From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc(a)conman.org>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, March 15, 2001 7:54 PM
Subject: Re: The DOS 10 Commandments (fwd)
>It was thus said that the Great Peter Joules once stated:
>> 3)
>> Thy hard disk shall never have more than 1024 sectors. You don't need
that
>> much space anyway.
>
> That's a BIOS limitation; talk to IBM about that one---they only
allocated
>10 bits for sector number in the INT 13h disk IO call.
Wrong. 1024 was a hardware limitation of the early MFM controller cards
and the bios honored it. FYI it was CYLINDERS not sectors. 1024 sectors
would have only been 512k!
>> 4)
>> Thy application program and data shall all fit in 640K of RAM. After
all,
>> it's ten times what you had on a CP/M machine. Keep holy this 640K of
RAM,
>> and clutter it not with device drivers, memory managers, or other
things
>> that might make thy computer useful.
>
> Again, IBM is to fault for that one---the IBM PC reserved the memory
space
>above $A0000 for video and BIOS extentions. There have been
PCompatibles
>running MS-DOS that had more memory available, but only programs that
used
>MS-DOS exclusively would work on those machines.
Other non -PC hardware such as Rainbow went out to 896k and some of the
S100
based machines did the full meg using shadow rom.
>> 5)
>> Thou shall use the one true slash character to separate thy directory
path.
>> Thou shall learn and love this character, even though it appears on no
>> typewriter keyboard, and is unfamiliar. Standardization on where that
>> character is located on a computer keyboard is right out .
>
> While COMMAND.COM would only accept `\' as a path separator, MS-DOS
would
>internally use both `/' and `\' for path separators. There is an MS-DOS
>call to change the option character (from the default of `/') but I
don't
>remember what it was off the top of my head.
The other choise is the unix / or VMS [.....] form.
>
>> 10)
>> Learn well the Vulcan Nerve Pinch (ctrl-alt-del) for it shall be thy
saviour
>> on many an occasion. Believe in thy heart that everyone reboots their
OS to
>> solve problems that shouldn't occur in the first place.
>
> Isn't that more of a Windows thing than an MS-DOS thing?
It's really a hardware thing. Dos and most other OSs all see it and
have an option to do what they care to. The real point is that RESET
became the defacto solution for flakey code most of it outside DOS.
> -spc (Doesn't remember MS-DOS crashing quite so much ... )
DOS being unprotected could crash, usually after the application
wiped it from memory like CP/M! Any unprotected OS would be
vunerable to being smashed by a runaway app.
Experience with DOS 3.11 and 5.0 is that for an unprotected OS
it was fairly solid and not inclined to kill itself. I have two systems
that live as DOS with uptimes measured in months.
Allison
THe BASIC info can be found at:
http://people.mn.mediaone.net/fauradon/index.html
under TechInfo section.
It's a scan of the BASIC syntax guide from the manual.
Francois
-----Original Message-----
From: bill claussen <elecdata(a)kcinter.net>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, March 19, 2001 7:46 AM
Subject: Hp85a
>Does anyone have info on an hp85a, I found one in excellent condition
>and works, but I lack paperwork and basic info.
>
>Thanks
>
>Bill
>elecdata1
>
In a message dated 3/19/01 12:28:18 PM Central Standard Time,
pechter(a)pechter.dyndns.org writes:
<< > Anyone know if there is a NFS that runs under OS/2 <=3? I've got a wide
> variety of boxes running on my network (I'm getting to be an expert at
> heterogeneous networking :) and my OS/2 box (IBM Server 85) is quickly
> depleting it's 450MB hard drive. Right now most of my boxes get their
> post-boot disk space from my linux box which services appletalk, samba, and
> NFS connections. It would be great to leverage it into my OS/2 box as
well..
I think IBM's OS/2 v2.x supported NFS with their optional TCP/IP
package. Pretty costly, though. >>
You might want to search out at HOBBES.NMSU.EDU
That's the OS/2 file library.
>I've two of the 10meg boxes, complete with 100 disks, but no controller card.
>From what I understand, it was a proprietary interface.
I believe that the Bernoulli drives used a proprietary interface at
least up until the 20meg 5-1/4" drives. They even produced a controller for
the TRS-80 Model 2000 but the software didn't allow full use of anything
larger than 10meg.
Jeff
For those such as Claude that have Model 2000's, there's an item that
just popped up on eBay that might be of interest. It's the color graphics
card for the machine. It's at:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1223260404
I thought I'd pass it on since expansion cards for the Model 2000 are
getting harder to come by.
Jeff
Here's an email I got from someone this morning that maybe one of you
may be able to help out on. Please reply to the original sender.
Jeff
-------------------
From: Brian Sumpter <bsumpter(a)emediadesigns.com>
Organization: Emediadesigns.com
Reply-To: bsumpter(a)emediadesigns.com
Date: Mon, Mar 19, 2001, 11:38 AM
To: jhellige(a)earthlink.net
Subject: FD 501
Jeff,
I was looking over your web site
(http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757/index.html), and noticed
you have some Tandy CoCo stuff in your collection.
