test-drb January 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

238 participants
538 discussions

by cclist＠sydex.com

I just came across a binder in my library with a (roughly) 200 page document labeled: Burroughs Confidential System Specification 3704 3833 S40 System Software Disk Subsystem Design Specification Release Rev B Burroughs Machines Ltd. Software Engineering Livingston, Scotland Date: 03 OCT 1986 It seems to describe the disk software interface to some system. Is this of interest to anyone? Al, would you like it to add to the library? I believe that I was sent this as part of a conversion program I did for someone. Exactly who escapes me. Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 1 month

HP2645As.... again

by steerex＠mindspring.com

I may also be interested in one or two. Exactly what is a 2645A? SteveRob ---------- From: Bob Shannon Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 8:51 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: HP2645As.... again I'm game for a terminal or two, if there is a bulk-buy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard" <legalize at xmission.com> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 2:59 PM Subject: HP2645As.... again > Ebay item # 280070687500

19 years, 1 month

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by zmerch-cctalk＠30below.com

Rumor has it that William Donzelli may have mentioned these words: >>Perhaps I just have less faith than you in the technology being available in >>20 years to probe inside modern systems to figure out how they work and keep >>them running :-) > >Do you think that tools will not evolve in 20 years? Short answer: No. ;-) Heck, you can't get schematics, technical information, or anything on most newer hardware now, so one would need to reverse-engineer almost everything; and the tools that do evolve that are necessary to work on even today's stuff (fast oscilloscopes, etc.) are priced out of the hobbyist's pocketbook. Not to mention: Back in the day, there might've been more computer companies with more "different" computers and OSs back then, but at least each computer was "standardized" to a point. All CoCos ran a 6809, all Commies, Apples & 8-bit Ataris ran 6502s (or derivatives ;-)... Now, you get 10 people with PCs with an Asus motherboard, and you'll have 10 different motherboards, with 3 different CPUs, 2 different types of RAM, and gawd-knows-what for peripherals and interfaces. Even tho the OSs and whatnot are standardized, the underlying hardware is completely different >from machine to machine. >Am I the only optimist on this list? Cripes... I like to be an optimist, but I tend to be a *realist* and IMHO, realistically, today's PCs aren't "hobbyist quality..." read: with no available schematics, very little available information, expensive tools necessary for board/component rework, and whatnot, that to me anyway, it would be very hard to consider today's hardware platforms a good basis for a hobby[1]. Now software & whatnot, sure... Anywho, that's just IMHO and all that. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] And I say this with fairly decent "hobbyish" motherboard - Tyan 2462 Extended ATX Dual-Athlon w/Dual SCSI 160 & Dual Ethernet; takes up to 3.5G RAM (not bad for a 5-year-old board!) w/dual 2600+ AthlonMPs. A pretty rare critter in the home setting, and most servers with it are prolly still in service... 'Tis a workhorse to be sure - it's *still* a very viable machine even by todays standards... but if the sucker ever broke beyond leaky capacitors, I doubt I could repair it. -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com |

19 years, 1 month

Digital archaeology of the microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Ethan Dicks wrote: On 1/18/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk>> wrote: > Chalk that up to CDC's not-so-imaginative "asset disposal" policy; > things must be mangled beyond all usability before disposal. I saw > CE's take sledgehammers to disk drives. It's not just manufacturers (who are trying to comply with various regulations on scrapping equipment and taxes)... When I was at Lucent in Columbus, they started drilling through the HDAs of discarded drives, not to protect against data theft from a working drive, but against employee harvesting of the scrap bins. Saw a lot of things there I wish I could have saved, including a 3 cu ft box loaded with PDP-11 core memory, and other DEC items from the 1970s and 1980s. I would have happily have paid many times the gold scrap value of the boards, but, for obvious bean counter reasons, no mechanism exists for that. -ethan ---------------------------------------------------- There is another reason for this. Warranty fraud has become a 7 digit problem for most OEM manufacturers. Get a good stock of scrap products, take parts off a good product, replace them with the bad parts and send the good product in for repair. Whether very little effort, you can amass a huge stock of good parts and sell or assemble them in units for resale. There are even places on the internet where you can get labels made, or do it yourself. The best way to discourage this type of fraud is to physically damage the parts so they can't be reused. At Philips, we specified a hydraulic punch through the PCBA and the Optical Pick Up unit. But by time this was implemented, Philips had lost several million dollars to the fraudsters. So most OEM companies have explicit protocol for scrap destruction. There are just too many people out there trying to make a buck out of it. Billy

