test-drb May 2005

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

248 participants
723 discussions

by bpettit＠ix.netcom.com

Any interesting suggestions? Best wishes, Philipp :-) I used to set up a conversion of typewriter input to visible punches in the paper tape. For example, a kid would type his name, the punch would put out his name in 5x7 dot characters. Or a 6x8. They could tear it off and take it with them. I used a standard character generator pattern I found in a data book. Another fun one is to use a mortgage program and have someone give the inputs from their mortgage payments. Then have them increase the payment by $20 a month and see the impact. (The extra money goes against principle so it shortens the pay off time by years.) Assembly for the visible character, Fortran for the mortgage. Have fun. Billy

20 years, 1 month

homes needed for SGI Indigo2 R4k/250 Solid

by Saquinn624＠aol.com

I have several Silicon Graphics Indigo2 IMPACT workstations (free) with the following specs R4400/250SC (2 MB cache) 64-128 MB RAM (I think) Solid IMPACT graphics (one is dual-head with Extreme) No disks, but an OS can be made available. Also have an Indy R5000SC/150 XL-8 (Newport) graphics at least 32 MB RAM Sony PS. same as above re. disks Good Dallas units in them when I checked. Forward to anyone who would be interested In the Seattle area, but I can be persuaded to ship I also have a Imperial Hemibuttload of keyboards for them. -Scott Quinn

20 years, 1 month

HP 1161 Logic Analyzer

by bpettit＠ix.netcom.com

Anyone have a schematic for this unit? It is the Z80 version. I'm scrapping it out but would like to see if I can use the power supply. I'll pay for a copy of the schematics. Parts are available if anyone wants them. Just pay postage. All I want is the chassis and power supply. All the PCBs are 100 pin and look similiar to S-100. Anyone have more knowledge of this? Billy

20 years, 1 month

Request to meet fellow collectors

by KParker＠workcover.com

Later this year (depart 8 Nov 2005) my wife and I will be doing an around the world trip ex South Australia (we'll be away 71 nights). Whilst travelling I'd be interested in catching up with any interested fellow collectors, particularly collectors of TRS80 and genuine IBM stuff (but I'm not going to discriminate :-) Our major stops will be Auckland NZ, Recife (its on the east coast of Brazil), Miami, Memphis, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Ohio (little place called Lewisburg which I'm told is not to far from Cleveland), New York, London, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin (and Rostock), Japan (numerous places) and Hong Kong. Please contact me off list if you can help. ++++++++++ Kevin Parker Web Services Consultant WorkCover Corporation p: 08 8233 2548 m: 0418 806 166 e: kparker at workcover.com w: www.workcover.com ++++++++++ ************************************************************************ This e-mail is intended for the use of the addressee only. It may contain information that is protected by legislated confidentiality and/or is legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you are prohibited from disseminating, distributing or copying this e-mail. Any opinion expressed in this e-mail may not necessarily be that of the WorkCover Corporation of South Australia. Although precautions have been taken, the sender cannot warrant that this e-mail or any files transmitted with it are free of viruses or any other defect. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy the original e-mail and any copies. ************************************************************************

20 years, 1 month

Moore's Law/Byte magazine

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Moore's Law/Byte magazine > From: Patrick Finnegan <pat at computer-refuge.org> > Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 11:14:54 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >I've found my copies of Jan - Mar 1988 that have the article. I could >potentially let someone "borrow" a copy of the article. > I'd like to see a copy of that article myself. Allison

20 years, 1 month

Don's archive

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

>From: "jim stephens" <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu> > ---snip--- > >Without any information about the specifics of Don's situation, let me say >that my wife and heirs know what my pile is, and who to call when and if >I predecease her. If you do not or cannot take this step, your pile will face >uncertain or sad prospects when you go. > Hi I think part of the problem is that it is hard to explain to another family member what it is that we do. I've tried to explain to my sister inlaw once but soon gave up. It was like trying to explain things in a foriegn language that she didn't know. My guess is that Don may have tried to relate to his wife what it was he was doing but for something like this, there wasn't enough common ground to communicate. Even for a husband and wife, there are things that never get fully communicated. Each eventually learns to just not push the issue if it doesn't need immediate action. The phase " Yes, Dear " comes to mind. Even if he did explain it to her, she may never have understood what it was he was doing and how important it was to him. Without the common ground to discuss such things, it just doesn't work. Putting things in a will is just about the best way to try to deal with such things. Not only that one wishes things properly handled but it is best to find a trusted friend that you can put their name in the will so that the family, through greed or ignorence, can't block your wishes. Dwight

20 years, 1 month

'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

> Hmmm ... > > void print_arg(int *aryp,size_t n) > { > printf("%u",*aryp++); > while(--n) > { > printf(",%u",*aryp++); > } > putchar('\n'); > } But has two calls to printf, with different format strings. More than doubles the static string space. Plus two complete printf call frames (bigger code)... one being used only once. All in the name of keeping a "structured" image. I'm guessing this is NOT how you would code this algorithm if you were programming in assembly language... gotos and other such structures are not evil - lack of understanding of when such constructs are appropriate (and not appropriate) is the real problem. "Banning" the constructs just serves to emphasize that this is not obvious to some people. Hmmm... we seem to be sailing away from the topics again! Regards, -- 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

