test-drb June 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

160 participants
580 discussions

In defense of NASA: was Re: Wirin' up blinkenlights

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jun 9, 0:08, Zane H. Healy wrote: > On June 9, R. D. Davis wrote: > >Do any computer preservationists seriously use their systems to heat their > >houses in the winter in place of a furnace? > > Well, the room in the house with all the computers (well, except the ones > living in the garage) has the heating blocked off, Same with my office/computer room; there are two machines and an old (and therefore relatively power-hungry) hub that are on 24/7. It's a small room and has the heating off and the two adjacent rooms have the heating turned way down. There's usually a machine in the garage on 24/7 in the winter; if ever it's not on, there's a heater and/or dehumidifier there to protect the tools and 'puters. > OTOH, most of that heat comes from 1 21" monitor, and the real problem is > the design of this house. Even without the computer equipment on this room > is considerably hotter than the rest of the house. Funny how that happens, isn't it? Mine's the same: upper floor, centre room, just at the top of the stairs, seems to collect all the heat from downstairs -- and has a 20" Sony GDM1961/VRT-19HA. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

24 years, 1 month

In defense of NASA: was Re: Wirin' up blinkenlights

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 9, R. D. Davis wrote: > ObClassiccmp: > ------------- > > Do any computer preservationists seriously use their systems to heat their > houses in the winter in place of a furnace? I haven't run a heater in winter for quite some time. I have a small electric/ceramic heater in the bedroom because it's difficult to move the heat that far away from the machine room. But I only need that on the coldest of days. None of those are really my "classic" machines but I figured it'd fit. :) -Dave McGuire

24 years, 1 month

3B2/600 Free to Whomever wants it... (fwd)

by rdd＠smarty.smart.net

I found this on comp.sys.3b1 in case anyone can save it: ------- start of forwarded message ------- Path: news.smart.net!outfeed2.news.cais.net!info.usuhs.mil!uky.edu!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.atl!news4.mco.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <393A683B.F0D3731C(a)bellsouth.net> From: Average Torvaldsian <mflang(a)bellsouth.net> Organization: Happy enough without any, thanks for asking... X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.37 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.sys.att,comp.sys.3b1 Subject: 3B2/600 Free to Whomever wants it... Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 29 Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 10:31:23 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.78.231.1 X-Trace: news4.mco 960142535 216.78.231.1 (Sun, 04 Jun 2000 14:15:35 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2000 14:15:35 EDT Xref: news.smart.net comp.sys.att:2874 comp.sys.3b1:1794 I have a 3B2/600 to give to whomever wants it. It belonged to the local AT&T group here in Orlando FL (as an asset tag), and is apparently the only survivor of three that fed Usenet into the Central Florida area. It works fine, boots without problem, and includes a console terminal, keyboard, user books, and a number of tapes. One of those is said to be a bootable tape with a complete backup. Sixteen megs ram, two 120 meg SCSI drives, 5.25" floppy and tape drives. It does not have an net card, though: that died and was removed before I got it, nor does it have any disks. I don't have any time to devote to the poor thing, it looks all forlorn sitting in the corner, and I'd really like to see it go to someone who has the time to get the thing running. Obviously, due to the size and weight, I can not ship it, but it is here to be picked up in east Orange County, Fla, pretty much anytime. If you are close by in a surrounding county, I would be willing to bring it to you. If interested, <mailto:mflang@bellsouth.net> or <mailto:qillerpenguin@hotmail.com> and we'll arrange pickup/drop off. Max. (ps: during the last week of June and first week of July, I will be in the Davenport (Scott County) area of Iowa, and if someone in the surrounding area is interested in it, let me know, as I'd also be willing to bring it for delivery.) -- All parts should go together without forcing... By all means, do not use a hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925. ------- end of forwarded message ------- -- -- R. D. Davis rdd(a)perqlogic.com http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd 410-744-4900

24 years, 1 month

Australian Totalisator

by foo＠siconic.com

Here is a great website that documents a until now unknown (to me at least) tabulating system invented in Australia in around 1913 used at horse tracks. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~bconlon/ It is a pretty amazing history. It extends into the digital computer age and goes into some detail about the use of PDP 11's which eventually replaced the mechanical and then electromechanical design. Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking for a six in a pile of nines... Coming soon: VCF 4.0! VCF East: Planning in Progress See http://www.vintage.org for details!

24 years, 1 month

Wirin' up blinkenlights

by allisonp＠world.std.com

>Interesting idea, a Q-bus front panel. > >The address lines are present, just wire those up to lights. Various Nope! they are address/data multiplexed... you have to latch the address and data to display it. >signals are there as well. A DMA cycle can take forever so you could build nope, it will bus timout on you. >the switch register to deposit directly into memory. Decoding an address >for the switch register in the top 4K would be pretty straightforward as Yes it would. >well. Does anyone know if there is a defined location for it? Displaying >registers would be difficult to do "on the fly" however you could probably >force the CPU to execute a MOV Rx, #DISPLY fairly easily. Software loop on an interrupt would write to static latches to do that. >Circuit Cellar Ink on building your own CPU in an FPGA (see >www.fpgacpu.org) and it included a VGA interface (which they displayed >characters on) clearly however if you were using it as God intended you >would create a virtual front panel :-) interesting. The reason for frontpannels in the first place was more diagnostic in nature and to start them up. When ram and rom got cheaper along with mass storage the whole point of the frontpannel becomes passe`. My 8f would be hard to use without it as it has no rom and it's a maintenance tool. From the other side, it would be pointless on the 11/73 as the rom monitor is much more useful than any front pannel. The ALTAIR was the machine that made having a frontpannel when rom would do clear for me. It was a lot of hardware to do what a simple rom card could do better. Allison

