test-drb August 2001

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

295 participants
726 discussions

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> >Agreed... System 7.5.5 runs fairly fast on it, but 8.0 is a bit > >of a dog... too much emulated code remaining? > > I've got 8.1 on mine and it seems more stable than 7.5.X. > There was quite a bit of 68k emulation still going on with those > releases though. It certainly would've helped if they had put a > cache on the 603. I have 8.1, so I'll have to give it a whirl on the 5300... -dq

23 years

SemiOT: Mourning for Classic Computing

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > > > For me, it should be a date to *mourn*, not to celebrate. > > I have to disagree, Doug. The historic events you so despise are the very > ones that have made my life *possible*. I grew up as a computer nerd in > rural Oklahoma -- not exactly the point of deepest or quickest penetration "When I was a young man, barely seventeen... went out to Hollywood to change my dream... Dusty Oklahoma was all I'd ever seen... ...and I was getting older..." Yeah, Louisville ain't a techno hotbed, either... Neither of us would have been any worse off if we'd never been involved with computers. I was going to major in choral music direction... took one required course in music theory and Computer Programming 101... and never looked back, that is, until recently... > Also, not every programmer produced from personal computing is a bad > programmer. I've seen quite a number of such people that should be > forbidden from ever invoking a text editor, but we're not all > that way. Agreed; and some would say it's worth filtering every grain of sand in the ocean just to get at the few grains of gold contained therein... > I may not have a lot of field experience (I'm not even out of college > yet), but I'm a damn good programmer. I'd say if you a damned good programmer, it's because you've developed expertise, regardless of how you got it. But I know lots of stories about PFYs getting their start in mainframe environments... Regards, -dq

23 years

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

by avickers＠solutionengineers.com

At 05:16 pm 13/08/2001 -0400, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > >For me, it should be a date to *mourn*, not to celebrate. Hmm, I'm going to have to disagree with you now... <snip> > >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. I think all of us have our own personal view on "when computing had it's golden age". For me, 1984 and the Sinclair QL was the peak of the microcomputer (as opposed to the IBM PC & clones). For you, it must have been around 197<mumble>. >The beginning of the end. I knew it then, and I was >proved right. 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... >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... 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... >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: 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....! Maybe if PASCAL had been the language de jour, today's self-taught programmers would be better at it... >No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to >find a black armband to wear the rest of the month. IMHO, no. The PC had to happen; it was just a case of who got lucky (or had the best marketing). At the end of the day, the PC offered unrivalled expansion possibilities, a comparatively friendly OS (Gates did well to poach DOS), and good flexibility thanks to the lack of built in anything. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen a MC68000 based machine become today's PC (mainly because I'd already learned assembler on the QL). No doubt Commodore fans would have preferred the C128 or Amiga to "grow up" into the PC. 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... Cheers! Ade. -- B-Racing: B where it's at :-) http://www.b-racing.co.uk

23 years

Service does still exist....

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> >We had this service done on the boss' 5300ce back in '96... it's been > >a trouper ever since. it's plugged into the Prime acting as a serial > >console (even though the Prime is still down...). > > Gee Doug, what's the use of it being used as a terminal for a > system that isn't functioning at the moment? <g> it's called -Hope-.... oops, it's dashed now... > The CE has a great > screen...higher res. than the 5300c. Still the 5300c and it's active > matrix screen is nicer than the 5300cs. The 5300 may be a bit slow, > but it feels real solid now and with the various expansion bay drives > and the internal ethernet/video upgrade, it'll do me for a while. Agreed... System 7.5.5 runs fairly fast on it, but 8.0 is a bit of a dog... too much emulated code remaining? -dq

23 years

Hazeltine 1500 Technical Info.

