test-drb January 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

238 participants
538 discussions

ALERT: Boeing Surplus, Cheap Workstations

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

This is directed mainly to ClassicCmp folk in or near the Puget Sound region. While at Boeing Surplus this afternoon, I noticed that there were having what amounts to a 'Blowout Sale' on SGI Indigo and Octane workstations. These systems are, as far as I know from talking to their computer guy, complete except for the hard drive (although the Sun Ultra 10 I bought still had the drive in it, admittedly blanked). Here's the best part: The price -- $1.00 Each. No, that's not a typo. One measley dollar for an SGI Octane, Indigo, or a Sun Ultra 10. Now the bad news -- Their computer guy tells me that they need to clear shelf space for a bunch of incoming Dell systems. If said Dells happen to come in tomorrow (Thursday, Jan. 4th), all the Octanes, Indigos, and other non-PC's will ALL be THROWN OUT. So -- If you want to take a crack at getting an ultra-cheap system, I would strongly recommend stopping at Boeing Surplus on Thursday. They're at 20651 84th Ave. S, Kent, WA 98032, open from 11:00 - 17:00 PST. I landed an Ultra-10 myself. Happy scrounging. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"

17 years, 11 months

Mac OS vintage (was: Re: Sun E450 server officially vintage)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 15:24 -0600 1/3/07, Zane wrote: >Consider this, it's been nearly 10 years since a Mac containing a 68000 CPU >was even able to run the current version of the operating system. I forget >if support was dropped with System 7.6, or Mac OS 8.0. > > Zane To elaborate on what Cameron said: Last OS *my* 68000 Mac Plus has run is MacOS 7.1. MacTracker claims 7.5.5, I can't dispute that as I haven't tried it but I expect it might not do much good (no RAM left for applications). Same is claimed for the Mac SE and Classic and PowerBook 100. MacTracker doesn't report the Outbounds (Jeff?) but since (I think) they used motherboards from the above systems, I would be surprised if they ran later versions. I'm not aware of any later 68000 Macs (or indeed, any others excepting the 128k/512k/fat Mac series, none of which went to OS 7.x). If the question was whether 680x0 processors support OS 8, the answer to that should be yes. Quadra 950 is claimed to run MacOS 8.1, as is PowerBook 540/c and others, again per MacTracker (which is a reasonably useful resource for these machines). The Mac OS category in the same program says the same thing, giving requirements as follows: 7.1 68000 or later, 2 MB RAM, 4 MB hard drive 7.5 68000 or later, 4 MB RAM, 21 MB hard drive 7.6 32-bit clean 68030 or later, 8 MB RAM, 40-120 MB hard drive 8.0/1 68040 or later, 12 MB RAM, 195 MB hard drive 8.5 PPC, 16 MB RAM, 150-250 MB hard drive 8.6 PPC, 24 MB RAM, 190-250 MB hard drive Wow. Looking back, it's amazing how fast requirements shot up. I'm really glad I sort of sat out that period as far as buying computers. Our main home system was a Mac Plus until we leapfrogged to a Powerbook 3400 (which is still our current system). Nice to go >from on-topic to brand-new machines - gives us a while to save up our computer-buying budget. FWIW, hit http://www.mactracker.ca/ if you want to grab the (freeware) program I'm looking at. Gotta love these guys, there's a version which runs on MacOS 8.5 still available, as well as one for (spit) Windows and (grin) *iPod*. Not affiliated. -- Mark Tapley, Dwarf Engineer (I haven't cleared my neighborhood) 210-379-4635 Dwarf Phone, 210-522-6025 Office Phone

