test-drb August 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

295 participants
726 discussions

by technos＠nerdland.org

A number of companies still make so-called scan accelerator cards.. Kofax, Xerox, Canon.. Pretty much all they do is take the scanned image over a SCSI connection and compress it into a tiff or jpeg in hardware.. I've seen everything from Phillips MIPS clones to AMD embedded processors for the job. Never seen one based on a M68K tho. Not too much demand for them these days. Well, considering a PII 350 can handle 60ppm at 400dpi in software at a sane level of system load. Jim On Tuesday, August 14, 2001 1:20 PM, Dave McGuire [SMTP:mcguire@neurotica.com] wrote: > On August 14, Richard Erlacher wrote: > > IIRC, it's possible it's associated with scanner/OCR processes. One > > of my > > colleagues had a set of three or four ISA cards, each of which had > > four 68030's > > on it, each with what I then saw as a significant amount of RAM for > > its task. > > He was using that together with a pretty fancy set of software for a > > MAJOR > > automatic transcription task, and, from what I gathered, it did a > > good job. > > > > I don't know about your board, but the ones I saw were fully packed > > on both > > sides. It was, for the time, VERY impressive to see. The results > > were pretty > > impressive, too, as he'd converted about 6000 pages of text into a > > searchable > > document on a set of CD's. > > This sounds like some boards made by Calera that I used back in '90 > or so. They were pretty impressive. > > -Dave > > -- > Dave McGuire > Laurel, MD

22 years, 11 months

Who reads their email the most Classically?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On August 14, LUCAS J CASHDOLLAR wrote: > My university used pine until about a year ago when they switched > to mulberry a graphical bloat-wear email program. It takes 20 times > longer to load, but its got grpahics and it likes to crash a hell of a > lot. All hail the bloat-wear nazis and their inefficiency at making our > lives easier. Is it possible to bring in your own software? If pine is what you prefer, why not use a local copy of it in your home directory? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Laurel, MD

22 years, 11 months

SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing (Was: RE: PeeCee turns

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > > Simple solution, software people should unionize. > > And why should they be ionised in the first place? Severe belly cramps are probably keeping anyone from replying to this one, Tony... Some bosses *should* be ionized... that way, sh*t _would_ stick to them... -dq

22 years, 11 months

New stuff (HP9000)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Pete Rickard <pete.rickard(a)carlingtech.com> wrote: > This is my first posting (I'm on SurvPC primarily).... I found the list > during a google search for *HP-UX*, trying to find other HP9000 > series users. There's a *very* quiet list for the 9000 series 500s at nvc.cc.ca.us. (Last message was in March.) I think the subscription instructions are to send an e-mail message as follows: To: hp9000-500-request(a)nvc.cc.ca.us Subject: subscribe hp9000-500 -Frank McConnell

22 years, 11 months

SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing (Was: RE: PeeCee turn s 20) [longish]

