Hi, ClassicCMP'rs -- I included the list in a "BCC" email but that didn't
seem to go through -- so I'm resending the message below...
-- Evan (just ignore if you get two copies... Sorry about that...)
================================================
Hello friends, colleagues, collectors, and people I've interviewed...
After about four years of work, I've finally completed the vast majority of
my PDA history research. So if you're getting this email, it means we've
communicated at some point in the recent past. Or else I just thought
you're someone who might find this research interesting.
It's all online at http://www.snarc.net/pda/pda-treatise.htm -- it is
approximately 10,000 words of nerdiness.
There will be changes. Inevitably some of you will find typos and suggest
corrections, which is the whole reason I'm posting this now at all.
FYI to the collecting community -- the majority of this draft was already
read over by Bruce Damer, Sellam Ismail, Erik Klein, and Michael Nadeau.
Hopefully they caught any blatant mistakes of mine...
All of the photographs are used with permission and all are linked back to
the original sources. The link to the story "Thank you, Beep" is used with
HP's permission.
The one thing not yet included is the massive bibliography. I'm working on
it as fast as I can.
Rest assured, the research isn't just from reading a bunch of random,
unproven web pages. There is a reason this took four years: every fact is
double- or triple-sourced. The majority of the facts here came from
personal interviews that I conducted with the first-person sources, as well
as from books, news articles, patent research, etc.
Please forward to anyone and everyone.
Please do NOT go copying stuff without asking. :)
Finally, whatever I wrote here (with the exception of typos, etc.) overrules
anything I said or wrote before. :)
-----------------------------------------
Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net Also see
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/
*** Tell your friends about the (free!) Computer Collector Newsletter
- 700 readers and no spam / Publishes every Monday / Write for us!
- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all
- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com
Does anyone know if the Intel cash offer for a copy of the Byte magazine
discussing Moore's Law is still good? In talking with friends here I
found out that I know many of the editors and journalists who worked for
the early computer magazines, including Byte. I'm told I can find about
any edition I desire from this crowd if I ask. I'm not going to try and
rip off friends, but they were interested when I mentioned it.
I also found out I know the staff of Wayne Green's magazine empire
(mostly Ham Radio stuff).
If someone can just make a comittment on this, arrangements can then be
made - it's the complete lack of any interest that's driving it's
disposition currently.
So if someone in interested, at all, in this system - write me please
and let's figure it out... I don't want to scrap the old girl any more
than you guys do. If we know that it's got a home, then the 'time element'
can be adjusted to fit your schedules.
All somebody has to say is "Yes, I want the DPS-6." and then we can
contrive wild schemes to get it transported - as long as that is the case,
then the 'execution' can be stayed.
Cheers
John
Well me and a few other folks recently "rescued" a technical manual for
the PC-8201A from Ebay. It has lots of details useful to a programmer
writing information for this machine. 257 pages.
Chapter 15 is dedicated to hardware information.
Howver, it starts with the sentence "Refer to another technical manual
about the detail specion of PC-8201A's hardware. That manual has already
been by NECHE, Chicago. Please contact with them. In this r, only most
important data is listed up."
Does anyone have a copy of the hardware tech ref? It would be useful to
us in the remem project http://bitchin100.com/remem_project.html
Also any such manuals about the 8300, 8500, and Starlet would be
interesting to me as well.
I've tried to talk to NEC directly in the past, but they say clearly
that they "have no information on these antiques." Nice sense of
history...
Thanks!
-- John.
Hello friends, colleagues, collectors, and people I've interviewed...
After about four years of work, I've finally completed the vast majority of
my PDA history research. So if you're getting this email, it means we've
communicated at some point in the recent past. Or else I just thought
you're someone who might find this research interesting.
It's all online at http://www.snarc.net/pda/pda-treatise.htm -- it is
approximately 10,000 words of nerdiness.
There will be changes. Inevitably some of you will find typos and suggest
corrections, which is the whole reason I'm posting this now at all.
FYI to the collecting community -- the majority of this draft was already
read over by Bruce Damer, Sellam Ismail, Erik Klein, and Michael Nadeau.
Hopefully they caught any blatant mistakes of mine...
All of the photographs are used with permission and all are linked back to
the original sources. The link to the story "Thank you, Beep" is used with
HP's permission.
