Hi!
After getting that email from the guy that wanted the Osborne to turn in to
a 'portastudio', I got an idea.
I'm going to be going to college in a couple years, and doubt I'll have very
much space (especially in the car I have) to lug my full-size tower PC and
21" monitor back and forth every semester. I was also sorting through my
parts boxes, and found I still had a 9" VGA monitor (mono) that I thought
blew out, a 386 board, and a PS/2 Model 25 keyboard. What I'm thinking of
doing is getting an old 5155 case, and keyboard, putting in the VGA
tube/video guts, and replacing the keyboard with the Model 25 keyboard,
since it's smaller. I'd then take that computer to college, since I'd
basically be doing word processing (word Perfect), and a bit of web
browsing/email (Arachne).
I'm not looking to pay much for one (probably between $15-$20), and all I
need is the case and keyboard. If anyone has one with a blown monitor or
something, let me know.
ThAnX in avdance...
-Jason
( roblwill(a)usaor.net )
< http://members.tripod.com/general_1 >
ICQ # 1730318
So I've identified and corrected one problem
with the front panel and now the address lights
and switches seem to respond correctly to EXAMINE,
EXAMINE NEXT and DEPOSIT NEXT.
For those who might be curious...
U15 (74ls04) had apparently been replaced several
times. In particular, the area around the pad for
pin 11 was rather charred. There seemed to be some
conductivity between pin 11 and one of its neighbors.
I desoldered U15 and soldered in a socket. Then cut
the trace about 1/8" from pin 11, reinserted U15
with pin 11 bent out and "air wired" pin 11 to a
convenient hole-through a little further down the
trace. Much better!
So now, on to the data lights. With no memory board
installed, I get 0xFF (all 8 data lights on) for any
address. This is correct behavior, is it not? I then
put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD.
Checking each 4K (0x0000, 0x1000, ..., 0xE000, 0xF000)
I still get nothing but 0xFF. Try DEPOSITing 0x00 at
each 4K, still nothing but 0xFF. On the board, J1 is
jumpered at 0 (choices being 0-7). I assume that this
is the bank number and that would make this board 8K
starting at address 0. J2 is open (I have no idea what
this means).
By the way... on the front panel, when powered up, the
PROGRAMMED OUTPUT lights are all on. Is this correct?
Thanks,
Bill
Hello Dick:
In a message dated 7/2/99 6:15:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time, edick(a)idcomm.com
writes:
> IBM had people who were really worried about noise, hence wouldn't put a
> meaningful fan in the box. That little thing in the PSU (which dies more
> often than any other single component in any PC)
Not to doubt your word, but as owner of a small PC repair shop, my experience
(and records) would suggest that the following components have a higher
failure rate than power supplies or their fans. In order from highest
failure rate:
1) modems -- extremely susceptible to spikes -- our most common repair
2) CD-ROM drives -- easily damaged by jarring the unit -- we sell a lot of
replacements
3) floppy drives -- usually a victim of grit which is sucked in through the
drive by the power supply fan!
Side note: In '88 I had a gig with Gulf Oil/Cumberland Farms. Being a True
Blue shop, MIS insisted on nothing less than PS/2-80s at forty loading
terminals. About three months after installation, the floppies began to
fail. Inspection revealed that since Big Blue, in their wisdom, had failed
to build the little closure flap into the drives (probably saved them 10
cents per unit), these machines were not suitable for use in an industrial
environment without modification (replacing the drive).
Modifying these critters cost IBM a boatload on just this one project; I'm
sure there were many more.
Regards,
Glen Goodwin
0/0
The free stuff has all been claimed.
--
Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home
bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them."
http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998
On Tue, 6 Jul 1999, Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com> wrote:
>>Hi,
>>I'd like to know how people here store their junk parts, as I'm looking
>>for an efficient method myself. For the past several years, I've been
>>keeping them in ziplock bags in a plastic box, which is falling apart, and
>>also is useless for storing anything small.
On the same day, John Lawson <jpl15(a)netcom.com> wrote:
>My junk box? Very simple, elegant, straightforward:
>I just use a house.
>PS: The garage works for when the house is full. Like now....
And the barn works fine after that ;-)
I bought this place years ago, and probably what intriqued me then was
limitless (NOT) storage space. Of course then it was just electronics
in general, mostly old radios, and now the computers. The garage
building has a 2 car garage up front and beside that is an 8' x 20'
room I use as my electronic shop. Across the back is another room
which is 12' x 30' and has a garage door at one end. This room is
my general workshop along with storage for whatever wanders in.
Over the years, some of what I have hauled home has served as storage
for the rest of it. The back garage has 12 19" racks (solid steel sides)
laid over on their sides and stacked three high. Down the center of
the garage is other equipment racks where I have added shelves inside.
So never turn down a free equipment rack, especially one with wheels.
