test-drb September 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

160 participants
610 discussions

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 9/29/99 3:47:37 PM US Eastern Standard Time, red(a)bears.org writes: > On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, David Williams wrote: > > > I could use help getting doc and drivers for each of the following: > > > > Sonic Blaster > > > > Info on jumper settings, drivers, etc. would receive much thanks! > > Any online sites for any of this? > > About a year ago, I bought a Sonic Blaster---new, opened box---at a > thrift. It included all documentation and software. e-mail me off list to > arrange some sort of trading of information. > > My problem is that if I plug the card into either of my IIgs machines > (ROMs rev 01 and 00), the machine hangs at boot, before it even looks at > the floppy drives. It's been a while so I can't remember the exact > behaviour. I recall trying even to set the slot it was plugged into to "my > card" but that this didn't change anything. > > Any ideas? > perhaps the downlevel rom revision could be causing your problems. I remember the upgrade to rom 03 adressed some software and possibly hardware issues. d

24 years, 7 months

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

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

In a message dated 09/28/1999 5:53:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time, ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk writes: > In general the older full-height 5.25" drives are pretty slow at > stepping, and may even require 30ms between pulses (some older controller > cards/OSes always used this timing 'to be safe'). Half-height drives, or > 3.5" ones tend to support faster step rates. The only way to be sure, > though, is to check the specs of the drives that you are using. Thanks again! This is valuable information for me. I've got bins full of half-height 5.25" drives here, so if worse came to worse and I had to replace the 1770 with a 1772 I'm certain I could come up with a compatible drive. 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 one 5.25 DSDD disk with 40 TPI, and another with 50. The maker of the system says that it will support drives up to 255 tracks per side, "if the drives themselves ever do." Anyway, thanks as always -- Glen Goodwin 0/0

24 years, 7 months

Corona Data System double floppy IBM Compatible PC (fwd)

by musicman38＠mindspring.com

I Came across a Cordata XT computer at a local thrift store today, They want $25.00 for it.. I think its to much, but it is interesting in the fact the 12inch mono monitor is built into the computer case.. Its a very clean unit with the original manuals.. I did not know that they had copied the IBM BIOS in these machines.. DO you think this machine will have any collector value ? Phil.. --Original Message----- From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, September 24, 1999 11:10 AM Subject: Re: Corona Data System double floppy IBM Compatible PC (fwd) > > >Sellam Ismail wrote: >> >> The Corona Data Systems portable is a bit historic in that they copied >> the IBM PC BIOS without license from IBM and got sued out of existence. >> If anyone wants this then please contact the owner directly. > >My understanding from people that used to work at Corona Data Systems (later >changed to Cordata) was a divorce created a split in the company and >resulted in it being killed off. This is the first I have ever heard about >IBM sueing them; where did that information come from?

24 years, 7 months

brag

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

BTW, last night I got a program working on my CoCo 1 to read serial data through the bit-banger at 38400 baud. And that's without even doing the double-speed thing. Not bad for a < 1MHz machine. Bill.

24 years, 7 months

Help with Apple II cards

by dlw＠trailingedge.com

A friend at work told me the Goodwill by our office had a bunch of stuff in so I went by there during lunch. Picked up an Apple II+ and an Apple //gs for $10.98. I already have several of these but really wanted the cards inside (and some spare parts). The //gs came with an Apple //gs Memory Expansion filled with 1 meg, a CMS SCSI II card and a Sonic Blaster. The II+ had an Apple Language card, Apple Serial Interface, Disk II Interface and a Saturn RAM Card with what looks to be 64K and space for 8 more chips. Now the questions.... I could use help getting doc and drivers for each of the following: CMS SCSI II Sonic Blaster Saturn RAM Card Info on jumper settings, drivers, etc. would receive much thanks! Any online sites for any of this? I'd really like to get that scsi card working on my //gs so I could finally use a hard disk with it. Thanks. ----- David Williams - Computer Packrat dlw(a)trailingedge.com http://www.trailingedge.com

24 years, 7 months

Old main-frames & data multiplexors....

by arfonrg＠texas.net

I have come into a Teleplex box that IIRC, is used to allow time sharing onto a main-frame by several terminals... I never quite understood how this worked. I mean, how did the main-frame know to suspend the current operation and resume a previous with the use of these old multiplexors. FOND MEMORY: I remember that back in 1982, my TRS-80 Model II had a multiplexor option available to allow it to have multiple users. What can I use this thing for? A ---------------------------------------- Tired of Micro$oft??? Move up to a REAL OS... ######__ __ ____ __ __ _ __ # #####/ / / / / __ | / / / / | |/ /## ####/ / / / / / / / / / / / | /### ###/ /__ / / / / / / / /_/ / / |#### ##/____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ /_____/ /_/|_|#### # ###### ("LINUX" for those of you without fixed-width fonts) ---------------------------------------- Be a Slacker! http://www.slackware.com Slackware Mailing List: http://www.digitalslackers.net/linux/list.html

