something" as opposed to a
total lack of sync give much encouragement. If the polarity is wrong, for
example, it's likely even a monitor being driven at the right frequencies
will fail to sync. If only one of the sync signals is at the wrong
polarity, it might seem to sync, or not, and if only the vertical is right,
or only the horizontal is right, who knows what will be seen. The first
step, IMHO, is to examine and measure the signals. Since they're available
separately, It should be easy to count them.
Dick
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, July 19, 1999 7:02 PM
Subject: Re: Sun Monitor (UK)
>> a SuperMac rebadged 19" GDM1950 that I picked up from the curb. It has 5
BNC
>> connectors and displayed a dark screen when I powered it up bare, but I
was
>> encouraged because there was static on the screen. When I connected it
with the
>> 5 BNC connectors to the adaptor I use on my NEC multi-sync 4Ds and turned
it on
>> without a computer powered up, for one glorius moment it displayed an
azure
>> screen which then turned "IBM-blue" and then either to jaggies or
dark(can't
>> recall which). Since then it only displays jaggies. I hesitate getting a
>> fixed-freq card for it since they are quite expensive and I'm not sure it
>> works. As well, I use the NEC as an all purpose display with DOS, Mac,
and PS2s
>> on a ABCD switchblock so it would only be a secondary unit.
>
>Most expensive/difficult to fix faults on monitors result in no display
>at all. The fact that yours is doing soemthing probably means it can be
>repaired - if it needs it. Most likely it just can't sync to the PC output.
>
>> What is the "application connector composite blanking signal" and where
would
>> I find it. Would the V-sync and H-sync BNCs be ignored ?
>
>You don't need to bother.
>
>Some monitors, particularly workstation ones, use 'sync on green'. There
>are 3 BNC connectors. Red and Blue are what you'd expect. But the green
>signal is really a composite video signal consisting of the 2 sync
>signals and the green part of the video.
>
>PCs don't do that. They have 5 separate signals - R, G, B and the 2
>syncs.
>
>To use sync-on-green monitors with normal PC video cards you have to
>combine the syncs with the green video signal. There are various ways of
>doing this - Richard's method is to pick up a signal off the VGA card
>'feature connector' (do those still exist???) and to resistively mix it
>with the green video signal. An external sync mixer is not that complex,
>though.
>
>But as your monitor already accepts separate syncs, you can just feed in
>the sync signals from the PC as you have been doing.
>
>-tony
>
>I just got (from Chrislin no less!) a Chrislin Q-bus based floppy
>controller called a "Flex02". This was from a clean up they did and they
>have _no_ documents. Apparently there was a large fire that destroyed most
>of their archives.
The Flex02 was originally sold by AED, I think Chrislin bought out that
particular arm of AED. I've got a manual for it right
here in front of me.
>It has a 50pin edge plug and ahead of that plug is an NEC 8255 (this is a
>parallel port so it suggests to me at least that there might be some "off
>board" intelligence required. No sign of a floppy controller chip.
The book says "The FLEX is constructed to interface a 50-pin flat cable
with pinouts of the Shugart 800 Structure. Any drive with similar structure
may be interfaced." This means that all the smarts are on the board itself.
While I have the FLEX book in front of me right now, it refers to "Logic
Diagrams" that I don't have in front of me for jumper settings. I'll try
to dig these up for you. But if you just cable the Flex up to two
SA-800 style drives and put the controller in a Q-bus backplane, you ought
to see the heads load and seek to track 0, and then unload.
--
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
>Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 16:14:39
>Subject: [langalist] 19-Jul-99 LangaList
>To: "The LangaList" <langalist(a)lists.dundee.net>
>From: "Fred Langa" <fred(a)langa.com>
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>
>
>
>Just For Grins:
>
>Reader Assaf Tzur-El sends in this gem:
>
>
> MICROSOFT TO SELL AD SPACE IN ERROR MESSAGES
>
> Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) announced that it
> is selling advertising space in the error messages
> that appear in Windows. Acknowledging for the
> first time that the average user of their
> operating system encounters error messages at
> least several times a day, Microsoft is trying to
> take financial advantage of the unavoidable
> opportunity to make an ad impression.
