test-drb October 2005

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A few items for sale

by jcwren＠jcwren.com

Some of these items may interest folks. http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZjcwren --jc

18 years, 9 months

Looking for a IBM 5110 EMI filter.

by henk.stegeman＠shell.com

Hi all, Who can help me with an EMI filter from an IBM 5110 ? Mine has an internal non-repairable short circuit. This EMI filter is a CORCOM type F2280 and is located in the mains entry box underneath the screen tube. Any one ? Thanks Henk

18 years, 9 months

OT: Language for the ages

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>Suppose you wanted to write an application for a manufacturing process that >will, in all probability, run for the next 30 years. No direct control of >the process itself is entailed (i.e., you don't need the program to >operation valves or run motors), but you do need this program to compute >manufacturing parameters for each customer. I/O requirements are very >modest, mostly simple keyboard and display. > >What would you write it in? Clearly, you'd want to be independent of a >particular software vendor, so the likes of Visual BASIC isn't an option. >You'd also want to write in a language that isn't nearing obsolesence, nor >one that's still evolving. "Niche" languages would be out of the question, >as longevity could be a problem. > >So what would it be? My vote is for FORTRAN. Impossible to say without a better specification of the application, however given the longevity requirement, unless it was a very bad fit, I would probably use 'C' (not C++, C# etc - plain vanilla 'C') for several reasons: - It's been around a long time, and has been ported to many different platforms, making it a well known and popular language. - It has a reasonably clearly defined standard. - It has always been developed with an eye to portability. - It is still being used in many systems, and is likely to continue to be used for a considerable time into the future. - It's flexible enough to use as a general purpose language, and has the ability to get "down and dirty" if you need. (Ie: It will probably not be a bad environment for the task at hand). But what is probably the most important reason to me: - I have a mature 'C' compiler (I first released it in 1988) which I can port to any damn platform I need, so I don't have to count on having a vendor to support C tools on this future unknown system. Regards, Dave -- dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com com Collector of vintage computing equipment: http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

18 years, 9 months

Releasing OS/2

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Releasing OS/2 > From: "John Allain" <allain at panix.com> > Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 15:59:09 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > What I'd like to see is a comparison of OS/2 to say DRI Concurrent386 and Win3.1 or Nt3. I picked the latter two as I know them well. I have both concurrent386 and OS/warp 3 but never used them. Maybe I'm missing something and I'd like to have an idea of and how practical their use would be in the present as part of my PC based supporting systems. Allison

18 years, 9 months

OT: Language for the ages

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: OT: Language for the ages > From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> > Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 12:37:39 -0700 (PDT) > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >> >> > Are there any schools teaching FORTRAN and more? Does it >> >have an active community? If not, ... >> >> Amazingly*, Yes. >> I go visit my old college bookstore every few years for fresh titles >> in Computer Science (this year: I bought O/S internals by Stallings). >> It's a top 25 undergraduate engineering ranked place with a big >> budget for new equipment so I was quite surprised to see this year >> the book "Classical Fortran" by Kupferschmid. In my head I'm thinking >> Fortran is Only for classiccmps and classiccmps are Retired equipment. >> Apparently this course is for maintenence programmers. >> >> John A. >> * to me, for one. >> > >Fortran seems to still be the favorite language for number crunching. > > Zane That is the forte' of Fortran. However user interfaces in fortran are sparse as the language is not well suited to textual data. I feel there is no one language for all tasks. For example older 8080/z80 hardware was likely programmed in ASM for embedded apps due to size constraints of availabe ROMs. However I've seen a lot of stuff with basic in ROM and the programming in BASIC so the hardware could be somewhat self supporting. It would seem that languages that persist are those best able to cope with large changes in computing environments. Fortran and BASIC are old and well known as are Pascal and C and likely a few others. The rest are dialects or specializations that live in specific application environments. When those environments become passe` or surperceeded the languages will either evolve or become "old". Allison

18 years, 9 months

luddites!

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: luddites! > From: Brad Parker <brad at heeltoe.com> > Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 13:15:00 -0400 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > > >"Jeff Davis" wrote: >> >>Well, your own example proved the existance of productivity gains - 3 people >>with a machine could produce as much as 10 people without the machine, ergo >>the 3 people are more productive. If you give 9 of those workers the >>machines, and keep 1 around to do maintenance on the machines, the whole group >>is nearly 3x as productive. > >yes, but what if the 7 people who loose their jobs leave town and the town >goes belly up? > >if you measure at the planet level it all probably makes sense, but at a >local level it's not so clear. > >20,000 unemployed textile works in NC who won't ever be retrained may >have a better understanding of this effect... (but only in NC). > >-brad I cannot argue with that. Nor did I say that it was pleasent. I will say that technological change has been responsable for several migrations and those that didn't now commute a distance that took as many as 3-4 days by wagon at one time. The wholesale movement of production from one local to another of far lower employement is older than automation and has always come with a social and economic price that automation alone did not always entail. It's very different to have ones job change then the facility disappear completely. Allison

18 years, 9 months

PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: PCs that support only one floppy drive in hardware > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 21:08:13 -0700 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 10/13/2005 at 9:36 PM Allison wrote: > >>OK I have one so I know what it is. FD55BVR, care to guess? Also a >>FD55BFR? > >Let's see, the BV is a 360K unit with head-load solenoid. The BF has me >stumped. The F would indicate a 720K drive, but if that were so, the B >wouldn't be part of it. FWIW, the "R" is a delimiter and ends the >capacity/special feature field. What follows next is a number, such as >200, that signifies revision, bezel color, etc. A final "U" means the >drive is UL approved. > >Cheers, >Chuck > No, the 55FV has a door latch solinoid as the head load when the door latch is closed. The 55BF is same drive with light beige front, the latch lever is opposite side a different lever shape the led shape is round. Otherwise they are interchangeable. Allison