20 years, 1 month

Tandy T100 info

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: Tandy T100 info > From: John Hogerhuis <jhoger at gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 14:25:13 -0700 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >On 5/16/05, Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote: >> >> Ok, the usual MMU only fairly fine grained. Does any apps make use of >> that kind of MMU and space? >> > >Not yet, this is a new thing, and there's no software to take >advantage of the full potential yet. Not surprized as even in the S100 Z80 world where MMU and banking has been around for a long time it was rarely used for anything but pseudodisk space. I've gone as far as do a memory allocation recovery systems for to get an approach to a virtual OS. Not all the way but close. In that case the MMU is being used for a scatter/gather execution space allocator. >> >Each block in the map can be marked read-only so that if you are >> >emulating ROM with RAM or flash you get a perfect emulation, i.e. any >> >writes against ROM don't get applied. >> >> Handy! >> > >Handy and required... some vintage ROMs do some funny stuff writing >against ROM for efficiency believe that it won't have any effect. But >writing against RAM has an effect, and against flash can lock up the >flash since it can trigger its state machine. ;) thats a bad thing! I know. :-P >> Now I understand what it is and the basic logic inside. Like many MMU >> based 8bitters the addition of large ram is usually to emulate disk. >> I'm curious to see if any actually do swaping or overlay so the app >> can access a larger space or larger data. The reason for that is >> most cases that is rare or not even done. >> > >Well the M100 uses a RAM based file system. Our MMU is a new thing, so >any use made of it beyond emulating multiple M100 fast-switch maps >will be by new software. In particular I'm planning a management Not surprized for reasons stated. >program that can set up maps and burn new ROMs to flash or set them up >in RAM. But the spec will be freely available so user programs can get >direct access to extended RAM. All you need to do is CLEAR enough >space to get a 1K window and a BASIC program can start PEEKing and >POKEing extended RAM without too much trouble. That's why we have such >a fine-grain MMU block size. I'm still getting used to the M100s applications and space usage. It's a bit foreign to a CP/M, OS/8, RT-11, VMS user like myself. I'e sone real time stuff and systems stuff for myself that used mapped ram and rom to get around the latency of disks (even IDE). I'll have to look more at all this. However, step one is to get the M100 I have up to 32k ram. Then I'll look at how secondary rom socket space is used. I'd like a configuration that also has ram at 0000h and maybe a OS in it. I've considered getting some larger F-Rams too. All in time. Allison

20 years, 1 month

WAY WAY WAY WAY OT Re: 'goto" gone from computer languages or is it!

by dave04a＠dunfield.com

>There's one extra local variable (char *t) which is a pointer: hardly >expensive by any metric. If you prefer, move the i initializer inside the >for loop construct. Same difference. >The loop uses the same number of conditionals as any other example so far >(including yours, which doesn't work ;) I guess you missed my original solution - look back a few messages, it uses only one conditional, and only one local variable, has no superflous assignments, nor goto's. The "clever" one in my last message was an illustation, not my solution. >> - In the last iteration of the loop you are stuffing the address >> value of the constant string "%u" into the for conditional >> (granted in any reasonable implementation this will be non-zero >> and will evaluate to TRUE, however it seems a bit odd and not >> completely necessary to the logic of the program). > >Your analysis somewhat (misses the point|is non-sequitur). The unary >construct is the entire reason this works. It still stuffs an address into a conditional - it works, but it's not pretty, nowhere near the goal of "structured" (remember structured ... this is a song about structured) and not something I would ever consider using in production code. >> - You are reading only the first element of the array, although >> you are adding an increasing offset to it for each iteration of >> the loop. > >Perhaps this is an issue of precedence and compiler implementation, but >the way it works (at least under gcc) is as I suspected, which is that >counter i gets incremented after first being added to aryp. So it in fact >iterates the entire array from start to end. * is higher precedence than '+' (K&R page 49 - I know this from memory - scary). If your compiler does the '+' first, it's broken. >You had card punches? We had to cut holes into ours with exacto knives. Actually, when I last visited the Your university museum, the Curator showed me some "manual" card punches - little steel blocks with holes and a pin punch! 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

20 years, 1 month

Free racks in Livermore, you pick up

by vcf＠siconic.com

I have two very nice racks available for immediate hauling. I can only keep them for about a week to ten days until I must take them to the scrapyard. One is a DEC SF-200, in nice shape, both doors, with a 230V line power converter thingy (sorry, forgot the proper name at the moment). The other is a nice 7' tall DELL rack. It's very glamourous looking (all black, nice shiny DELL emblem on the front) however it's missing it's sides :( Otherwise, a very nice, solid, durable rack, though not quite deep enough for DEC equipment. Both of these are at my office in Livermore, California, sitting outside exposed for a current lack of space indoors. They've been rained on several times, but both are in fine shape, cleanable, no rust, etc. It's still raining over in my neck of the woods (it shouldn't be but it is) and there's more forecast in the coming days. However, it is also hot, and the rain spells are short, so they dry out quickly. Bottom line, that's not the limiting factor here, but my patience to leave them outside with the rest of the crap that needs hauling to the scrapyard is. Preference to local pickups. Will ship, but you'd better be prepared to handle ALL shipping details and pay me for my time to put it on a pallet and wrap it in cardboard (cardboard and pallet are free, my time is not, and I'm not cheap). Off-list enquiries please (on-list will be expunged with prejudice). ;) -- 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 ]

20 years, 1 month

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test-drb May 2005