test-drb July 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
662 discussions

Fwd: Looking for Minisport notebook in AU

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

Someone in Australia is looking for a Minisport Notebook. This is too new for me to have in my collection. Reply to louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au> if you can help them out. --Doug >Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 07:02:16 +1000 >To: "Doug Coward" <dcoward(a)pressstart.com> >From: louise melov <melmedia(a)zip.com.au> >Subject: None >Hi Doug, >Remember the Zenith Minisport Notebook with the 2" diskette drive. >Any ideas where I can get one. >I tried posting an wanted ad in eBay. Got some bites, but nothing came of it. >Should I try more auction sites, or is there something better I could do ? >Thanks >Eddie R. ========================================= Doug Coward Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA =========================================

25 years, 5 months

What is a Sirius?

by peter.pachla＠vectrex.freeserve.co.uk

Hi Tony, >Are you sure about the MFM format? I can't see any obvious way to make >the hardwaare do that.... The floppy controller DEFINITELY doesn't do MFM as standard. A chap in the UK Sirius User Group once told me that there was a board in development which would replace the standard floppy controller to allow the machine to read and write IBM format (360K and 1.2Mb) discs. He claimed to have one of the prototypes and that it never made it to the market - probably because the new controller wouldn't read/write the old style GCR discs. :-( TTFN - Pete. -- Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC) peter.pachla(a)virgin.net | peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk | peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk --

25 years, 5 months

What is a Sirius?

by peter.pachla＠vectrex.freeserve.co.uk

Hi Tony, >....printer port that looks to be Centronics, but in fact it has enough >lines, and the right buffers, to be GPIB if you can get the right >software.... Have you ever found software which will drive the Centronics port as GPIB? I've been looking around since I first got a Sirius in '88 but have never found any. >Sound is a CI-55516 CODEC linked to a 6852 serial chip. There's a >built-in speaker, and a header plug for audio input (!). I've never seen >software for that either, though. If you mean software which drives the CODEC I've only ever came across one program which uses it, and that was a demo disc which displayed various hi-res graphics and played back digitised music and speech. I was given to understand that a few games came out for the Sirius which used the CODEC, but I don't know any details at all. >....The hardware would be capable of DS operation, but I've >never seen suitable drives. The DS drives are identical to the single sided ones, with the obvious exception of the extra head.... ;-) ISTR they're pretty much the same as the 360K drives used in the IBM PC (MPI-40s?) with the exception of the analogue board being removed, you could probably press one of those into service? TTFN - Pete. -- Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC) peter.pachla(a)virgin.net | peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk | peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk --

25 years, 5 months

DC Power supply question...duh...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<On Mon, 5 Jul 1999 Glenatacme(a)aol.com wrote: <>"Windows 9x makes your computer more reliable" <>"Windows 9x makes your computer easier to use" <>"DOS programs run faster and more reliable" <>"Windows 9x provides the features you want" (sure, Blue Screen of Death) The rant is unneeded. I'm not a MS lover (VMS is my love) but I also make a living keeping 40 clients and 3 servers going running W95 and NT on late 486, p133 and P166 systems, while supporting users and various programmable control systems. IT does work, it's works amazingly well. It's not VMS and nowhere near as robust, it is far better than DOS. It is possible during install and even during hardware purchase to do things that will compromize the system. Usually the problem is poor apps that don't run well under any OS or not taking advantage of service paks that MS does provice. Now PS failures is something to pay attention to as the results can be anything from annoying to downright dangerous. Any new system should be run in a safe place under a watchful eye until it's assured it's operation will remain stable after being powered off for years. NOTE: Many systems the case, rack and other components are essenital to their fire safety, do not compromize. Fuses and circuit breakers should be of the correct rating. Make sure they weren't replaced by oversized (or undersized!) ones in a prior life. Capacitors will blow if overvoltage, age, reverse polarity, excessive ripple (bad rectifiers), bad internal design or a result of previous abuses. Allison

25 years, 5 months

Article about collecting in Antique Trader.

