test-drb July 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
662 discussions

by ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu

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25 years, 3 months

Vintage computer story for L.A. Weekly...

by jv＠journalist.com

Help me out -- and get famous too! My name's Jonathan Vankin and I'm a reporter in Los Angeles, doing a story for the L.A. Wekly. I'm looking for people in the L.A. area who collect or have a passion for "classic" or "obsolete" computers. Especially micros, e.g. old Apples, Commodores, Amigas, Osbornes etc. etc. If you're in the L.A. area, you're into older computers and, especially, if you have a collection or know someone who does, could you drop me a line at the e-mail address above? I got into this topic when I started getting nostalgic for my old ADAM, which i gave to Goodwill a couple of years ago. I was trying to figure out what made me so nostalgic for it and taht led me to the numrous vintage computer resources on the Web. But I need some L.A.-based colectors for the story. My deadline is pretty soon -- so drop me an e-mail with a convenient way to reach you now to spread the word about your beloved old machines! Thanks! Jonathan Vankin jv(a)journalist.com http://www.conspire.com http://home.pacbell.net/jvankin

25 years, 3 months

Fw: surplus second hand hardware ?

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

Spotted and thought some one might be interested. Dan -----Original Message----- From: Brian Schenkenberger, VAXman- <system(a)SendSpamHere.ORG> Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 11:29 AM Subject: Re: surplus second hand hardware ? >In article <rmhn3.1740$Bs1.112530(a)news3.usenetserver.com>, "robert walton" <rob_moobled(a)hotmail.com> writes: >>Is there a www for surplus second hand vax's , micro-vax etc ? >>What would be the going rates on the above ? >>rgds >>Rob > >What exactly are you looking for? I happen to know of an entire rack >consisting of a uV-II, a Cipher 9-track, several Fujitsu drives, etc. >that will be tossed into the garbage in the next few days. This rack >is in central NJ (Monmouth County/Eatontown). If you are interested, >or anybody else for that matter, in having this equipment, please be >sure and eMail me ASAP. > >-- >VAXman- OpenVMS APE certification number: AAA-0001 VAXman(a)TMESIS.COM

25 years, 3 months

PDP CDROMS

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> Count me in as a confirmed purchaser of the SigTape CDRs.. >This brings up a good point. Tim, are you talking CD-ROMs or CD-Rs? I for >one would prefer a CD-ROM, as thier life span is considerably longer. >However, CD-R might be more practical considering the low demand for >something such as this (at least I think the demand would be low, well >obviously not in this mailing list though). I would *like* to know there's enough demand out there to get some real CD-ROM's pressed. It looks like this becomes feasible with a quantity of 500 of each. If someone knows of low-volume CD pressers that would be suitable for this project, I'd appreciate getting clued-in. Barring that, gold CD-R's look to be the next best option. -- 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, 3 months

Fw: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it.

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

they were already grabbed by me. In a message dated 7/29/99 4:05:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time, danburrows(a)mindspring.com writes: > Thought there might be some interest here. Spotted on local newsgroup. > Please contact poster directly. > Dan > -----Original Message----- > From: User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys <rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> > Newsgroups: triangle.forsale > Cc: rdkeys <rdkeys> > Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 2:51 PM > Subject: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it. > > > >Sadly, after 20 years of playing the great 8 inch flopper routine, I have > >now retired all my early 8 inch computer maschinen to the bit bucket in > >the landfill. RIP old CP/M.....you served me well.... > > > >Now, that leaves me with 13 boxes of new shrinkwrapped SSDD 8 inch > >floppies, and about another 75 loose 8 inch floppies. Also, I have > >a complete SIGM CP/M archive on 8 inch floppies, in storage case, > >about 100 8 inch floppies worth. > > > >I did not have the heart to relegate these things to the dustbin. > > > >So, dear friends, computer dinosaur users, who wants them? > > > >They are yours for the hauling..... > > > >Bob Keys > >rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu

25 years, 3 months

Fw: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it.

by danburrows＠mindspring.com

Thought there might be some interest here. Spotted on local newsgroup. Please contact poster directly. Dan -----Original Message----- From: User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys <rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu> Newsgroups: triangle.forsale Cc: rdkeys <rdkeys> Date: Tuesday, July 27, 1999 2:51 PM Subject: Free 8 inch floppy disks and SIGM disk collection - U haul it. >Sadly, after 20 years of playing the great 8 inch flopper routine, I have >now retired all my early 8 inch computer maschinen to the bit bucket in >the landfill. RIP old CP/M.....you served me well.... > >Now, that leaves me with 13 boxes of new shrinkwrapped SSDD 8 inch >floppies, and about another 75 loose 8 inch floppies. Also, I have >a complete SIGM CP/M archive on 8 inch floppies, in storage case, >about 100 8 inch floppies worth. > >I did not have the heart to relegate these things to the dustbin. > >So, dear friends, computer dinosaur users, who wants them? > >They are yours for the hauling..... > >Bob Keys >rdkeys(a)weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu > >

