aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Wow, that is old.
All this talk of quipu's reminds me of one of my
favourite cartoon shows from the early 80's -
Mysterious Cities Of Gold. I don't suppose
anyone knows of any games based on it?
Regards,
Andrew B
-------------------------------------------------------------
I share your love of the series. It only showed up for one run in the US.
Just didn't draw and audience. Apparently the DVD set is out in the original
French. And there are a lot of DVDs in English that come up on eBay. But
they are rips and of very poor quality. Plus none of the commentary.
I've seen a game a couple of times on eBay. But it seemed to be a
children's game and was in French. You might point your eBay preferences to
include the French auctions.
If they ever release it in an authorized DVD, I'll certainly buy it. Right
now, I have some poor mpg2's that I found on a black IRC channel a few years
ago.
Billy
-------------Original Message:
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: Discussion of large systems
No matter how you cut it, sorting on tape beat sorting cards on unit
record equipment...
Cheers,
Chuck
--------------Reply:
Mind you, an 082/083 sorter with cards feeding across and dropping into
their compartments is as much a part of the "old computer" image as
spinning tape reels...
And considering the cost of CPU time and the fact that input data was
still on punched cards in most cases, it was usually more efficient and
cost-effective to still sort the cards off-line and then copy/merge to/with
tape.
Ah, fond memories of carrying stacks of 5-6000 cards across the room
to the collator (or, later, the high-speed card reader), not to mention the
inevitable day when you bumped into someone and scattered half a
megabyte of data across the data centre floor and under the machinery;
now _that_'s fragmentation!
m
All this fuss is idiotic. A knowledge base and a wiki are COMPLETELY
DIFFERENT THINGS. There was already a recent discussion about whether
classiccmp should have a wiki, and the concensus was "not at this time" as
Jay already noted. Further discussion is always welcome in an environment
like cctalk, but geez, people should read up on the recent history before
spouting about the same old things without adding anything new.
Meanwhile lots of people are complaining that the existing KB is lame and
sparse. Those people should sign off from their email and go add
something constructive to the KB instead of critizing what Jay and others
have already done for it. It's the fault of users, not the underlying
technology, if nobody adds to the database -- no amount of CMS or wiki or
anything else will help with that.
A related and remarkable resource, which is less a Wiki and more of a
blog, is Paul McJones' "Dusty Decks" page:
http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/
This is so monumentally great and exactly what should be done at this
point in computer/software/emulation history, taking advantage of the
web in exactly the right way.
-----
Abosolutely! He's one of the cornerstones of CHM's software preservation SIG
I really wish there was more work of this quality going on.
> In particular any manuals concerning the maintenance of early monitors (the
> monochrome monitor that was attached to the old Sun-1)
Moniterm or Philips?
Sun bought generic Multibus cases for the original desktop units. The most
common monitors in them were made by either Moniterm or Philips. Moniterm
monitors are notorious for flyback failures.
A related and remarkable resource, which is less a Wiki and more of a
blog, is Paul McJones' "Dusty Decks" page:
http://www.mcjones.org/dustydecks/
He does a very excellent job of tying together multiple resources
around the web, relating them to real computer history of wide general
interest.
Paul brings together several ingredients here:
1. A genuine interest in computer and especially software history in
the context of the entire industry.
2. Knowledge of many others around the world who are doing solid work
on the subject, including collecting/storing/making available hardcopy
documents, reading old media, emulating old systems, etc.
3. Links to the others who are doing the work, often showing the output
of the work.
4. A blog-type format that show shis personal interest but also shows
that the work being done is relevant and important.
5. Incorporating comments/replies/etc. into his page.
This is so monumentally great and exactly what should be done at this
point in computer/software/emulation history, taking advantage of the
web in exactly the right way.
I should point out that there are some more scholarly and museum-like
efforts going on at the same time, but none present the work and details
and results nearly as openly and vividly as Paul does.
Tim.
MessageHi,
Looking for any of the early Sun manuals - eg the multibus Sun-1 era. In particular any manuals concerning the maintenance of early monitors (the monochrome monitor that was attached to the old Sun-1) and/or the early multibus Sun processor boards/FP board/CG1 board.
Many thanks!
Ian.
---------------------------------
Want to start your own business? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.
Arrived today from New Jersey. Staying in Mountain View. Open to meeting
other collectors tonight / tomorrow for fun times, computer chat, drinks,
etc. .... cell-able at 646-546-9999. - Evan
Another part of computing history that seems almost completely
forgotten is ledger card systems, which is what many small offices
(if they weren't doing things manually) were using before PCs
came along and for quite a few years afterwards.
With magnetic stripes on the back of the cards, paper tape I/O
and/or high speed digital cassette drives, automatic feeder/stackers,
(relatively) high-speed card readers, and datacomm capabilities,
they were certainly true computers by any criterion.
I recall one of my Burroughs L installations which would have 4
cassette drives randomly zipping back and forth (much quieter than
your tape drives, actually quite pleasant to listen to) and an auto-reader
going through a deck of ledger cards, while another set of cards was
being fed into the printing console, stripe read and updated, printed
(along with 2 reports being printed simultaneously on the same
independent-dual-carriage 255x10cpi 2-colour dot-matrix printer),
and stacked in the back, all without any operator intervention;
fun to watch.
I'll have to dig around & see if I can find the core memory card from an
E series machine that I used to have lying around somewhere...
m
