This appeared in my twice daily feed of ABC News. My appreciation to ABC
news for the story
+++++++++++++++++++++++
*Inventor who kicked off computer revolution dies*
Jack Kilby, the inventor of the integrated circuit which provided the
basis of the computer chip revolution, has died of cancer.
Mr Kilby, 81, made the discovery 47 years ago, when, as a recently hired
engineer at Texas Instruments, he was left to work alone in a laboratory
while most of his 7,500 colleagues were taking a company-wide summer
holiday.
As a newly hired employee, Mr Kilby did not qualify to take a holiday in
August 1958.
"It was a very quiet time and he got a lot done," said Pat Weber, 65, a
long-time colleague and friend of Mr Kilby, who retired as vice chairman
of the Dallas-based Texas Instruments in 1998.
The company announced his death on Tuesday.
Mr Kilby, a seminal 20th century inventor whom many place in the same
league as Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers, won the Nobel Prize for
Physics in 2000 for his work.
By hand-wiring together multiple transistors, Mr Kilby's invention -
about half the size of a paper clip - spawned a revolution in
miniaturisation in which millions of circuits are now housed on tiny
pieces of silicon used in devices from computers to elevators to
pacemakers.
Working in parallel at pioneering Silicon Valley company Fairchild
Semiconductor, Mr Kilby's rival Bob Noyce sketched out his own ideas for
an integrated circuit in an engineering notebook - then forgot about it,
according to a new biography of Mr Noyce's life.
Mr Kilby, on the other hand, immediately recognised the value of his
invention and built a working prototype in a matter of days, according
to associates at Texas Instruments.
Mr Kilby and Texas Instruments were first to patent the integrated
circuit.
Mr Noyce, who later co-founded Intel Corp, and Fairchild Semiconductor
are credited with making the integrated circuit manufacturable on a mass
production basis.
While the competition sparked a 25-year patent battle between the
companies over royalties from the invention, the "Kilby patent"
weathered all legal challenges.
++++++++++
Kevin Parker
Web Services Consultant
WorkCover Corporation
p: 08 8233 2548
m: 0418 806 166
e: kparker at workcover.com
w: www.workcover.com
++++++++++
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>
>Subject: Re: DEC M8350 - KA8E posibus interface
> From: der Mouse <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
> Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:08:23 -0400 (EDT)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>> Top posted for size reasons...
>
>I suppose actually bothering to take a few seconds to edit it down to
>the relevant bits is out of the question?! (In case you're wondering
>what I'm talking about, see below.)
>
>>>>> [...use 4164s instead of 4116s?...]
>>>> What you need to do is [...pinout hackery...]
>>> Do you have any info on which ones used 7 bit refresh and which ones
>>> used 8 bit refresh?
>
>/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
>\ / Ribbon Campaign
> X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
>/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
Hi Mouse,
I didn't edit it for a very specific reason. I wanted the full
content repeated but I didn't bury it at the bottom for those
curious od the answer.
Nominally I do bottom post and snip!
Allison
>From: "der Mouse" <mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca>
>
>> Top posted for size reasons...
>
>I suppose actually bothering to take a few seconds to edit it down to
>the relevant bits is out of the question?! (In case you're wondering
>what I'm talking about, see below.)
>
>>>>> [...use 4164s instead of 4116s?...]
>>>> What you need to do is [...pinout hackery...]
>>> Do you have any info on which ones used 7 bit refresh and which ones
>>> used 8 bit refresh?
>
Hi
Most 4164's are 7 bit but look out for TI and some Samsung
chips that are labled as 4164's but are actually 8 bit refresh.
There is no easy way to tell by the part number. Even the Samsung
ones are only different by the date code and rev letters!!
The easiest way I've found to check is to put them in a
Z80 system that uses the Z80's refresh address generator.
If it holds data it is 7 bit.
Dwight
Top posted for size reasons...
I do not know for sure that 7bit refresh is required. It's likely
(not totally ceratin) that if you only using part of the array
you will require 8 bit refresh anyway.
known 7bit refresh 64k DRAMS, NEC, Mitsubushi, Hitachi HM4864
Known 8bit refresh TI, Moto(they also had hidden refresh).
There may be others.
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: DEC M8350 - KA8E posibus interface
> From: "Joe R." <rigdonj at cfl.rr.com>
> Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 08:50:05 -0400
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>At 11:58 PM 6/21/05 +0100, you wrote:
>>> Also... does anyone know about the differences between 4116 and 4164
>>> chips enough to answer the question if one could use 4164s as long as
>>> one a) prevents the non-TTL supplies from reaching the chips (modify
>>
>>What you need to do is isolate pins 1 and 8 from the board and reconnect
>>pin 8 to +5V IIRC
>>
>> 4116 4164
>>1 -5V N/C
>>8 +12V +5V
>>9 +5V A7
>>
>>That leaves the extra address line tied high, so you only use 1/4 of the chip
>>
>>> board, modify sockets, modify pins...) and b) possibly tie up or tie
>>> down the extra multiplexed address input. Can you refresh 1/4 of a
>>> 4164 and have just that part stay refreshed? I ask because I have a
>>
>>There were 2 types of 64K DRAM. One of them used 7 bit refresh (same as
>>the 4116, on the same pins), the other, older/rarer one need all 8
>>address lines to be used for the refresh (this was a royal pain on
>>Z80-based machines, where the CPU provides a 7 bit refresh only).
