test-drb December 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

192 participants
490 discussions

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> In a nice freebie haul that included a 128M Quadra 950, a 660AV, > a Syquest external, an HP ScanJet IIc, DeskWriter C, there was > an Optima Concorde 600 meg magneto-optical drive. This is > the Sony SMO-E501 mechanism. That's an odd-sized capacity... are these 5.25 inch carts, or 3.25 inch carts? If the latter, are you sure they aren't 640MB capacity? > On the back of the external SCSI box, there was a DIN-5 connector, > like a keyboard connector, that piqued my curiousity. Inside, > I saw that it was simply an external connector for 5 volt power. > What might have this been used for? For a portable (i.e. 12-volt car accessory) power supply? In order to use it with a portable/notebook/laptop? -dq

23 years, 7 months

Data Archival

by jforbes＠primenet.com

With the talk of CD life, I was contemplating saving data (including all my old software, ie MS/IBM DOS 1.1 -> 6.22). Also, we've begun to digitize the family pictures. It seems to me that nowadays we buy new hard drives with a few times more capacity every year or two. We also have several computers, many networked (at home, this is). I think that we may just keep all the info on hard drives, with an occasional CD-R backup, and it will get duplicated so many times over the years that we would be hard pressed to lose any data. Music/Video may be another story... Jim

23 years, 7 months

Apple IIgs/65816/65802 reference/programming books for trade/donation

by claudew＠sprint.ca

Hi I recently got my hands on a Apple IIgs Woz from someone that obviously was doing, tried or wanted to devellop some serious stuff for this machine... Included all (?) orignal official Apple hardcover reference books for the IIgs! Some I never knew existed! All in excellent condition. Approx. 10 large books... Several non-Apple books. I do not have the space for all of these. I am willing to part with these - now... Programming the 65816 (Sybex 1986) 65816/65802 Assembly Language Programming (Osborne/McGraw-Hill 1986) Inside the Apple IIgs (Sybex 1987) Exploring the Apple IIgs (Addisson-Wesley 1987) Mastering the Apple IIgs Toolbox (Compute! Publications 1987) Apple IIgs Technical reference (Osborne/Mcgraw-Hill 1987) As usual for me : no money offers please. I will give away or I will accept a trade/donation in exchange. My interests are home micros (non ibm-pc arch) from 197x-198x early 1990's...I am still looking for : Atari 8 bit floppy drive, Atari 800, early TRS80 stuff, Apple III, CP/M machines. Shipping will be from Montreal, Canada. Thanks for reading Claude

23 years, 7 months

Tools without warranty...

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Well, I can say from experience that Xcelite does not warranty their tools for anything other than manufacturing defects, since I broke one of their torx bits recently.. Nor was my Stanley torx driver that I broke on the same stubborn torx warrenteed.. grr.. thats when I got out Ye Olde Drill. Of course, I must say that my tools comprise a weird combination of like 8 toolsets, mine, my dad's, both of my grandfather's, and around 4 or so misc. sets of tools that we have at work and bought at auction.. But not having to produce a reciept is good, I recently took a Craftsman tool that broke before I was alive to Sears and got it replaced, no sweat. Will J _____________________________________________________________________________________ Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com

23 years, 7 months

What is an Emulex UD23?

by kees.stravers＠iae.nl

Hi, In the PDP-11/84 that whas recently rolled in here, I found an Emulex UD23 card. What does this card do? I searched on the net, but couldn't find any information on it, not even on my own site ;-) and all the periphals that came with the 11/84 all have their own cards in there. Help? Kees. -- Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/ My home page (old computers,music,photography) http://www.vaxarchive.org/ Info on old DEC VAX computers Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered

23 years, 7 months

World's Crappiest Drives (was Re: A&J Microdrive)

by Glenatacme＠aol.com

In a message dated 12/06/2000 4:14:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, xds_sigma7(a)hotmail.com writes: > As for the ST225, don't forget that they *love* to cook their logic > boards... there's one spot that gets hot and then the logic board rolls over > and dies... I've also seen dozens of them which heat up after about 30 minutes. The platters expand due to the heat, and, if you're lucky, you just get a bunch of bad reads. If you're unlucky enough to be doing writes while the thing is hot, when it cools off most everything on the disk will be garbage. I'm sure others must have seen this behavior from the 225 . . . Glen 0/0

23 years, 7 months

What is an Emulex UD23?

by miller＠keyways.com

Hello: The Emulex UD23 should be a Unibus ESDI disk controller. If the firmware version is high enough there should be FRD (on board field runnable diags) that you can invoke via ODT. Email if you need setup info or instructions on starting the FRD. Mitch miller(a)keyways.com >Hi, >In the PDP-11/84 that whas recently rolled in here, I found an Emulex >UD23 card. What does this card do? I searched on the net, but couldn't >find any information on it, not even on my own site ;-) and all the >periphals that came with the 11/84 all have their own cards in there. >Help? > >Kees. -- Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/ My home page (old computers,music,photography) http://www.vaxarchive.org/ Info on old DEC VAX computers Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered

23 years, 7 months

Heathkit Fall 1978 catalog now on-line; H-8, H-11, H-9 and ET-3400.

