test-drb February 2003

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

337 participants
780 discussions

by acme＠ao.net

From: TeoZ <teoz(a)neo.rr.com> Date: 02/26/2003 5:02 PM > Too bad Timex dropped out of the computer buisiness, I liked the 2068. Still > the C64 owned the game market and I ended up getting one a few years later. > At least I learned to program on the 2068 since I had only a few titles for > it. Timex made some really bad choices when pursuing the US computer market. Instead of simply producing a US version of the Spectrum (for which there was already a ton of hardware and software available) they redesigned the TS2068 (nee TS2000). The resultant machine was (IMHO) far superior to the Spectrum, but the delays, R&D expenses, and incompatibilities put Timex Computer Corp. out of business. The *up* side of all this was that an entire cottage industry was spawned to support the orphaned TS2068. Users had their choice of several robust FDD interfaces, serial and parallel i/o, tape storage devices, and other peripherals, some of which is still sold and supported by the original manufacturers. Just last night I obtained a TS2068 with a full size keyboard, CGA video output, and RS-232 all built into the unit. So, while I agree that it's a shame Timex didn't hang in there, I've gotten a lot of benefit from all the creative juices that were flowing around the TS2068 during the mid-eighties. Later -- Glen 0/0

21 years, 8 months

Data General stuff, Nova 2/10 on ebay

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Holy ugly 70's colors, Batman! _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

21 years, 8 months

History Channel - The Internet: Behind the Web

by daw＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

Just curious... did anybody else watch the History Channel last night, 7:00PM Eastern Time. The Modern Marvels episode was about the creation of the internet. Rather fascinating to me (who learned some things), and kinda neat to put faces to names... Not to mention the pictures of the old, err, classic computers and terminals... -- --- David A. Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

21 years, 8 months

TRS-80 Model 4 help requested

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

> From: Patrick Finnegan <pat(a)purdueriots.com> > > Aparently, the Drive 0: is bad. Replacing it with > the 1: or an IBM-branded Tandon drive from an IBM > 5150 PC, it seems to try to boot from the disk. No > disk in the drive (or the disk upside down) yields a > "Diskette?" message on the display. A disk placed > right-side up, which should be bootable, gives no > messages on the display after power-up or reset. > However, with a disk inserted, the drive light (and > motor) turn> off after approx 7 seconds. Ok.. Take a look at your "1:" drive. Near the connector you should see a socket with something that looks kind of like a chip in it. But, it will have 4 metal bridges and three will be broken. On your "0:" drive the first one will be in place and 2 - 4 will be broken. On the "1:" drive, the first, third and fourth should be broken and the second bridged. If you swap these between the two drives, you ought to be able to turn the "1:" drive to a "0:" drive. As for your IBM drive, it is probably jumpered for DS1 ("1:" drive). If you can find the jumpers on the logic board, move the jumper from DS1 to DS0 if you'd like to try to use that as the "0:" drive (leaving the "1:" drive as-is). Let me know if that helps you. > I tried using a boot disk that I got with the > machine, and a fresh one from a .dsk file of LS-DOS > 6.3.1H from Tim Mann's web site, using Tony's > trsfmt and diskdmp. The image works with xtrs too, > so I'm fairly confident that it should work when > stuck on a floppy. Sounds ok to me... Regards, Al

21 years, 8 months

Commodore and PET computers in the Philadelphia area.

by classiccmp＠vulcanjedi.com

Greetings Programs. The time has come to unload the few CBM and PET machines I forced them to save. There is a Philadelphia PA USA area project that takes donated computers and fixes them up for needy families. In the process we have collected some "old computer stuff" Beyond the 700 old 386 computers I talked them in to throwing out they still have some other oldies tucked away. There are several CBM and PET computers as well as Apple + bell and howell black apples and some TI peripheral expansion units waiting for someone to take them away and make a donation to the project. Please see our website for details on the project. www.teamchildren.com and please direct any email relating to this offer to childrensproject(a)go.com and if you are anywhere near the Philadelphia area you might want to stop by to take a look around. My 4 year volunteering with the project has put PILES of classic stuff in my basement. Please check out the website. Take a trip with a Uhaul if you want a few hundred 486's :) end of line.