17 years, 11 months

Missing Bits

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

In the mid-80's when I first moved to Silicon Valley, I worked for Fujitsu Computer Products. I (and my support engineers) went around the Valley to various companies installing Hard Drives. Recently, I've been trying to write up some of those experiences and found that I have almost nothing on a lot of the companies. And I see that bitsavers doesn't have much either. Does anybody remember or know anything about: Daisy Systems - Design Automation stuff Arix or later, Arete - Unix systems for government sites Pixel - Unix systems California Computer Corporation - Training systems General Computer - 16 and 32 bit CPUs System Industries - Controller PCBs DEC compatible Intertest - Design Automation And one that is driving me crazy, a company that supplied Ada systems to the military. Was first based in Mt. View, then moved to San Jose into one of the old Amdahl buildings. I can visualize the people and systems but can't remember the name. Getting old sucks. I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with any of these companies and especially if any documents or hardware survived. And I'm especially interested in ARIX. It was a very unusual company, and obliquely mentioned in the 6 part TV series on Silicon Valley. Billy

17 years, 11 months

Sun E450 server officially vintage

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> Eric J Korpela wrote: >> Even though it may be a collectible, it's not quite vintage. Yet. >> Things branded "Sun 4," I think would count, as would various >> SPARCstations and Solbournes. Has any 64-bit microprocessor been >> declared officially vintage yet? > > I already mentioned the Alpha 21064, but I believe the MIPS R4000 was > even earlier. > > Peace... Sridhar Well, we're talking three things: processor architectures, processors, and systems. The 21064 is definitely on-topic, as are the early AXP systems (DEC 3000/4000/7000) The basic Alpha architecture is probably irrelevant, because I have never heard a discussion about architectures as being on or off topic, generally discussions of that nature are sufficiently technical to pass. The R4000 is an interesting case, because the chip predates the 21064, but (a) early versions could not run 64-bit since they had a bug in the MIPS-III instructions and (b) no R4000/R4400 systems were 64-bit capable until the Onyx in 1993 unless I've missed something. In short, therefore, the 64-bit potential of the R4000 arrived first, but 21064 realized a 64-bit system first. Take that how you will.

17 years, 11 months

yet another Cat *purr* on ePay *meow*

by chrism3667＠yahoo.com

http://cgi.ebay.com/Canon-CAT-computer-Jef-Raskin-PRE-Macintosh-MAC-HISTORY… listed under Apple/Macintosh category. Don't know if that'll make a difference, I don't search by categories myself. Not as nice as the last one (or mine woohoo). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

17 years, 11 months

Sun E450 server officially vintage

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

Well- Sun4u is still in production, and it doesn't have any "first" cachets like the Ultra1, E10k, etc. so I sort of see where Jay's going. Older Sun4 machines (4m 4d 4c -4) would probably be ontopic, though. SGI 4Ds (loosest definition, all MIPS based machines rather than the strict definition of from the 4D/60 to the introduction of ARCS PROMs) are probably fair game now, given that the line has been discontinued effective Dec 31. Newish Alphas and HP-9000s are probably a bit shady, though, since they're still in (semi) production, but not pushed, so they could be on.

17 years, 11 months

Altair Basic Discussion and Calculator Forensics

by grant＠stockly.com

This is a discussion started off list. >Startrek might port to 680 BASIC. It runs the 8080 Tic Tac Toe program. I haven't tried loading star trek yet. It might just work out of the box. I'll find out tonight. More responses below... >There are a couple of issues that I am not too sure about. > >The 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 lable uses VERSION and REVISION. I used >mostly 300-5-C. The C and F revisions of Version 5 BASIC are the only 300 >series that work. There is a Version 5.0 that I don't remember much about. I >started with BASIC 4.1 and always thought it was the first "good" version. I >assumed all earlier versions were buggy and missing features. > >At first, I thought 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 was similar to 8080 BASIC >3.2. Now I don't know because I'm not used to working with Revision numbers. >The 300 series uses Revision letters. At this point, I don't know how the >680 and 8080 BASIC versions compare. The 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 >language and interpreter have at least one feature introduced in 8080 BASIC >4.0. > >The term "regular BASIC" is ambigous. There are several versions of BASIC. >Which ones are "regular"? The term BASIC can refer to the language or the >interpreter. When someone refers to 8K BASIC, the size is obvious and a set >of language features is assumed. Disk Extended BASIC adds language features, >bug fixes, and major internal changes. Do all 8K BASICS support the same >languages and syntax. > >The term "patches" could be accurate, but I'm more comfortable with version >and revision. The label MITS ALTAIR 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 may be a >port of 8K BASIC. What version and revision of 8K BASIC? The examples below >show the same lable on two two sizes of interpreter. MITS should have >changed the lables. > >I don't know which 680 BASIC VERSION 1.1 REV 3.2 came first. Do they both >translate the same exact language? The obvious guess would be that the paper >tape interpreter has the CSAVE command removed or disabled. It could also be >that the smaller BASIC supports the older CSAVE syntax. It could also be >that the bigger version has changes and someone forgot to bump the revision >number. I think non KCACR came first. The KCACR doesn't seem very popular. Its not even in a lot of the -system- documentation. What could we do to determine if the basics are the same? This would tell us the math function similarity... http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm I could run the forensics on the Altair32 emulator and on both versions of the 680 basic. If it matches up with any of the 8080 basics then we've found the "version" of 8080 basic used as a starting point. >Does CSAVE work if you load the paper tape version into a machine with a >cassette interface? Nope. Not with any of the syntax changes either. Grant