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > I dispute that: Computers and computing go from strength to strength. > > There's more than just PCs out there; the mighty mainframe still rules the > > roost in many places, there's Apple Macs, VAX minis, Crays, and probably > > many others I can't even think of. And, for the soldering-iron fans, > > embedded computing is probably stronger than it ever was - *everything's* > > got a computer or three in it... > > In many places? The mainframe rules the roost period. What do you think > serves the databases that run the neato little things your PCs do on the > internet? IBM DB2/390. Hmmm... probably true for the commercial sites, of which I spend virtually zero of my personal time. Unless Google uses the OBM iron... > > That's a bit elitist, isn't it? Besides, most of the self-taught > > programmers of whom you speak are not really programmers; they're merely > > users with enough knowledge to be dangerous. Besides, if it wasn't for the > > microprocessor and all that it begat, this list wouldn't even be here... > > I don't know if I necessarily think this anymore, but whenever I used to > see droves of mindless PC zombies getting on the 'net, I used to think, > "Hmmm. Fresh meat." If Horace Greely was right about him, then P. T. Barnum would love living in this age... > > It wasn't the PC that made cutting corners easy; it was the near-universal > > use of BASIC - a fundamentally unstructured language - that is responsible > > for the bulk of the "bad programmers"; and I say that as a professional > > programmer who uses BASIC....! > > That and all the stupid ass "crackers" who learned assembler just to get > free shareware. I dunno; I haven't run into too many of these people in the orkplace... > > Maybe if PASCAL had been the language de jour, today's self-taught > > programmers would be better at it... > > How about something like LISP or SML? Maybe Prolog (!)... I know I'm > pushing it with that one. Fine languages. > > >No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to > > >find a black armband to wear the rest of the month. [..snip..] > I would've loved to have seen the Atari computers take over. I still have > a couple of Hades I use regularly. > > > Well, I'm off to dabble with my CBM PET, or maybe the MZ-80K. They're fun, > > but I wouldn't like to have to use them every day, day in day out... > > I'll be off tinkering with my big-iron VAX and my S/390 G5 (ot). Cool. -dq

22 years, 11 months

Who reads their email the most Classically?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On August 14, Mike Ford wrote: > Who reads their email the most Classically? > > I am not classic at all, running Eudora on a PowerMac, but somebody out > there must be farther back than pine in the email evolution chain, who is > it? Surely this is a matter of opinion, and I'm not a Pine user myself, but I haven't seen many mailers that I'd consider "further evolved" than Pine. Myself, I use VM under XEmacs. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Laurel, MD

22 years, 11 months

Who reads their email the most Classically?

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> Who reads their email the most Classically? > > I am not classic at all, running Eudora on a PowerMac, but somebody out > there must be farther back than pine in the email evolution chain, who is > it? I use the following, Eudora on a G4/450 PowerMac, Elm on my ISP's Linux shell (sometimes telnet'd in from a PDP-11), and VMS Mail or Mailbox on VMS (I use Mailbox when sending as it's got a good address book, and VMS mail for reading and replying as it's got the better interface). Zane

22 years, 11 months

New stuff (HP9000)

by pete.rickard＠carlingtech.com

Hello, group- This is my first posting (I'm on SurvPC primarily).... I found the list during a google search for *HP-UX*, trying to find other HP9000 series users. Glad to have found this group, if for no other good reason than to be able to point to someone else when *normal* people come to my house and remark, "Gad! What a massive pile of old junk down here!" My own HP model 540 still has *OLD* HP-UX 5.-something on it. It also has compilers for Pascal, ForTran and 'c' (of course). It was the host to an '80s GrafTek GMS CAD system, 12+ users, from which I also saved a Meteor II workstation (including a Summagraphics Bit Pad 2 tablet and a huge Hitachi HM4119, EIA RS-343A compatible monitor). I've not much to offer except that I have quite a bit of mid-80's HP docs on this system... anyway, most hardware that I saved is as follows: HP 9050A - The basic unit, 8Mb RAM, 2x8 multiplexers, IOP (2) CPU's, etc.** HP 9144A - DC cartridge drive, works as emergency boot system (if lucky) HP 7914 - Hard disk drive, 128Mb, original in 1985 HP 7958 - Hard disk drive, 130+Mb "compact" (the root disk) HP 7974A - 9 track tape drive (the 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' drive, as my big brother refers to it :-) HP 2934 - Dot-matrix printer (HP-IB) on top of its original cabinet HP 2392A - System console, green-on-black screen (saved 2 of these!) **includes 27125A LAN card CIO 802.3 (10mbps) BNC (there were two networked 9000's) and 28641A ThinLAN micro-MAU (RG58C/U), IEEE 802.3 spec...(throwing all the specs in there to anticipate queries...) -I could use an HP-IB floppy drive I suppose, if one happens along... Oh, BTW- here at work I use an iMac connected to our DEC Alpha using VersaTerm PRO terminal emulator. Login message includes this: "OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V7.1-2" Regards, -Pete <jarkko.teppo(a)er-grp.com> wrote in part: > A reasonable weekend: > - - HP 9000/834 + 7959 disk with HP-UX 8.x. > Interestingly the 834 case is the same as the 9000/550 case. "640k ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981 - - - - - Pete Rickard Product Engineer Carling Technologies Plainville CT USA

