test-drb January 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

303 participants
1201 discussions

by mhstein＠usa.net

Well, I DO want to nitpick; never thought I'd come to Dick's defense, but nothing wrong with *E*.*E*. Cummings AFAIK: http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm Any statistics available on what percentage of text on this list actually concerns computers? Often amusing and occasionally interesting though; particularly ironic that almost all replies criticizing spelling, etc. also contained at least one typo or spelling/grammar error... (not to mention Doc's 'e.e' criticism) C'mon, guys (since the gals are obviously more mature), isn't this getting a little nasty for a friendly group like this? Free speech, diversity of opinions, yes, but do we need words like a**hole? mike (In .ca despite usa.net address :) -----------------Original Message--------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:05:43 -0600 (CST) From: Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> Subject: Re: Language and English On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote: <snip> > If you insist on writing in a style reminiscent of E. E. Cummings poetry, > you may find that your messages are read by readers of this forum with about > the same frequency as E.E. Cummings' work, which might be a shame, in case > you really do have something significant to contribute. or in case I'm the > only one who doesn't read much Cummings. Nah, I like ee cummings. And not to nitpick, but your rendering of his name is incorrect. <snip> I submit further that none of the mortals on the classiccmp list have evolved to that literary level. *** Umm... a somewhat sweeping generalization... mike *** <snip> Doc

22 years, 6 months

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>If you have problems reading some things, try to keep that in mind when you >write. Others may have problems as well. Make it easy for them to see what >you mean in what you write by taking a little extra care. It's important. >Learn to do it well. I just think some people need to realize that sometimes, what you get is the best a person can do. I'm not defending a lack of use of punctuation or capitalization, or anything like that (re: the emails this thread is about... I agree they should have had better care taken when being written)... but with generally poor writing, particularly when you find the same person doing it over and over... you just have to accept that that MIGHT be the best they are capable of. And you might want to ease up a bit on them... since the bitching may very well be taken as a direct insult to their intelligence level... and is apt not to fix the problem, but rather cause a nasty conflict. I mean, how would some of you feel, if you asked about some unknown classic computer part, and were told "you must be some kind of dumb ass to not know what that is... anyone who has half a brain in their head would know this". But then, if your writing sucks because you are lazy... well, you should just be taken out and shot... or at least deserve to be insulted for it. Just my thoughts. And no, I myself have not been insulted by ANYTHING that has ever been said on this list, much less the recent discussions... including all the bashing I took over the crescent wrench incident... but then, I am think skinned (or was that think headed), and it takes far more than a bunch of emails to offend me (kick me in the nuts... I might be offended... call me a dumb ass... I am likely to agree with you) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 6 months

Some pointers needed on a 11/70

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 15:40, The Wanderer wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: > > On Jan 2, 21:08, <quapla(a)xs4all.nl> wrote: > > > > > I'm sure there must be people on the list who know more about 11/70s than I > > do, but since no-one else has replied yet... > > > Until know, you're the only one..... Oh dear, I've only seen one once. > > Is the memory powered up and connected? At the right address (you must > Yes, it is running, and all the leds are on, except one red led (battery > power > available?). > There is 128KW of memory (in 2 64Kw boards) > > > have some memory in the lowest 28KW to start up)? Is the cache working? > How do I know if the cache is working? Good question. I'm not sure, I think it's tested by the diagnostics on the bootstrap card. I think it's possible to disable it but I don't know how. It may be in one of the processor handbooks, which I can look up tomorrow. That's where I checked the value for the LSR and USR. > > There are various things done by the power-up bootstrap diagnostic > True, I have re-read the M9312, and at address 777644 is the diagnostics > rom start > address. When I load this address and then set 012 in the switch reg, > for some > moments it is blinking leds, and then lets the pause light on. There is > no sensible > address/error code shown at the console which should indicate a diag > failure. That sounds encouraging. At least it seems to be running the diagnostic code. I think, though, that the address it halts at is what tells you what (if anything) failed the test. If you can tell where it halted, it may be able to look that up. Do you have the manual for the M9312? There are several ROMs that might be on it, with different device bootstraps, and I think there are at least two diagnostics PROM options: one for 11/70 and one for other Unibus machines. I could be wrong about that, of course; I might be confusing it with the multiplicity of variants of the M9301. I just happen to have an M9301-YC >from an 11/70. > On the M8132 is a switchblock (1 of 3) which is - according to the doc- > the > lsw, I have set it to 1M, I suspect that should be set to the actual memory size. Anyone else know anything about 11/70's? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 6 months

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

an os to run the apps as fast as they can run. no far calls. maybe no swapping. a dual mode os where i can single task to squeeze as much performance out as i can and also switch to mutitasking when needed. i robotics os would be to run hundreds of robots. like a theme park run entirelly by bots where the robots repair the other bots. the system would do diagnostics on all the bot like a bios does on a pc to see if all the hardware is working. also the give vision to the bot. also many other functions. joee

22 years, 6 months

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 tothwolf(a)concentric.net wrote: >> BTW, I worked with a guy who accidentally recharged an AA sized >> Lithium battery. It left shrapnel in the wall and he is still slighty >> deaf in one ear. >Do I dare ask *how* one accidentally recharges a lithium battery? By powering a battery powered PCB from a bench supply and forgetting to remove the battery jumper. Careless. Chris

