test-drb February 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

224 participants
452 discussions

by nospam212-cctalk＠yahoo.com

I was scanning some of my TI-99/4A docs and noticed this on the back cover... "Texas Instruments invented the integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer. Being first is our tradition." The microprocessor? Anyone know what they use to make that claim? David http://www.trailingedge.com

18 years, 2 months

"my books" web site?

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

You need to ask yourself what exactly you are trying to do with the software. ILS (library automation) software is probably overkill. MARC import (what's been talked about- you enter the ISBN and it pulls over MARC cataloging data from LC/Marvel [most often] and/or a proprietary database) is excellent for library use, but a number of specialized books don't have LC CIP data easily available, and need to be entered by hand. #2 question is do you need circulation. Most of these systems are designed to implement electronic CIRC, which could be nice if you routinely lend books out, but could also be a hassle. Things to check: Haven't had much experience with Readerware, looked at Athaenium (you can still get the free version) but it doesn't have MARC import or seperate bib/holding records (might not matter for the private collector) Koha looked interesting, Mandarin M3 could also be used. An advantage of these is that they are set up for an internet environment. M3 has many optional modules that are $$$, Koha is all free. Both look like they could support a fairly large-size library. The downside of M3 is that (a) only runs on windows (b) if you aren't familiar with MARC, you're sunk. There's another free ILS program that sounds very good but I can't remember the name right now. I can remember that its major fault is that it is only available in Portugese (Brazil funding, written at a Brazilian university). A spreadsheet might be your best shot. A filter to convert EAN (most book barcodes) to ISBN should not be hard, it's just a matter of stripping the first two digits and then putting the proper last digit on. Downside is that you can't search or track circ.

18 years, 2 months

Squeal on Older Hard Drives

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Jules Richardson wrote: > ... although the spring seems to be the norm on 5.25" hard drives, presumably > for cost reasons? I can't answer that. None of the 5.25' drives I worked on had a spring. You are probably right; the spring is way under a dollar, while the ferro seals were several dollars each. >> I would never ever bend a spring away from the spindle. Too many bad >> experiences. The noise was a necessary pain. You can ease it by moving the >> spring slightly, so a different part of the button is touching. All the >> designs I know have oblong holes on the spring, so you can tweak the >> adjustment. It's unfathomable to me why an OEM would tell its customers to >> bend the spring away from the spindle. >Hmm, unless on 5.25" drives they have both the spring and the magic seals for >some reason - although I can't think why. If so though, maybe the advice about >bending the spring only applies to 5.25" drives? Can't answer 'cause again, I have never seen such a drive. But I find it very hard to believe that a drive manufacturer would design in the static discharge spring and then recommend it be disabled. Margins on disk drives are minuscule. Every item that can be cut, is. I know of entire teams working on 2 and 3 cent cost reductions. To add an unnecessary part costing a dollar is madness. I have changed dozens of heads and preamps blown by worn springs. So I'm a believer. I admit it. I've too many bad memories of loose or worn static springs destroying electronics. And, by the way, the discharge through the head creates an intense magnetic field and usually erases a chunk of data on the disk. It's a real nasty gotcha. I've worked daily with hard disk design since 1976, and static is one of the biggest nightmares in this world. It gets worse with time. Moving to the first MR heads, involved revamping the entire factory, eliminating any potential charge over 100 volts. GMR took that down to sub-10 volt. Now, with TunnelingMR and Perpendicular heads, the level goes down again. We are working with flying heights smaller than the wave length of visible light. So it doesn't take much of a charge to bridge the gap. And static also has some very exotic effects on magnetic domains in a modern head; a whole new industry has grown around suppressing static electricity in disk drive production. The older drives you are talking about don't share this new type of weirdness. But static was always a major problem because of the disk ripping through the air. Static is a natural consequence of the technology. >I wonder why the squeal happens? Whether it's wear on the spring side or the >spindle side? If the former, then a donor spring from a scrap unit could fix >things. The springs are designed to wear, albeit slowly. You do not want any wear on the spindle. And it is normally a very hard stainless steel. The button on the spring is usually an ablative type of material so it will wear before the spindle. The squeal comes from uneven wear creating vibration. The same as the squeal from worn brakes on your car. The frequency is usually determined by the length of the spring and its tension. >I also wonder if using graphite grease is a viable way of curing the problem - > or if the grease just wouldn't last long enough or wouldn't provide a useful >ground path... Graphite was tried. And various type of grease. But you are dealing with a constantly spinning piece of metal. It usually sloughs off any lubricant quickly. And that creates a new problem of introducing contaminants all over the base of a drive. Eventually, some of them make it back through the breather filters or the bearings. And yes, the static spring had the same problem, though to a lesser degree. It was not the ideal solution by any means and was eliminated as quickly as possible. Billy >cheers >Jules

18 years, 2 months

Kaypro 10 Western Digital Hard Disk Controller WD 1002-HD0

by CCTalk＠catcorner.org

I have the manual here somewhere. I also found it online at bitsavers I think. If I don't get back to you in a couple of days, send me a reminder. I doesn't include the scematic, just a block function diagram. > ---------- > From: Glen Goodwin > Reply To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 1:07 PM > To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: Re: Kaypro 10 Western Digital Hard Disk Controller WD > 1002-HD0 > > Good luck! I think I have every bit of documentation > Kaypro ever produced (including internal-only docs) > and there appears to be NO schematic of the disk controller > board. > > If someone can prove me wrong, I could use that > schematic as well . . . > > Glen > 0/0 > > j.e. van der Geest wrote: > > Any schematic available for the WD 1002-HD0 > > Need them badly > > Jos > > >

