test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 7, Zane H. Healy wrote: > >That's the first thing I looked for, too. > > Yeah, since I've already got a Pro380 (that I don't even use) and a RT-11 > V5.x doc set, an Ethernet controller would have been the only real reason > to go for it (though the colour graphics is kind of nice). What's the resolution of the Pro mono & color framebuffers, does anyone remember? I recall really liking the video...the VR241 wasn't a *great* monitor, but it looked pretty good...and those VR201s were razor sharp! (I could look it up, but laziness is the chain the binds my butt so tightly to the chair...) -Dave -- Dave McGuire "I thought it would go quickly, St. Petersburg, FL that rubberized bottom..." -Sridhar

22 years, 9 months

Of Mud and Virgins

by lists＠subatomix.com

All right, now that I have your attention, I would like to give a report of my amazing weekend trip to Fort Worth. The most important development of this weekend was my PDP-11 devirginization. Yes, for the year or so that I have been into this hobby, I have rescued or acquired several PDP-11s. Until this weekend, however, I had never applied power to one. Many of these vintage machines are sufficiently different from the PCs I grew up with that learning about them is like rediscovering the computer itself, starting from scratch. There has always been a fear within me of not knowing how to operate one of these machines after applying power to it. Other machines have received no power because I am waiting for my electronics knowledge to develop; these machines will be disassembled, tested part-by-part, and reassembled when that knowledge is sufficient. Despite my inactivity, I have somehow known that I would love exploring these machines once powered. That last prophecy has fulfilled itself! I visited Owen Robertson while in FW, and we powered up his 11/34. He showed me a few things -- how to load RL01 packs, where the power switch was, etc. -- and we proceeded to play with the machine. There are problems with the RSX-11M pack he has, so I loaded up an XXDP+ pack. After printing and reading the help file, I experimented and was able (after some trial and error) to -- drum roll, please -- load UPD2 and create another bootable pack with XXDP+ on it! It would be a minor task for many of you, but it is a major milestone for me. I am now PDP-11 devirginized. Owen and I also scoured a few scrapyards in the DFW area. Highlights of our combined finds: - DEC TS05 - DEC rack spacer panels, rail slides, etc. - DG MPT/100 (looks like a TRS-80 Model III) - DG Nova 3 chassis - Two Sun 4/110 towers. - TRS-80 Model III, diskless, with 16KB RAM (Identical to my first computer except for the extra 12KB :-)) - A Lanier word processor (I believe of the kind Pres. Carter used) - CBM PET 8032 - Three IBM 5150 PCs Eric Dittman was going to accompany us but was called away on business. It's too bad we didn't do this a week sooner. The scrappers had just finished destroying what was a very nice PDP-11/60. I at least found and took the unit numbers from the RK07 and RP0x drive. By the time we were finishing up at the second scrapyard, it was raining heavily and *muddy*. It will be interesting to see what lives through being rained upon. Also, as it turns out, a pallet full of desktop 386 PCs isn't useless after all: you can lay them in puddles and form a walkway to keep yourself dry(er). We referred to the process as 'uninstalling Windows'. -- Jeffrey Sharp The email address lists(a)subatomix.com is for mailing list traffic. Please send off-list mail to roach jay ess ess at wasp subatomix beetle dot com. You may need to remove some bugs first.

22 years, 9 months

need the use of a scanner with sheet feeder (near Seattle)

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> "Douglas H. Quebbeman" wrote: > > > > Sheet-fed scanner for most stuff, he does use a hand-scanner > > for bound stuff. Like Eric, I'm pretty sure he does most pages > > as 600dpi line art. I just got doing the same for a section of > > a CDC manual that's in hot demand; then used Kodak Imaging > > to create a multi-page TIF from the individual TIF pages. Then > > print to PDF using Adobe Acrobat 4.05's PDF Writer. Yields a > > 367kb PDF, whereas multipage TIF was 2.1MB. > > Then your TIFFs weren't compressed with the Group 4 2D algorithm, which > is the best around, until we've all got JBIG tools. Either that, or PDF > Writer reduced the resolution during conversion. Well, I scanned the originals as 600dpi line art, instead of gray scale. Lineart generates bitmap files, just two bitplanes. I'd assume that it compresses much more easily since adjacent pixel runs of white are next to each other and chomp down nicely... However... have you checked out the DjVu imaging compression technology? DjVu is a non-propreitary superset of the iterated fractal system imaging compression technology I read about in Byte magazine back in the 1980s. Now that the secret's out of the bag, everyone can have utilize extremely high-compression if you can suffer the slight loss of fidelity to the original (for example, the analysis will find a single ideal letter form for an 'A', and uses that ideal letterform image when reconstructing the document, instead of recording every pixel at every location. For more info on DjVu, just point Google and cut the leash... -dq -Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixnayamspayIgLou.com) [Call me "Doug"] Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits

22 years, 9 months

need the use of a scanner with sheet feeder (near Seattle)