by peter.pachla＠vectrex.freeserve.co.uk

Hi Tony, >Well, it has a text formatter. It has a C compiler. That's all I really >need :-) <grin> Unfortunately I need to use DVE and a 6809 assembler at the moment, I'm sure the latter is around for Linux but I'm pretty sure DVE isn't (I tought I once saw a Linux port of DVE somewhere, but I'm darned if I can find any trace of it now). >....And I share your views on Sinclair machines. They were cheap to the >point of stupidity..... Thanks, glad to know I'm not the only one.... The thing about Sinclair machines is that they are masterpieces of design, but I always found that cleverness "crippled" them rather too much. The '80 wasn't too bad since it was built up using straight TTL, however the '81 and subsequent machines used ASICS to reduce the chip count which meant you couldn't get in there and hack things around. Then from a software point of view I found I was constantly fighting against the built in OS/BIOS whenever I tried to do pretty much anything outside of BASIC programming. Also in those days, particularly when the '80 was in fashion, coming by detailed technical details on the hardware and software wasn't easy - even though there was a thriving home micro/Sinclair community around. I can't honestly say that I have many fond memories of my ZX80/81 days. >....The QL is a major case in point..... >....disk drives, and a real keyboard, it might have done >rather better... I didn't know about the serial port problems. ISTR that when the QL came out it caused more than a few eyebrows to be raised. While it was a very nice machine for it's day the decisions to use the awful Speccy style keyboard and microdrives for storage (3.5" floppy drives had reached reasonable prices by then, witness the Opus disc drives for the Speccy) were widely criticised. Chances are I may have gotten one sooner or later, but in the end other considerations won out. >....I started on an MK14. It took me many years to figure out that darn >manual.... I always wanted one of those, but never did get my hands on one. I almost certainly have my old issues of "ETI" and "Practical Electronics" somewhere containing the MK.14 adverts (and Acorn System 1 ads). Did any/all of the advertised add-ons ever appear, PROM programmer, VDU etc etc? >If you need any help on the HP150, I have the full tech manual for it... That's good to know, it works OK but I'm sure I'll have a few questions when it gets to the top of the current projects file.... ;-) TTFN - Pete. -- Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer. Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC) peter.pachla(a)virgin.net | peter.pachla(a)vectrex.freeserve.co.uk | peter.pachla(a)wintermute.free-online.co.uk | www.wintermute.free-online.co.uk --

25 years, 5 months

Advice wanted on Kennedy 9600 and PDP11/23

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I have a Kennedy 9600 tape drive (cream and black, horizontal loading) on an >11/23 via a third party card. What is the third party card? >A "backup/dev du1: ms0:" set at PE works fine. The same command with a /ver >option also works fine. However, when I set NRZI, it looks like its backing >up, the tape cycles much more slowly forward, but eventually I get an RT-11 >"output error". If the drive really doesn't support 800bpi, I would think it >wouldn't even try writing NRZI. So - my question is (given the above info) - >is the drive broke but only for 800bpi or am I doing something silly? Well, the tape does need to be re-inited at the new density. Are you doing the INIT before the BACKUP, or doing a BACKUP/INIT? Does the INIT operation work OK? Can you do a DIR MS: after the INIT at 800 BPI? Other than that, the -11 doesn't much care what density the tape is at, but the controller card might. Try to identify it (maybe a Dilog DQ132? DQ133? Emulex TC02? TC03? QT13?) and I'll see what I can figure out. Some controller cards (the Dilogs in particular) might be expecting part of the PE burst to come down the cabling. I'm not awfully familiar with the Kennedy 9600, but if it's like the 9614 it supports 800, 1600, 3200, and 6250 BPI. Yours is the Pertec-formatted (two 50-pin cables) interface? I'll also point out that NRZI requires a lot tighter physical tolerances on the alignment of the tape head (the reason why many drives don't support 800 BPI NRZI at all) than 1600 and 6250 BPI (which allow substantial skew between the tape channels as part ofthe spec.) If at some point the head in your transport had been replaced or knocked around without properly being re-aligned you might see something like what you're seeing. -- 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, 5 months