I'm trying to obtain a Tandy FD 501 Disk Drive -- the one with the ribbon
cable that connects to the cartridge. I'm having quite a bit of trouble
tracking one down, and was hoping you might have one or know someone who
does
that would be interested in selling it to me.
Any help you could provide would be very appreciated.
Thank you!
--
Brian Sumpter
bsumpter(a)emediadesigns.com
All,
Cindy emailed again this morning to add that she also had some old,
original HP calculators. I didn't see those, so don't know what models.
- Mark
All,
About 2 months ago, I reported that I'd been contacted by an
electronics surplus vendor in Kerrville, TX, and would check out the site.
After finally making the trip this weekend, I can report; been there, done
that, got pictures.
That address is sales(a)elecplus.com, by the way, phone 830-792-3400.
I'm still in input overload. The place is simply amazing. Northern
Californians will remember what Weird Stuff was like back before it was
"cool"; this place is at least its equal, in my opinion. Among the things I
saw and photographed that I thought folks on this list might be interested
in were:
MicroVax 3600 and 2 associated cabinets with RA82 and TU81Plus drives.
Sadly, the processor cards were gone *but* were expected back.
TRS-80 Color Computer, with external floppy and hard drives.
Commodore SX64, complete.
Dec DF03 modem (?) and 2 DEC Scholar Modems.
A Fluke "interface pod" that looks like an ICE for a 6802 or 6808
2 Gridcase 1537 and 4 battery packs
Large IBM terminal-looking thing with 2 8-inch floppies.
Wang big iron cabinets, I forget what was in them.
Things not photographed included:
HP 7935A drives (no packs)
a Compaq 386 luggable with a red plasma display and an electronics parts
cross-reference program on it (historically interesting software?)
There was a *whole lot* more. Workstations and large servers by
Sun, Dec, and others. Laptops, CDs, modems, Laserdisk interactive players,
printers of every type and size, plotters, scanners, power supplies, disks,
etc. The ratio of classic to contemporary stuff looked to be *way* above
1:1. I brought my digital camera, and goggled and fluttered the shutter
until an hour past their closing time (2 PM on Saturdays). They didn't say
a word about that, by the way, until I said I'd promised my family I'd be
back by three at the latest and they shocked me by saying it was 3:15 and
would I like to use their phone to call? Which is a pretty good indicator
of what kind of folks they are to deal with, and of how much fun I was
having.
So the bottom line is I have about 89 digital photos of the stuff
that looked interesting to me, but no web site or good way to display it to
you guys. I can mailbomb anybody that's interested with the whole 31.3 MB
of jpegs, or you can tell me what type stuff you are interested in and I
can try to pick for you, or I can send you a list of picture titles. If any
of you have website space, time, and inclination, a better idea would be
for me to send you the pictures, let you put it on your site, and post the
url back here, and everyone else can go virtual catalog shopping.
Ram, there were big piles of boards. I didn't check for, and forgot
even to ask about, Transputers. Next visit I will, or you can email and ask
yourself.
Fantasy overload warning: Cindy, the owner, pointed out that I
didn't even get around to seeing the historically "good stuff".
Original-box type things, she says she has in her garage. I can't recall
what all she says she has but it's probably worth an email if you have
specific "want" items. She listed a lot off the top of her head, and I was
too boggled to take notes.
Minor caution: Cindy the owner is pretty straight-laced about not
allowing any surplus military stuff to get out without being pretty sure it
no longer has sensitive info on it. (Yes, DRMO is *supposed* to take care
of that.) If you want something that *might* be sensitive, you'll probably
have to work out some way to assure her that it's wiped properly before you
get it.
As before, I can help with transportation if needed. I have a '68
Plymouth Sport Suburban wagon (= Fury III wagon, really. 15.86 mpg on the
120-mi highway round trip to Kerrville, if it's of interest, Geoff), so I
can get big boxes to San Antonio International airport, etc. without too
much trouble.
Disclaimer: Not affiliated, just a well-satisfied customer.
Thinking hard about how to increase my alloted classic-computer storage
space.
Let me know here or at mtapley(a)swri.edu if you would be willing to
web-host jpegs.
- Mark
(lost attribution: sorry!)
>> MOST of the non-IBM MS DOS machines could take up to 768k of RAM. The
>> Sanyo 550 and Zenith Z-100s both did. AFIK there's no limitations on using
Tony said:
>The DEC Rainbow could (officially) take 896K of RAM (128K on the
>motherboard and a memory expanison card with 3 banks of 256K chips). The
>oriiginal Apricot could be pushed to 960K -- actually, there was 1Mbytes
>worth of chips on the board but the last 64K was taken up with the
>boot/BIOS ROM and the video memory.
A minor nit: my Rainbow 100A model has only 64K motherboard and 768k on the
memory card (atop the 8087/8088 daughterboard), for a total of 832K. I
think that's maxed out for an A model. What Tony says is correct for B or +
Rainbows, AFAIK. Anyway that's yet one more number on the "max. mem" plot
for 808(8,6) machines.
- Mark
