test-drb August 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

216 participants
517 discussions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: How CPU's work (was Re: Hi, I'm new...) > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 09:25:19 -0700 > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > >On 8/8/2006 at 11:11 AM Dave McGuire wrote: > >> I like the index registers; I use them with some frequency. The >>alternate register set, though...ugh. It'd be much more useful if the >>designers had provided a way to determine which set is currently in use! Index regs are nice, alternate registers...more pain than gain. > >I've wondered about something for years, however. Did anyone ever make use >of the fact that an INI or OTI instruction placed the contents of both the >B and C registers on the Z80 address bus? It would seem to be a simple way >of expanding the I/O space to 64K ports. Yes, but why I'll never know. Even that case they actually never used more 100 or so port addresses. I did use it myself to put z80 on XT ISA (no 8088 at all) but that was to fool the 10bit device IO addresses. It was for hardware savings rather than more addresses. Generally the problem is to write a zero to every possible port of a z80 (outir) will take over .3sec at 4mhz. Every time I hear "I want to have all 64k ports" I ask what in the world requires 512kbits of slow IO! Allison

17 years, 11 months

Cleaning microfiche?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> The History Resource Center has a stack of fiche with oil all over it Be EXTREMELY careful when cleaning them. Oil will soften the emulsion, and fiche are VERY easily scratched.

17 years, 11 months

SPARCstation LX troubleshooting

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> I have 2 that I picked up the other day. They "appear" to power up (e.g. >lights, drive seeking, etc). I tried 2 different monitors, but I don't get >any video. I believe that Suns can be set to ignore the graphics console and immediately go to TTY. Definitely plug in a term and see what happens. There are PROM commands to change back to graphics. >I'd recommend looking into running either OpenBSD or maybe NetBSD on them. >I know OpenBSD has a small enough memory footprint to fit on one nicely >(won't guarentee it's supported hardware though as I don't have any LX's). >Even Solaris 2.6 will be painful on one. Be Classic- SunOS 4.1.4! NetBSD is a second-place contender, but good if you need all the new stuff, it doesn't have all the Sunny goodness, though.

17 years, 11 months

for trade: IBM 5028 Teletype

by hardware＠ees1s0.engr.ccny.cuny.edu

For trade: IBM 5028 Operator Station from System/7 http://ees2cy.engr.ccny.cuny.edu/wwwa/web/hardware/ibm5028a.jpg http://ees2cy.engr.ccny.cuny.edu/wwwa/web/hardware/ibm5028b.jpg As you can see the machine is not pretty. Fortunately the cracked part of the case is not lost. (It fell in.) I bought a ribbon, powered it up and typed on it a little bit and at least that part of it works. I would like to trade this for something pre-1980 made by Tektronix. -kurt

17 years, 11 months

Not classic, but free: HP-UX (and the B2000)

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Is that a new feature? Do you get the Customer ID and Licence Code for >free now? (These are necessary to unlock e.g. the compilers on the >Applications CD) As I said in the first post, I am unsure as to the legality. There does not seem to be any license manager style enforcement in place. I was able to install compilers and SoftBench from the "HP-UX 11i Version 1 Application Software for HP Visualize workstations and HP 9000 Enterprise Servers June 2006 - Software on this disk is unsecured" disk and run SoftBench and a lazy poke at aCC to see if it griped. It didn't. Take that for what it's worth. The CD's were free, after all, and you can always use GCC. At this point, I'm busy wth school and building S/W on my SGIs, so I'm not going to mess with it any more just now.

17 years, 11 months

Mac keyboards

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 21:30:08 -0700 >From: Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> >I have an "Apple Adjustable Keyboard" -- a wacky keyboard >that splits in the center ("ergonomic"?) and has an >auxillary "function/numeric" keyboard that sits alongside >it (sheesh! What a wacky arrangement -- how to use up the >most desktop space with the least added functionality! :< ) > >Needless to say, I am not happy with it. What should I >be looking for as an alternative? If you're using it with your Q840AV, then you need an ADB keyboard. Many folks believe that the best were the Apple Extended Keyboard II. These are generally easy to find at thrift shops/Goodwill and such for $10 - $15. They originally retailed for well over $100. I imagine that there are (or were) thousands or tens of thousands of them sitting at recyclers waiting to be crushed--and they're just full of keyswitches. If you're really lucky, you might find a NeXT Model N8001 keyboard. Some NeXT machines used an ADB keyboard. The N8001 has a compact size (no F keys) and the Command key is a long bar below the spacebar, which I find very convenient--though it sort of ruins me for other keyboards. And a completely superficial feature that pleases me disproportionately, it's a nice pure black, except for the green 'Power' button. Unfortunately, it's a membrane keyboard, so you may not like the feel. For a nice clackety clack feel, stick with the Extended Keyboard II. BTW, if you need a bunch of Mac specific help you may wish to check out the Vintage Macs email group sponsored by Lowendmac.com. I'd point you at the comp.sys.mac.* hierarchy, but the newsgroups just aren't what they used to be, sigh. I really like newsreader clients *a lot* better than email clients or web based fora. Sigh again. Trolls recently drove the signal portion of the S/N ratio off of the rec.aquaria hierarchy and onto Google groups and reading fora on a web browser is painful. It only shows me 30 thread titles at a time. I have to load a new page rather than simply scrolling to see the rest of the thread titles. Everything opens in the same window, instead of a separate window for each message that I open. Newswatcher (or maybe TIN) was the peak of forum/newsgroup browsing ease. Jeff Walther

