test-drb January 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

238 participants
538 discussions

by julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk

I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply might be off the bottom of the screen). Am I alone in this? I just wondered if it's something broken within my email client (Thunderbird) and it's stopped rendering what it thinks is quoted text properly for certain classes of messages. 99% of messages are fine though, and either get displayed with quote characters or displayed with a solid coloured line to the left of the quoted text. If it's just me I'll try and find the cause though; if it's not I'll just put up with it :-) cheers Jules

17 years, 6 months

Purposefully fudged schematics (was: Wire Rope ROMs (Was: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available))

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> In article <B9639BAE3F34504E83FEEDD71D4AFB460A660A at mail.bensene.com>, > "Rick Bensene" <rickb at bensene.com> writes: > > > [...] Wang is also > > famous for purposefully putting errors into published schematics to > > throw off competitors who would use such schematics to reverse-engineer > > how the machines work. [...] > > Wow, I'd never heard that story before. Interesting! > > How many other companies did this back when schematics were pretty > much leaving the machine laying naked in front of you? This is a very old practice. Some of Babbage's drawings had intentional errors. As I recall, he drew some parts in mirror image. The group that did the difference engine reconstruction in London ran into this. And the practice wasn't new when Babbage used it. BLS

17 years, 6 months

AC coupling / Solid-State / core logic

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

Chuck, found this tangentially while attempting to find more about the parametron, as per Dwight's message. The Elliot 803 used core logic with solid-state amplifiers. (Apparently core logic received more practical use than I thought, as well.) Some description: http://www.tech.port.ac.uk/staffweb/andersod/CCS/ShowPage.php?Page=19 Another description with diagram: http://www.sli-institute.ac.uk/~bob/elliott803.htm While it is AC-coupled, perhaps it is not what you were looking for, though. The logic signal propagation still takes place in discrete, clocked, time steps as opposed to continuous wave propagation, if that is an adequate description of the distinction.

17 years, 6 months

22 rolls of paper tape @ govliq

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://cgi.govliquidation.com/auction/view?auctionId=1085392&convertTo=USD> -- "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, 6 months

SGI Onyx power cord?

by legalize＠xmission.com

I just received my first SGI "iron" -- an Onyx Reality Engine 2 250 MHz. However, the power connector is not your standard style of connector. It has three prongs, arranged horizontally: ---- ---- ---- I'm guessing that this implies it needs more than the rated 15A for a standard outlet. Any ideas where I can obtain the correct cord? Searching for "power cord" on the net just returns too many hits... -- "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, 6 months

Prime for sale again

by williams.dan＠gmail.com

The Prime I got back in April is on ebay again. I am moving to Australia for a year or two. I don't think I'd get it over there as hand luggage. It has been stored in my spare room for 6 months so it is in good condition. The item no, is 150077818268 Dan

17 years, 6 months

OT: Missing quotes in message replies

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Jules Richardson Wrote: I'm seeing a few messages where the text being replied to isn't quoted (anything from Al and Billy Pettit it seems, but there have been one or two others) other than a separating line beneath old and new text, making it confusing at first glance (particularly where the actual line and reply might be off the bottom of the screen). cheers Jules -------------------------------------------- Billy wrote: In my case, it is because I reply using a copy from the web site. To keep the number of emails down, I only receive digests. Yet often, I want to respond to a message without wading through the digests. So I copy off the web site, trim off the excess and comment below. I'm active, more or less on 75+ elists. And when they get active, it means 100's of emails a day. So reading and responding is very selective. For example, have you noticed how much activity there is on this list this week? It's like everybody is rested up and full of piss and vinegar. At the other extreme, some lists generate almost nothing. The paleobotany list averages 8-10 messages a year. Some of the science fiction lists are cyclical going from 100+ a day to 1-2 day and back again over a couple of months. Billy

