test-drb October 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

217 participants
352 discussions

by alanp＠snowmoose.com

> > >From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> > >Tim Patterson never denied that QDOS ("Quick and Dirty OS") was based >closely on CP/M. > > Just FYI. Tim's last name is spelled 'Paterson'. alan

17 years, 7 months

Looking for details on battery-backup ECO for IOB-6120

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hi, all, I've posted on the Spare Time Gizmos Yahoo Group, and I've written Jim Kearney twice and no responses yet - I have a couple of IOB-6120s that, due to the nature of the ECOs, I haven't yet installed SRAM on. I'm having problems with the fix between the 74ACT138 and the BQ2201 - what instructions I do have say to lift certain pins before installing both chips, and I've done that; what I'm lacking is the specific directions about how to connect the two with a green wire (where it goes, possible track cuts, etc). I have the directions for the resistor-and-FET fix to the SRAMs themselves. I've decided to skip the 1/8W 10K resistors in favor of 1206 SMT resistors mounted flush to the SRAMs (I'm worried about snagging something and busting off a pin). Unfortunately, without the BQ2201 portion of the fix, my IOB-6120 is somewhat inert. Thanks for any pointers, -ethan P.S. - I already have the info at http://www.jkearney.com/sbc6120/kit-A.htm

17 years, 7 months

The Origins of DOS

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: The Origins of DOS > From: "Jim Isbell, W5JAI" <jim.isbell at gmail.com> > Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2006 10:27:19 -0500 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >TRS DOS market was prety big at the time. To begin with it was the >ONLY desktop computer available in the mass marked....almost two years >if memory serves me well. There were several "mini" computers around, >but nothing like the RS computer with 8k of memory and a tape system >for probgam loading/saving and BASIC. >From inside Tandy (at that time) te most common units sold had 16k and the L2 (12k) Basic with the 16k L1 basic using being a close second. Rare was the 4k with L2. As to 8k that was either a user hack or one of a short lived flavor using halfgood 16k parts both of which were far less common. >From experience and being active in computer world of the time S100 was the workhorse systems as were early Apple][ with disk and RS had volumes of (>200,000 first year of sales) of the basic 4kl1 systems. That was the 1978 view. By 1980 Apple][ with disk, TRS80 with EI and disk were by far very prevelent though S100 crates were still being used widely. Apple and RS were dualing for the then infant personal desktop computer market and had put a lot (n > 50,000 with disks) of machines out there. The market from what I'd seen went from near 0 (under 10,000 home computers existed) in 1974(december) to somewhere over 1,000,000 (possibly far more) by December of 1979. Explosive growth! Several things drove this. Lower cost of hardware that included some mass storage(minifloppy). Availability of more user friendly packaged systems(no soldering or kits). The availability of software applications editors, high level languages, software development packages and of course the killer apps of early desktop word processing [Electric pencil, Wordstar] and spreadsheets [visicalc]. Allison > >On 10/28/06, Chandra Bajpai <cbajpai at comcast.net> wrote: >> >> How big was the TRS-80 Market to support all thoses DOSes? >> >> I remember when NewDOS/80 and I just remember it being fast. Any idea who >> wrote that? >> >> -Chandra >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] >> On Behalf Of Fred Cisin >> Sent: Friday, October 27, 2006 10:24 PM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: The Origins of DOS >> >> On Fri, 27 Oct 2006, Warren Wolfe wrote: >> > [TRS-DOS] >> > It was its own universe, Jim. The links and questionable parentage >> > of the original version of DOS are tied directly to CP/M, which was the >> > first O/S for personal computers that any significant number of >> > businesses embraced. And, Windows came out of the DOS world, and now >> > dominates as few products have dominated before. (Note: I am NOT >> > claiming this is a GOOD thing.) >> > >> > From what I can tell, TRSDOS was not a rip-off of anyone's software, >> > and nobody bothered to rip it off, so it's pretty much out of the world >> > of O/S scandal. >> >> There WERE several imitators of TRS-DOS (although still for TRS-80), >> including NEWDOS, DOSPLUS, and the semi-legitimate offspring LDOS. >> >> > It actually was pretty decent, and had a few ideas of >> > merit that didn't make it into the mainstream world for a while. It was >> > just totally tied to Radio Shack computing, and suffered a mortal wound >> > when IBM came out with their PC. No fault of its own. >> >> Rasio Shack AVOIDED expanding TRS-DOS into other semi-related hardware >> platforms. >> >> -- >> Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com >> >> > > >-- >Jim Isbell >"If you are not living on the edge, well then, >you are just taking up too much space."

