test-drb November 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

247 participants
886 discussions

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On November 8, UberTechnoid(a)home.com wrote: > I know how you all love this thread.... > > Now that the government and MS appear to have come to something of an > agreement, I wondered what the C-Comp folks think? > > For myself I think it is too little too late and does not directly address > actual crimes committed by the heads of the company. One thing it DOES do > is identify MS as having caused actual harm to some companies and provides > those companies recourse through separate lawsuits (ala Sun Microsystems, > IBM, and others). Too bad people [companies] can't be sued for being incompetent schmucks. -Dave -- Dave McGuire St. Petersburg, FL

23 years, 1 month

Refilling Toner Carts (was RE: Rubber Restorer...)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > One possible problem, Sodium Hydroxide < .5% could be damaging and > > corrosive to metalic parts. > > About the only common material that sodium hydroxide will attack is > aluminium, and then only when concentrated or exposure is reasonably long; > it has no effect on copper, steel, etc. Yeah, I've relied on this as a way to make satin-finish aluminum front panels for equipment. As the reaction progresses, the NAO2 (?) solution has to be preiodlically replaced. It generally took me about two days to get the desired look. -dq

23 years, 1 month

Rubber Restorer...

by philpem＠bigfoot.com

> > I wonder how many accidental poisonings occurred? > A number, I would imagine, and especially in tight quarters. I got > exposed to some briefly during the `40s when the paper wrapping on some > decorative steel plate caught fire and the people nearest used a Carbon > Tet extinguisher to put it out. Rather pungent as I recall, so it does > provide some warning. A carbon tet extinguisher? IIRC the trade name for that stuff was "Halon"... > Also in that same era we used to degrease various components of > Resnatron Radar jamming with carbon tet and acetone bare handed. No one > thought a thing of it except for the way it degreased your hide! Acetone. The one common solvent I hate to hell. It ripped apart the supposedly-chemical-resistant gloves I was wearing while I was using it and proceeded to cover my fingers in goop. Took me a week to get all the cack off. "Chemical resistant" my left sock. So what if I've chopped a year or so off my life expectancy? For that year or so, I've had a lot more fun than some people twice my age... Including making a "slugzapper" - a 150V low-current voltage source to keep the slugs away from my Dad's flower bed :-) Oh, then there was the time I "accidentally" made an EHT generator out of a solenoid coil and a few diodes, transistors, etc... It was supposed to be an LC oscillator... Later. -- Phil. philpem(a)bigfoot.com http://www.philpem.f9.co.uk/

23 years, 1 month

Rubber Restorer...

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

HP recommends a plain old water (a damp cloth) to clean printer rollers. I just cleaned the rollers on my DeskJet 820ce and the paper feed is much improved. It remains to be seen how long it lasts this way, though. -----Original Message----- From: Roger Merchberger [mailto:zmerch@30below.com] Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 1:02 PM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Rubber Restorer... Rumor has it that Bryan Pope may have mentioned these words: >Does anyone know where I can get "Rubber Restorer"? I know it comes in a >spray. > >I thought I had bought it before at Radio Shack, but they didn't have any or >a clue. Not sure what kind of rubber you're trying to restore, but if it's printer rollers you're trying to "re-stickify" what works good for me is "Marvel Mystery Oil." Put some on a t-shirt rag and hit all the rollers in your inkjet or laser printer - I've "refurbished" several printers this way, some more than once. HTH, Roger "Merch" Merchberger

23 years, 1 month

8 inch floppy drives

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>You can get PAL to work on NTSC, but I don't think you can do it in reverse >since the PAL chips don't have the bandwidth for the extra resolution. You >could get an NTSC console and if you play around a lot with the vertical >hold on the TV's and such you can stablize it and use it on a PAL tv and use >all NTSC carts. You can also buy an NTSC to PAL converter CHEAP (as low as about $40 US). Going the other way is more expensive however (PAL to NTSC usually runs about $200). Or you can use a computer's video capture card and defeat macrovision while you are at it (That is how I use my PAL VCR... I play it thru my Mac's TV Tuner card which can read PAL... and when I want to copy tapes to NTSC, I just sync it to the video output, which feeds NTSC, and creates a new sync pulse, thus defeating macrovision... oh wait, by saying this I am in violation of the DMCA... shucks!) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

Micro PDP 11/73

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 6, 18:41, Lawrence LeMay wrote: > Well, I have a 1 Mbyte MOS RAM board, M3104 8-line asyncronous multiplexor > with DMA (can these be used as normal serial ports, or do I need more > external hardware?) It's a DHV11. You need the "cabinet kit" which is essentially a (pair of?) panels with 4(?) DB25s on each, with a ribbon cable to connect them to the Berg connector on the card. No additional elecronics, just wires. > a M7546 TMSCP controller for TK50 tape unit (which > I dont have), and the M7555 MFM Winchester & Floppy disk controller. That last is an RQDX3, MSCP controller. What version are the ROMs, out of interest? > I'm assuming I just connect a terminal to the main console serial port, > and hope someone left me an operating system since I have no peripherals > at this time... Yes. One of the switches sets the baud rate, default is 9600 8N1. Depending on which boot ROMs are on the card, you should see some sort of diagnostic display, and it may or may bot try to autoboot. If you tell us the ROM numbers (something like 23-238E5 or just 238E5) we can probably tell you which version it is. I have a copy of the MicroPDP-11 handbook somewhere, I can probably look it up. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 1 month

hard-sector 5 1/4 disk

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>>I don't think I'll ever get my dream car. A Bugatti EB16/4. > > Nice choice...I'll likely never aquire mine either since all >surviving examples are still owned by the manufacturer...1955 >Mercedes 300SLR. Dream car?!? Right now I'll just settle for A car! -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 1 month