>
>
>Tony,
>
> This is good info. Someone should post it as a mini-FAQ.
>
> Do you have any info on which ones used 7 bit refresh and which ones used
>8 bit refresh?
>
> Joe
>
>
>>
>>I have personally replaced the odd 4116 with a 4164 as I've just
>>described and had no problems. Maybe I've been lucky in finding 7-bit
>>refresh chips (which are the more common type), maybe it works anyway.
>>
>>> serious wad of new 4164s from COMBOARD stock, but 128Kw of 4116s (8 x
>>> 12) is more than I have lying around.
>>>
>>
>>-tony
>>
In a message dated 6/22/2005 12:34:36 AM Eastern Standard Time,
news at computercollector.com writes:
I'm sure this has happened to other people here, but it never happened to me
before, and it ticks me off. Someone posted an eBay ad for this vintage
handheld and blatantly copied 680 words of my work into the "more
information" part of the item's description. Above that part, they also
stole extensively (some text and the top photo) from the site
www.datamath.org, but at least the jerk includes that link... There is no
credit for my work at all.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5783764229
Having said that, it's an excellent price. I would bid up to $50-$75 for
this if I didn't already have one.
-----------------------------------------
I had that happen to me. I was just looking at stuff, and noticed some
familiar sounding text related to a computer for sale, a PS/2 I think. I asked
the seller a question and told him I knew what he did and that I demand the
text either removed or attributed to me. He complied and said he would not do it
anymore. Never had any other issue beyond that.
>From: vp at cs.drexel.edu
>
>If you recall there was a discussion about tape catridges that could
>not be read because their coating was falling off.
>
>I was thinking, what if we reverse the tape, so that the magnetic
>head come in contact with the plastic backing and not the oxide.
>Would it be possible to read the data then?
>
>Obviously I am talking about a one-off operation, just to get the
>stuff off the tape.
>
>**vp
>
Hi
Maybe with a good analog recording and a lot of signal
processing. The high frequency loss will be quite high.
depending on the tape it self, the depth of recording
may make the difference. If it is recorded well through
the magnetic media, there may be enough signal.
The main issue is that you'd most likely need to make
several passes to be able to recover the high frequency
information above the noise level. This would require
maybe doing 180 degrees several times before unrolling
the next 180 degress of tape. One would also need to
keep track of how far each layer was because the
print through of the next layer would compete with the
one your trying to read.
One moght also go to one of the newer moer sensitive
magnetic sensing methods used in current hard disk
to increase the signal to noise.
It would be a lot of work but I think with a budget
of $250K I could read one. Additional reads would be
at $10K each.
Dwight
>From: "Philipp Hachtmann" <hachti at hachti.de>
>
>Hi,
>
>after several cleaning orgies, my SMD disk (AMPEX DFR-996, see other
>posting) seems to start working.
>Now I want to backup the data contained on the disks. These are RSX-11
>volumes. I cannot read them under RT11. And I don't know if I can make a
>diskette RSX-11 to inspect the data. Or is there a preogram which runs
>on rt11 and is able to understand rsx11 filesystem? That would be great!
>
>My first idea for the backup was "copy/device dm0: tt:" which works. But
>there is no error correction and still only 19200 baud.
>
>So tell me, what are the really cool methods to transfer data between a
>PC and a real PDP11 at a reasonable speed? SCSI controller and SCSI
>disk? Something else? Ethernet?
>
>Or is a backup over serial line a normal thing...?
>
>
>Regards,
>Philipp :-)
>
Hi
Serial is still the easiest. If the PDP11 has a parallel
printer port and your willing to write some code, sending
by parallel port can be quite fast. Most all current
day PC's still have a parallel printer port. The serial
port has gone the way of the dinosaur.
Dwight
I thought someone had located docs for the 2468 or 2469 terminals (HP), but
I don't see them over on bitsavers.
Need pinouts, suggested wiring diagrams for both ext baud and int baud.
I think there's some of this info in the BACI manual, I'll look there now.
But I'd like a copy of the terminal manual if it's still floating around.
Jay
Not a Schlage lock, Medeco (YUCK!! if security was this important, than
why'd they put the power switch out front??)
4.3.3 runs pretty well if you have memory. I ran it with 1 of my cards
(128M) and it was really slow. 256 ran pretty well. KB/M are standard
PS/2. the "official" RS/6000 keyboard has a speaker in it, but it isn't
necessary. Video is 3W3 or 13W3, seems pretty standard. If you need to
foil the lock, I can trace the switch positions later today for
kludging purposes. I wouldn't advise trying to go directly to IBM,
they seem to be the "snooty Maitre'd" that would rather not sell
anything than stoop to deal with the likes of an *individual* user.
E-Bay has AIX cheap, generally, your school sysadmin might be a help,
or you could ask around.
Quick check of the RS6ks- plug them in and make sure the # panel
doesn't flash 888.
If you want the switch pinouts/paths email me, or for other questions.
I don't think there of general enough interest for the group (but I
could be wrong)
I hope this e-mail address doesn't clog up the channels with HTML
sludge, even if it does sound a bit egoistical.
-Scott Quinn