19 years, 1 month

Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5

by cclist＠sydex.com

This mention of the Lisa, M20, Onyx, etc. running some flavor of Unix around 1982-84 and my memories of the Hated Plexus reminds me of an experience that I had about that time (i.e. right about the time of the Ma Bell breakup). I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it would make a great development machine. To this day, I don't know if my hunch was right or not. I called AT&T computer sales and got the runaround for at least a week. Fortunately, most of the referrals I was given were 800 toll-free ones. I never could find someone who could sell me one. It seems that everyone thought I was talking about the 6300. It was very frustrating--"We have dollars; we like trade them for computer. Don't want 6300; want 3B5. Ugh" Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that time? If so, how was the service and performance? Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 1 month

Early Unix micros; AT&T 3B5

by ken＠seefried.com

From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > I'd read in one of the trade rags about the AT&T 3B5 and thought it > would make a great development machine. ... > Did anyone on this list ever succeed in acquiring one around that > time? If so, how was the service and performance? AT&T carpet bombed Georgia Tech with 3B stuff around the time I got there (1985). There were at least 2 3B20s (rebadged control processor for a 5ESS) brutally overloaded with freshmen writing Pascal programs, lots of 3B2 + AT&T 5620s and as I recall at least one 3B5. Compared to the Sun gear I got to use at the time (3/160 & 3/50), they were slooooow, but built to last. Seriously physically over-engineered.

19 years, 1 month

mouse for ATnT Unix PC

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone here have a spare mouse for an AT&T Unix PC lying around? -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

19 years, 1 month

Compaq Portable III HDD replacement. (Was Re: My 386 laptop HD is dead. The solution: an IDE to CF adapter)

by josefcub＠gmail.com

On 1/17/07, 9000 VAX <vax9000 at gmail.com> wrote: > > After one hour of surfing the internet, I finally bought 4 IDE-CF adapters > (laptop and desktop versions, $2 each). One for the laptop, one for the > pentium PC linux router, one for the 386 desktop. > As a pseudo on-topic aside, what do y'all think the chances are of this working in a machine like a Compaq Portable III or Portable/386? I've got one with the old 40MB Connor drive still ticking along, but I'd really like to make sure I can keep the old girl running after it finally spins down for the last time. Would I be stuck with a 32MB CF card, or would the BIOS not work with it at all? (I've currently got my rebadged P/386 running Linux, for various uses including serial and Ethernet telnet terminal). Josef -- "I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke." -- Hilda "Sharpie" Burroughs, "The Number of the Beast" by Robert A. Heinlein

19 years, 1 month

Latest eBay BS (OT?)

by lbickley＠bickleywest.com

If you're going to write the person at eBay responsible for this new policy, contact Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President, eBay Global Trust & Safety. Here's his email address: Rob Chesnut <RChesnut at ebay.com> I have already sent an email to him - with this theme: "I hope you understand the gravity of this newly implemented change. It literally changes the entire character of eBay - and makes eBay a much less desirable auction site." Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. Mountain View, CA http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

19 years, 1 month

storage solution?

by legalize＠xmission.com

Its climate controlled and probably will end up being "priced to move" <http://www.dovebid.com/assets/display.asp?ItemID=tbd309906> -- "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/>

19 years, 1 month

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test-drb January 2007