22 years, 11 months

What is a QBus Z-Board by Virtual Microsystems

by Innfogra＠aol.com

Going through my old Qbus and Unibus cards getting them ready to sell I found a very interesting card with four Z80 based computers on a Qbus card. It appears to me to be four complete 8 bit computers on a quad card, each with CPU and memory but no I/O. It is all socketed chips with the only other large chips being a pair of 2901 bit slicers. It is copyrighted 1983 by Virtual Microsystems and called the Z-Board. Made in the USA. Any idea what it was and what it was used for? Google turned up nothing other than VM was bought and sold several times. Three pictures at http://members.aol.com/innfogra/zboard.jpg A single one at http://members.aol.com/innfogra/zboard2.jpg If interested in purchase please contact me off list, here or at whoagiii(a)aol.com. Paxton Astoria

22 years, 11 months

SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing (Was: RE: PeeCee turns 20) [longish]

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> >> I know that the PC turns 20 this month, > >> but does anyone know the actual date of introduction? > >> > >> It's tough going through August without a holiday, so > >> I'm looking for something to celebrate :-) Sorry I waited so long on this one, but... For me, it should be a date to *mourn*, not to celebrate. Now in fairness, the PC has brought us high-speed commodity computers. However, it has also dumbed-down a signficant portion of the field of computing. Inasmuch as the PC was created as a reaction to the Apple II, I must tell this story. I cow orker and I had been fixing the various cold solder joints on an IMSAI 8080 construction attempt done by the head of the Physics Department (and soon to be D-I-T). We'd run it successfully for a few weeks, and had begun using it in a Psych experiment involving reaction times. Then the 8212 went to heaven. We took it to the recently-opened Computerland, wherein a guy I mistook for an electronics technician (he was an MBA) rolled up his sleeves, heated up the iron, clipped off the fried 8212, soldered in a socket, plugged in a new chip... But I digress. While he was doing this, I was looking around the store, and saw the Doom of Computing in the form of a computer that didn't require a soldering iron to build and use- namely, an Apple II. The beginning of the end. I knew it then, and I was proved right. Again, it's nice to have fast, cheap computers, but I for one would have been just as happy for the next 20 years having fast, cheap TERMINALS to hook to the mainframes. And the continued high cost of entry would have kept from coming into existence an entire generation of self-taught (and poorly so) programmers who have and continue to crank out some of the worst software imaginable. In the halcyon days, most of the bad code was writtwn by the lusers themselves... Easy access to fast, cheap computers drove the genesis of an entire generation of self-taught programmers who didn't give a whit for structured programming or anything else that resembles a methodology, and who single-handedly changed the expectations that managers have about how quickly things get done. Sure RAD helped speed programming along, but not nearly as much just cutting corners... which the PC made easier... damn, I feel a song coming on again: -- obSimpsonSongLyric: Shary: If there's a task that must be done, Don't turn your tail and run, Don't pout, don't sob, Just do a half-assed job! If... you... cut every corner It is really not so bad, Everybody does it, Even mom and dad. If nobody sees it, Then nobody gets mad, Bart: It's the American way! Shary: The policeman on the beat Needs some time to rest his feet. Chief Wiggum: Fighting crime is not my cup of tea! Shary: And the clerk who runs the store Can charge a little more For meat! Apu: For meat! Shary: And milk! Apu: And milk! Both: From 1984! Shary: If... you... cut every corner, You'll have more time for play, Shary & OFF: It's the American waaaaay! -- No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.

22 years, 11 months

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test-drb August 2001