> >> Yes it does, however I am dearly afraid that with HP and Compaq doing the
> >> dance that the lore of such things will be permanently lost at some point.
> >> If Compaq would just say "screw it, the next time someone requests a
> >> license give them a non-expiring one." my heart would rest easier...
> >
> >Do you mean you are worried the Hobbyist program will go away?
>
> I've been worried about it for several years. What ticks me off is you can
> buy a Hobbyist package from Compaq for Tru64, and it has non-expiring
> packs, and CD's. Why can't they do that for OpenVMS? I'd gladly pay
> $200-300 for that! Which is a lot more than the $99 for Tru64. The real
> joke being the Tru64 hobbyist shipped for the first couple weeks with an
> OpenVMS Condist bundled in (someone made a major mistake)! Unfortunatly I
> wasn't lucky enough to get one, but a friend did.
I was one of the lucky ones to get the OpenVMS ConDist after ordering the
Tru64 Hobbyist package. The package wasn't just the ConDist, it also
included PAKs. The package was for people in the developer's program.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
Check out the DEC Ethusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/
On Sep 8, 13:51, Louis Schulman wrote:
> I have done some research, and since this subject seems to only interest
me, I will respond to myself.
> I see no alternate but to appeal to my British brethren regarding any
such card they may find in
> their travels. Tony, Pete, et al, I beseech you! To each of you I say,
"Hast thou a response?"
Not a very helpful one, I'm afraid. I actually visited Brain Boxes not
long after they moved to Wavertree Technology Park, and at that time they
had a respectable portfolio of IEEE-488 devices, and I noticed a few PETs
and other machines around. That was over ten years ago and even then they
were looking at other product areas. I've never had any contact with them
since, so unless you can get any response from them direct, I haven't any
suggestions.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
> I got a great bunch of artifacts recently from an ex-Digit (DEC Employee)
> who was finally not going to use his VAX for anything else any more.
They are a good source of interesting stuff. I got Autocad for VMS that
way.
> These included:
> A set a PAKs that rivals the Hobbyist offering
> and exceeds it in that it has a PL/I and APL PAK.
I asked about PL/I not being included in the Hobbyist licensing program and
was told that was because Compaq no longer owns PL/I. I guess APL isn't in
the Hobbyist license set as that hasn't been a deliverable for a long time.
Does anyone know when it was last included in the ConDist sets? If so I
can look for it. I have several year's worth of ConDist CDs but have lost
the paperwork that listed the included products.
Of course a PAK generator solves the problem of missing PAKs quite nicely.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
Check out the DEC Ethusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/
> Have you brought up an interim fix - either clip the ties and support the
> cat5 bundle off the conduits? OR untie it, wrap the bundles with common
> aluminum foil (yeah it works) and then retie them using looser cable ties?
> Might be a nice way to pick up a few extra bucks on a weekend and make them
> happy at the same time.
I've brought in consultants offering to do everything from a
similar temporary fix to a complete re-wire.... but there's
no acknowledgement on the part of said former supervisor
who is also the closet thing we have to a comptroller that we
actually have a problem. He said to drop it until I could
PROVE the wiring wss the problem, and however that might be
done would likely require resources I don't have.
Said former supervisor and the 30% co-owner make all final
determinations as to what $$$ can be spent purely on cash-flow
and profitability... ideas such as IT-spending-as-investment
are total anathema.
Most IT spending gets done during the end-of-year-write-it-
off-as-supplies spending orgy.
-dq
>A) Anybody know anything about the company that marketed these, as I don't
>want to intentionally break any copyright laws; but with no info on the
>internet & the extreme possibility of the company no longer existing, does
>anyone think I'll be in trouble with the law WRT copyright laws? I'm mainly
>just using the original as a pattern for (1) the signal names & pinouts,
>and (2) the dimensions of the connectors & pins (I didn't have anything
>else that had the ground pegs on either side of the connector).
If you are redesigning for YOUR use only, then at least in the US, there
is no copyright problem any which way (it falls under Fair Use).
