test-drb December 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

225 participants
420 discussions

by grant＠stockly.com

My 88-ACR is currently "bare". Can anyone with an Altair try playing this tape image? I'm using a Sony stereo cassette deck with dc servo controlled motors. I'm trying to get the best copy of these tapes that I can. I want to start a free library of actual audio cassette recordings. I guess once these recordings have been "verified", we can regenerate perfect sound images by recording the direct output of the 88-ACR. Until then... :) The only thing I am worried about is the Dolby NR (filter) was enabled. I'm not sure if this is bad or not. I have not adjusted any dynamics yet. You may have to turn up the volume... If the MP3 is not good enough, I have the raw 32bit 44100Hz available... (30MB RAR'd) http://www.altairkit.com/software/ This is what is on the tape: ALTAIR 8K BASIC VERSION 4.0 MARCH 1977 COPYRIGHT 1976 BY MITS INC. 2400/1850 HZ Grant NOTE TO ARCHIVE: This file may not exist forever, it is a beta file. : ) Look for other posts. : )

18 years, 5 months

TI Travelmate LT220 portable terminal w/inkjet printer dock

by legalize＠xmission.com

I just picked up an interesting portable terminal from ebay for $0.99 I guess there aren't really any other terminal collectors out there! Anyway, this is a nice little unit. 80x24 LCD screen, NiCad battery pack for portable operation, wall wart for AC operation. However, what's interesting about this puppy is that it has a docking station that contains an inkjet printer and a numeric keypad for data entry. The manufacturing label indicates manufacture in 1989. The terminal is VT220 compatible. There is a handle on the docking station so that you can carry the printer+terminal combination around. The whole bundle comes in a special TI black cloth bag that lets you lug it around to various locations. I have another terminal that is similar to this, but isn't as fancy with the printer dock: the Random Colleague. I purchased two Random Colleagues in a dovebid auction. One had a damaged case and the other had a damaged LCD screen. I've swapped the good screen into the good case and now I just need a little digikey ordering to connect the ribbon cable for the screen back up to the main board. The Random Colleague has a hard briefcase like case that lets you take it to various locations. Anyone else out there have either of these? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

18 years, 5 months

Build your own Apollo Guidance Computer

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Brent Hilpert wrote: I have a web page (<http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/gates/index.html>) where I'm accumulating the diversity of symbols that have been used for logic gates. If you have a scan or reference for the Cray/6600 symbols I'd be interested in adding them. --------------------------- I'll be glad to if I can find one over Christmas. I'm flying to the Bay area on Saturday, so I'll look next week. I know I have the plastic drawing guides for the 1604, 3000 and 6000 logic symbols. And I think I have some scans of the legends of several schematics I'll send you. But my all time favorite was the logic drawings of the Bendix G-15. They were drawn by an artist. Every page is clean, neat and easy to read. Lots of comments. I still think they are the prettiest schematics ever produced in the industry. Even if it was a valve (vacuum tube) machine. The ugliest, hands down winner, are the IBM early machine drawing schematics or logic manuals for the System 360. They were done by a badly timed line printer with an exceptonally bad ribbon. Billy

18 years, 5 months

Storage Buildings

by Doug＠seadec.com

can someone please tell me how to unsubscribe from this list?? Help!! ________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of James B. DiGriz Sent: Tue 12/19/2006 7:59 PM To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Storage Buildings On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:14:34 -0800 (PST) "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > Or there is always the option of getting old Freight containers (the > type they use on cargo ships). > > Zane > They're cheap enough (as low as $200 or so), and the port is only 20 miles away. FOB only, though. You need to have a flatbed or hire one, which adds to the expense. There is one unit right next door that might conceivably become available. There is another problem, though, as containers tend to receive undue attention from the vigilant eye of code enforcement here, unlike some other enlightened areas of the country, particularly if you attempt to build any kind of actual structure out of them. In my case I would have to. Freight containers are not really big enough for decent shop facilities. jbdigriz

18 years, 5 months

Any list members in Sydney, Australia?

