test-drb November 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

247 participants
886 discussions

by vance＠ikickass.org

Could someone tell me what the last version of Macintosh System to run on 68K machines was? Where can I get a copy? Peace... Sridhar

23 years

Badtrans

by philpem＠bigfoot.com

Hi All, I've noticed that a few of you have been chatting about Badtrans - according to Symantec, if you drop the underscore from the "From:" address, you should end up with the user's actual e-mail address - if the virus chose to use the actual address... I've picked apart the message source and what it does is quite sneaky - it uses an IFRAME to load the virus and also uses MIME-headers-within-MIME-headers... A few of the regulars on alt.comp.virus might want to elaborate... It's a crafty little bugger - it even installs a keystroke logging trojan... Anyone remember the so-called "Sexyfun" or "Spirale" virus (it's real name was Hybris) - it came in an e-mail from hahaha @ sexyfun.net and could update itself over the web with new "plugins"... One of which displays a _huge_ hypnotic spiral on-screen... Sophos put a screenshot of it on their website (www.sophos.com). Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)bigfoot.com http://www.philpem.f9.co.uk/

23 years

History of Computing exam question

by mtapley＠swri.edu

Hans asked: >List the 20 to 30 systems you would display and briefly explain the >reason for choosing each. Fun question. Don't have time to really organize, but here's parts of my list: Napier's Bones digital solution for one class of computing problem Slide Rule (almost any) Analog computation, and portable computing power. Application of a fairly disjoint set of technologies to a very focussed solution that met a serious need in engineering Abacus (almost any) As with the slide rule, but now a discrete digital technology. Babbage's Engine ...or plans, if it couldn't be found or made a replica of. Large-scale compute power, digital technology with the greatest flexibility so far Bowditch's "American Practical Navigator" and a sextant Illustration of the market drive for computing power, and the tabular approach to meeting heavy-duty geometrical calculation problems. (Could just as well be the old Admiralty tables, I'm just biased in favor of Bowditch 'cause I'm American.) Zuse-1 (fill in the blank) Enigma machine, and Bomb (a matched pair) *serious* market drive -> compute power response for a single application Eniac (fill in the blank) IBM 360 (fill in the blank) PDP-11/xx Pick a good one, first minicomputer/lab computer. Brought compute power into a lot of lower-cost applications. Dec Rainbow typifies both MS-DOS and CP-M machines. somewhat breakthrough OS flexibility, (MS-DOS, CP/M, CCP/M, Venix, all of which were preexisting). Mac 128k GUI OS for the masses, origin of "friendly" computers (first computer to *smile* at me). VAX - any Illustration of successful extension of an existing architecture to more bits (twice as many) Alpha - any As VAX, but to 64 bits/RISC Cray 1 Vector supercomputer, electromechanical design breakthrough Newton PDA origin. Perq microprogramming, early workstation, heck Tony likes it so it must be good... F-14 flight computer integrated circuit microprocessor first application (?) NeXT Cube (original) OO system, sizeable leap in developer environment quality Sun Sparc-5 Desktop workstation, power/price/size breakthrough Sony Vaio or Mac Titanium Laptops get to practical size and retain serious power. DVD player (any) or CD player market driver for serious compute power cheap Sony PSX as above, including graphics Jet engine FADEC unit (any) compute power seriously ruggedized and making a pilot's life easier (livable). I'm sure I've left out a lot, apologies to all concerned. - Mark

23 years

Scrapping hardware to get it off the books (RE: Is it a Lisa or Mac XL?!)

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Should I even bother going back and asking to see the stuff >in the yard? Or, has this firm agreed not to resell anything >(I'm kinda assuming that what's true for this guy is industry >standard). I don't know the laws, but why shouldn't a scapper be allowed to sell the stuff in working condition? They are in the scrap business, and I would think once it is theirs, they should be allowed to sell it however they want (pulverize and sell as land fill, or repair and sell as working). Is there some law against selling the stuff in working condition? -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years

DEC PC04/PR8E Question

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

OK, the last part of my shipment just showed up, the Papertape reader. I'd thought the PC04 was a reader/punch. Am I correct in my revised assumption, that it came in three models; reader/punch, reader, and punch? Now for the first question, should there be anything on the right side (looking from the front) if it's only a reader? For some reason I've a bad feeling that I don't have a complete reader... On a positive note, the PDP-8/E looks to be in *far* better shape than I'd been lead to believe, so hopefully I'll be able to get it up and running with minimal effort (I could be so lucky). Though it's large enough I'm very tempted to transplant pieces into my PDP-8/M and put the /E in storage. Also I got a terrific looking pile of documenation and Volume 3 of the hardware manuals is twice the size of the copy I already had. Most of the manuals are ones I didn't have, and I've finally got a printset :^) Zane -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

23 years

Is it a Lisa or Mac XL?!

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I understand discontinuing a product but could never quite figure out why > you would actually destroy equipment. I mean what is the point? I'd imagine they were concerned about 10,000 MacXLs cutting into the selling of Mac 512ke & Mac Plus models... OTOH, if it happened during the Jobs era, no logic or reason was likely involved; Jobs has a proven track record of killing Apple products he personally dislikes. But pepsiboy may have been Lisa's nail-in-the-coffin, I just can't recall... -dq

23 years

Kalpana Etherswitch docs/firmware?

by mrbill＠mrbill.net

They got bought by Cisco, which seems to have buried the product. Anybody got docs/firmware for either a Kalpana Etherswitch EPS-1500 or a 2015-RS? Thanks. Bill -- Bill Bradford mrbill(a)mrbill.net Austin, TX

23 years

Off Topic - stereo to PC question

by gehrich＠tampabay.rr.com

Can anybody tell me how to attach my stereo to my PC so that I can transfer >from Cassette to CD-R or hard-drive.

23 years

Central Point Option Board (earlier non-ASIC version) chips

by mark_k＠totalise.co.uk

Hi, This is quite urgent. Can someone who has the earlier version of the Central Point Option Board (also known as Copy II PC Option Board) please type up the part numbers of all chips on the card? Or scan the card at a decent resolution so all chip markings are legible. I want to get datasheets for as many of the ICs on the card as possible. Assuming some are not just simple TTL chips, the best place to look for these would be the FreeTradeZone web site. As mentioned a few days ago, that will no longer be accessible for free in a few days time. (I don't have an older Option Board yet. I want to get info on the ICs it uses for a possible future reverse-engineering effort, to figure out how the card works, and allow low-level disk-imaging software to be written.) -- Mark

23 years

History of Computing exam question

by lance＠costanzo.net

At 12:08 PM 11/30/01 -0600, you wrote: >I would add: HP2000 timeshare system..widely used, often provided the >first exposure to computers that got many of us started in the field. My first intro to "real" computers: IBM's ITF (interactive terminal facility) timeshare system that ran on the 360/370 mainframes. Not widely used (I heard it was 10 installations worldwide), but must have been a huge development effort on the part of IBM. A scaled down locked down (but I did figure out how to crash it) TSO with Basic and PL/I programming langs. Changed my life, possibly for the worse, 25+ years ago. Hmm... Others I'd put on the list from personal experience: IBM/360 Early HP3000 (series I,II,III) PDP-11 Apple II IBM PC 5150

23 years

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test-drb November 2001