21 years, 8 months

Timex/Sinclair 2068

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

> From: "TeoZ" <teoz(a)neo.rr.com> > > Their improvements included more memory, a sound > chip (yamaha?) that was incorperated into the later > spectrums anyway (just different location) and > built in joystick ports. Yes, as well as Composite Video Out available on the expansion port. And don't forget the Cartridge slot! > It was more bang for the buck compared to what the > c64 costs during the same time. Timex also was > going to make a disk system addon, did make a 1200 > baud modem, and some other stuff before they pulled > the plug. No software meant a dead system. The Spectrum was actually a bigger system in Britain than anywhere else, being a home-grown system. A disk system WAS made, but Timex in the U.S. never marketed it. We got a number of them from Timex in Portugal at Zebra Systems and sold them for awhile. They were very nice, and styled just like the 2068. Timex Portugal sold 2068's a while longer (as they had a lot of them in stock). I really wanted us to sell them with 5.25 or 3.5 drives. But Timex was stuck with tons of 3" Amdek drives and made it so attractive for us that we went with those. The bad thing for our users was that media was scarce and expensive. Though nothing stopped them from adding on their own external drives of any type. (not 1.2 or 1.44mb) > Even if they didnt make the 2068 non compatible with > the spectrum the british market and US market were 2 different thing. Yes, but there was so much more cool software for the Spectrum, and as you note... Very little for the 2068. A Spectrum emulator solved that, however. And people would call us constantly about the Twister card so they could run ZX-Spectrum Microdrives. The Interface One for the Spectrum also added serial ports, which helped people run faster modems than the 1200 baud Timex Modem. > Not having a disk drive available, and limited > graphics and sound limited how usefull the machine > was for games. Yes. And not having a standard parallel port for printers other than the 4" thermal printer wasn't so good either. But, who really wanted to type long documents on that keyboard anyway.. > I think they only made 20,000 units or so, and they > get close to $100 on ebay for one. Mine is here > somewhere and I did keep the original box (20 > years of dust and all) I don't know how many were made. Your number sounds like a good ballpark. Though Timex Portugal kept making them. The made a 2048 and a TX-2068 which was more like a Spectrum. We were working on our own "Twister Card" at Zebra Systems. It would have incorporated the Spectrum expansion bus, a Spectrum Emulator, a Kempston compatible Joystick port, Composite Interface, and an RGB Interface. We never got it to work properly though. Which was a shame. If we had completed it, I think it would have been the best expansion item in the US market. Regards, Al Hartman

21 years, 8 months

Shugart 8" model 801 drives Kansas City

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

Wandering through the local surplus I found 2 Shugart full height 8" model 801 floppy drives. They look pretty dusty. They are not in an enclosure. Does anybody want me to pick they up, you tell me the price I should offer and you pay shipping. I'll pack them for free. Thanks Mike McFadden m m c f a d d e n @ c m h . e d u

21 years, 8 months

Check out this TI99/4 on eBay

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

Right. Went up almost $350 in the last 25 seconds. As to the 2 bids by the same guy, he was probing (albeit rather strongly) the winner's higher proxy bid -- you can see this if you look at the times the bids were placed. -----Original Message----- From: Brian Mahoney [mailto:brianmahoney@look.ca] Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 9:06 PM To: cctech(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Check out this TI99/4 on eBay bidding history is a tad suspicious. 163 to 400 to 500 (last two by the same guy).

