Someone sent me this link...
http://davidguy.brinkster.net/computer/
It is an online scan of the book "How it works - the computer", circa 1971.
Very mini-computer oriented. What's even better, is they scanned both a 1971
and 1979 edition of the same book, so you can see how they revised it based
on advances in technology.
I thought it was neat in any case :) Some of the pictures are true porn for
mini collectors :)
Jay West
From: Doc Shipley <doc at mdrconsult.com>
> IIRC, Slack v3.3 took 54 1.44MB disks.
Interesting.
I recall installing something I think was slack with a 0.99 kernel around 1993-4. The i386 with 5M ram and a 40MB HD that ran it was a sporty box back then. I remember bitching 'cause it was something more than a dozen floppies or so. But it had a C compiler, so I could do my homework (and not dial into an AT&T 3b20 or drive in to campus and use a Sun 3).
And it was my UUCP node: ...!ucbvax!gatech!weasel!ken.
Good times...good times...
54 floppies? Wow...you've got more patience than me.
Ken
On cleaning "copper" contacts (which may be gold plated): I would first try
using a "magic rub" pencil eraser, rubbing it over the contacts. It is very
important to use this specific brand, "Magic Rub", it's non-abrasive. These
are popular and common and this brand of eraser is carried at all office
supply stores (OfficeMax, Staples, Office Depot, etc.)
On sanding plastic, DON'T. Instead use automotive rubbing or polishing
compound and rub/buff with a soft cloth. (if you are going to paint,
rubbing compound is the coarser product). It's possible these will leave a
finish so smooth that you no longer need/want to paint.
Hi,
I have a pair of Franklin ACE-1000 (Apple-II clones). One is extremely
clean, and the other is very beat up and dirty. Both appear complete
and I'd guess that at least the clean one probably works, but I have no
cards, drives, cables, or software for these.
I'd rather not deal with ebay or shipping these, so they are available
to whoever wants to get them. Ideally I'd like to get some Apple-II/IIe
software out of the deal for an Apple-IIe I'm trying to get running,
but I don't want any money, just do not want to throw these out.
I live in Plymouth Meeting, and work near West Chester, PA. USA
Mark
--
Mark G. Thomas (Mark at Misty.com)
voice: 215-591-3695
http://www.misty.com/http://mail-cleaner.com/
> Anyone who dosn't know, I'm hoping to run up a CP/M archive.
>As with all endevours of this sort, I'm in need of disk images!
>
> Put 'em online, email 'em to me, do whatever! Get them to me,
>Send minor descriptions, tell me what machines they were made for,
>And most importantly, do include the disk image :)
I have quite a few system disk images posted on my site, including
many CP/M disks for various systems. You can get them directly from
my site, which is:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Near the bottom of the page, you will find
"Download Disks/Software images"
New images are being added on an ongoing basis, so check back in from
time to time.
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
>From: "Michael B. Brutman" <mbbrutman at brutman.com>
>
>
>I don't think that the lack of a DMA controller on the PCjr really
>slowed it down any. The old double density drives have a data rate of
>250,000 bps. If the data is presented one byte at a time, that is just
>31250 bytes per second. Even with multiple I/O clock cycles per byte to
>get it to the processor and then to memory, a 4.77Mhz processor can keep
>up with that easily.
>
>Where the lack of DMA would hurt you is on a much faster interface, such
>as a hard disk. Then you wouldn't have any cycles to spare, the the
>difference would show up.
Hi
I don't think the early PC's used DMA for the hard disk.
The HD controllers usually had sector or track buffers.
The program would wait until the buffer was full and
then just move it by software to memory. The floppies
needed DMA because the controllers didn't buffer more
than one byte. The processor would have had to dedicate
it self to the one task without interrupts.
Dwight
I saw an auction which reminded me of the days when the PC and XT
came out, but before clones or otherwise appeared, and before such
as AST were dominating the market.
This auction is for a "zukerboard" 576K mem expansion. 6801436037.
I remember the hype for zucker that they were going to wreck the
market.
The only reason this has any significance is that I believe this was one
of the
AST wannabe's, or even was larger than AST, pre the days when they
started making systems.
I know of at least Zucker, Tecmar (marty tech, I don't remember marty's
last name, but he was some sort of PHD ohio type, I think).
A number of companies were based here in Orange County, California,
and provided a lot of cheap stuff as they cratered, and the local
scrappers
got their. stuff and sold it off.
Processor Technology (? I think) went big time and cratered.
I remember a little shop here in Santa Ana which had the first clone of
the IBM PC. It was a single board which had 640k memory, allowed
using 64k memories, instead of the 16K memory that the PC and XT
earlier models used.
It was called "Superboard" and was no relation to Supermicro, which
came much later. It had a bios that usually worked, but also had,
conveniently, a spot for up to 6 eprom chips, so you could put in a
PC bios if you could get a copy.
The PC used either EProms, (16K I think) and the Roms that were
shipped with the BIOS were registered. The standard Data I/O would
not read them since they were not programmable, and needed their
output enabled to read the data.
But once someone had them in the 2716's, it was easy to get them
running in your superboard.
First systems had a 63 watt P/S, and IBM cards if you could find
them for video. Also there was no floppy controller on the first
board.
Maybe others of you can recall expansion card makers, of such
things as serial, parallel, memory, floppy, then hard drive, etc.
Jim
