der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote:
> I don't even own a working television,
> haven't for decades.
Wow! I'm not the only one!
(Though it hasn't been decades for me yet, as I only stopped having a TV
in my home in 2000.)
MS
Ok, now you have to promise not to laugh too hard.
Does anyone know if it's possible to make a USB Floppy Disk Drive.
Oh, ...... I mean a 320k/360k 5.25" USB floppy disk drive.
[hey, you promised .....]
I occasionally need to transfer things between my PC and an old S-100
system, or a Z-100. The Z-100 has 5.25" disks, but not 3.5".
So .....
I actually wondered if one could buy a USB 3.5" floppy and use the
"controller card" with a 5.25" drive, since the interface is nominally the
same. However, these mostly use notebook drives, and while they may have
the same electrical interface, the physical interface is a flex cable.
Worse, some of the USB 3.5" drives may "integrate" the USB controller and
drive mechanism so that there is no standard floppy interface at all.
There may also be software issues.
Anyway, it seems like a question to post to this group, and in a few other
places.
[Next I will want a USB 8" drive ..... which, actually, with the right
software, would not be a bad idea !!]
I got a call from one of my sources today. They had a new load of stuff
for me to check out so I went out there LATE today and stayed till well
after dark. One of the more intersting things that I found is a Mentis
wearable computer! Pictures to follow when time permits.
TELTRONICS - INTERACTIVE SOLUTIONS
Mentis, fully functional wearable computer, Intel Pentium 166 MHz MMX,
includes CD capability. "The Mentis system is created and manufactured by
Interactive Solutions, a subsidiary of Teltronics, Inc. Belonging to the
new generation of wearable computers, the Mentis system takes "wearable" to
new dimensions. Multimedia dimensions. With the Mentis solution, users gain
the portability of a laptop, the ruggedness of a wearable computer, and the
full multimedia capabilities of a desktop system. It is a truly universal
computing platform. And, it's ideal for any environment, any occasion where
users need real-time, interactive information, in the field or on the fly.
The Mentis processing unit is little more than an inch thick and measures
7? by 5? inches. This compact system houses a Pentium?-based, fully
multimedia-equipped, single-board computer." (Home Page)
Joe
I have an ASR33 that exhibits the following symptoms in local
mode (I have not attempted to test online):
1) Paper will not advance (roller seems to move OK when turned
by hand)
2) Bell will not ring
3) When at the start of a line (carriage to the left) it will
over print several characters before it starts moving to
the right
4) Carriage returns very slowly and sometimes does not make it
all the way back
5) Filthy inside (although not as bad as when I got it... I've
vacuumed and blown a lot of crud out of it)
6) Smells a little funky... not the clean warm oil smell that
I remember from high school days
As well as being dirty, I suspect that it was improperly
lubricated by the previous owner as it seems to be particularly
sticky inside.
I also have a nearly new KSR33 from the same source that was
improperly handled to the extent that its plastic shell was
shattered (it was in a cardboard box with some newspaper, none
of the shipping bolts in place, and apparently roughly moved
around his ham shack). I have made no attempt to power up the
KSR (in case stuff got bent) but I think that it could be used
as a source of replacements if some of the parts of the ASR are
badly worn.
I would like to recruit 3 or 4 knowledgeable and highly motivated
classiccmpers (motivated by the prospect of DINNER and BEER on me)
at VCF East to completely tear down, clean, adjust, lubricate and
reassemble the ASR. I will supply all of the tools and materials
(unless you have special purpose tools that will help). I picture
a marathon operation, with the experts doing the disassembly,
assembly and adjustment work and me with a toothbrush and a pan of
Simple Green (or alcohol or kerosene or whatever solvent the experts
suggest) busily scrubbing parts as they are handed to me. With four
guys and one scrubber, could this be accomplished in a couple of
hours?
Why don't I do this myself?
1) I don't really have the space. Having the entire interior of a
hotel room to myself will be something of a luxury to me (I have
two kids). Or maybe I can ask Sellam for some space at the
festival and we can make it a spectator sport. It could even
become sort of a challenge...
"The crew at VCF East was able to rebuild an ASR33 in two hours,
how fast can the West or Europe do it?"
2) I don't have the unbroken periods of time. I have the fear that I
would get it all apart, have one of my all too frequent family
"emergencies" and then have to pack it up, resulting in lost parts
when I finally get back to it.
3) I'm a gutless wimp. If I get it apart, I'm not sure I could get
it all back together, even with the docs. I have original prints
of some of the docs and the rest in electronic form.
Email me if interested,
Thanks,
Bill
On Jun 28, 13:16, Teo Zenios wrote:
> How often do you people use a head cleaner to keep your floppy drives
running
Never. You shouldn't need to clean the heads, in normal use. If you
do, you have a damaged diskette (or possibly a damaged head, which is
scraping oxide off your floppies) which you should track down, cut up,
burn, and discard.
