test-drb January 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

238 participants
538 discussions

by legalize＠xmission.com

A little while back I asked about shelving. Noone suggested anything. I found what seems to be a good solution at about half the cost of the next nearest offering, so I thought I'd share. I had been looking at wire rack shelving. Some nice wire racks on casters had been purchased at work from Costco, so I started looking at those. Costco had Safco "LAN Management System" racks 72"Wx29"Dx73"H for $340, 48"Wx29"Dx73"H for $250, 30"Wx29"Dx73"H for $205. (Casters were extra.) They also had Safco wire shelving: 4-shelf 36"Wx18"Dx72"H for $120. Online I could find racks for comparable prices or a little better (like $5) and comparable shelving for $80. I found nice 5-shelf wire racks at Walmart for $40 ea. 36"Wx16"Dx72"H, black finish. Each shelf is rated for 200 lbs evenly distributed. They have levelling screwcaps on the feet. "5 Shelf Multi-Purpose Rack" by NSF is what the box says. UPC 0 34886 00012 Using this shelving, I can stack 10 terminals vertically, 2 per shelf for 5 shelves, which is a tremendous space savings. I had to go to several Walmart locations in order to get enough shelving units, so I don't know if these are end of inventory "priced to move" units or not. This shelving is not currently listed on Walmart's web site, but each store in the Salt Lake City valley had the units. There is also a 4-shelf unit standing 52" high with 14" deep shelves. Most of the stores had these, with fewer having the taller 5-shelf variety. The shelf heights are adjustable in 1" increments and no tools are required for assembly or disassembly. They seem sturdy enough when fully loaded, but I wouldn't want to trip and fall into them and put a big transverse load on the whole system. It would most likely fall over and have a danger of crushing you with what I've got loaded into them. I certainly wouldn't want to have 10 13" CRTs dumped on me. I should probably secure them in case of earthquake... -- "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/>

17 years, 11 months

(somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Pat wrote: > On Tuesday 09 January 2007 21:16, Richard wrote: >> In article <2c9905e7a0917a23c18369f94e997689 at valleyimplants.com>, >>> Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement >>> from the '70s had. >> >> Come again? That reads like a total non sequitur to me. > > He's probably referring to the agreement that DEC had with the company > that makes VAX vacuum cleaners, for both of them to be able to use > the "VAX" name for their respective products, in each other's country. As I understand it, DEC agreed not to make consumer goods, and VAX agreed not to make computers. To an adolescent mind back in the mid '90s it seemed a bit absurd and a waste of time, but maybe not so much anymore.

17 years, 11 months

Paul Allen's DECsystem-10

by bpritts＠pritts.com

Well, we used lots of PDP-10's in the timesharing (oops, marketing calls it REMOTE COMPUTING) business in the '70's and '80's. By the late '80's this business was dying fast. But it was fun. Yes, Compuserve was a big player. I worked with ADP Network Services (originally Cypernetics Corporation); we had quite a few PDP-10's. (about 25). Also, we probably had 100 - 200 PDP8's and PDP-11's as network nodes. When DEC released its KS10 processor (minicomputer architecture), we ported TOPS-10 to run on it. We ran about 75 or 100 of these as dedicated mini's for individual clients. As I recall DEC only sold the KS10 with TOPS-20. For better or worse this machine was superceded by the VAX. What were these users doing? Mostly interactive management applications - financial models (think of Fortran meets Excel); stock analysis; engineering analysis; statistical analysis & forecasting. It really was "personal computing". Regards, Brad remembering those good old days... > Richard wrote: > > > > So what was the typical usage for a average user on a > PDP-10 back then? Word processing? Computer Science? > Acounting? Fortran programs? > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:47:49 -0700 > From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com> > Subject: Re: Paul Allen's DECsystem-10 > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <E1H4Qh4-0002dn-00 at xmission.xmission.com> > > > In article <45A4276F.8000505 at jetnet.ab.ca>, > woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> writes: > > >>> I was thinking of getting ADVENT running on it. >>> >> You can do that with a PDP-8. :) >> > > Well, it would be a royal PITA for me. The only PDP-8 that I have is > a DECmate I w/out the RX floppy drives. > > But this wasn't a question of *what* machines I can use to run ADVENT. > > The question was: is anyone else using a login on Paul Allen's > DECsystem-10 or TOAD? > > I think the most I ever did with the DEC-10 at UDel was play ADVENT on > it :-). >

17 years, 11 months

(somewhat OT) "Apple Computer, Inc." no more

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

George Currie wrote: > I wonder if Apple (the former computer company) paved the way for the > name change in the last round of negotiations it had with Apple (the > record label) as one of Apple's major arguments (hey, we're a computer > company, no one would get confused) is now officially gone. > Especially interesting given the scorn that the DEC-VAX agreement from the '70s had. The "why" question still remains on a technical level, given that all of their "consumer" products still are data processing equipment, predominantly based around microprocessors. They may not be intended to be general purpose computing machines, but then again neither was the PlayStation 2 et al, and look what's been done with them.