>
> "We estimate that throughout the world at
> any given moment several million people are
> getting a `General Protection Fault' or `Illegal
> Operation' warning. We will be able to generate
> significant revenue by including a short
> advertising message along with it," said Microsoft
> marketing director Nathan Mirror. He also
> mentioned that Microsoft is intended to add banner
> ads into its Blue Screen of Death in the near
> future.
>
> The Justice Department immediately
> indicated that they intend to investigate whether
> Microsoft is gaining an unfair advantage in
> reaching the public with this advertising by
> virtue of its semi-monopolistic control over error
> messages.
>
>
>
>
>See you next issue!
>
>Best,
>
>Fred
>
>( fred(a)langa.com )
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Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
In a recent haul of Vaxen I was fortunate enough to get 3 CMD CBI-1000 VAXBI
SCSI controllers.
Anyone have a list of CD-ROM's that will work with VMS? ie, that are
physically settable to 512 or
accept the appropriate mode command? I have seen a few mentioned here and
there, but I suspect
there is a list somewhere.
I have available to me a Sony CDR-222 and CFU55S. Anyone know if these
would be any good?
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Systems Manager
Saint Mark's College
Port Pirie, South Australia.
Email: geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au
netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au
ICQ #: 1970476
>> The GDM1950 that I had for a couple of years required negative-going sync.
I'm sure it was one of these that I had hooked up to a PC at one point -
I also had a 16" workstation monitor which was sync-on-green and for
which I built an external module to combine the sync outputs from the
PC. There used to be quite a few websites out there explaining how to do
all this - I believe there may even be a Linux HOWTO document on the
subject somewhere (I don't think I have any documentation on the subject
these days though).
I assume if you're using a PC running some form of windows you can
rework the graphics drivers somehow to drive the monitor properly?? It
was easy under Linux, and these sorts of monitors were best for building
X terminals based around old PC hardware running Linux (not something
I've done for a while though...)
cheers
Jules
>
On Jul 19, 20:36, Chuck McManis wrote:
> I just got (from Chrislin no less!) a Chrislin Q-bus based floppy
> controller called a "Flex02".
[ ... ]
> My contact at Chrislin said it "emulates and RX02 and the indicated
jumper
> specifies 'boot rom' enabled or not enabled." Which is fine except what
he
> didn't know is whether or not the 50 pin connector expected to go
straight
> to a pair of 8" floppies or to a breakout board ala the RQDXn series.
[ ... ]
> It has a 50pin edge plug and ahead of that plug is an NEC 8255 (this is a
> parallel port so it suggests to me at least that there might be some "off
> board" intelligence required. No sign of a floppy controller chip.
The RQDX series only need a breakout board because they cram the signals
for hard drives and floppies together. This Flex02 most likely goes
straight to standard drives -- a quick check is to see if all the
odd-numbered pins (ie, everything on one row of the connector) is grounded.
If so, chances are it's a Shugart interface.
Don't be put off by the lack of a floppy controller chip. No ordinary FDC
can handle the mixture of FM and MFM usd by an RX02.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Just an addition to my previous post. I'd also be willing to trade some
stuff that I have. email me if you want a list, or I can post it to the
list if someone wants.
///--->>>
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
O.K....
I'll let someone else buy the one at the auction.....
Does anyone have an extra one that they'd be willing to sell? I'd be
willing to pay up to 3.36 times it's estimated value -- Plus Shipping! :)
($10)
ThAnX,
///--->>>
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com <SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, July 19, 1999 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Rdio Shack TRS-80 MC-10?
>
>its worth 2.98 without the a/c adaptor which is what i paid for one.
>
--- Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com> wrote:
> Thanks everyone, I got a copy!
> --Chuck
Could someone post a location? I'd like it, too.
Thanks,
-ethan
===
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