24 years, 1 month

Wirin' up blinkenlights

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

PC replaces Cray...film at 11. Not quite yet, I'm afraid. The PC isn't the end-all, be-all of computing. -Dave McGuire On June 8, Richard Erlacher wrote: > Careful, now . . . due to the passage of time and the change of the > "climate" the PDP's, Vaxen, Cray's, etc, that are sitting in basements and > garages are the toys now, and the former toys, the PC's, are the "real" > computers. Bizzarre, isn't it? > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: R. D. Davis <rdd(a)smart.net> > To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> > Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2000 4:45 PM > Subject: Re: Wirin' up blinkenlights > > > > On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > simulator and a PDP-11/45 front panel with no CPU boards. I'd like to > do > > > > sort of a faux PDP-11/45 with this setup by somehow wiring the front > panel > > > > up to the PC running Sim. > > > > > > > > Am I completely out of my mind, or is there even the remotest chance > of > > > > > > We're all out of our minds on this list ;-) > > > > Actually, I think that adding blinking lights, and switches, to any > > computer is a good idea, and, as my PDP-11s don't have lights and > > switches, I think it's time to add them... by creating a separate rack > > panel, of course. Has anyone here added lights and switches to one of > > the PDP-11s of incomplete design? > > > > > It's _possible_. It's probably less work to find a set of 11/45 CPU > > > boards and get them working, but it's still _possible_ to do what you > ask. > > > > The idea of finding a set of PDP-11 boards is a better idea, as then the > > front panel could be used with non-toy computer equipment. > > > > -- > > R. D. Davis > > rdd(a)perqlogic.com > > http://www.perqlogic.com/rdd > > 410-744-4900 > >

24 years, 1 month

Old laptops as cheap terminals (was Re: Old Macs = cheap terminals)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

>At least the older Xircom adapters can work in nybble-mode with a uni- >directional port. I just didn't think they'd break it with the newer >models. I want a PE3, not PE2 because of power consumption - the PE3 Ah ha, I wondered. >can be powered off of a parasitic cable (typically from the keyboard >jack, but there isn't one on an XT laptop; I was just going to wire >one in). There are parameters you can tell the PE3 to use when connecting I know, remember I said I have a few. I'll have to try one on the XT laptop. Allison

24 years, 1 month

DEC Hinote supervisor password

by mbg＠world.std.com

I know this is on the more contemporary side of the 10 year rule, but could someone contact me off-list who knows how to reset or override the supervisor password on a DEC Hinote (not ultra, not 2000)? Thanks in advance... Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg KB1FCA | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

24 years, 1 month

Perverted Mac-OS idea (was: Perverted DOS idea)

by netsurfer_x1＠hotmail.com

>::>Where can I find a list of INTs DOS uses? I checked a couple of >bookstores >::>but most of them aren't too helpful with low-level DOS. >:: >::People have already pointed you at Ralf Brown's wonderful interrupt list >::(which BTW is available in webified form at http://ctyme.com/rbrown.htm), >::but just to point out the obvious: it doesn't matter! If your emulation >is >::accurate enough to be useful, DOS will take care of itself. You'll >probably >::want to provide your own BIOS though, and for that the IBM PC or AT Tech >Ref >::manuals are wonderful. Computer Reset used to have NOS tech ref books at >::very good prices, don't know if that's still true or even if they're >still >::in business. Anyway, obviously the BIOS is your chance to substitute >some >::native I/O w/o having to muck with DOS itself. > >Well, it would be a sullied implementation. I'm thinking of having a native >6502 IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS (and probably COMMAND.COM), so the INTs would >need >to be simulated by that: hence the list :-) > >-- >----------------------------- personal page: >http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- > Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu >-- Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge >------- No way! You wouldn't want to ruin a Commodore 64 with that crap! Hell, while you guys are at it, why don't you try to port Mac-OS, or worse yet, MS Windows, to the Commodore 64. ____________________________________________________________ David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian. Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/ Computer Collection: "Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, Okimate 20. "Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II. "Delorean": TI-99/4A. "Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable. "Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3. "Boombox": Sharp PC-7000. ____________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

24 years, 1 month

Perverted DOS idea

by ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu

This is what happens to you when you study biochemistry all week. I had a perverted idea of building a DOS emulator on a C64 -- i.e., have the C64 emulate the 8086 in software, either in real time or some sort of JIT compilation method. How little memory could you run something like, say, DOS 3.3 in? All I would be supporting is a basic command set like COMMAND.COM, EDLIN, DEBUG, maybe XCOPY, etc. And are the INTs documented anywhere? Just a perverted idea, like I said. -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu -- "Garbage in -- gospel out" -------------------------------------------------

24 years, 1 month

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test-drb June 2000