test-drb November 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

252 participants
556 discussions

Longevity of CD-R (was RE: Preserving Newspaper.)

by cb＠mythtech.net

>Kodak seems to be mostly out of the gold CD-R business, but Mitsui and >Taiyo Yuden still make gold media. It's hard to find at retail, though >a Google search turns up plenty of mail order sources. Of course it >is much more expensive than silver. Any idea about the quality of Verbatim's "Azo" dye? Obviously they hype it as being far better than other media, but I didn't know if anyone knows any "truth" about it. I have been moving to those because that is what I have been buying for my VCD recorder. I settled on them because they were the only ones I could get to work reliably in my VCD recorder when I first got it. It turned out to be a defective recorder (cooling fan was broken, so the unit overheated within minutes), and now just about any 74 minute CD-Rs work in it... but I have stuck with the Verbatim despite the slightly higher price... simply because I was impressed that they managed to work consistantly even in a broken recorder. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 1 month

Sellam on TechTV

by cb＠mythtech.net

I have a QuickTime Movie of Sellam's section on TechTV's ScreenSavers the other day. Unfortunatly, it is about 11 MB, which is more than I can host over my DSL if it is going to get any number of hits. How many people want me to put this up, or is there someone with a better connection that wants to host it instead? (I also have a slightly higher quality version that is about 21 MB). The clip runs about 9 minutes and requires Apple's QuickTime (if anyone has easy access to an MPEG converter and wants to convert it, feel free). -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

22 years, 1 month

watch out for this guys!!! [Fwd: Access restricted: Verify your account information.]

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> wrote: > At 01:08 PM 11/9/02 -0800, Frank McConnell wrote: > >What really cheeses me off about this sort of thing is that the > >service providers don't go out of their way to make it easy to > >identify fraudulent use of their names (or do any kind of sane mail > >filtering, for that matter) by looking at the source and destination > >domain names in e-mail headers and URLs. > > Two great opposing forces are at work on the internet, total control and > verified identity, vs, anarchy and annonmenity (sorry spelling is not a > major force). I guess I put this the wrong way round. The company on whose behalf this stuff was e-mailed (HP) has allowed someone to make it hard to identify that the stuff really originated with or in fact has anything to do with them, beyond easily-forgeable bits in the From: header name (the text bit, not the address) and body which I know better than to trust. > Unfortunately the same verified ID that would let me track down a spammer, > also would allow oppressive regimes to control internet content. I'm not asking for a cryptographically verifiable ID, I'm asking that those who would allow other parties to send authorized corporate communications in their behalf via unencrypted e-mail at least put enough effort into making sure that these communications at least give the appearance of coming from the authorizing party. Allowing the mailing-list company to use specific name(s) in hp.com in the From: header address and URLs would do; allowing the mailing-list company to use specific name(s) in hp.com in the Received: headers and SMTP envelope address would be nice too. This is all just DNS tricks. Absent this, how can I (as the receiver) tell the difference between authorized and unauthorized communications? I can't, and if I can't I don't see how I can expect anyone else to do so. That's what makes it possible for some miscreant to forge e-mail claiming to be from HP, or eBay, and get people to reply with their credentials. The recipients can't tell which messages to trust. ObCC: turned up a copy of Abrash's _Zen of Assembly Language_ at the book sale yesterday. It's a good book (and hard to find), but you can probably get most of his message out of his later books that are somewhat easier to find: _Zen of Code Optimization_ and/or _Graphics Programming Black Book_ (which latter I believe is available in some form or other online). -Frank McConnell

22 years, 1 month

[OT] Headed for the scrap heap...

by patrick＠evocative.com

The following spare parts from 3Com equipment (1992-1994) are headed for the scrap heap unless someone wants them (all or individual): CEC for 3Com NetBuilder II 3C6000 Power Supply for same Two Ethernet cards for same One HSS V.35/RS232 high-speed serial card for same 16-port serial card for 3Com Communications Server CS/3100 10-BaseT option card for same All items are in Berkeley, CA, and of course no charge (unless you need it shipped, then just actual cost). Patrick

22 years, 1 month

Xerox Parc

by lgwalker＠mts.net

Something that I have always wondered about is why Xerox never sued Jobs ass off for the Mac GUI and also MSWindows which was derrived from Xerox's 'Small-Talk". They were a major corporation and Apple was quick enough to disembowel DRI's GEM altho Sam's Atari ST still continued to use an updated version of the original. MS has also litigated any threat to their bullying dominance and despite the protestations of the C-64 fans GEOS (any coincidence there) is obviously a clone of the GEM desktop. The mouse was also developed at Palo Alto. I have trouble simply accepting that a major corporation like XEROX was simply a stupid wimp. From all evidence I've seen Xerox invented the GUI. Something more important than CP/M, MSDOS, or UNIX. What am I missing here. Lawrence lgwalker(a)mts.net bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com