The one thing not yet included is the massive bibliography. I'm working on
it as fast as I can.
Rest assured, the research isn't just from reading a bunch of random,
unproven web pages. There is a reason this took four years: every fact is
double- or triple-sourced. The majority of the facts here came from
personal interviews that I conducted with the first-person sources, as well
as from books, news articles, patent research, etc.
Please forward to anyone and everyone.
Please do NOT go copying stuff without asking. :)
Finally, whatever I wrote here (with the exception of typos, etc.) overrules
anything I said or wrote before. :)
-----------------------------------------
Evan Koblentz's personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net
Also see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/
*** Tell your friends about the (free!) Computer Collector Newsletter
- 700 readers and no spam / Publishes every Monday / Write for us!
- Mainframes to videogames, hardware and software, we cover it all
- W: http://news.computercollector.com E: news at computercollector.com
Someone wrote me:
> Do you really know what you're saying about Don?
> I mean, had you been to his house?
YIPES! TERRIBLE EDIT! MY FAULT! CRINGING APOLOGY!
I was made to realize I implied that somehow Don's collection fell
on him ("This is essentially what Don did...") A terrible edit on
my part.
What I meant to say was Don apparently carefully collected a huge
amount of stuff, and when he died, essentially arranged to have it
disposed of poorly, ala the train guy.
Looking at my original posting, it's a botch job edit. My sincere
apologies to anyone hurt by it.
tomj
> A collector collects. A packrat accumulates.
>
Collect and accumulate are synonyms.
--
"Collect" in this context implies some order and method to the aquisition.
Being a packrat is to gather things randomly, then to hoard what has
been gathered.
>
>Subject: Re: Tandy T100 info
> From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
> Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 22:11:43 +0100 (BST)
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
>
>>
>>
>> I just aquired a Tandy T100, really fun little machine.
>> one of the first steps is to exten the ram (24k more is possible)
>
>>From what I remember, the original RAM consisted of little ceramic
>substrates with 4 off 2K*8 static RAMs soldered to them. There were
>separate chip select pins for each RAM, all the address decoding was on
>the mainboard.
Yep and the ceramic carried 4x 5118 2kx8 parts.
>These modules were 0.7" (I think) wide. But it's possible, with a bit of
>careful bending, to get a normal 0.6" wide IC into the socket. You can
>put a nromal 8K*8 static RAM into the top 12 pins of each side of the
>socket (wiith pins 1,2,27,28 of the RAM haning off the end) and most of
>the signals match up. I did this in my Model 100. I then did some
>cut-n-jumper mods to get A11 and A12 straight off the address bus, to
>modify the address decoder appropriately (while still keeping the
>original 8K module in the lowest address possition), and to handle the
>power-down memory protection.
You can but it's ugly. I need a clean schematic that I can read
to manage my hack. I have 8kx8s and 256kx8s aplenty.
>I should still have notes on this, but I was working on a UK model, which
>doesn't have the intenral modem, and where different sections of ICs are
>used in some positions (what I mean here, is that if the US schematic
>shows, say, U6a as a '00 NAND gate in some position in the circuit, then
>the UK version still uses a '00 NAND gate, but it might well be U21c (the
>component references are totally ficticious here!)).
Thats why I need a clean schematic. The one I have you can't read part
or pin numbers on. Signal names are just blobs. A better schematic
and it's easy as pie.
Allison
>Speaking of which, does anyone know if they manufacture an adhesive-backed
>_plastic_ sheet that's meant to go through printers?
>
What I did when I needed to make some durable signs was use transparency
plastic, print a reverse image on them, and then used spray adhesive
to glue them down. The reverse printing lets you glue them printed side
down so the plastic protects the printing.
I picked up an HP 9000/300 w/cabinet this week that I was told works,
but know nothing (yet) about it. The 9000/300 has four modules in it;
98625B, 98550A, HPIB/RS-232/HP-HIL/Audio/other connectors, and an
unmarked module. Included in the cabinet are the HP9144, 9122C, and
92628 w/two 152 MB HDs. I wasn't able to find the RGB monitor but will
pick it up at some point. It also included the keyboard and I do have
the root password. Since I dont' really know much about HP equipment, is
this a worthwhile system to play with?