The are some DEC racks that are a steel frame with removable side panels
and the steel frame is put together with pop rivets. I have taken these
and removed the panels and drilled out the rivets holding the top side
rails and crossbars. I then cut the uprights down to around 30-33" and
drill and remount the top side rails and crossbars. Next I put a
plywood top on it. This particular style of rack has shelves that
mount on the inside of the uprights. I put in a few shelves, spaced
just right. In one rack I put a DECstation 3100 CPU box on the bottom
shelf, an expansion box on the next shelf up, and a TK50 expansion box
on the top shelf. For the keyboard, you can mount a board on the
front with angle brackets. The monitor goes on top and you have
a machine you can roll out of the way while you play with your latest
haul.
My wife owns a sewing shop, and as such is known by all the fabric
stores in town. When one of them closed up, she was contacted and
got the chance to go in and buy some of the furnishings. She bought
6 patterns cabinets for $10 each, put two in her shop and gave the
other four two me :-))). These are about 2'd x 2'w x 3.5'h. Since
I knew they would be heavy once filled, I grabbed the left over side
panels from the DEC racks, and put some reinforcing steel on the
inside and mounted casters (removed from other racks). Each side
panel was big enough to hold two pattern cabinets, and they were
all bolted to the side panels. Each of these cabinets has four
drawers which each have dividers, making them nice for organizing
stuff.
The point to all of this is that given a little imagination you can
combine various items of junk (hauled home treasures) together to form
storage space for your stuff.
Mike Thompson
Hi! Here's someone that emailed me searching for some leads to buy an old
Osborne. Please reply directly to him.
-Jason
Message: 28 of 28
Folder: INBOX
From: "Garrett Newnam" Garrett-Newnam(a)excite.com Add to Address Book
Filter Sender
Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 02:46:41 -0500
Subject: Osborne matters...
Header: Displaying BriefHeader Show Full Header
Hello there. Nice to be in contact with you... I'm an ex-Osborne 1 user,
and have been getting nostalgic about them lately. Especially since my
bright idea of installing PC components into and Osborne case (I mainly
use my PC as a recording studio, and the portability of say, an Osborne
Vixen, could really turn into a slick little "Portastudio", complete
with speakers, modem, and mouse).
Any leads for Osbornes for sale?
Garrett N.
Good Day All over the last few days a few items have come my way here's a
short list:
1. Mattel Aquarius and extras' all in their boxes
2. Apple GS with WOZ (so called limited edition),2 3.5 drives and 1 5 1/4
drive, KB and mouse
3. Several old manuals and mag's
4. digital VAXstation 4000/60 with built-in cd-rom drive no KB or monitor
with it.
5. Mac LCIII just the cpu no kb or other parts with it.
6. 10 brand new unopened copies of Win 3.1, Access 2.0, ProComm Plus, and
other software all brand new unopened. (I will be putting most of this up
for sale at $5 a box plus shipping).
7. About 15 Atari cartridges, have list them yet but I notice a few that I
had never seen before.
Well that's the short as some of the stuff is not yet 10 years old. Keep
computing John
I also saw were ZOOM acquired all of Hayes Corp. assets and name, another
great one dies. I wonder what this does for Hayes items that we all collect
?
<> put in the INDUSTRIAL MICRO SYSTEMS 8K MEMORY BD.
<
<Hi Bill
< If this is a dynamic memory board it may not work.
<None of the dynamic boards, I tried, seemed to work
It's static. I have one still as they are reliable as they come.
Do check that it's jumperd for Mwrite from the FP and that the FP is
generating Mwrite. Anotehr place to look is that the various *disables
(they disable the dat, control and address lines from the CPU.) arent
disabled as they are individual lines for data and other controls.
An imsai will run dynamic but its got to be the later design with
hidden refresh. Even then it's twitchy.
Allison
The following items are free to whomever wants to pay for shipping or
pick them up either in Ithaca (whenever) or Baltimore (Mariott Hunt
Valley, this weekend).
* CDS Unistar, one floppy, HD, a bunch of Data Translation DA/AD
cards, keyboard. No docs or discs, and the /usr partition is wiped,
so this won't do much good unless you already have one. I can supply
a copy of the manual for the same vendor's ISA card of like vintage,
if it will help. Works, at least to the extent that I can test it
with what's in /bin.
* NeXTstep v2.1 upgrade package. Includes OS on floptical.
* NeXT manuals, all in one box set:
Technical Summaries
Supplemental Documentation
Writing Loadable Kernel Servers
Operating System Software
Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Reference
Sound, Music, and Signal Processing: Concepts
As always, first come, first served. Taking all of these items off my
hands simultaneously is welcome, but not necessary.
--
Brad Ackerman N1MNB "...faced with the men and women who bring home
bsa3(a)cornell.edu the pork, voters almost always re-elect them."
http://skaro.pair.com/ -- _The Economist_, 31 Oct 1998
Hi there,
I have run across two interesting machines:
Symbolics 3600
Symbolics 3670
built for AI applications. Since they are not in my line, here is the
telephone
number of the person who needs to remove them WITHIN THE NEXT TEN DAYS
(612) 379 - 7343 (Minneapolis, MN). Please contact him directly, not me; I am
simply forwarding this information.
These are NOT personal computer type systems, they are BIG !!!!
(Mainframe class). These are LISP machines.
Happy collecting
John G. Zabolitzky
