test-drb October 2004

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

245 participants
540 discussions

by CordaAJ＠NSWC.NAVY.MIL

Hey guys... I have a line on a Convex machine. The current owner is a guy who attends Govt. auctions and buys bulk, then scraps out stuff for gold/parts/etc... He calls me when he finds anything interesting, so... He says this is a Convex SPP3. (it's _heavy_... around 400 Lbs.) I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know anything more right now. Unfortunately, I have no knowledge of Convex stuff, and a web search turned up some Convex SPP stuff, but not much, and _nothing_ on an "SPP3". Can anyone enlighten me further? (Yep, I know it's an SMP architecture of some sort, but little more than that). A couple of questions... Is this machine historically significant? (I.e. worth saving?) Does anyone know of a source for documentation? (I've done a prelim. web/newsgroup search, but haven't turned anything up) Does anyone have (or know where I can find) a copy of an OS for it (apparently it's a unix variant. He told me that the disks were missing... not unusual for an auction item) 400 lbs is a bit large for me, but if there is a remote chance I can bring this critter back to life (and it's worth saving) it's probably worth the effort. I'll going to try to take a look at it and try to get some sort of model#/ident. Anything I should be looking out for or wary of? -al- -acorda(a)1bigred.com

21 years, 1 month

Survived another one!

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Well Hurricane Jeanne has come and gone. This is the fourth hurricane in 6 weeks and the third that's gone through my area. The DEC and intel stuff sitting outside STILL hasn't blown away! Not too much damage this time, for the most part everything that could be torn up was destroyed in the previous storms. However my roof shingles are finally starting to go. The power companies are getting GOOD at this. This time they had the power back on the same day! I think there's going to be lots of houses (or vacant lots!) for sale in Florida real soon. I went to Home Depot this morning and it was packed with people buying roofing materials and other repair items. A lot of them also had "Home for Sale" signs in their carts! I haven't heard from Glen. I know he was without power for five then seven days from the two previous storms and I think he's about ready to leave the state. Joe

21 years, 1 month

Update on Don Maslin

by vcf＠siconic.com

I just made contact with Don's wife, Bristol. They're not sure what Don died of, but he'd had cancer for 18 years and he died a couple days after entering the hospital after falling ill. Understandably, she has no idea what Don has in his garage. I offered to help her sort things out and to get money for whatever computers are in his collection that are worth anything, and of course I informed her of the importance of Don's disk archive. She's very nice and willing to pass the collection along but she first wants to run everything by her nephew who knows about computers before anything happens, which is understandable. This process will take some time. Bristol has many other things to deal with of course, but she informed me that she will make sure none of the computers or software will be discarded until they can get a full idea of what they have. She said they already took 5 computers to recycling but she didn't think they were anything of concern as her computer savvy nephew was the one who chose them and felt they weren't old or valuable or anything. At any rate, she assured me that nothing will be taken for recycling until we figure out what's all there. I'd like to enlist the help of some local San Diegans to assist with the inventory of Don's collection. I will probably end up making a trip down there in the future to either help with the dispersal of his collection and/or retrieve the disk archive. It would be a great help to Bristol if someone with knowledge of vintage computers can help her nephew identify the valuable machines so she can decide what she wants to do with them. And of course, to help identify the disk archive. I would imagine (or hope at least) Don had it pretty well organized and labelled, but we need someone to identify and separate it from the rest of his collection. Also, I want to give Don a tribute at the upcoming VCF 7.0. I'd like to talk a bit about Don's life and what he did for a career and all that. His wife didn't know much about Don's computing career and so I'm hoping that some people on the list who got to know Don and his history can share it with me. I'll keep the list updated as the process moves along. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

21 years, 2 months

GOPHER

by tomj＠wps.com

It's got to be 10 years old now, right? gopherspace was wonderful, a brilliant use of the internet besides email. Too bad for gopher that http was better. I long ago took down my gopher server, and it seems it's largely disappeared from the net, even wiretap.spies.com appears empty in my browser (firefox) which tries to render it as html! Besides a few flat-earthers ("Bring Back Gopher!") it's largely disappeared. Anyone on this list still run one? What's the best client to use? Here's a good quick ref on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_protocol

21 years, 2 months

Linux OS

by millenniumfalcon＠cableone.net

I have been ready for 20 years to dump "Uncle Bill" but every time I try to switch to Linux I run into problems that seem insurmountable. Recently I have been looking at the Linspire line of products...Lindows in particular. It looks like what I need, BUT....just as always, when I ask about compatibility with the various applications that I now run under XP I get the same run-around. "Get it and try with Wine and see if it works." If I have to get drunk first, I am not interested...#8-) I can't do that. There are programs I need and I cannot just take a chance that "maybe it will work" My main concerns are Adobe PDF creator, Adobe Photo Shop, Netscape, and particularly Easy Office 2001 which contains all my data in Easy Spreadsheet files that are not compatible with Excel (even though they are supposed to be). I don't want to have to go out and buy an all new set of apps. That makes the relatively low price of Lindows immaterial. And besides, all my files would likely be incompatible so I lose all my old data unless I keep two machines. Also, I use Netscape for browser and E Mail and I have tons of mail files and bookmarks that I would have to figure out how to get over to Lindows...Unless Netscape will run under Lindows. ???? I know there are free apps that can do word processing and spreadsheets and photo processing, but they appear to be "stripped down" versions. I can network the old and new computers ( I already have the LAN in operation with two MS OS computers on it) then I could download all my files and programs into the new computer....IF I COULD BE SURE that they would work with the Lindows OS. Spending $49 to try what might be a failure is NOT an option. Does anyone have any suggestions other than buy it and hope it works?