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> > However... have you checked out the DjVu imaging compression > > technology? DjVu is a non-propreitary superset of the iterated fractal > > system imaging compression technology I read about in Byte magazine > > back in the 1980s. Now that the secret's out of the bag, everyone can > > have utilize extremely high-compression if you can suffer the slight > > loss of fidelity to the original (for example, the analysis will find > > a single ideal letter form for an 'A', and uses that ideal letterform > > image when reconstructing the document, instead of recording every > > pixel at every location. > > Sounds like OCR software to me. There any major differences? OCR maps letter forms to text; this is pure compression. Looking at it another way, DjVu condenses any image fed into it into a mathemetical expression that, when evaluated, yields as its result, the image of the original document. So, it's nothing like OCR. If the original image were a page full of little apples, the program will decide which apple is the best one, and when it reconstitutes the original image, will put as many copies of the one apple on the page as the original had. If there are subtle differences between the apples that the eye won't readily see, then the reconstituted image won't have those subtle differences. It goes beyond this too; it separates the text and calls that foreground, and everything that's not text is background. The background is compressed with a different family of wavelets than is used for the foreground. It's worth spending an hour googling for better answers than I could ever hope to provide... -dq -Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixnayamspayIgLou.com) [Call me "Doug"] Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits

22 years, 9 months

PS/2 - E

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Schaefer [mailto:rschaefe@gcfn.org] > It's a neat little toy. I came across the PCMCIA controller > card for one a > few weeks ago and ended up finding more about the -e than the > card itself. > IIRC the model number is 9533-- put that in the search and > you should end up > with some good hits. I just found > http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/9533.html in an old msg > to myself. If > it's the one I'm thinking of, it's a good read. Thanks. That was informative. It seems the 387 math-co is "optional," so it's good that I have it. I also think there's some extra RAM in there. (Above the 4M they claim are on the board) Reminds me very much of the intel-based "multia" systems, which are about the same size, and about as well integrated. A related question would be, does anyone know a cheap source of PCMCIA boards? Specifically, to actually use this thing, I'll want an ethernet adaptor (10Mb), and probably some linear flash. Some SRAM that will operate at (is the low voltage 3 or 1.5 on those?) the lower voltage would probably be good too. (where...) Can one still get PCMCIA hard disks that will work in this thing too? I do have a specific and on-topic reason for wanting the flash and SRAM boards. I intend to use the machine as a way of bootstraping a Minix installation for my "Poqet PC," if I can manage it. The Poqet will read linear flash, but not write it, and will read and write SRAM. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 9 months

Video Card

by vance＠ikickass.org

Anyone know where I can get an IBM RS/6000 POWER GXT1000 Model 002 video card? Peace... Sridhar

22 years, 9 months

Shoddy Hardware (Was: Re: WW fixtures (was Re: "New" PDP-8))

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Apr 4, 23:29, Chad Fernandez wrote: > I've read about bolt types on Brit bikes a bit. It seems that they had > a variety of things they called Whitworth. Not really. See Tony's post; there are various series that use the same Whitworth thread form (55 degree thread angle, and rounding of crests and troughs) but they have different names. BSW (British Standard Whitworth) is the standard coarse series, analagous to ANC/UNC. BSF (British Standard Fine) is the corresponding fine-pitch series, analagous to ANF/UNF. There are some special-purpose threads you might have come across, such as BSB (British Standard Brass) which is used for finer pitch on soft metals (26 tpi, regardless of diameter). BSP (BS Pipe) is used for some pipe fittings, and is confusing because the sizes refer to the internal diameters of the high-pressure pipes or glands it would be used for (so 1/4" BSP is a little over 1/2" diameter over the threads). To add insult to injury, there are two types: plain, and tapered. Then there are some ME (Model Engineeer) threads which are very fine pitch, in two standard series: 32 tpi, and 40 tpi. A few of these correspond to normal BSW/BSF/BSB threads, but apart from that, they're relatively rare. Rarer still is British Standard Cycle, a fine pitch thread with a 60 degree thread angle, mostly 26 tpi or 32 tpi (1/8" is 40 tpi, though). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

22 years, 9 months

"rubber" preservation

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> >This reminds me, these acoustic couplers may need some periodic > >maintenance, such as putting some talcum powder on the rubber pieces > >that hold the telephone handset. > > I've also seen it recommended for refrigerator door gaskets. > What talcum would do to protect rubberized plastic from > deteriorating is a mystery to me. Are we talking about > actual latex in any of these situations? I think not. > > I would guess these rubbers harden or goo-ify over time > due to something other than lack of talc, such as long-term > exposure to UV or ozone or absorption of volatiles from > other plastics. > > I have an old Anderson-Jacobsen 300 baud modem in a wooden > box that needs a new home, I think... The wooden ones are the original, 1st generation AJ's, IIRC... I have the second-generation plastic shell that assembles with an aluminum "waistband" and allenhead screws. The third generation used thinner plastic clamshells and no waistband, just some tapered Philips-head screws. The 3rd generation was also limited to 300 baud, while my 2nd generation could do 450 & 600 using the 300 standard (Bell 101?). -dq -Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixnayamspayIgLou.com) [Call me "Doug"] Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits

22 years, 9 months

GEM-OS

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Gene Buckle [mailto:geneb@deltasoft.com] > > Atari is the major exception (in that TOS is actually based on > > CP/M... > Huh? AFAIK, TOS is the ROM code that was the Atari > equivalent to the PC > GEM AES (application environment services) as well as some > other low-level > support routines. Well, this comes from reading, and not from first hand experience, so I could bw wrong, as always. (Not that I'm always wrong, but I could be... ;) I thought that they were supposed to have used a good chunk of CP/M source in creating TOS, though. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 9 months

Someone need a copy of Jensen-Wirth?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

A copy of the 2nd Ed just fell into my lap. LMK if anyone needs this. Jeff ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

22 years, 9 months

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test-drb April 2002