More Minix questions

by paul＠paul.dragontear.org

Hello, I have an IBM PS/2 Model 50 that I'm trying to install Minix 2.0.0 on. I've read a considerable amount of documentation trying to get this to work. ;> I'm using 720k floppies, etc.. Minix boots, and I'm able to run 'setup,' but my problems begin when I use 'part.' I load up 'part,' and I select /dev/hd0, which is the type 30, 20Mb drive that's in the computer. When I try to read the partition table, I receive: bios-hd0: can't read partition table Unrecoverable disk error on device 3/0, block 0 /dev/hd0: I/O error /dev/hd0: Invalid partition table (reset) Besides from the unrecoverable error, it seems to me that I should be able to merely write a new partition table (i'm not too concerned about whatever the hell was on the drive before. ;>). If anyone has insight into my problems, I'd greatly appreciate a reply. I'm killing myself over here trying to get this smelly computer that I pulled out of the trash working. ;> Minix seems interesting to me, if only because it's not generally heard of. If you cannot help with my Minix questions, perhaps you know of another O/S that will run on a 286 with 1Mb of ram? Ideally with networking capabilities. I don't know why I want to do something with this machine so badly, but I have a thing for old computers. :) Thanks. BTW, this computer is 12 years old, hence on-topic. :) -- paul yaskowski [a paradigm of a paramount failure]

25 years, 5 months

Fireworks in a power supply... (indirectly off topic)

by roblwill＠usaor.net

O.k.... here's the question: What would cause a capacitor in a power supply to suddenly explode, spraying its 'guts' and a bunch of smoke all over the place?? Why I said it was indirectly off topic is that the power supply capacitor in question is from a car radio, but I've also had this happen in a couple laptops that I have. I replaced the capacitor in the one laptop, and it works fine, but it looks like the capacitor has "puffed up". The other one just keeps exploding as soon as I connect the power supply. I don't even have a chance to turn it on. As for the radio, it was working fine, then, *Bang!* it's dead, and smoke pours out of every opening in it. I take it apart, the top of the capacitor is missing, and there's brown liquid all over the place. The same sort of thing happens in the second laptop, but the capacitor totally explodes. Any suggestions? ///--->>> -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

25 years, 5 months

IBM 5150 XT

by roblwill＠usaor.net

>I thought the CGA monitor was a lot harder to damage. If you plug it into >an MDA card, it won't work, but I didn't think it did damage. > It doesn't. I plugged on into an MDA/Hercules card my mistake (thought it was a CGA). All that came up was horizontal fuzz. Put in a CGA card, and it worked fine. Your best bet is to plug it in and try it. If it works, go with it. ///--->>> -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

25 years, 5 months

PC form factor

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

Max Eskin wrote: > Hi, > I'm wondering: was the IBM PC the first machine with PSU in the rear > right, drives in the front right, motherboard in rear left, or did they > borrow this design from someone else? I don't know about "someone else", but the IBM System/23 (Datamaster) had exactly that design. The Tektronix 4051 (1975) may have been similar: tape drive to the right of the display, PSU in rear RH corner of case. I have a 4052, which has these two featurs, but no "motherboard" - the processor is 4 boards mounted horizontally in 2 layers covering almost the entire bottom of the case (under PSU, display, tape drive etc.) but to the rear of the keyboard (which occupies the front 20% of the area) The PET had a very close mirror image of the IBM layout. Large transformer in rear LEFT corner, cassette deck to the left of the keyboard in the front, motherboard flat in the bottom to the right of the transformer. Other power supply components on LH side of mobo, except for two big fat capacitors chassis mounted next to the transformer.. Expansion of various sorts was rear right. Hmm. I'll add one more - some DEC boxes. Can't remember what box my 11/10 is in, but the BA11L (?) is similar. Power supply rear right. Backplane vertical next to it. All plug-in cards horizontal rear left (well, sort of rear - they take up almost the whole length of it), front panel across whole of front. Drives in separate (rather larger) boxes, though. Any more examples? Philip. ********************************************************************** This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept for the presence of computer viruses. Power Technology Centre, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottingham, NG11 0EE, UK Tel: +44 (0)115 936 2000 http://www.powertech.co.uk **********************************************************************

25 years, 5 months

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test-drb July 1999