25 years, 3 months

IEEE-488 (was Re: Tek 4041)

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- Roger Goswick <ccfsm(a)ipa.net> wrote: > Hi All: > > I've got a hankering to play with the IEEE-488 bus but can't see paying > the current prices that most people seem to want for a IEEE-488 > controller for a P.C. On that front, I've got a couple of older 8-bit IEEE cards that I would love to find out information on... They're National Instruments cards (over 10 years old!), p/n 180212-01, with a 5-position DIP switch (U17), an IRQ jumper area (I2-I7), a DMA jumper area (A/R 1-3), a non-installed optional battery and (I think clock chip) 58167. The main IEEE chips are an NEC D7210C and NS DS75162AN driver. When I first got them, I went to the National Instruments page and found no references. Anything would be helpful at this point. Thanks, -ethan === Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com _____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Free instant messaging and more at http://messenger.yahoo.com

25 years, 3 months

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> 2. The RSX-11 CD-ROM. The sum total of stuff here comes very near >> 650 Mbytes, so it's not possible to have "dual-format" stuff here. >> So I propose three different flavors: >> >> 2A: An ODS-1 (i.e. native RSX-11 format) CD-ROM. Only useful to >> those with a CD-ROM drive hooked up to a real PDP-11, or to those >> using John Wilson's full-blown E11 emulator. >Can OpenVMS 7.2 read ODS-1, and if so does this require a VAX or will it >work on a Alpha. *That's* a long story. Let's set the wayback machine back to 1974 or so, when RSX and ODS-1 was developed. At that point in time, the ODS-1 definition allowed for disks up to 512 Mbytes in size. That wasn't a problem at the time, as the disks it was being developed on were, at most, 2.5 Mbytes or 5 Mbytes. Then, in 1976/77/78, early VMS development started - at first on an emulator running on a PDP-11/70. The first VMS versions only supported ODS-1 disks, but then "ODS-2" was developed and became the mainstay shortly after official release. A few years after that, larger disk drives began becoming available. The RSX-11 folks updated their definition of ODS-1 to allow for drives larger than 512 Mbytes, but the VMS folks didn't. The chasm between "RSX-11 ODS-1" and "VMS ODS-1" has widened since. Alpha/VMS has never supported ODS-1 volumes, largely because nobody at DEC ever went to the trouble of putting support in. And the RSX-11 ODS-1 definition has grown even more, to allow drives much larger than 8 Gbytes to be usable on modern RSX-11 systems. The RSX-11 CD-ROM is, in size, well over 512 Mbytes and as a result can't even be mounted on a VAX/VMS machine as an ODS-1 volume, because current versions of VMS don't support the extensions to get over 512 Mbytes. And Alpha/VMS simply refuses to even try to mount any ODS-1 volume. Now, I'm currently involved in a project, spearheaded by me and a few RSX oldtimers who have kept current on Vax/VMS and Alpha/VMS developments, for "regularizing" ODS-1 support across RSX-11, VAX/VMS, and Alpha/VMS. We have offers of assistance from insiders in DECpaq's VMS Engineering, as well as the official ODS-1 spec. As a result, support for ODS-1 in both VAX/VMS and Alpha/VMS will be improved soon, if everything works as planned. (And all those involved have enough Copious Free Time to implement the details.) >> 2B: An ISO9660 CD-ROM filled with RSX-11 virtual disks. These would >> be useful to folks who could Kermit or FTP the logical disks to >> a real RSX-11 machine with a virtual disk driver, or to those >> running John Wilson's full-blown E11. >Hmmm, doesn't this require a fairly new version of RSX-11? For hobbyists, >this is likely to be a problem. I know the version I've got doesn't support >virtual disks. I think that Mentec officially introduced support for virtual disks and virtual tapes beginning with 11M+ V4.5 - yes, fairly recent. >Although, I seem to recall there is a DECUS program to allow this... Yep, there is a freeware virtual disk driver that works under 11M+ (but not, AFAIK, under 11M). -- 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, 3 months

