test-drb September 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

160 participants
610 discussions

by ToddJ＠symresources.com

My bulletin board system has over 4 gigs of classic computer games. They are all games that haven't been sold since 1993. I also have the really old DOS versions. I know it is illegal to have pirated games and software, but this is stuff that you just can't find or buy ANYWHERE and there is no commercial demand for such programs. Todd -----Original Message----- From: Rodrigo Ventura [mailto:yoda@isr.ist.utl.pt] Sent: Thursday, September 30, 1999 3:12 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: Classical Computing software? Hi. Are there any repositories on the net containing ancient software? For instance, tape dumps of very old UNIX versions, or Symbolics LISP system. Is anyone collecting this kind of stuff in elecronic form? Cheers, -- *** Rodrigo Martins de Matos Ventura <yoda(a)isr.ist.utl.pt> *** Web page: http://www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~yoda *** Teaching Assistant and MSc Student at ISR: *** Instituto de Sistemas e Robotica, Polo de Lisboa *** Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa, PORTUGAL *** PGP fingerprint = 0119 AD13 9EEE 264A 3F10 31D3 89B3 C6C4 60C6 4585

25 years, 2 months

Small parts request

by af-list＠lafleur.wfi-inc.com

Small but fairly important... I need drive mounting trays for a MacIIfx, floppy and HD. If someone has these for cheap, let me know...there are a couple on eBay but I don't want to wait the week and a half it would take to complete the transaction... Thanks, Aaron

25 years, 2 months

floppy controller IC (was Re: Fixing a PET?)

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

In a message dated 09/29/1999 3:04:36 PM Eastern Daylight Time, ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk writes: > > Interestingly, with this system when a disk is formatted it is required > that > > the number of TPI be input. This is then stored on the disk so I might > have > > I assume that's total number of tracks, or something similar. Yes, the total number of tracks. > LDOS (and related OSes) on the TRS-80s does much the same thing. When you > format a disk it asks you for the number of sides and number of tracks. > And provided the hardware is capable of handling what you ask for, it > will format and (correctly) use the disk. Interesting -- I'd _not_ be shocked to find out that the maker of the system I use "borrowed" the idea from RadShack. BTW my understanding is that all 5.25 diskettes made today are bin-sorted -- that is, they shoot for DSHD and the fallouts are sold as DSDD. I have a number of "DSDD" diskettes here which work well when formatted with 50+ tracks, although how this is possible with "40 track" DSDD drives I haven't a clue. Perhaps you do. > On the model 1, the original drives were 35track, but all later ones > could do 40 tracks (or a little more, like 42 tracks). Needless to say, > the extra storage, particularly on 'system disks' came in handy back then :-) Fortunately this system doesn't require "system disks" (the os is on an eprom) but I know what you mean. In a floppy based system a few extra KB can _really_ make a difference ;>) Regards, Glen Goodwin 0/0

25 years, 2 months

old INTEL documents

by edick＠idcomm.com

Since I've been unable to dispatch these old manuals about which I wrote last week to the VCF for handoff to Hans Franke, I've decided that I may just hold onto them until I've had time to scan them and find a suitable web site at which I can make them available to all who desire. In the meantime, if there's one you need, contact me, as I'll put your request on the pile to scan in order of the resulting precedence. That will cost less and motivate me to make sure the sheet feeder on my scanner works properly. Dick

25 years, 2 months

Off for a few days!

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Hello, port-vax and classiccmp folk! I'll be de-subscribing until Monday so I don't get inundated with mail while I'm off at the Vintage Computer Festival. This means if you want to get in touch with me, you'll need to send me a personal note (though I fully expect to see a lot of you at VCF). ;-) Later! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

25 years, 2 months

IBM System/34 disk squeal?

by rws＠enteract.com

Hi- I fired up my System/34 tonight for the first time since it was retired in '95. Everything seemed to come up OK, except the 4 model 62PC disk drives started squealing as soon as they were powered on. It was deafening for about 10 seconds and gradually went away in about a minute. It came back a couple of times softly during the 10 minutes I ran them. While I fired up I was listening for ting-ting-ting of HDI and all I could hear is this squeal. I was also shining a light over the disk surface (clear HDA's are great- why aren't all disks this way?) on one of the drives and I didn't see any scratches forming, nor did I see them after powering off. The head actuators were unlocked (I've always moved the machine with them locked, but they were never locked at the company I got them from). Any ideas what might have caused this? My best guess was the spindle motor brakes, but it's impossible to tell with my head in a box full of squealing drives. Is is safe to run like this? I haven't moved the heads yet, but they seemed to quiet down after running for a while. Thanks, Richard