17 years, 11 months

Mac 840AV networking

by trag＠io.com

>Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 22:41:04 -0400 >From: "Jason McBrien" <jbmcb1 at gmail.com> >On 8/7/06, Don <THX1138 at dakotacom.net> wrote: >> >> OK, the 840AV has one of those mini-centronics-style >> connectors on the rear for the network transceiver. >> >> I have some "Asante FriendlyNet Thin Adapter"s that will >> mate with this and work -- for a 10Base2 network! >> >> The Asante box has an RJ45 on the rear. The cable that >> mates to the network connector on the 840AV has that >> funky mini-centronics on one end and an RJ45 *plug* >> on the other. >> >> This choice of connectors -- and the "Thin Adapter" >> moniker -- suggests that I could plug the RJ45 *plug* >> end of this cable into a hub directly? >> >> Is this true? Or, just wishful thinking (and an unfortunate >> choice in connectors on Asantes part)? >Nope, I'm 99% sure the RJ45 cable is not a regular CAT4/CAT5 style ethernet >connector, since I have some of the same Asante adapter dongles with RJ45 >jacks on the end of them (IE the AUI->RJ45 connector fits into a box, that >has another RJ45 jack on it that's the ethernet interface.) You must have an older Asante transceiver. The more recent ones have the cable integrated into the transceiver box, so that there is no seperate dongle. For those having trouble following, Apple used an odd connector (the mini-centronics referred to above) for their AUI port and called it an AAUI port. It makes a certain amount of sense as the AAUI is a more compact connector which works nicely for laptops and saves space on the computer backplane. Also, Apple is (was) already using DB15 for their video port. Various companies made transceivers for the AAUI port, including Asante. Asante's older transceivers have an AAUI to RJ45 plug dongle. The RJ45 end of the dongle plugs into the transceiver box which may be for thicknet, thinnet or UTP (they also made some combo boxes with UTP and thinnet in the same box). Anyway, you'll (Don will) want to find an actual UTP transceiver. They're cheap, but not as thick on the ground as they once were. Apple gave up on the AAUI with the first PCI Macs (well, they started including UTP built-in next to the AAUI, but who used the AAUI after that?) so the only folks still using the AAUI transceivers are running NuBus machines, and there aren't that many of us left. If you have a local Goodwill Computer Works store, you may find an assortment of AAUI transceivers in a bin for $3 - $5 unless they've lost their minds for Ebay pricing. <digression> I saw several HP 600N ethernet cards (successor to the MIO cards for LaserJet printers) at the San Antonio Computer Works store priced over $50. They say they're pricing them using Ebay pricing. However, when I bought one on Ebay, I found that they generally ended for about $20 (which was still more than I was willing to pay). There were some sellers using fixed price sales at ~$50, but there's no saying anyone ever bought from them. For some of their pricing, Goodwill has recently lost their institutional mind. </digression> Jeff Walther

17 years, 11 months

VAXen RULE! (WAS Microkernels)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: VAXen RULE! (WAS Microkernels) > From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:40:34 -0400 > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Scott Quinn wrote: >> On the positive side, what is the most perfect computer architecture + implementation people have come across here? >> Tell us why, especially if it's something like PERQ or Acorn RISC/pc that is not common outside of a limited geographic area. > >I really dig z/Arch. Extreme CISCy goodness. MMMmmmMMMmmmMMM. > >Extreme pleasure in writing assembler. > >Peace... Sridhar Vax is good but PDP-11 is it's foundation and of the 16bitters it's a very nice cpu. Allison

17 years, 11 months

Scouting Mission

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> A BIG SGI IRIS, I think it was a 3000, but it looked even larger than >pictures I've seen of those. Quick check on those: was it beige? The IRIS x000 series were the only beige computers SGI produced. If it was brown it's a 4D. They made them in 3 sizes, I've seen 2 (terminal and deskside) The terminal could sit on your desk. 9 Multibus slots, no disks The deskside is the most common- 20 Multibus slots, 2 5.25" FH HDD positions and 1 5.25" FH removable-media position, along with much dead space. Stands about 3' high. There are rumors of a rackmount designed to use SMD drives, for those who needed big, fast storage. There are a number of people on the list with these, if you're interested grab it.

17 years, 11 months

Mac keyboards

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 8/8/2006 12:30:29 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, THX1138 at dakotacom.net writes: I have an "Apple Adjustable Keyboard" -- a wacky keyboard that splits in the center ("ergonomic"?) and has an auxillary "function/numeric" keyboard that sits alongside it (sheesh! What a wacky arrangement -- how to use up the most desktop space with the least added functionality! :< ) Needless to say, I am not happy with it. What should I be looking for as an alternative? --------- Some people actually like that keyboard. I have one myself with the keypad I got for free. There's a bunch of different types of keyboards you can use. I prefer the mac keyboards with the ADP ports on the side of the keyboard. I have some that you can plug the mouse in from underneath the keyboard, but the connection seems to work loose eventually.

17 years, 11 months

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test-drb August 2006