PDP CDROMS

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

John Foust wrote: >At 10:31 PM 7/28/99 -0400, William Donzelli wrote: >> >>You may not have to think about trying to sell every last CD pressed. A >>few years back, a friend had 500 CDs made (the pressing of the disks, >>jewel cases, and full color insert/back) for something like $1100. The >>price may have gone down since then. At $15/each, it would not take long >>to get back the original investment. And these are pretty much the costs today (they'll be a bit less if I have real plain-jane artwork and no insert.) The real question is whether I can sell them in the required volume. >It's that kind of thinking that leads to stock rooms full of >CDs you can't sell fast enough, like the one I had in the basement >until I unloaded them at a price that barely covered the cost >of my investment. See, I'm not *trying* to make more than my investment; I'm just trying to get the PDP-11 freeware archives into the hands of everyone that can use them. (If any folks deduce that I'm obsessive about collecting and distributing this stuff, from the fact that I've been building the PDP-11 freeware archives for most of a decade now, largely from scrounged and discarded 9-tracks, 8" floppies, and disk packs, they're probably correct. When one of my former employers tossed ten thousand 9-tracks they'd accumulated over a few decades, I literally spent an entire night in the dumpster with a flashlight trying to rescue what DECUS and other freeware that I could.) >For heaven's sake, CD-Rs make much more sense. If your CD-R fails, >get another copy from Tim or someone else. Real pressed CD-ROM's *almost* make sense: The cost for getting a glass master made is about $750, and getting a few hundred CD-ROM's pressed from this is only about a buck a piece. Plain black artwork on the surface adds another $100 or so to the price. Divide the $1000 cost up 80 ways or so, and a $15 target price becomes reasonable. Seeing as how the collection is going to occupy at least 2 CD-ROM's, and probably more (especially if I want to satisfy folks who want ODS-1 format CD-ROM RSX Sig tape collections, which is *inifinitely* convenient for folks with a CD-ROM drive on their PDP-11 RSX box - I can't tell you how neat it is to be able to put a collection of hundreds of 9-tracks, spanning three different decades, onto a CD-ROM and have them all completely accessible on the -11 instantly!), I'm looking at $2000-$3000 just to get the glass masters made for pressing "a set". Gold CD-R's look to be the next best thing, and I can run those off fairly reliably in small volumes. What I'm tempted to do is take the income >from CD-R's, and let that accumulate until it makes economic sense to get glass master(s) made. At that point, everyone who got a Gold CD-R will magically get an honest-to-goodness CD-ROM. Does this sound like the "best of both worlds"? Folks would be welcome to buy multiple Gold CD-R's of the same volume if they wanted to speed the process up a bit :-). -- 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, 3 months

RT-11/RSX-11/RSTS freeware CD-ROM

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

John Zabolitzky wrote: >count me in for the RT11 volume. >Much better than downloading - but the ISO _OR_ RT11 format surely >would be good both to have !! It looks like the collection will be split up the following ways: 1. One RT-11 CD-R, with both ISO9660 *and* RT-11 style directories. The ISO9660 directory will contain RT-11 logical disks that can be examined on a PC clone with John Wilson's PUTR (or on a VMS machine with VMS EXCHANGE) and will be at the beginning of the disk, and the RT-11 style directories will be at the "end" of the disk and accessed as high-numbered partitions through RT-11's DU driver, for those lucky enough to have a CD-ROM drive directly connected to their -11. Those using the full-blown version of John Wilson's E11 emulator could access the high-numbered RT-11 partitions, those using the non-full-blown version could still look at the logical disks on the ISO9660 partition. The "dual format" RT-11 CD-R is possible because the sum total of all the RT-11 stuff is under 300 Megabytes - thus I can put everything on the CD-R twice, once in the ISO9660 directory and once in a RT-11 directory. 2. The RSX-11 CD-ROM. The sum total of stuff here comes very near 650 Mbytes, so it's not possible to have "dual-format" stuff here. So I propose three different flavors: 2A: An ODS-1 (i.e. native RSX-11 format) CD-ROM. Only useful to those with a CD-ROM drive hooked up to a real PDP-11, or to those using John Wilson's full-blown E11 emulator. 2B: An ISO9660 CD-ROM filled with RSX-11 virtual disks. These would be useful to folks who could Kermit or FTP the logical disks to a real RSX-11 machine with a virtual disk driver, or to those running John Wilson's full-blown E11. 2C: An ISO9660 CD-ROM with all the files from the RSX SIG and DECUS collections as individual files. Source code could be Kermit'ted or FTP'ed to a real RSX machine as necessary. I want to keep options 2A and 2B open, because these allow the most direct access to the RSX-11 files on a RSX-11 machine or emulator. But I suspect that many people will end up with 2C, just because this is the only option for files directly human-readable on a PC-clone (not running E11) or workstation. -- 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, 3 months

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test-drb July 1999