Sun / CalComp Printer networking problems (was: Thick Ethernet/Sun networking problems)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

Hi, Arno. On Nov 8, 7:50, Arno Kletzander wrote: > at first: Is it okay to continue our mailing this way (directly mailing the > messages, only CCing to Classiccmp.org? It's because I'm on the Digest and it > has been arriving at about 4 P.M. local time the last few days, which is too > late for me to stay in school and pick it up the same day (alas, don't have > Internet at home yet). Yes, that's OK. I don;t know if you'll necessarily get a faster response, but it's worth a try :-) > No, nothing on that board. There are only two 2pin jumpers, one for printing > out the adapter's status page and one for resetting the NOVRAM contents to > the factory defaults. I think I've already seen what you mean on other network > devices (six or so 3-pin jumpers, the movable parts sometimes joined in a > blue plastic tray). OK. It's probably a little more modern than I thought, then. I guess it senses that it is receiving link pulse on the 10baseT interface and uses that, otherwise it uses the AUI. > >>But no signs of overheating etc. on the PCB... > > OK, I admit that was only for VISIBLE SIGNS. The LM2577-T12 (switching > voltage regulator in TO-220 package) next to the AUI port becomes TERRIBLY hot > even after < 10 minutes of running the printer. > I assume it's used to generate the voltage the Transceiver uses? But the > power light (on the transceiver) is on as long as the printer is... That may not be a problem. The external transceiver (and the internal one) use an isolated supply to drive the electronics on the cable side. Those little converters sometimes get warm. I'm not familiar with that specific chip, though. It probably shouldn't get very hot. > And even worse...the DATA LED does no longer blink when there's traffic on > the Ethernet... Oh dear, a bad sign, I fear. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 1 month

OT: food

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> McDonalds puts sugar in their french fries, I recently head on NPR. Apparently > their sales increased slightly when they started doing that. It's consistent > with their tendency to limit our diet to salt, fat, and sugar. In reality, I > guess we do it to ourselves, since we don't have to eat there. The only meal I > occasionally take at the Golden Arches, is breakfast, since they do, oddly > enough, have pretty passable coffee. ISTR hearing that they started that back in the early 70s... -dq

23 years, 1 month

Apple Floppy Drives (was: More Apple Pimpers)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 8, 19:32, Tony Duell wrote: > > I never had problems as you describe, nor have I ever heard of anyone > > needing to adjust the alignment of an Apple disk drive. > > I have had to align Disk IIs. The version based on the SA400 mechanism, > if there's more than 1 type. And it certainly appeared as though the > continual banging of the head against the end stop (due to there being no > track 0 sensor) was a contributory factor in them losing alignment. I've had to do that too, and I tend to agree with Tony that the banging on the end stop seems to contribute to the need. However, I ought to point out that I've had to align lots of other 5.25" drives as well (I used to be a (micro)computer technician, a long time ago), including ones that used taut band mechanisms and leadscrews. > > As far as I know, there is no procedure in the Disk ][ manual for aligning > > a drive, and as far as I know, there is no reason for needing one. > > There is no procedure in PC user manuals for aligning the floppy drives. > Are you saying such a procedure does not exist? I have the service > manuals for the Teac drives used in my PCs and they include alignment > procedures. As does the Apple Service Manual for the Apple ][, as sold to all Apple Service Centres in the early '80s. It gives explicit instructions on head alignment, and board setup. I don't think I found Disk ][s to be much less reliable than contemporary drives, and mine are still going strong (both pairs). We all learned to open the door before power-up or power-down, but we had to do that with CBM drives and many others too. Certainly some brands of disk were better than others but that was true in the Commodore drives and the Cromemco drives, and later in the Acorn/BBC drives as well. Most of the time, they were on top of the machine, with the monitor on top of that, and I don't recall any problems that could be ascribed to that. The only catastrophic failures I can remember (apart from "Oh Spit! I meant to format the *other* disk!") were due to users replacing the cables wrongly. I think I've told this story before, but the Tech College used to loan Apples out to staff over the weekends. Typically the drives would be disconnected to make it easier to carry. It's easy to put that 20-pin ribbon header back, one pin along from its correct position on the controller, and if you do, you let a lot of magic white smoke out of the drive door. You can tell it's magic smoke, because the drive never has enough magic left to work after that. Usually the 74LS125 takes the brunt, but at least once it took out the MC3470 as well. That was "interesting" the first time, as Apple carried no spares, and the Motorola distributors claimed it didn't exist. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2001