Hey Tony --
I wrote:
> > I considered that but don't know of any way to consistently get heads
to
> > crash in such a controlled manner as to be useable musically (i.e.,
makes
> > pretty much the same sound every time).
> >
> > Do you?
Tony replied:
> If I was mad enough to attempt this,
Is this your opinion of my state of mind? ;>)
> I'd record the sound of a head
> crash, and then replay it as necessary. Either digitally (whereupon you
> could vary the pitch, etc I believe) or on good old analogue tape, and
> then fiddle with the speed on playback if necessary).
Sure, I can record to my hard drive and then manipulate the resultant file
in all sorts of ways. But I want to "play" the device -- like a musical
instrument -- for at least a few dozen times in order to gain some control
over the sound which is produced. Ideally I want to write a program to
crash the heads so that I can play the drive the same way I push the
buttons on a printer to obtain certain sounds.
Let's say I take an ST-225 and a WD controller and stick them in a PC and I
want the heads to bang out a rhythm, then screech to a halt.
Any suggestions?
Glen
0/0
This is fantastic -- thanks for sharing.
Being a musician, this conjures up all sorts of ideas for using computer
sounds to make music. I have a recording studio hung off my main
non-classic box, so I can add this to my List of Unfinished Projects. Some
useable sounds might be:
(printers, of course)
hard drive spinup & chatter
crt charge & discharge
floppy drive stepper motors
ps fans
cpu cooling fans
cd drives (opening, closing, and spinning)
scanner sounds
tape drives
ASR 33s
PAC readers
card readers
So what did I miss (classic or non)?
Glen
0/0
----------
> From: James Carter <james(a)cs.york.ac.uk>
>
> i don't know whether this has been sent to the list before, but it
> tickled me. most of the "performers" appear to be classic, so it is on
> topic.
>
> http://www.sat.qc.ca/the_user/dotmatrix/en/intro.html
On September 3, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > > Do you mean gas discharge (like the Sumlock Compucorp on my desk with a
> > > Panaplex display), or vacuum fluorescent (the green displays used on a
> > > number of 1970's hand-held calculators)?
> > Probably vacuum fluorescent. Gas-discharge would be more like Nixies, right?
>
> Speaking of, kinda related, anybody know where I can get one of the
> 21" DEC orange gas plasma displays? I forget the model number right
> now, but I've been looking for one of them for quite a while...
It's called a VRE01.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
I am getting a blinking 60 on the panel of my trusty Lasjet Plus printer.
Was attempting to set up a parallel port scanner, and plugged the printer on
passthru. This is on a W2K system (sorry guys). Scanner no work, and error
code started. Have re-installed driver, plugged printer back in direct, but
still get error code. No help on printer or HP web sites, cause unit is too
old (like its owner). Has someone got docs, or a link to the user manual ?
Any hints welcome.
Harry
This might be of interest to somebody here (hopefully)...
Surplus Traders (www.73.com) currently has 35 Nabu computers for $29.00
a pop, plus shipping. Normally they do bulk sales, but they will sell
the Nabu individually. (Search for item CR356.)
I picked one up a while ago, and mine was still 'new', in the box, with
a factory seal. Then again, since this surplus, it might be best to
verify that the units are 'new' if that's important to you.
Unfortunately, I haven't really toyed with the Nabu hardware too much
(yet), and if anyone else has, I'd love to hear about it. Either way,
these machines are certainly an interesting part of computing history.
Here's a small blurb about the Nabu:
http://ieee.ca/millennium/telidon/telidon_nabu.html
Hi:
I came across a very simple benchmark program that I'd like to use in
comparing the speed of a real Altair to that of the Altair32 emulator:
org 0
start:
ei
lxi b,0 ; inner loop = 65536 times
mvi d,50 ; outer loop = 50 times
loop:
push b ; this is just to increase the instruction count
push d
push h
push psw
pop psw
pop h
pop d
pop b
dcx b
mov a,b
ora c ; done with inner loop?
jnz loop ; if not, keep going
dcr d ; do this 50 times
jnz loop
hlt ; done with speed test
end start
I would appreciate it if someone with an Altair could put this in and time,
in seconds, how long it takes to perform this test.
I already know that the Altair32 is painfully slow, primarily because of
the graphics routines used to draw the front panel LEDs. Disabling LED
updating improves the speed greatly. Doing this, unfortunately, results in
you have a Turnkey system...
Thanks to all.
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
Don't smoke - corrected the typo, and sold it for $14.98 on 4 May 1999
Bennie R Warden - Bookseller
39 South Alhambra Lane 561.878.9645
Port Saint Lucie FL 34952-2832
VISA - Master Card - Discover/Novus - Check/MO
From: Jerome Fine <jhfine(a)idirect.com>
>Do you mean the TU-58? I am looking for one!! I have one that does not
>work and I want to replace the bad part. The rollers are OK. This is
>the external TU-58 with two drives in a black box. Does anyone have
one?
>Even if it is not working, perhaps I can cut and paste.
Err what part are you looking for so it could possibly be found?
I have one of the external TU-58s, no I'm not scrapping it.
Allison
I had mentioned these before, but unfortunately dumped the email
by accident.....
I have a Model III complete with software and Model 12 with 2
external hard drives and keyboard. I assume they work (at least the
Model III had worked the last time the donor who gave it to me
used it....)
I'm in Northwest Indiana, about 40 minutes East of Chicago. These
are too big and bulky for me to deal with packing and shipping....I
would prefer that they be picked up.
I'm never gonna get around to playing with them, and they are
taking up a huge amount of shelf space that I need for other things.
I don't want to scrap 'em....but I would like them gone by the end of
the month.
I've already done my big Tandy display at the local library, and I
realized just how bulky they are when I tried to shoehorn 'em into
my Impreza.....I'm sticking with smaller stuff from now on. Ok, the
Lisa II is and exception. ;o)
Please. Give these a good home.
Thanks.
Please contact me off-list and we can arrange something
Paul Braun WD9GCO
Cygnus Productions
nerdware_nospam(a)laidbak.com
"A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without a bunch of bricks tied to its head."
Hi folks,
My gf brought me back said TRS80 MIII (16K model, no floppies) from her trip
to New Jersey a couple of weeks ago, surprisingly it's a 240V model. Anyway,
it suffered the usual airport baggage handling 'techniques' and the VDU
broke away from its mountings. Fortunately the neck hasn't broken so it
should be salvageable unless there's a hairline crack somewhere I've missed.
Anyway, I've glued everything back in place and it's whole again; however
there's 1 wire that's broken free from *somewhere* on the screen itself but
I can't see where. It's black and goes to a post marked E306 on the VDU
board that's normally screwed to the left hand side of the case. E306 itself
is part of the grounding circuit, so have any of you TRS80 III owners got
the schematics for the VDU circuit?
Thanks in advance,
--
adrian/witchy
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - The online Computer museum
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - monthly Gothic shenanigans
