test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

Heath Zenith in a Faraday cage, was Secret Mac

by ken＠seefried.com

Yup...I've seen plenty of Zeniths (i386 & i486 models) in Faraday cages. For that matter, I've seen a bunch of MacIIfx decked out similarly. Tempest rated boxes. My first job was with a shop (SecureWare) that did high security versions of Unix for these things. SCO-based for the Zeniths & A/UX-based for the Macs. The Unix was refered to as CMW (Compartmented Mode Workstation), was validated as a B1-level system (in Orange Book speak), and featured a secure window manager based on X (windows have security labels, and you couldn't do things like cut and paste between windows with different security labels). Pretty kewl, if you are into that sort of thing. Ken

24 years, 1 month

One-upsmanship (was: Secret Mac

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman(a)acm.org> > >My computer dims the neighborhood's lights when I turn it on... > >My computer has fewer transistors than yours... > >My computer has no transistors, just tubes... > >My computer's valves burn out faster than yours... > >My computer's got more gears than yours... Then there is... My computers daddy is bigger than yours. Allison

24 years, 1 month

Boeing 707 simulator up for auction

by dpeschel＠eskimo.com

This is probably old news for the flight-simulator crowd on the list, but I just came across the article in the newspaper. It won't be cheap, partly because it's serial number 0001 (one). http://www.707sim.com/

24 years, 1 month

Almost on topic - Cassette I/O

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

I am building a FPGA ( Field programmable gate array ) computer in the style of the early computers that had a front panel and TTY for I/O. While I don't have have a front panel working the Hardware serial bootstrap does work on my prototype. Since I have a few LOGIC cells left in my FPGA to play with I was thinking adding a cassette interface. Does anybody know of schematics on the web that I can get ideas from. Ben Franchuk. -- Standard Disclaimer : 97% speculation 2% bad grammar 1% facts. "Pre-historic Cpu's" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk Now with schematics.

24 years, 1 month

The PERQ factor (was: One-upsmanship) (fwd)

by pcw＠mesanet.com

> > I think the most beautiful processor I've seen is CPU card of the > > Symbolics 3645. The wiring and chip layout are really nice. One thing that > > always impressed me about that machine is that the disk label is in ASCII > > text! Of course it has a 68000 with a decent amount of ROM space (the FEP) to > > boot from... > > What do you mean by "the disk label is in ASCII text"? Its been a long time (>10 years) but AFAICR I was able to add a new Saber drive by using the FEP, The disk label is just plain text in the first block that is interpreted... > > I've played with a Symbolics for maybe half an hour. It has a lot of cool > software, though it kept trying to connect to a ChaosNet server to download > all the docs, so there was a lot I couldn't find out. I haven't really > explored the essence of the software. 1/2 and hour with an incomplete system is not much of a demonstration... > > The design of both the software and the hardware strikes me as baroque > (typical MIT "just keep adding features" hacking). Also the system as a > whole is not necessarily "self-sustaining". A friend of mine is having > trouble with his Symbolics -- his disk has bad blocks in the LISP world -- > he doesn't have the "breath-of-life" tape that has to be created for each > individual disk -- there's no way for the FEP to change the bad block list > -- the software to create new "breath-of-life" tapes is not available. > If any of those problems were fixed things might be better, but in the > current situation there's no recourse (except to pay Symbolics). That's > what I mean by "not self-sustaining" I dont think that there was a whole lot there that was not needed. A tagged architecture 36 bit machine with paged virtual memory, ECC, capable of executing about 5 million Lisp instructions a second was not trivial to build in 1985... > > I've read the manuals for the Xerox environment but I've never used the > actual machine. The hardware/software is less baroque but still heavily > layered (three separate LISP environments running on top of PILOT on a > variety of machines with a variety of keyboard layouts). INTERLISP's > comment handling never seemed sensible to me and it has lots of cryptic > names and messages left over from the TTY days. The Xerox hardware is less "baroque" because is is not a "Lisp machine" it is a microcoded 16 bit processor with WCS. The magic is done with (very clever) microcode but it is _much_ slower than the 36xx > > > The Symbolics and the Xerox WS running Interlisp always seemed to be > > the most "alive" computers I've used, which I think has something to do with > > how much the command interpreter, shell, etc knows about things... > > And how interconnected they are. I would love to play wtih DEdit (or SEdit > which is the newer version) -- its generalization of "select, then act" > to multiple selections and its "one man's output is another man's input" > mentality would be fun. I don't know much about TEdit or the Grapher but > they seem to have cult followings. > > -- Derek > You can download a Interlisp/common lisp environment from PARC that will run under Linux (its actually an application (LFG)) but you can play with SEdit and Tedit) ... Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics

24 years, 1 month

Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 21, Ben Franchuk wrote: > > To bring this back on-topic: in the years prior to the existence of > > Micro$oft and it's viruses pretending to be operating systems, can > > anyone think of any vintage operating system(s) that was (were) known > > for being poorly designed, annoying to use, and dangerous to data, > > which was (were) regarded with the same disdain as Micro$oft windows, > > yet still had loyal lusers who apparently didn't know any better than > > not to use it (them)? > > Users never had a real say in the matter. Really? Interesting. Was there a law passed that I was unaware of? -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years, 1 month

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hmm...I sense some Microsoftism on the list... -Dave On April 20, Richard Erlacher wrote: > ... and if you're dumb enough to believe that, you'll get what you deserve. > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "R. D. Davis" <rdd(a)rddavis.org> > To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> > Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 7:53 PM > Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format) > > > > Quothe Christopher Smith, from writings of Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at > 01:04:18PM -0500: > > [biz'droids] > > > Indeed I would tell them if they would listen to me. As it is, I have > > > > Just talk louder and be more persistent; they'll reach a point where > > they'll either listen or fire you; it the later, no great loss since > > it doesn't sound like they're worth working for. > > > > > agreed to follow their rules, and will have to do that until they make > > > more sane rules. > > > > Why? > > > > > In other words, when I took their job, I gave them > > > my word. > > > > You gave them your word that you'd act like a good little obedient > > dimwit? Why would anyone promise to do that? I suggest that you > > run emacs and invoke doctor ("M-x doctor") to get some help. ;-) > > > > > I don't believe I can count on them to fix these problems > > > on my account. After all, they don't impair my work -- all of our > > > clients use this junk too. (Sad, but what can you do about it?) > > > > One can always refuse to work with that Micro$oft rubbish. Perhaps you > > could educate your employer's clients; tell them all about the big > > mistakes that they're making by wanting to use that Micro$oft > > virusware which is broken, and otherwise annoying, by design. Don't > > mince words, tell it like it is, and tell them that no reasonably > > intelligent computer hacker would work with that rubbish unless it was > > as part of a project to change over to a UNIX system, or VMS, or even > > CP/M... that is, changing over to a system that doesn't destroy data > > and do other peculiar things with files. Ask them why they like > > operating systems that molest data... someone needs to make an "Eddy > > Electron" like film, that's Monty Pythonish, called "Pfe$ter, the > > Micro $oft Mole$ter," showing him doing strange things with bits of > > data as they flow through the computer. > > > > -- > > Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other > animals: > > All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & > > rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify > such > > http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty. > > > > > > -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years, 1 month

Apple-1 Auction Action

by carlos_murillo＠epm.net.co

At 07:07 AM 4/20/02 -0400, Sridhar wrote: >On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote: >> Try MSNBC. >I find their journalism a bit too yellow too. I tend to watch the BBC >world news. I find NPR to be the only sort of OK source of news in the U.S. They're every bit as imprecise as cnn and msnbc, but at least they try to be balanced. BBC's world service is much better. Deutsche Welle is good too. -------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org

24 years, 1 month

Info wanted- North Valley Designs SPGM-100 Universal Programmer

by tractorb＠ihug.co.nz

Subject line sez all- still looking...... Dave Brown Christchurch NZ

24 years, 1 month

Prime PT250 Terminal, NIB VT keyboards at Yahoo! Auctions

by whdawson＠localisps.net

Just happened to notice this: Prime PT250 Terminal, Use with UNIX systems, Keyboard Included Clean and Works Some Burn in.. No bids yet. Opening bid of $4.99, buy it price of $14.99 http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64250839?aucview=0x30 2 LK250-AA keyboard NIB: http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64903339?aucview=0x10 http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64234817?aucview=0x30 Appears to be some Apple IIgs's and Mac Pizza Boxes in this one, though the shipping's kind of steep. FCFS gets pick. http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/63282847?aucview=0x30 Bill

24 years, 1 month

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test-drb April 2002