17 years, 11 months

Shipping company moveit.com

by wacarder＠earthlink.net

I do all of my large shipping with them too, and have been totally satisfied with their service. I agree with everything that Guy has said. I have used them many times during the past 3 years to ship *LOTS* of large equipment, PDP-11 blinkinglight systems in racks, fragile 35 year old terminals on pedestals, etc. They have always delivered oir picked up on time and it was a painless process just as Guy described. I was a little nervous with my first shipment, but they have proven time and time again that they will get my stuff moved in a safe and timely manner. Last week I they delivered two large racks of 35 year old PDP-11 systems and drives, a DecWriter, and a card reader to my place. They gave me a delivery date with a 3 hour window of delivery, and the delivery truck came right in the middle of the delivery window. Smooth and painless. Ashley -----Original Message----- >From: Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com> >Sent: Jan 2, 2007 4:51 PM >To: General at shiresoft.com, Discussion at shiresoft.com@null, On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>, null at null >Subject: Re: Shipping company moveit.com > >I do *all* of my large shipping through them (unless I do it myself). I >have been *extremely* happy with them and I've been using them for a >number of years now. One of the things I like about them is that they >are pretty much "fire and forget". I don't have to hand hold them to >get stuff done and they do a good job of getting stuff moved with no >breakage. I do however give them *all* of the information at the start >of the transaction. > >Of course, I've done enough business with them that they call me up >occasionally to see if I have anything that needs to be shipped. > >Richard wrote: >> I'm using them for a dovebid sale and while things are scheduled to be >> delivered tomorrow (knock on wood), so far I've been pretty >> unimpressed with moveit.com. They haven't been very good at >> communicating important details like MY SHIPPING ADDRESS, when the >> shipment would be made, how payment was to take place, etc. >> >> They say they do a love of business through dovebid, and while that >> may be so, I don't think I would use them again in the future compared >> to my experiences with cratersandfreighters.com. >> >> Has anyone else used these guys? >> >> What was your experience? >> > >-- > >TTFN - Guy > >

17 years, 11 months

Recovering Cassette Tape Records

by aliensrcooluk＠yahoo.co.uk

--- Grant Stockly <grant at stockly.com> wrote: > > I think the reason that the demodulated output is > not 300bps is the KCACR > is locking onto the tape speed? I don't know anything about the KCACR, but the way the Spectrum and C64 saved data the computer would go by the speed of the tape. Typically, any data would be preceeded by 4 (perhaps less?) seconds of pulses which would allow the computer to work out the speed of the tape. I can only assume other computers used this method too?? Regards, Andrew D. Burton aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk

17 years, 11 months

IBM 5100/5110 ROS (ROM) images?

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Has anyone extracted images of the Read Only Storage > for the IBM 5100/5100 desktop computers? Eric has talked about doing it. Apparently it is scanned during initial self-test, so it could be captured with a deep logic analyzer Considering how many have failed, it's something that needs doing.

17 years, 11 months

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test-drb January 2007