17 years, 6 months

Computer Music

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 25 Dec, 2006, at 10:28, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > 1) Recordings of 2nd generation (or even before, if they exist) > mainframes making tunes. There are a few recordings out there, and I > may be getting some help from CHM for more. > There some are old recordings of my 2nd generation mainframe at : http://ict1301.co.uk/13010520.htm I also have a fuller set of 33 files in .aiff format which the files on the web site were derived from. These were recorded from audio cassette tapes which are about 30 years old but seem to sound the same as I remember them. The programs to make the music is on punched cards and the card reader is currently unreliable and I don't want to risk the card decks reading them in as I only have one set. The sound came from the built in speaker, which is pulsed once for every two conditional branch instructions. I used to write pen plotter drivers for the Macintosh and there were some plotters made by Watanabe (later renamed GrafTec) which were suitable for music. The x and y axes were driven by noisy stepper motors. The speed was programmable and when drawing a large circle you could hear the stepper motors make a rising and falling tone as the angle changed. That is, drawing a 45 degree line the two motors worked at the same speed, and when drawing a horizontal/vertical line only one motor would be working For angles in between the tone would vary depending on the angle. The slower cheaper plotters made a grating sound but the faster more expensive ones were very melodic, though I never got around to programming them to make music myself, I would not be surprised if somebody did. Roger Holmes

17 years, 6 months

Intergraph / Clipper / HLH Orion

by adamg＠pobox.com

Richard wrote: > Does anyone have a machine with an Clipper RISC cpu in it? Intergraph's Interpro series (such as the 225) had both a Clipper and an 80186, and could run CLIX as well as MS-DOS. IIRC, when running with the 186, the Clipper is programmed to act as an FPU! These machines were unusual for their time. The keyboard and mouse plug into the monitor, and the configuration system is mouse-driven. I'm not sure if it's in ROM or loaded from a reserved part of the hard drive. Their keyboard has a hard disk access LED and a bunch of extra keys. These machines seem to have been used mainly by government contractors, and they're not terribly common, but there are certainly some in the hands of collectors. -- Adam

17 years, 6 months

back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

> >Subject: Re: back to the AGC, was Re: TTL 7400's Available > From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> > Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:29:50 -0800 > To: General at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net, > "Discussion at priv-edmwaa05.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > >Allison wrote: > >> >(And it confirmed that the AGC was constructed from a single gate/IC type.) >> >> That statement I believe is in error. While the logic used was RTL and a >> single family type the logic elements for that family by the mid 60s were >> more diverse than just a two input NOR. My junkbox contains parts from > >There are now two, perhaps three, sources from the period that indicate it was >a single gate/IC type: a dual 3-input NOR in 10-pin flat-pak. Read the >document Chuck ref'ed above (although there do seem to be some >mis-rememberings in there such as LCD instead of EL displays). I'm well aware >of the state of RTL/IC development at the time, but high-reliabiliy design >doesn't necessarily correlate with whats current in the rest of the industry. >Keep in mind the design started years before 1967/8. The IC spec sheets are >dated 1965. Around early '66 a friend that whose father worked for Grumman and NASA gave me several of the 10 pin flat packs with info. They were indeed 3input NOR but, he also provided a RS-FF in the same package. They sat in my collection for years until they were lost in a move. Shortly after that a neighbor that worked for Airborne and he brought me an engineering junk box that contained fairchild uL9xx parts galore plus a lot of aerospace qualified transistors. It was then I started working on understanding logic and how useful those RTL parts were. As to displays LEDs were indeed available in the mid 60s though they were not bright and the only color was red. I also have Burroughs Nixies from then and a 40 character selfscan from the era. I'd never seen EL used in anything other than backlight. There was also VF (vacuum florescent) displays as they were easily driven with available transistors. One of the problems then with transistors was low (usually less than 60V) breakdown voltage and most common devices were more like 25V. That complicates drivers for HV displays. Though for a price there were a lot of things available than were new or low volume. Allison

17 years, 6 months

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test-drb January 2007