18 years, 9 months

Releasing OS/2

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Speaking of Gates, he showed up as guest lecturer at an entry-level CompSci course at UW-Madison this week: http://www.news.wisc.edu/11679.html for MTV's "mtvU" network's "Stand In" series: http://www.mtvu.com/on_mtvu/stand_in/ The other episodes are available on broadband but this one isn't up yet. >From the looks of the picture, I'd say this was a smaller discussion session. It's not the big lecture hall they'd use for a popular freshman course like 302. - John

18 years, 9 months

Bendix Guidance Computer

by Arno_1983＠gmx.de

Hi everybody! Firstly, if anybody tried contacting me in the last month, please forgive me for being absent. I'm still catching up on my e-mail backlog since I had a math exam on 10th of October that was quite important to prepare for. Next, we've received quite an interesting donation at the University Museum yesterday: what looks like an electromechanical guidance system for a missile. A few photos are on http://www.iser.uni-erlangen.de/anzeigen.php?inventarnummer=I1062 (click on small one for bigger version, click "Weitere Infos" (further information) for two pictures of the innards (front and back)). I'm asking here because we'd like to acquire some background information on this unit, what type of missile it came from and so on. According to its former owner, it was purchased from a scrapper in the mid-70s. A small metal nameplate above the connectors reads: | U.S. | Guidance Computer | G&C | | PART NO.10586600-39 |MOD NO.4 | | SER NO. 614 |WT. 55.75 | | MFD BY THE BENDIX CORP E-P DIV | | CONTR.NO.DA-01-021-AMC-11344 Z | | ARMY MISSILE COMMAND | Below that is a sticker reading "SA PROGRAM" with four boxes, the first one stamped "T2". The small dial between the connectors (two of which are covered with adhesive tape) is an hours run meter with two hands, indicating a run time of 157 hours. Next to that is a sticker with "Pueblo Army Depot" and a large "R" in a box. There is also a material tag of the Bundeswehr (German armed forces) stuck onto one lid. On the inside, there are eight (!!) subassemblies of mechanical calculating gear, as follows: CR/SA DISPLACEMENT MODULE, 2x CR/SA VELOCITY MODULE, 2x PROGRAM GEN. MODULE SR VELOCITY MODULE SR INTEGRATOR MODULE SR DIPLACEMENT MODULE. The last three are linked via gear trains, the first five only have electric I/O. There are lots of Autosyn Transmitters, precision potentiometers, switches, small relays and motors on those! As far as electronics go, we have: SERVO AMPLIFIER MODULE 5x INT MOD & PREAMP MODULE 2x CUTOFF NULL DET. MODULE ROLL ARMING MODULE ELECTRICAL MODULE VOLTAGE MONITORING MODULE. There was no documentation whatsoever with it, so if it is declassified by now (I hope so), any information (or pointer to) is welcome. Yours sincerely, -- Arno Kletzander Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen www.iser.uni-erlangen.de Lust, ein paar Euro nebenbei zu verdienen? Ohne Kosten, ohne Risiko! Satte Provisionen f?r GMX Partner: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/partner

18 years, 9 months

MPX-16 census

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

a scholar and a gentleman. I even considered building my own, though not sure if MM made the artwork available. Was put off by the fact that the board has 7 layers according to the article. If anyone is knowledgeable enough of pcb production - is it possible to make a 7 layer board w/o special equipment/materials? Why did it even need 7 layers? How many layers were did the IBM PC mobo have? I know for a fact that the RE robot puter (80188) mobo had 2 sides (top and bottom, no sandwich). --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: > On Fri, 7 Oct 2005 07:29:40 -0700 (PDT) > Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote: > > > dont have one, but want one. I hope youll make disk > > images available. > > I certainly will. A list member has extended a warm welcome to the idea > of me imaging my disks and putting them on his site. More to follow > when they're all imaged and online. > > > --- cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org > > <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: > > > Does anybody else on the list have an MPX-16 system? > > I recently > > > acquired one from a list member and am wondering how > > many of these > > > systems still exist. I have a large (relatively) > > collection of > > > diskettes with mine. > > > > > > The MPX-16, for those not familiar with it, was > > published as a project > > > in Steve Ciarcia's 'Circuit Cellar' column in Byte > > magazine. It was a > > > three part 'construction' article and the machine > > was sold by MicroMint > > > for a time. What I've heard is that about 500 > > machines in total were > > > produced. > > > > > > It's an early 'IBM Compatible' in that they designed > > it to be similar to > > > the PC, but only to a certain degree. It uses a > > serial console rather > > > than keyboard/display adapter, and it runs CP/M-86 > > and supposedly MS-DOS > > > though I don't have DOS diskettes for mine. It has > > ISA slots and a > > > similar architecture to the IBM-PC, coming out of > > that early era before > > > there were PC clones from the likes of Compaq. > > > > > > I'm curious of how many other MPX-16 systems have > > survived to today. > > > There isn't a lot about it online. I can share what > > information I have, > > > as I have manuals and docs with my system. I'm > > interested in hearing > > > from other people with this machine. > > > > > > Scott > > > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > > Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 > > http://mail.yahoo.com __________________________________ Yahoo! Music Unlimited Access over 1 million songs. Try it free. http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/

18 years, 9 months

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test-drb October 2005