Of course, sometimes oxide from a damaged floppy will stick to the
head, and that will then damage any other disks you put in that drive.
(or what do you use to clean them when they don't read disks
correctly)?
Cotton bud and iso-propyl alcohol. Head-cleaning disks don't do a very
good job, especially if the head is really dirty.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
See below...
Reply-to: JWLane43(a)aol.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 12:11:02 EDT
From: JWLane43(a)aol.com
To: vcf(a)vintage.org
Subject: (no subject)
Hello!
I would be very grateful if you could help me. Do you know of any company or
individual that repairs old calculators. I have two Texas TI-58 Programmable
calculators that do not work and I am very keen to make contact with anyone
that has a working knowledge of the internal workings of these machines.
Thanks very much for any help you can give me.
Jonathan
--
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 ]
I'm aware of the following up for disposal (I think they're off to
landfill at the end of next week by the sounds of it) in Cambridge, if
anyone's interested:
17 HP Xterminals
5 HP 700RX (Xterminals)
3 Vaxstation 3100
4 Large SCSI boxes
4 Medium SCSI boxes
6 BBC Bs
16 BBC type monitors
4 NCD Xterms
1 HP Entria Xterm
8 Dot matrix printers
1 DEC 3000
1 Sparc 4
1 Extremely spiky thing
1 Olivetti drive of some description
1 huge monitor box of cables
Lots of random software
I should be meeting with the chap tomorrow as I'm picking up some other
stuff from him, so hopefully I can look over everything. I *may* grab
the software and cable boxes just so I can take a proper inventory,
although I have no desire to hang onto anything other than a SCSI cable
or two.
Note 1: this is the *UK* Cambridge (I always put that in the subject,
and people always miss it :-)
Note 2: various people know about this stuff, so it's a case of first
come, first served. I can put you in touch with the chap if there is
anything you want from the list.
ps. I too am curious to know what the spiky thing is!
cheers
Jules
I have a lot of manuals I want to scan and am trying to decide upon the
best format. I'd like some opinions on the following scans of a 128-page
Franklin AceWriter manual.
On the low end is a pdf of bitmap images. It's hideous, but only 3.5 MB.
The high end is a 40 MB pdf of jpeg images. This one's easy on the eyes,
but is an awfully large download and I'm wondering if it might not print
as nicely as the bitmap.
In the middle is a pdf of compressed jpegs at 15 MB. This looks good to
my eyes, I just wonder about using compressed jpegs for archiving...
<www.applefritter.com/temp/acewriter_lo.pdf> (3.5 MB)
<www.applefritter.com/temp/acewriter_med.pdf> (15 MB)
<www.applefritter.com/temp/acewriter_hi.pdf> (40 MB)
(Disregard the incorrect ordering of the pages.)
Thoughts? Which of the three would you most want to download?
Tom
Applefritter
www.applefritter.com
Ok, I'm finally catching up with VCF East planning. Sorry for all the
delays.
The dates for VCF East are July 16-17 (FRIDAY and Saturday). The location
is Burlington, Massachusetts, at Sun Microsystems' corporate campus. Sun
is sponsoring the event.
Those who have already submitted exhibit entries have just been replied
to (Tom Uban: you probably won't get my e-mail due to spam blocks but rest
assured you're in there).
Current exhibitors can be seen on the VCF East 2.0 exhibits page:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/exhibit.php
We've got ten exhibitors so far (2 pending approval) which is a good
start, but I'd like to see more. So if you're planning to exhibit at VCF
East, now's the time to register.
I'm also putting together the speaker roster. If you have someone you'd
like to suggest as a speaker, or you'd like to give a talk yourself,
please e-mail me.
Things will start moving fast from this point forward. The next VCF
Gazette will be coming out soon with more information.
Hope to see you all at VCF East 2.0!
--
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 ]
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com stated:
>Drat. Apparently the cabling for the data lines is
>nichrome. Whether
>that's
>for mechanical, reliability or electrical reasons I
>have no idea.
>Later.
The only reason I can think of for nichrome is that
there would be a uniform resistance in the wire
(likely) or (unlikely) nichrome is a poor (for a
metal) conductor of heat.
My Tek 1230 is definitely plain old IDC, and that
model is worth up to and including nothing without the
probes. Probes are $400+ (without the grabbers!). I
have 3 and have turned down an offer for $300 for one
of them.
I spoke with a surplus test equipment supplier and he
told me that these are almost always lost when they go
up for auction, especially military. Off lease, they
just bill the customer and dump them surplus anyway.
I actually looked into building a probe - no
schematics, no info from TEK, custom and proprietary
IC's, and I suspect absolute analog comparator voodoo
designed for clean and fast risetimes.
Bottom line: you need to get your dough back. Accept
no less.
=====
-Steve Loboyko
Incredible wisdom actually found in a commerical fortune cookie:
"When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day."
Website: http://juliepalooza.8m.com/sl
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