25 years, 2 months

Media interchange sillinesss (Was: floppy controller IC (was Re:

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

Grumpy Ol' Fred wrote: In a message dated 9/30/99 11:41:38 AM EST, cisin(a)xenosoft.com writes: << The 96TPI head can not do very good job of erasing or writing over the wide track. Some people claim success, but _I_ want better quality than that. >> Hit 'em with a bulk tape eraser first. << This must be a new meaning of "successfully" of which I was not previously aware. Did you store data on them? Yup. << Did you read the data? Yup. << Did the data last for more than a few days? Yup. << Do you CARE about the reliability of data? Nah - just a bunch of 0s and 1s anyway ;>) Actually my concern is with the reliability of the _media_ -- plenty of _data_ is crap regardless of the nature of the media it's stored on . . . Glen Goodwin 0/0

25 years, 2 months

floppy controller IC (was Re: Fixing a PET?)

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

In a message dated 09/30/1999 5:07:50 PM Eastern Daylight Time, donm(a)cts.com writes: > > ISTR formatting DSHD diskettes to 360 KB in an emergency (we're talking > > IBM-type pcs here) but only after hitting them with a bulk tape eraser to > > wipe them clean, and then using the proper DOS FORMAT parameters . . . > > Was this in a 1.2mb drive? I never tried that, only in a 360k drive. > > Hmmm! Interesting, I just tried it and it seems to work. Even wrote to > it in a 360k drive and it was readable. Question is, how long? It was in a 1.2mb drive (although others on the list will doubtless say this can't be true). As for stablilty, this was a long time ago but ISTR reading one of the disks a few weeks later. Glen Goodwin 0/0

25 years, 2 months

RCA 1861, NTSC and a DEC VR-201

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Sep 30, 19:13, Tony Duell wrote: > Subject: Re: RCA 1861, NTSC and a DEC VR-201 > > Blue-Red-Black-Gold = 62 ohms 5% tolerance > > > > The last is rather unlikely, since it's not an E12 or even E24 preferred > > value. > > Isn't it? It's certainly a fairly common resistor value, and I thought it > was the one between 56 and 68 in the E24 series. Er, I may have meant E6/E12. 62 *is* part of E24. I'm glad someone was reading it carefully :-) It's not particularly common though; E12 values are still more commonly used, in my experience. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 2 months

RCA 1861, NTSC and a DEC VR-201

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Sep 30, 10:25, Mark Tapley wrote: > Subject: Re: RCA 1861, NTSC and a DEC VR-201 > ethan said: > > >Yellow-Purple-Gold-Gold resistor, then tied to ground via > >a Grey-Red-Black-Gold (might be Sky Blue-Red-Black-Gold) and then through one > >of the rear pots. I would spec the values, but I'm not used to such odd > >colors > >in the significant digits of resistors (just as tolerance bands). Would a > >EE care to translate these? Might that second one be 92 Ohms? Could the > >first one be 7.5 Ohms? > > Puzzles me too. > > Silver 1e-2 > Gold 1e-1 > 1 Black 1e0 First 2 digits give mantissa, > 2 Brown 1e1 3rd digit gives exponent, > 3 Red 1e2 4th band gives quality of resistor (if present), else +/- 20% > 4 Orange 1e3 (silver = +/- 10%, gold= +/- 5%, red = +/- 2%) > 5 Yellow 1e4 5th band (if present) gives reliability (mil-spec, etc.) > 6 Green 1e5 > 7 Blue 1e6 Example: red-yellow-orange-gold = 2,4,10^3, 5% = 24k Ohm, 5% > 8 Violet 1e7 > 9 Gray (From Horowitz & Hill, The Art of Electronics, 1st Edition > 0 White pp. 645-646) > > No I'm not an EE but with Horowitz and Hill *anyone* can play an EE on TV, > so here's my guess: > > Yellow-Purple-Gold-Gold : 5 8 1e-1 5% = 5.8 +/- 0.29 Ohms > Grey-Red-Black-Gold : Confederate Oil-filled resistor :-) ok, ok.... > 9 3 1e0 5% = 93 +/- 4.65 Ohms > > Ok, if a *real* EE hasn't already appeared, please do so and set me straight. > - Mark Your colours are off by one :-) Black=0, white=9. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 2 months

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test-drb September 1999