17 years, 7 months

[Off-topic] Anyone from St. Louis available?

by tony.eros＠machm.org

I'm a very happy Cardinals fan stuck on the East Coast. Are there any St. Louis folks on the list who might be willing to pick me up a copy of the Post Dispatch for Saturday and Sunday? I would be happy to pay for the papers, shipping, and a little for your trouble... Thanks! -- Tony

17 years, 7 months

RA6800ML

by mcsinternet＠mcsinternet.net

I am looking for the Space Voyage program made by TSC back in the 70's. I would like to port it to the 68hc11. Do you know where I could get a copy of the listing. I had the book but lost it years ago. I have found the s19 files but the I/O and the ram location will have to be changed. Thanks for your time Sam Ammons

17 years, 7 months

Craziest ebay price EVER

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 27 Oct, 2006, at 07:41, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > It's not that hard to trace out schematics of a classic computer [1], Not all classic computers are micros. Fancy tracing the schematic for my 500 square foot second generation mainframe? Fortunately I have most of them, along with the 'address book' which lists every logic signal, its sources (think wire-OR) and destinations. Its on roughly A3 paper and is in two volumes four inches thick. Welcome to the new chap. BCD is not just a bit coding, its a card code as well. It lacks things like parentheses and brackets but has things like 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4. My 1301 uses it, though strangely there is not a one to one mapping >from characters from the card reader to characters on the line printer! The old Friden Flexowriters used a similar code too, though they seem to have varied too. The old Elliott 920 code was different >from the code used by my own Flexowriter (which could punch and read 8 paper tape, or using the same mechanism, along the edge of a punched card size medium which I think could be fan-folded. I guess this allowed the operator to write on the rest of the card). Roger Holmes (Who has at home what might be a collection of the largest computers in private ownership - unless you know different as Esther Rantzen used to say on "That's Life").

17 years, 7 months

486 EISA system

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

Another Ebay find came in today, a 486 EISA motherboard and 5 cards. The motherboards seems to be this model: http://artofhacking.com/th99/m/U-Z/31111.htm , but I can't find a company name on it anywhere. It has 8 EISA slots seems to be setup for a 486 DX. it looks like there are 2 DALLAS real time clocks on it, and the machine complains the eisa config battery is low. Are there any cheap hacks to get around this? The cards that came are the following (all EISA): HP 10Mb and 100Mb network card has a HP/AT&T 100VG chip Aview 2e Video card, 1MB VRAM Adaptec AHA-2740 and AHA-2740A SCSI 50 pin (no floppy controller) SCSI cards Mylex DAC960-1/2 caching controller card with what looks like 16MB (maybe 4MB) of RAM installed (4x30 pin). The card has a nice big Intel i960 chip (first one I have). When the machine boots I don't see any info on what processor the system has like you would normally see on a 486 system, and no BIOS screen for the SCSI cards comes up either (not that there is anything connected to them). The caching controller is odd looking because of the large SCSI connectors ( there appears to be a 50 pin SCSI internal , and 2 68 pin SCSI (one looks like a normal 50 pin but its long and has 68 pins, the other looks like a 68pin connector on newer cards but the pin spacing makes it look 3x longer). Is this a raid only card and do I need special cables for the 68 pin connectors or are there adapters for these? I never used an EISA machine before (one of the reason I snagged these) and was wondering if there is anything special about them. Is there a standard configuration utility for EISA cards or do you need to find one for each card? Also since this machine is all EISA slots would putting an ISA card in one of them slow the BUS down? I need to find an EISA floppy and I/O card to complete this, anybody have one they don't need? TZ

17 years, 7 months

DEC Spare parts

by william.berkeley＠yahoo.com.sg

Hi, I just noticed there was a small typo-error in the list. Item#26 should read as TQK50 tape controller (M7546) instead of the DEQNA which is listed in item #1 MicroVax II board set Also item#31 should read as Emulex DH01 thanks and rgds william --------------------------------- What is the internet to you? Contribute to the Yahoo! Time Capsule and be a part of internet history.

17 years, 7 months

Still Looking for Parts to Complete Omnibot 2000

by karentompsett＠sbcglobal.net

i have two omnibot 2000. one only needs gear in right sholder the rest like new in org. box.#2lights lt&rt head fw rev ok tape does not work rt arm goes up but not down .make me fair offer and you can both.ihave no idea of shiping coast.tim 501 362 8069 9am too8pm Thank you Tim

17 years, 7 months

DEC spare parts

by william.berkeley＠yahoo.com.sg

Hello Henk, You were right, my mailbox have been swampped and it will take me a while to sort out who needs what and how to cut the deal. some of the items I would gladly be "contributing" towards charitable cause with shipping cost covered, but certain items that are still of commercial value and purpose will have to be negotiated. I am impressed by what I saw on your web site and the efforts in building a pdp museum. Will revert to you soonest, pls bear with it for a while. Thanks to everyone for sending me your request, I promise to respond to your emails but can't be sure if I can accommodate all your needs! Rgds William Hello William, I read your post yesterday, but did not reply as I expect that you will get *many* replies. This morning I re-read your message and thought "Well, if I don't try I will sure not get lucky" :-) So, I give it a try and send an e-mail ... I am sure you will get plenty interest for the SCSI stuff, but to maintain my collection (see www.pdp-11.nl ) I would love to get the following boards: > 3. PDP-11/34 UNIBUS board sets: > --------------------------------- What will the world find in 2020? Leave a part of your 2006 in the Yahoo! Time Capsule. Contribute now!

17 years, 7 months

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test-drb October 2006