21 years, 3 months

OT (probably): HP T500, HPUX and multiple CPUs

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

Actually I'm not quite sure how old the machine is - maybe it is ten years old now and so on topic just... Anyhow, are there any experts out there who know if a specific version of HPUX is needed to run with SMP support on an HP 9000 T500? We've got a 6-CPU T500 at the museum with HPUX 11.xx on it, but according to the status LEDs it's just running everything on the one CPU with the other 5 sitting idle. Possibilities that spring to mind: a) as above, it's a version / installation issue b) it's a licensing thing and there's no way of using standard HPUX media on a multi-CPU machine without paying HP lots of money (boo!) c) the machine or HPUX is a bit funny in the way it handles multiple CPUs and we need force processes to run on a specific CPU via some command, rather than it being transparently handled by the CPU d) user stupidity (none of us really know much about the machine and nor are we HPUX experts) Option d would probably be preferable - we can always learn :) Option b's obviously the least desirable and would result in us looking at Linux for the machine I think! Anyone worked with these beasts before and know offhand what the problem might be? (we've got HPUX 11 media by the way; but as stated maybe not a version that's truly compatible with a multi-CPU machine) Being able to force stuff to run on a specific CPU from a shell would actually be beneficial, as I have an idea to do a bit of distributed raytracing on the machine for giggles (6 CPUs is good, but 90MHz each IIRC is less so :-) ta Jules

21 years, 3 months

Big Iron available - Data General Eclipse - plus lots more smaller stuff

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

I went by my local recycler yesterday on the hunt for some items and came away with a list of stuff that might interest folks here. The main item was a DG Eclipse system in two racks with tape drives and more. I didn't spend much time looking at it but can probably get more information if anyone wants it. I also have no idea what the price would be but I can guess that shipping would be the big consideration anyway. The same place had a bunch of smaller items as well including a very clean TRS-80 Mod 3 with a RS dustcover, a Kaypro II, a Franklin Ace 1000, a CoCo that looked like it had seen better days, what looked like an IBM PC Portable in its canvas bag, and a Compupro system with the main chassis and a dual 8" chassis as well (this was wrapped in a pallet and those were the items I could recognize. There's a few cubic yards of other stuff mixed in that may or may not be related.) There were also a good number of vintage terminals stacked about. Several ADM3as in both blue and beige in various states of decay. Most looked serviceable with a couple having a bit of screen rot. The couple I turned on worked. None had the switch covers. There was also a Hazeltine 1500 in nice shape except for the fact that the video was bad and some TeleVideo 925s and 950s that worked but needed TLC. Newer terminals (DEC and Wyse, mostly) were all over the place. There was at least one VT100 that was marked as dead but that looked like it had all of the (yellow) parts. If anyone wants more info on any of this I'll be happy to get what I can or to put you in touch with the shop. Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum The Vintage Computer Forum

21 years, 3 months

NEC PC-8201A

by tponsford＠theriver.com

Digging through what I thought was just another giant box 0' cables from the UA auction, I got to the bottom and there were 2 NEC PC-8201A and 2 NEC PC-8300 all in working order. sometimes ya just gotta keep diggin' Cheers Tom -- --- Please do not read this sig. If you have read this far, please unread back to the beginning.

21 years, 3 months

Classic OS's - EduSystem

by ddl-cctech＠danlan.com

Charlie Root <root(a)huey.classiccmp.org> wrote: |I would be very interested in running Edusystem-20 on my 8e. I also have |a good paper tape reader/punch combo hooked up to my pc and would be |happy to make copies of this tape. | |Are full installation and user guides for Edusystem-20 around? I'm pretty sure I still have the Edusystem Handbook around somewhere. I think that has all the necessary information because I was able to use it to start from scratch (toggle in the initial loader, etc.) a couple of times in high school. Didn't the Edusystem tapes modify the RIM loader to start themselves or such? Once they started the interactive configuration dialog really didn't need any extra documentation. Dan Lanciani ddl(a)danlan.*com

21 years, 3 months

require input form respected peers :^)

by ron.hudson＠sbcglobal.net

Ok, I am replacing the HP terminal with either a Macintosh SE or an Apple IIc+... Environment = Linux running simh pdp11 running RSTS/E V7.0 (with telnet from all my other machines) Has to sit in a 2" x 2" square area on my desk, although I think all three choices overflow the intended area. Please weigh in on the following three scenarios: Door #1 - Macintosh SE - Have an appletalk laser printer for this machine - perhaps smaller footprint. Door #2 - AppleIIc+ - Imagewriter instead of a laser printer if any printer at all. - Coolness factor (8 on a scale of 1 to 10) 10 would be a real DEC terminal.. - No Terminal software at hand.. (would beg someone to send me a diskette) Door #3 - HP Terminal - already and still hooked up, and works ok... but. - it's not *also* a computer that I want to get back on display. Your comments requested.

21 years, 3 months

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test-drb October 2004