21 years, 8 months

Let the witch trials begin! Re: OT: Re: Going OT Re: (no subject)

by Edward.Tillman＠valero.com

If we were to address human rights abuses, we're one of the tops when it comes to abusing, and rationalizing and perpetuating (almost said "defending") those abuses. Its core to our government, core to our economy, and core to our infrastructure. We Americans are reared to be the most amazingly arrogant, sanctimonious, and prudish creatures on the planet, even after repeated bloody noses on the global stage have shown us that isn't the way to go. Sure, we have superb resources, technology and production. However, at the core, we're still human -- no one of us innately better than a Kurdish shepherd. We still want to think we are though, but where does that kind of attitude get us? Cheers... Ed San Antonio, Tx, USA > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org@PEUSA On Behalf Of > vance(a)neurotica.com > Sent: Friday, February 21, 2003 11:40 PM > To: Chad Fernandez > Cc: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Let the witch trials begin! Re: OT: Re: Going OT Re: (no > subject) > > On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Chad Fernandez wrote: > > > > It *is* about oil. If it were about human rights and "weapons of mass > > > destruction" (most of which aren't), why aren't we going after > > > mainland China, North Korea, some of Europe, and *ourselves*? [demime 1.01a removed an attachment of type application/ms-tnef]

21 years, 8 months

ISIS-II command summary?

by melamy＠earthlink.net

I only cut my teeth on these back in the 70s... I kept boxes of disks from that era. Thanks to Eric and you for chiming in with some information. The conversation is reminding me of what I used to know off the top of my head... The connector is probably a DC37. I guess I didn't pay enough attention to it when I was looking earlier. If someone has a file available that would be great. I can spend the time to ohm it out, but I had hoped the doc existed in a ready format. Erir reminded me of the SD controller on the I/O board and I will connect a drive to that one tomorrow and see if I can at least kluge something together just to test the SD section. I know the rest of the system is fine. I have the Ball Brothers display doc if anyone is interested and I am in the process of picking up some more of the hardware data. A copy of Kermit for both SD Intel and SD CP/M would probably be my best bet. Can I send disks to you Dave to get copies and include money for costs? Let me know. Thanks. regards, Steve >--- Original Message --- >From: Dave Mabry <dmabry(a)mich.com> >To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org >Date: 2/26/03 5:57:31 PM > Oh boy! Hey Joe! Another one! > >Hi Steve, > >Welcome to the Intel Development System adiction. > >If you have a double density drive in your 225, that would normally mean >you have the double density controller board set plugged into the >Multibus and cabled internally to the built-in Shugart 801 drive. While >the drive is capable of reading/writing single density, the double >density boardset from Intel is NOT. For the MDS Intel only made >single-density boardsets and double-density boardsets. There wasn't >anything that Intel made, supported under ISIS-II, that could read both >densities on one drive. It was possible to have both single and double >density drives in one MDS, but they were separate drives and separate >controllers. > >Check again on the external connector. I seem to remember it being 37 >pin D-type connector. But I can check again. I have the documentation >for what signals are where and can type them in, but I'm hoping that >someone (Tony, Joe?) might already have that in a file. > >I can help you with software if you need anything for ISIS-II and/or >CPM-80 for that machine. I have Kermit configured so that makes it easy >to transfer files to/from a PC and then send them in e-mails. > >Let me know what you might want. > >Dave > >Steve Thatcher wrote: >> Hi all, I got my Intel MDS225 working today, but I only have >> a single double density drive on it. I seem to recall that it >> would read single density, but you accessed by a different drive >> specifier. I can't seem to find one bit of documentation on the >> ISIS command at home. Does anyone have a summary page they could >> scan and send? >> >> I am also looking for the 50 pin connection wiring so I can connect >> a drive externally. >> >> It was fun booting up ISIS-II version 4.2 and seeing the prompt >> come up. I also had a CP/M 2.2 version that booted perfectly! >> >> best regards, Steve Thatcher >> >> . >> > > >-- >Dave Mabry dmabry(a)mich.com >Dossin Museum Underwater Research Team >NACD #2093

21 years, 8 months

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test-drb February 2003