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

Hi used to know that beast like the back of my hand. Try this, pull the keyboard encoder (ay3-3500, 25 year memory test!) and see of the problem goes away. Those encoders somtimes get static blasted. I may even have an encoder (still!) for that one. Also try removing and banging the board to shake out loose junk on it. Allison -----Original Message----- From: Messick, Gary <Gary.Messick(a)itt.com> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:40 PM Subject: Hazeltine 1500 Technical Info. >Does anyone have any technical documentation for a Hazeltine 1500? I just >plugged mine in, and it seems that I have some problems. I'm getting cap. >O's in the top half of the display, and overtyping does not always produce >the proper character. Everything's fine on the bottom half of the screen. >I'm thinking I have a bad RAM chip. Looking at the board, it's an 8080 with >IIRC 21L02's for RAM. I don't own a logic analyzer, and haven't correlated >the ASCII codes to see what bit's are stuck. > >Any help would be appreciated. > >Gary

23 years

PeeCee turns 20

by RCini＠congressfinancial.com

Iggy: >>Celebrate?? Well, "celebrate" in the broadest sense of the word. The PC may not be perfect, but warts and all, it's about the best thing that could have happened to my stock portfolio :-) Rich ========================== Richard A. Cini, Jr. Congress Financial Corporation 1133 Avenue of the Americas 30th Floor New York, NY 10036 (212) 545-4402 (212) 840-6259 (facsimile) -----Original Message----- From: Iggy Drougge [mailto:optimus@canit.se] Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 8:00 PM To: Cini, Richard Subject: Re: PeeCee turns 20 Cini, Richard skrev: > It's tough going through August without a holiday, so I'm looking >for something to celebrate :-) Celebrate??? -- En ligne avec Thor 2.6a. Menyn ?r inte lika sexig som telnet, det ?r h?rt men sant. Petri Oksanen #38 p? SUGA BBS

23 years

PDP 11/84's - any interest?

by hofmanwb＠worldonline.nl

Jerome, I converted an 11/84 to an 11/83 myself. The memory works fine on a Q-bus. It is connected to the CPU board via overhead flatcable. I converted an 11/84 to an 11/83 myself. Wim ---------- > From: Jerome Fine <jhfine(a)idirect.com> > Jerome Fine replies: > > While the power supply and backplane are heavy (if I remember), the > actual boards are probably worth saving. The CPU itself is a Qbus > board, but the memory is NOT Qbus compatible. And the rest > of the boards will be Unibus. > > I see that there was a deadline. Did anything get saved? > > Sincerely yours, > > Jerome Fine >

23 years

Service does still exist....

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I've just had an example of truly excellent service and > thought I'd pass it on. For those that don't know, the Apple > Powerbook 5300 series is under a 7 year extended repair period due to > the type of plastic used in it's casing. Basically, up until > sometime next year, if there's a problem on a PB5300 series machine > that is attributable to the case, Apple will repair it. Last week, > the right hinge mounting block on my PB 5300c broke so I called Apple > on Monday. On Tuesday, Airborne Express delivered a box for me to > ship the machine back to Apple, on Wed. Airborne picked it back up. > It was delievered to Apple on Thursday and it was repaired and given > back to Airborne on Friday. Airborne dropped it off at my home just > about an hour ago. The machine looks like new and now has been put > through the full REA to repair the known problems covered, at no cost > to me. I'm not even the original owner of the machine. We had this service done on the boss' 5300ce back in '96... it's been a trouper ever since. it's plugged into the Prime acting as a serial console (even though the Prime is still down...). -dq

23 years

Xerox Viewpoint on 5 1/4" disks Availaible, Astoria, OR

by Innfogra＠aol.com

I have a factory carton with a set of Viewpoint 2.0 Software for the Xerox 6085 Star. It is on 5 1/4 inch diskettes. I would like to offer it to list members first before posting it on eBay. I believe it is complete, new and unused. I can provide more information to those interested. Unfortunately I am not open to trading since I need cash to go to the dentist. Please contact me off list at whoagiii(a)aol.com Paxton Astoria, OR

23 years

Hazeltine 1500 Technical Info.

by Gary.Messick＠itt.com

Does anyone have any technical documentation for a Hazeltine 1500? I just plugged mine in, and it seems that I have some problems. I'm getting cap. O's in the top half of the display, and overtyping does not always produce the proper character. Everything's fine on the bottom half of the screen. I'm thinking I have a bad RAM chip. Looking at the board, it's an 8080 with IIRC 21L02's for RAM. I don't own a logic analyzer, and haven't correlated the ASCII codes to see what bit's are stuck. Any help would be appreciated. Gary

23 years

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test-drb August 2001