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Hi, I just finished scanning all of the computer related pages from my Fall 1978 Heathkit catalag and posting them on the web. There is a link to all of them at "http://www.intellistar.net/~rigdonj/hk/heathkit.htm". Items shown in the pages include the H-8 and H-11 computers, H-9 terminal, H-10 paper tape reader/punch, the WH-17 and WH-27 Floppy Disk Drives and the ET-3400 Microprocessor trainer and the EE-3401 training course that went with it. Enjoy! The next thing on my to-do list is the dig out all my Osborne books and make a list of them and sent them to ? for scanning and posting. I did find my Osborne 1 Technical manual today. Joe Shameless Plug - take a look at the stuff that I have for sale on E-OverPay while you're at it. There's a link at "http://www.intellistar.net/~rigdonj/joespage.htm".

23 years, 7 months

Professors worry that engineering students don't tinker enough...

by jforbes＠primenet.com

I worked my way thru mech engineering school (20 yrs ago) first at a junkyard (auto salvage), then a transmission shop. Back when part time minimum wage was still worth something compared to state subsidised tuition. I had no trouble passing the machine shop class :) and even whizzed thru ee for non-majors (remember the KIM?) Jim

23 years, 7 months

Professors worry that engineering students don't tinker enough...

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> When I was a grad student at Caltech I heard some professors offering >> some similar worries as much as 10 years ago.... See the full article at >I have often claimed that I am not an engineer. In one sense this most >certainly false (in that I make 'engines' -- namely ingenious mecahnisms). >In another sense it's certainly true -- my qualifications are in particle >physics, not engineering. In most of the US, putting "engineer" near your name doesn't require that you hold an engineering certification. For instance, my official title at my day job is "senior software engineer" but I've never taken a single software nor engineering course, much less certification exam, in my life. In other parts of the world, putting "engineer" near your name can only be done if you've passed the required certifications. >> But could they? Could a handful of engineering >> majors, circa 2000, actually make a computer out of >> assorted parts? >I'd be interested to know what these 'parts' were. Motherboard/video >card/disk drive/PSU? (in other words 'making a PC'). Microprocessor, RAM, >EPROM, TTL glue? (making a microprocessor board, like manya of us have >done many times)? Lots of simple gate and flip-flop chips, or FPGAs >(making a processor at the gate level)? Almost certainly motherboard/video card/disk drive/PSU in this context. (I, too, was shocked in the early 90's to find a book called "Build your own PC" and all it did was show you how to plug boards together.) >Unfortunately, this seems to be the case in the UK as well. I've met >engineering graduates who don't have a _clue_ about real-world >electronics or mechanics. Show them a simple circuit board or a simple >mechanism -- even something as simple as a striking clock -- and they >don't have any ideas as to how it works and what the parts are for. There's a lot in the modern world that encourages folks to over-specialize. In my experience teaching, in particular, I found that many students weren't interested in an interesting aside because they didn't *need* that tidbit to pass the class. Take that same logic - "I don't need that to pass" - and extend it past schoolwork to jobs, relationships, whatever, and you get 90% of the population. >Another thing that people are remarkably bad at these days is making >sensible approximations. They just throw a computer at the problem and >take whatever answer it gives as correct. Now, don't get me wrong -- I >don't want to solve complex (differential) equations by hand. But often I >can get an answer to better than 10% by making reasonable approximations, 10%? That's way too much accuracy. When I was at Caltech I took a class called "Order-of-magnitude Physics" that was probably the best I ever took. Factor of ten was more than good enough for us :-). A quick web search reveals the fact that the class now has a web page at http://dope.caltech.edu/ph103c/info.html It's actually close in popularity to the old "Feynman Lectures" classes; it's very common to find postdocs and professors sitting in the audience along with the undergrads and grad students. Tim.

23 years, 7 months

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test-drb December 2000