24 years, 7 months

RCA 1861, NTSC and a DEC VR-201

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- allisonp(a)world.std.com wrote: > low impedence inputs are used on better monitors to keep the video signal > from getting smeared by cable capacitance, (undesireable for 80 char > lines!) so they terminate the cable at 75ohms. If the drive ckt does not > have the oomph to puch that the signal will drop to nothing nad there will > be liitle if any video. So how can I soup up the output of the 1861 to drive a 75ohm input? -ethan ===== Infinet has been sold. The domain is going away in February. Please send all replies to erd(a)iname.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com

24 years, 7 months

Ace & Security

by morrison＠t-iii.com

Worse still, on say a Unix system, you can reboot the system from your own boot floppy and bypass the security system. Neil Morrison email:morrison@t-iii.com > -----Original Message----- > From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk [SMTP:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk] > Sent: Monday, September 27, 1999 12:58 PM > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers > Subject: Re: Ace > ------------------ > Mind you, if you've got that sort > of access, you could remove disk packs (or tapes) and read them on your > own machine. > ------------------

24 years, 7 months

imaging silliness: can *YOU* id everything?

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> Hi all. >> >> I saw this pile at a garage sale, should I not have passed on it for $5? >> >> http://users.leading.net/~dogas/COMPOSITE.jpg > > Just curious, the Pet shows a blue label and CRT cover. Where does this one > fall in the scheme of when the Pets were released? All of mine have black > labels and CRT covers. Very early. You can tell by the commie-rebadged Sanyo tape deck, which was soon replaced by the Commodore C2N. Philip. This E-mail message is private and confidential and should only be read by those to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, reproduction, modification or publication of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. This message is not intended to be relied upon by any person without subsequent written confirmation of its contents. This company therefore disclaims all responsibility and accepts no liability of any kind which may arise from any person acting, or refraining from acting, upon the contents of the message without having had subsequent written confirmation. If you have received this communication in error, or if any problems occur in transmission please notify us immediately by telephone on +44 (0)2476 425474

24 years, 7 months

Fixing a PET?

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> For the 8032, you'd need a "PETSCI" chart - Commodore didn't adhere completely > to the ASCII standard coding. I have a copy of the PETSCI codes, but they're at > home, and I'm not. If anyone needs them, e-mail me and I'll be happy to send > them to you, or post them. First time PET users beware. The character codes with ASC() and CHR$() are NOT the same as the screen codes. There are two character sets. You'll probably be debugging in lower case mode, so, in numerical order of screen code, here's the lowercase set: 0-31 (Decimal) @abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz[\]^_ where ^ is up arrow and _ is left arrow. (These correspond in PETSCII to the ASCII codes for upper case and display as upper case on early PETS.) 32-63 (exactly the same as ASCII, from space to question mark. Also exactly the same as PETSCII) 64-95 The characters you get by shifting (i.e. with the shift key) the first group. Upper case for the letters, mostly vertical and horizontal lines and a diagonal cross for the others. Shift-up arrow should be a PI symbol, but in lower case mode comes out as a chequerboard. 96-127 The characters you get by shifting the second group. On later PET keyboards, the shift key didn'd work quite as on earlier PETS, so you probably can't type some of these characters. They include vertical and horizontal lines at the boundaries of the character cell, T-junctions of the various vertical and horizontal lines in the middle, half of the characters required to do lo-res graphics (four pixels to a character cell), and histogram characters. Of particular use in PET "graphics" is code 102, a 50% grey square. (Gosh, to think I still remember the code for that. But then we always called those characters "one-oh-two's" anyway). Beware code 96 which is a shifted space, and displays as a blank. 128-255 The inverse video ("reverse field") of the characters from 0 to 127 respectively (thus including, FWIW, the rest of the characters for lo-res graphics). Tips for debugging screen memory: The addresses for the screen are 32768 to 34767 inclusive, in the usual order. Deposit with POKE A,B and examine with B=PEEK(A) or more usually PRINT PEEK(A). Note that I'm used to uppercase, but all except the first PETS use lowercase for keywords when in lowercase mode. The screen editor actually reads the screen memory. So if there is a strange character there, go up to that line and edit it (you'll soon see how the INSERT key works) to read PRINT ASC("#") and press return, and it will return the PETSCII code for the character (in this example, 35, like ASCII). This does not work for inverse video, though. Also, if the contents of the screen memory are being corrupted, you won't be able to type sensible things on the command line... Hope this helps. Philip. This E-mail message is private and confidential and should only be read by those to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, copying, reproduction, modification or publication of this communication is strictly prohibited. Please delete the message from your computer and destroy any copies. This message is not intended to be relied upon by any person without subsequent written confirmation of its contents. This company therefore disclaims all responsibility and accepts no liability of any kind which may arise from any person acting, or refraining from acting, upon the contents of the message without having had subsequent written confirmation. If you have received this communication in error, or if any problems occur in transmission please notify us immediately by telephone on +44 (0)2476 425474

24 years, 7 months

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test-drb September 1999