17 years, 11 months

senseless rants was Re: garbled display

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

It's not my intention to exacerbate the situation, being that this lists already has a rather high drama index, but concerning the previous rant, I don't at all see the point of such non constructive criticism. If your "needs" aren't being met, simply move on. I for one find it to be unique and often useful exchange. The old adage sure applies here that if you can't say anything nice... And it wasn't that I found the reply funny, but rather laughable. Nearly comic. Just my 2 farthings. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

17 years, 11 months

(Fwd) Re: laptops and 5.25 inch floppy drives?

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 9 Jan 2007 at 15:32, Chris M wrote: > *went out to the shed. Yes there is present in the > BIOS a service to format tracks. Not all clones comply > in this way though (but where would the routine to do > this be if not in the bios?). I noticed in the docs > for my NEC APC III that DOS function calls were more > or less the same as a vanilla pc, but I don't recall > seeing mention of the equivalent BIOS calls. Anyone know?* I believe that the APC follows the NEC 9801 convention, but I'm not certain. The BIOS calls are very diffierent from the PC version. A Google should turn something up; I know the calls are mentioned in Ralf Brown's interrupt list--and there was a rundown in one of the PC rags--maybe DOS/Windows Developer? I probably also have a list in my files. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 11 months

Sun plastics

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

>> I've used a product called plastic epoxy which includes a solvent to >> eat >> into the items being bonded for a better bond. I've had the best luck >> placing a small piece of metal (paperclip) across the break and >> spreading >> an 1/8" thick layer over that. > > For plastics that it will disolve (if you see what I mean), I've had > great success using a liquid called 'Plastic Weld' available from good > model shops. It's basically dicholoromethane (methylene chloride). > > What you do is put the plastic parts together and run a brush dipped in > the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I cut a piece of > cotton > frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it in place and 'paint' > it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the softened plastic. > > -tony Sun seems to use some odd plastic compound or alloy with two different types. I usually use MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) for welding plastics, and usually it either has no effect or works well, but with the Sun-type (I've seen it elsewhere, but first on Suns) plastics it dissolves one component but not the other, and the plastic turns into this yucky granular stuff with no strength to speak of (the bond will hold, but only until you move it). The epoxy kind of worked (it was one of the trim pieces off of a SPARCstation 20 (one of the $1 Boeing specials- thanks for the heads-up) it holds together O.K., but it's a little loose now (epoxy is much slower than MEK, and stuff moved).

17 years, 11 months

(Fwd) Re: Sun plastics

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 9 Jan 2007 at 19:24, Tony Duell wrote: > What you do is put the plastic parts together and run a brush dipped in > the solvent along the crack. For a stronger join, I cut a piece of cotton > frabric to fit over the hack of the repair, put it in place and 'paint' > it with the solvent. Then push the cotton into the softened plastic. The faceplates of Overland Data tape drives are like that--try any "regular" solvent such as xylene or MEK or (worst) acetone and the plastic just crumbles away. Methylene chloride does seem to work better--and any gaps can be filled in with auto-body resin filler (Bondo) and the whole mess painted to match. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 11 months

(Fwd) Re: (somewhat OT) " Apple Computer, Inc." no more

by cclist＠sydex.com

On 9 Jan 2007 at 15:04, Fred Cisin wrote: > "matured" v "devolved" v "degraded" has NOTHING to do with whether > computers are getting better or worse. It is ENTIRELY about the > transition from being a computer company into being a consumer electronics > company. Probably a very shrewd move, too. Computers are a commodity item now; just the thing you don't want if you're trying to run a high- profit margin operation. Better to produce new widgets that folks will pay a premium to own. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 11 months

looking for an old ad (Dimension 68000)

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

I probably have at least 1 issue of Byte that features advertisements for this computer, but a whole big box became unexpectedly drenched, and I don't have the heart to look at it. If perchance anyone has a scan of this ad, and you'll know what I'm talking about if you've seen it, it would be awful nice to get a scan of it. I bought one of those kits to make your own T-shirts a while back (especially since it was free after the rebate) and I thought a shirt with the D68K logo would look sick. (Trouble is I have to send for different transfer material. The stuff that came in the box is only for light colored shirts, and I thought black would be a better deal). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

17 years, 11 months

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test-drb January 2007