test-drb August 2006

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

216 participants
517 discussions

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

Hi, Someones signiture (the "real programmers get confused as Oct 31 = Dec 25") reminded me about Octal. I have heard of it, and know it's still used on the Calculator program on Windoze (2K), on the computers at work, but unlike Hex, Dec and Binary I have no idea what it could be used for, and why it would still be used today. Anyone care to fill in the gaps, please? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 8 months

Octal

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

woodelf wrote: Chuck Guzis wrote: > It's very useful for counting whilst hanging by your thumbs. > Cheers, > Chuck I need my thumbs to grab bannanas, I hang by my toes. :) Did any of the classic computers display in octal 0-7 rather than 3 lights per digit? Also what was the display device? --------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, virtually all the Control Data systems displayed octal. The devices were varied, from projection displays (1604) to CRT vector drawn (6600). Some, such as the 8090 and 8092 had optional front panels to display either binary or octal. Octal use continued at CDC up through the 1700 machine, which was hex. Seymour finally went to hex on the Cray series. Here's a question for the list - how many still have and use the TI calculator that could be used in octal or hex? Billy

17 years, 8 months

Byte magazines: 1976 - 1986

by maynard＠jmg.com

Hello, I have recently come upon a collection of Byte Magazines from 1976 through to about 1986. It is not complete, that is I do not have every issue across that time span. But the collection is pretty comprehensive. I have a scanner with an auto document feeder. I'd like to scan this material in and post it online as a collection of jpgs. However, to do this well would require destroying the bindings of each magazine in order to get a completely flat scan of each page. Questions: - Is it wrong to destroy these magazines in order to scan them in for posterity? - Are they as rare as I think? That is, are there plenty of copies around such that historians and others interested in classic computing would not find this project of interest? - Is the copyright violation involved (on 25 - 30 year old magazines) really an issue? Thanks, --M

17 years, 8 months

Octal

by dm561＠torfree.net

-----------Original Message Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2006 17:37:30 -0700 From: "Billy Pettit" <Billy.Pettit at wdc.com> Subject: Octal Here's a question for the list - how many still have and use the TI calculator that could be used in octal or hex? Billy ----------Reply: By coincidence, I just happen to have my TI Programmer in front of me, in the process of replacing its NiCds. I used to use my Casio fx-451 (the solar powered one) a fair bit (easier than the TI to read & doesn't need an AC adapter), but lately I've found the Windows Calculator to be the most convenient (nicer keyboard & display and doesn't take any desk space). mike

17 years, 8 months

Statement & apology (was Re: 10 Year Rule)

by pete＠dunnington.plus.com

On Aug 31 2006, 12:34, Hans Franke wrote: > Roy J. Tellason wrote: > > Interesting question. I know that the last time I was paying attention to > > that area, embedded systems were starting to use 386 chips. And my Tek > > scope has an 8088 in it... > > After all, it doesn't doesn't realy matter what CPU is used, as > long as it does it's job as a black box controll system. > > But yeah, Pentiums (and alikes) are already the base for most new > embedded developments. "Most"? I don't think so. 2 billion ARM/XScale cores licensed in the last 12 months, and about a quarter that number of MIPS chips/cores. Pentiums don't even come close. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

17 years, 8 months

Question about Z80 ISA bus board

by bob099＠centurytel.net

Hope to generate less heat this time. Full length ISA card, XT card edge connection, DB 37 male connector, Z80B, 8 4164's, 2 2764's, 2 Mostek MK4801AN-4's, MC1420B, 10 MHZ crystal, and a handful of 74LSxxx glue chips. Only identification lettering is "BETRONIX = SWEDEN=PC84" Anyone have an ideal what it could be? Betronix made circuit board layout software.

17 years, 8 months

Retrospective or, misleading hindsight.

by cclist＠sydex.com

I was helping a fellow with a writeup on the CDC STAR-100 (circa 1974) and stumbled across some of the old manuals on bitsavers. You know, back in 1975, the machine was arguably the fastest in the world (I won't get into benchmark results, but it was definitely in competition with Cray). I'd forgotten that the maximum memory available was a megaword (64-bit words) and that standard was half a meg. Back around then, being able to run linpack really fast mattered a lot--and gave rise to oddball ventures like Saxpy (the company, not the subroutine, although the two are not unrelated). Consider that that's 8MB by today's standards, barely enough to host Windows 98. On the other hand, the CPU is still pretty complex by today's standards--and we had 256 64-bit registers to work with. I guess it's like one's childhood home. When you return decades later to visit, you can't get over how SMALL everything seems. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 8 months

Mercury cells (was e: Sharp PC-1211)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 8/31/06, Roy J. Tellason <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote: > On Tuesday 29 August 2006 09:02 pm, Josef Chessor wrote: > > mercury cells. Today, since they're illegal in the US from what I > > understand, > > Are they? Anybody know for sure? I know they were hard to find last time I > looked (over a decade ago) but there were some out there... In 1995, I was unable to buy mercury cells for my Konica 35mm SLR. I _was_ able to find a set at a store in Christchurch, NZ. Dunno if they are still legal there or not. -ethan

17 years, 8 months

Floppy disk sizes ( was Re: Compaq Portable III fails POST? )

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: > On Mon, 21 Aug 2006, Don wrote: > > I think 8.00 is the *last* that will fit on a 5" > floppy. > > 8.04 requires 3" floppies -- though I haven't > checked to see if > > 3.5" I used 3" drives with a Compaq, but eventual ly > switched to 3.5" > > Huh? 3" floppies too! That means there are 5 different floppy disk sizes that I now know of: 3" 3.5" 5" 8" 12" (used on a special Sony Laservision machine) Are there any more?? Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 8 months

Calculators on desktops (was Re: Octal)

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> wrote: > > Well, of course you'd use whatever you like and ru ns > in the OS of your > choice, but it's interesting to note how many peop le > still use a "real" > calculator when there's probably one on the screen > in front of them, > not to mention a spreadsheet program; every office > user I visit still > has a calculator on his/her desk... > Yeah, but it's often hidden. Until a few months ago I had no idea there was a Calculator available on Windows 2K (the company I work for generally uses Windows from 5 years ago as we have loads of computers to pay licenses for?). A work colleague who's into computers (mainly modern stuff, but I did get a twinkle in his eye when I mentioned about the Dragon 32 once and he went on about how he used them at college/university in the 80's) showed me how to find it. It's hidden (along with other applications) in the "sys32/" (?) directory somewhere in the OS files (I'm no windows expert, though I know W95 beta version inside out from when I went on work experience). Now whenever I need it and it's not listed under applications (we move about alot in the lab and use diff computers each week), I just do a quick filesearch, dump it on the desktop and on the main drop-up (?) menu that appears when you click on the Start button, incase I have a screen full of windows. Now almost everyone uses it (largely because calc's are so hard to find in the lab). The "scientific" mode includes binary, octal, hex and decimal, aswell as proper maths functions. Regards, Andrew B aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 8 months

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test-drb August 2006