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

I'm in Sydney for the week, departing Christmas Day (Newtonsday ;-) and was curious if there were any members of the list who are close enough to the Sydney CBD to warrant getting together for a beer and some classic computer conversation. I'm paying for wireless by the hour here :-/ so it would probably be better to call my mobile at 0420755794 if interested. I'm back to NZ for a few days next week, then finally back home to Ohio where I can a) look for work, and b) spend some indoor time getting various projects to a state of completion before the weather turns nice, eventually. Cheers, -ethan

18 years, 5 months

Build your own Apollo Guidance Computer (pics of actual)

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

Here are pics of the actual Apollo guidance module http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf3/apollo_guidence_module_a.jpg http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf3/apollo_guidence_modules.jpg http://vintagecomputer.net/vcf3/apollo_guidence_modules_b.jpg Bill D

18 years, 5 months

Build your own Apollo Guidance Computer

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Jeff Walther wrote Is there a guide somewhere to the different families of logic, such as RTL, TTL, LSTTL (never heard of that one) and CMOS? Try this one: http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Logic_Family_Selection.html It's a little general but gives a good high level view. Billy

18 years, 5 months

Interesting decompiler

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

On Sat, 2006-12-16 at 13:35 -0500, Dave McGuire wrote: > On Dec 15, 2006, at 10:18 PM, Chris M wrote: > > Is it a *recent* development of compilers that as an > > intermediate step the source code will first be > > reduced to assembler mnemonics, before being reduced > > to object code? > > Absolutely not. The UNIX world, at least, has been doing it that > way for decades. Right. Also, from the micro world, two words: Small C. I love the approach. Among other benefits, it allows one to write something in C to get the algorithm correct, and then re-write and/or optimize the generated assembly to speed up inner loops, and frequently executed code, as needed. Peace, Warren E. Wolfe ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- Most of the early compilers at CDC worked this way. The intermediate language was assembly and could be used to clean up the final code. It could be saved as a separate file and also be used as sub-routines. It was a very fast way to create a compiler. Then there was another method called interpreters, where final machine code never really exists. The compiler generates a list of psuedo ops that would be executed by a series of macros. Was fast to write, but incredibly ineffecient. And there was a really fascinating one on the IBM 1401 that kept the high level langauage in the core, and brought in sequential routines from the tape unit. Each rountine would perform one process on the source. At the end, what remained in core was the machine language program. It was a true single pass compiler. But it worked in serial mode, bringing in each routine in order (63 different ones, if I remember correctly) even if wasn't needed. It was probably the slowest compiler I ever worked with, but the concept was interesting. Billy

18 years, 5 months

Advice for tape drive repair / maintenance

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: **>> snip <<** > > Well, let's see... > > I can either spend $10 on a set of rubber parts an d > take an afternoon > putting them in (at which point, said VCR will be > good for another 2 > years) or I can spend $89 and take an afternoon > going to the shop, > bringing a new unit home, and figuring out how to > connect it up and use > it. At which point I have a device assembled with > lead-free solder, > soldered at too low a temperature, so it gets dry > joints within a few > months. With plastic mechanical parts made from th e > cheapest plastic > imaginable that make a freebie toy look solid. I'd > be lucky if that $89 > machine lasted for a couple of weeks after the > warrenty period... > > Now guess which I am going to do... > > -tony > That's a very good point. Just out of interest, my dad still has the first VCR VHS recorder he bought around 1979 (no typo). It's very heavy, largely due to the fact that it's all mechanisms and levers inside. (No I don't have the model name/number at hand - I believe it's been put in the attic) It was working fine up until around 1998/9 when it wouldn't record very well anymore. i believe that's when we got our first modern VHS recorder. The new one lasted 3 or 4 years before it started playing up (won't rewind tape without messing it up, but plays/records fine!) and my parents got another one. The one my brother bought around 2001 works ok, but is hardly used. Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

18 years, 5 months

I8008 / Scelbal

by jos.mar＠bluewin.ch

Those interested in running Scelbal, the old Basic for the Scelbi-8 8008 based system, can download the following file :( windows executable, ca 6.5 M ) http://mypage.bluewin.ch/dreesen/I8008.zip It is an emulation of a 8008 machine I might build, (Time Permitting...), and comes with very a very terse help in the form of the "scelbal.txt" file. This tells you how to start Scelbal. The emulator is rather crude, but was only intended as a proof of concept. Some source code is provided. Looking through the Scelbal source code really shows you how limited the i8008 is. You need 8K to implement a Basic that is on a par with a 4K TRS80 Basic... You are forever shuffling around pointers, incrementing and decrementing them "by hand" . Jos Dreesen

18 years, 5 months

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test-drb December 2006