22 years, 1 month

PDP-8/E Ext. Memory Test Wierdness

by cmcnabb＠4mcnabb.net

My PDP-8/E currently has four fields of core installed - fields 0 through 3. All fields pass both the 4K Memory Address Test and 4K Checkerboard Test with no problems. The Ext. Memory Address Test also runs fine. However, when I run the Ext. Memory Checkerboard Test I get wierdness. Here is the run: PDP-8E EXT MEM DATA & CHKBD SETUP SR & CONT <--- Set SR to 000000000011 4 FIELDS IN THIS SYSTEM FIELDS SEL'D ARE 6 5 3 2 0 <--- First bit of wierdness. This should be 3 2 1 0 PROG WILL RELOCATE PR LOC FAIL ADDR GOOD BAD PATTERN 01660 50000 7777 0000 ALL 0 - 10 01660 50001 7777 0000 ALL 0 - 10 This continues through fields 5 and 6 until I hit the halt key. The Config is as follows: PDP-8/E CPU EAE Ext Memory & Timesharing ASR-33 Teletype and Associated Control 4K Core stacks for Fields 0 and 1, 8K Stack for Fields 2 and 3 What I don't understand is why the Ext. Mem Address Test works correctly, but the Ext Memory Data and Checkerboard can determine the number of fields while messing up on exactly which fields they are. Anyone seen this before? -- Christopher L McNabb Operating Systems Analyst Email: cmcnabb(a)4mcnabb.net Virginia Tech ICBM: 37.1356N 80.4272N GMRS: WPSR255 ARS: N2UX Grid Sq: EM97SD

22 years, 1 month

11/44 scare

by jpl15＠panix.com

Well, this evening I fired up the PDP11/44 machine that I drug to VCF5 and back... it has moved into the house to live in what would have been the dining room, had I not made my office there. I thought of leaving it in the garage and just having the teminals in here, but it's getting regularly down into the teens and below at night, and Winter is hardly here yet... Anyway, after checking things out visually, I powered it on and the monitor immediately trapped to the console and halted. Ah. Schiess/Merde/Caca! Okay, no problem, something shook loose during all the moving and loading/unloading.. I powered down and re-seated the cards. Power back up, same thing. Starts to boot, traps to ODT, proc halts displaying the address it's stumbling over. I paused to give vent to language that is best represented by ASCII line noise. BUT: I have doc! I have Processor Manuals! I have the Technical Manual! And, using ODT, I found that the system was trying to boot the ESDI drives and failing. I'm so proud of myself - decoded the error codes, followed the registers to what was hurting... the Dilog 626 has died... tried to boot from the RL02 - that works fine. Got the other 626 from the other (dead) /44 chassis - now all is well. SO - I'm looking for another Unibus ESDI controller.... as well as all the other Junque. I'm supposed to have a SCSI card on the way - if it works it will have been a Good Deal. If it's trash - oh, well: keep looking. And there you have it. Cheers John

22 years, 1 month

Signetics 2650

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

LOL, AFAIK, Ehrlacher still has some 2650s.. He gave me one. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

22 years, 1 month

watch out for this guys!!! [Fwd: Access restricted: Verify your account information.]

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> wrote: > Why not save energy, and use a water immersion that is very slowly brought > to a boil? Hey, why not be green, at least from an energy point of view? I'm imagining a big concave mirror and a hoist. Tie the rope to appendages appropriate to the crime, and hoist the miscreant into the focal point. ... What really cheeses me off about this sort of thing is that the service providers don't go out of their way to make it easy to identify fraudulent use of their names (or do any kind of sane mail filtering, for that matter) by looking at the source and destination domain names in e-mail headers and URLs. For example, four years ago I bought a then-new HP scanner. I registered it, and gave them an e-mail address. Once a month or so, I get this thing that says something like "Happy Halloween from HP" in the Subject, was mailed from some domain name in p0.com, and has a bunch of URLs with domain names in p01.com. How the foo is J. Random Customer supposed to tell the difference between this and an attempt to defraud or commit identity theft? -Grumpy Ol' Frank

22 years, 1 month

Best Find of the Weekend!

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

I still like the old TI Programmers calculator that I found a few years back at the "Tektronix Country Store" (where they surplus stuff). Nice LED model, that can convert between the various number systems (I never was that great with Decimal to/from anything). It has the added benifit of being almost identical to the one my Dad had when I was growing up. Except for the battery, it works fine and came with the box, manual, and a power brick. Does anyone still make "Programmers Calculators"? I've got either a Sharp or a Cassio that I bought new 12+ years ago. I forget which brand it is, but it was the one I really liked. It was basically the battery operated/enhanced version of a solar powered one I'd had in High School (which unfortunatly died). I'd love to find a good solar powered one, as I can never remember to pick up batteries for it, as a result I've not been able to use it in years :^/ Zane > > I vote for this as a candidate for "best find of the > decade". > > --- Joe <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> wrote: > > OK I'm claiming the prize now and it's only > > Friday! > > > > Top this: Not one, not two, but THREE Tektronix > > 31 calculators, all NIB! > > > > Found these at a garage sale. They appear to be > > from the estate of a Tektronix employee that bought > > them in Beaverton and shipped them to Orlando when > > he was transferred here. Two are "normal" 31s, the > > other is a different color and is marked "Coulter > > Model 43 Data Converter". It has options 1, 4, Pa > > and Pb installed. I've posted a couple of pictures > > of it at <http://home.cfl.rr.com/rigdon14/tek-31/>. > > I haven't checked out the other two yet but they > > also seem to be well optioned out and have what I > > think is the interface to connect the TM500 modular > > instruments. > > > > Joe :-) > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos > http://launch.yahoo.com/u2 >

22 years, 1 month

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test-drb November 2002