>The designs (when they get closer to completion) I will have on my website
>for free, but if I make several cards and someone else is dumb^H^H^H^H bold
>enough to purchase one I would sell them for a small profit...
This is where you can get in trouble. If you make your mods available to
the public (even if for free), you can be seen as infringing upon the
owners rights. However, if the company has gone out of business, you
probably wont get in any trouble. But do NOT confuse out of business with
public domain, they are not one in the same, just because the company is
out of business or isn't selling the item any more, does NOT mean that
the item is public domain. They still have the rights to it, and can
choose how and where it can be made available. I personally still don't
think you will have a problem, but you will most likely technically be
breaking the law.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
OK, maybe it's not...
I found the power supply. No smoke or flames. Not much of anything.
The green LED turns on when I plug in the power, but the entire
thing(including my power cube) goes dead when I plug in the monitor.
It might need a special monitor. It DOES, however, respond to the
keyboard. Caps, num and scroll locks all function and those lights
blink twice when the power is turned on and then it bleeps at me. I
guess the next step is to plug a printer into it and see what
happens, but I probably won't get around to digging out a parallel
printer until next week.
BTW, my power supply is getting worse. The 7.5v setting puts out
12.5, and the 12v setting puts out 22!!! Ouch! I'm thinking it's time
to get another one. Or better, make one. A nice regulated supply. I
don't think it harmed the box though, since it has a voltage
regulator right inside.
--
/------------------------------------\
| http://jrollins.tripod.com/ |
| KD7BCY kd7bcy(a)teleport.com |
\------------------------------------/
The Digital logo does not use any known font because it was hand drawn
by a graphic artist. It looks very similar to the Helvetica/Univers
"Swiss" type fonts but is not identical to any of them. As someone else
has noted there is a PostScript version of the logo. IIRC it was
produced by digitising a large film master which revealed some
interesting things - for example, the two i characters aren't
identical. For producing print copy before the age of PostScript
Digital used dry transfer sheets that were custom made in a variety of
sizes.
I'm afraid that I cannot help on the other font(s) used in the pdp logos
and on cabinet panels.
jb - London, UK
> >From what I've been told, the system was designed by Tony Pepin. This is
> >kind of neat for me since at one time I owned (and may still, I'm not sure
> >*grin*) a Model I that had his name, address and phone # engraved on the
> >case. (I also owned a Model I that at one time was the personal machine
> >of the editor of 80 US Micro - that was pretty cool too. *laughs*)
>
> That's cool...it's always neat to know any specific history
> of a machine like that. One of my Model 2000's was gotten from Roy
> Soltoff of Misosys. He had bought it to get into software
> development for the 2000 but then ended up never using it when the
> market never materialized.
Indeed. I am fortunate to have the Dennis Bathory-Kitsz's personal
LNW-80.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
Check out the DEC Ethusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/
I think I forgot to announce the webpage here a month or so when I did it
up. Anyway I've just updated it to reflect that beta's of simh 2.7 are
available now, AND more importantly that a ITS distribution is now
available! It can be accessed at
http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/pdp10emu.html
The webpage details where to get an emulator (including links to Windows
binaries), the installation documents for your OS of choice (TOPS-10,
TOPS-20, or ITS), your OS of choice (well, at least the versions that are
supported), and any doc's that are available online for the OS.
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, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
From: Jim Tuck <technos(a)nerdland.org>
>D'ya know if they ever fixed the mid-bitstream problem that was common
>early with the
>Trash and later with the Atari and their MPI over cassette interface? I
>had one of the
>Atari setups, nice so long as you were only using it like a multi-cable
>PtP setup.
Yes. One fix for the cload TRS80 problem was an internal counter based
oneshot that would clear the RS flop at the ttl end of the CLOAD read
hardware.
The interface depended on the transistion detector being reset by
software
and sometimes that didnt happen and it would get lost.
The other problem was if you were doing back to back (cpu to cpu) CLOAD
CSAVE the clock on one could be way off and after a minute or so of
data transfer the recieving system would get behind.
Allison