18 years, 2 months

TI and firsts

by dwight.elvey＠amd.com

Hi How foes Fairchild fit into this. It is true that the F8 was a two chip setup but then no more then the 4004 was a single chip processor. The ROM and RAM devices on the 4004 buss watched the instruction stream and did things based on the instruction. Where does that fit in with TI? Dwight >From: nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com > >I've seen the Ray Holt thing before but wasn't >familiar with Gilbert Hyatt. So it appears that at >the time, TI took on Intel and won the claim, at that >time, to the title of creator of the microprocessor. >Explains their statement now. > >--- 'Computer Collector Newsletter' ><news at computercollector.com> wrote: > >> And then there's Ray Holt: >> http://www.microcomputerhistory.com/ >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org >> [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] >> On Behalf Of William Maddox >> Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 10:31 PM >> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts >> Subject: Re: TI and firsts >> >> --- nospam212-cctalk at yahoo.com wrote: >> >> > "Texas Instruments invented the integrated >> circuit, the >> > microprocessor, and the microcomputer. Being first >> is our tradition." >> > >> > The microprocessor? Anyone know what they use to >> make that claim? >> >> Google for "Gilbert Hyatt microprocessor" >> >> >> > >David Williams >http://www.trailingedge.com > >

18 years, 2 months

MEM11A boards

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

UPS *just* dropped off the package containing the prototype fabs for the MEM11A memory boards. They look great! I'm hoping to get some time this weekend to populate one and test it out (actually it'll be more like put in a few components, do some checks, "wash, rinse, repeat" until I've got it all populated and working). I'll let y'all know how it goes. -- TTFN - Guy

18 years, 2 months

VAXstations in London

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

>All those caveats aside, you mean? 8?/ Not really, I don't find those caveats very limiting, and the VS3100/76 is a nice small lowish-power Rigel box (7.6 VUPs) that can be had cheaply. VS4000s are substantially more expensive, unless you can source them locally, and the bigger boxes have more proprietary parts that can't be hacked (I'm still trying to figure out how to get a VAX 4200 running with no drive sleds and no real SCSI) My 3176 zipps along fairly well with 32MB of RAM, a 2GB IBM disk, and a WY-150 console (I took a 6 position modular jack and shaved off the latch with a chisel. It stays in pretty well on its own, and can be taped or otherwise clipped if falling out is a problem). I've had no problems with the 1 GB limit yet (VMS is stable, I've managed to crash UNIX much more often), but I've heard that the dump option that scribbles on bigger disks can be shut off. 3100/76s (of course-they're DEC) use proprietary RAM, but on a VAX 16 MB should be O.K., especially if you aren't running DECwindows. You could take both /76s and cluster them, even, if you want more fun. The proprietary SCSI connector can be gotten around by balancing an old Toshiba on the box with the cover off. The drive plate ensures that the processor is sufficiently cooled, even with the cover off. Go ahead and grab one, I would if they were closer.

18 years, 2 months

MS-DOS 2.0 and "semi compatibles"

by CCTalk＠catcorner.org

> -----Original Message----- > From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] > Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:55 PM > On 2/23/2006 at 8:26 PM Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > >Well, there are 8 or 10 programs on the disk in question. > Shouldn't MZ > then > >show up 8 or 10 times. If I find a good hex editor I can read the DIR > >structure and figure out where the files start and see what is there. > > No--not in the case of .com files, which are just memory > images ORG-ed at > offset 100 in the PSP. No structure at all. > > For a useful hex/ASCII file browser, Vern Buerg's LIST is > hard to beat--and > you don't need windows for it. > > http://www.buerg.com/ D'OH! I LOVE list, just haven't used it in a LONG time. Of course, now I need to add a TCP/IP stack to my disk imaging machine. Disks are getting tiresome, and rebooting to Linux when I have the images, or need something from the net is bothersome. Time to dig up the WFW disks...

18 years, 2 months

MS-DOS 2.0 and "semi compatibles"

by CCTalk＠catcorner.org

> -----Original Message----- > From: Chuck Guzis [mailto:cclist at sydex.com] > Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 8:23 PM > On 2/23/2006 at 7:05 PM Kelly Leavitt wrote: > > >I just imaged a disk of an MS-DOS compatible computer (Tandy > 2000). Does > >anyone here know the magic number of an exe under ms-dos 2.0? I had > assumed > >that it was MZ, like current exe files, but I only see 2 or > 3 occurrences > >of this in the entire data stream from the disk. On the plus > side, I see > LOTS > >of strings that tell me I have actually read the contents of the disk > (this > >machine used DS/QD drives). > > Why does this surprise you? I think that it'd be safe to say that the > preponderance of executables in the old 2.0 and before days were .COM > files. But AFAIK, it's always been MZ--though I can check my > DOS 2.0 and > DOS 1.1 docs for you. Well, there are 8 or 10 programs on the disk in question. Shouldn't MZ then show up 8 or 10 times. If I find a good hex editor I can read the DIR structure and figure out where the files start and see what is there.

18 years, 2 months

online books for download

by rtellason＠blazenet.net

Some of you might find this site to be of interest: http://www.pmillett.com/tecnical_books_online.htm -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

18 years, 2 months

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test-drb February 2006