22 years, 6 months

Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries

by CLeyson＠aol.com

In a message dated 05/01/02 bshannon(a)tiac.net (Bob Shannon) writes: >Lithium Ion (secondary) batteries are rechargable >Lithium (primary) batteries are not rechargable. >Recharging lithium ion batteries in laptops is a very complex operation, and >a somewhat dangerous one as well. A conventional 18650 Lilion battery cell >has a substancial explosive yield, if mistreated! Bob is quite right, the exploding battery referred to in an earlier post was a standard (primary) cell. Personally I tend to avoid Lithium batteries at all costs, firstly, for the reasons given above and secondly, they're probably the least environmentally friendly. I'm just glad that PC manufacturers use EERAM these days. BTW, the Toshiba laptop has been thoroughly cleaned and reassembled :-( Chris

22 years, 6 months

PDP-11 memory question

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 13:35, Ethan Dicks wrote: > --- Tom Leffingwell <tom(a)sba.miami.edu> wrote: > > > > I have a PDP 11/23 (M8186 CPU with floating point and MMU options) > > in a 4 slot BA11-MA box that at some point in its life was an 11/03. It > > had an M8044-DF 32k memory module, which I'm trying to replace with a > > 128k M8059-KJ. The system works fine with the 32k module, but won't do > > anything with the 128k module. > > Have you checked the jumpers on the M8059? Where in memory does it think > it is supposed to live? Even the M8044 has address jumpers. Two other things occur to me. The first is that memories like the MSV11-D (M8044) and MSV11-L (M8059) have jumpers to enable or disable memory that corresponds to the I/O page. This gets a little complicated... Most DEC memories decode the BBS7 signal to sense access to the I/O page and disable memory access accordingly. The MSV11-D has a jumper 1-2 to enable memory in the lower 2KW of the I/O page for systems that don't use the whole I/O space; jumper 2-3 (the factory setting) to disable memory in the whole top 4KW. The MSV11-L has a similar arangement, using jumpers 28-29 to enable the memory in the bottom half of the I/O page, and 27-28 to disable it. > > I'm not familiar with PDP-11's, but it seems like my backplane is only > > 18-bit, while the new memory module is 22-bit. > > Yes, I would expect that your backplane is 18-bit. It wouldn't matter, > anyway - 18 bits is 256Kbytes (2^18 = 262,144) or 128Kwords. The 128K > card will fill your memory space, but it should work on an 18-bit > blackplane. You can also stuff 4 M8044 cards in there - 32Kwords each > for a total of 128Kwords. And that's the second thing. The MSV11-L doesn't use BBS7 for everything it decodes, so you have to set it according to whether it's in a 22-bit system or an 18-bit system. If there's a jumper from R-T, it's set for a 2MW system. Remove it for 128KW systems. It's also a parity memory, unlike the MSV11-D, and furthermore it has it's own on-board parity control and reporting register. I don't think that would stop it working if not set up, though. If you want to check the parity jumper settings, the factory default is 9-10 out, 10-11 in, 18-19 out and 19-20 in (to enable parity); 1-2 in and 2-3 out (to enable register reporting); 6-7 in and 7-8 out (necessary to disable wrong-parity writing which is used for testing); F-H in and J-H out (to enable the CSR for parity setting/reporting rather than other methods). There are also jumpers to enable/disable half the board. Normal settings are 32-33 out and 33-34 in for a fully-populated board (reverse for half-populated) and 15-16 in and 16-17 out (the reverse disables the lower bank, used if part of the bank fails). Most of the remaining jumpers set the starting address. For a starting address of zero, you want pins P,N,M,L disconnected, and pins V,W,X,Y,Z disconnected (the addressing is done in two parts). To change the address to something other than zero, you would connect one or more of these pins to pin K (ground). > > I've also read that the M8186 board is only 22-bit compatible after > > revision C. I can't find any mark on the board showing what revision it > > is. Is there another way to tell? > > Is it on the maroon handle? I don't think it's anything in the solder > mask/copper; there might be an ink stamp with the revision or perhaps a > sticker. If you can't tell in anyway, shape or form, perhaps you have > a rev A. Quick check is to hold the board with handles at the top/contacts at the bottom, and look for a metal jumper (W18) about an inch below the handles, about halfway between them, and above a diode jumpered with a red wire. If it's there, it's a Rev.A. > > Also, is possible to modify the 18-bit bus and make it 22-bit, or > > maybe by swapping out the backplane? > > You can run the extra backplane wires. I have done it. Having done so, > you may have to find a way to terminate them. Newer boxes are already Q22 > and have bus termination built-in. Older backplanes depended on a > termination card - the BDV-11 is one that is termination plus bootstrap > ROMs. I've done it too. A standard BDV11 doesn't terminate the upper 4 address lines, but there's an ECO (ECO 005?) to fix that. It consists of adding 4 short wires from the contact fingers to termination resistors that are otherwise unused. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 6 months

HP2000 available for login yet?

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Steve, Did you use the HP2000 in school? I used to work at a board of education in northern NJ and we used to provide timeshare services to many schools in the area.

22 years, 6 months

HP2000 available for login yet?

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Saw some posts back in August that Jay got his 2000 up and running, just wondering if it was available to for a guest to login and reminisce. Thanks! Mike

22 years, 6 months

Megabyte vs Mebibyte (was Re: Language and English)

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

! From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] ...... ! They should coin a new term for a fake Megabyte (i.e. ! something other than 1024 ^ 2). Call it a "Maybebyte". ! ! That wasn't funny. ! ! Sellam Ismail I thought it was. Or am I that weird? --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

22 years, 6 months

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test-drb January 2002