test-drb November 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

229 participants
508 discussions

by RodSmallwood＠mail.ediconsulting.co.uk

Hi I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five" Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC? Rod Smallwood

16 years, 9 months

Vince Briel's Micro-KIM workshop at VCFX

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Vince Briel's Micro-KIM workshop at VCFX is now open for registration: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/workshop.php $99 which includes the kit and personal instruction from the man, the myth, the legend himself! Space is limited and Vince's workshops sell out fast, so get in while you can. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

16 years, 9 months

Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's)

by dm561＠torfree.net

-------------Original Message: Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:52:16 +0100 From: "Arno Kletzander" <Arno_1983 at gmx.de> Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's) "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote: > On Friday 23 November 2007 22:23, Chuck Guzis wrote: > > There are many kinds of mechanical memory. In particular, I recall > > an early TTY device that used a large rotating drum with cams > > embedded in the surface. One could flip a cam one way or the other > > and then read them out. I'm trying to remember what sort of machine > > this was used on and its application, but my memory sadly fails me. > > This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I > once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead > of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a > number in there, though. Hmm, like, say, an old cash register? This design is called "Volltastaturmaschine" in German (would translate to "complete keyboard machine"). They have a latching mechanism that holds in one button per column of keys (0-9, representing one digit of a number). When a calculation is initiated, the protruding shaft of the latched key acts as a stop for a toothed rack or similar device which is used to advance the wheels of the accumulator register by as many teeth as the corresponding digit says. There are also designs which involve an arrangement of levers positioning an intermediate gear along the axis of a stepped drum, for example the Badenia VA-17/VARE-17. The big advantage is that zeros need not be entered (to enter 100.00, you just press the "1" button in the fifth column from the right) and that operators could learn to "touch-type" on these keyboards, effectively entering all digits of a number in parallel and greatly reducing cycle times. <snip> -- Arno Kletzander www.iser.uni-erlangen.de -----------Reply: The IBM unit record or Tabulating machines that we've been discussing had their roots in the same principles as these calculators, adding machines and cash registers, but instead of a depressed key stopping a moving rack in a certain position (a certain point of time in the machine's "cycle"), a set of wire brushes (later replaced by photocells) would make contact through the holes in the card as it moved vertically through the different digit positions, and pick a relay, latch a rotating selector (and lock a synchronized moving typebar if it was a printer) to represent that digit electrically. Like the manual full keyboards, all 80 digits/characters were processed simultaneously. Timing diagrams looked similar to the modern square waves we're all familiar with (although they were sometimes arranged in a set of concentric circles to represent a complete cycle), but instead of a continuous linear time line they had a definite beginning and end and were divided into equal-length "digit" times. When electronics started to replace more and more of the mechanical gears and relays there was a paradigm shift and everything switched to reading and processing cards "serially" ("parallel" from our modern perspective ;-), i.e. lengthwise by character, instead of all characters in "parallel" by digit. The "Accounting" or "Posting" machines _also_ known as EAMs (Electr(on)ic Accounting Machines) made by Burroughs, NCR etc. and used in almost every bank also used the same basic principle. Because a good operator could enter an entire multi-digit amount in one "keystroke" and data entry speed was more important than processing, they retained full keyboards for quite a while even after the gears and cams had been replaced with electronic equivalents. The moving racks and cams were simply replaced by a set of rotating 10-position selector "switches" and connected to the electronic "adjunct" with thick multi-conductor cables. The processors in turn operated on "words" consisting of 15 or more 10-"bit" "bytes;" guess you could call it parallel processing... m

16 years, 9 months

PC3270 Model 5271 BIOS

by jzg22＠drexel.edu

I'm looking for a copy of the BIOS of the IBM PC3270 Model 5271. Does anyone here have one of these machines that is working? If so, the bios can be dumped using MSDOS DEBUG, see http://mess.toseciso.org/dumping:dump_bios_using_debug Bios should be in range E000-FFFF. Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu

16 years, 9 months

Old laptop hard drive "goo"

by peksado＠Cardiff.ac.uk

--- Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote: > I just received an old-ish (1990) Toshiba T1000LE > laptop and it wouldn't > boot, so I took a look at the hard drive and there > seems to be some type > of goo oozing out of it. It's a Conner hard drive, > nothing too abnormal. > > I didn't think a hard drive contained anything that > could ooze out. Any > idea what it could be and does that mean the drive > is pretty much > toast? Let the magic goo out? ------------- I also have this problem with a Mac Portable also from about 1990. Can't offhand remember the drive model but it's the gasket. I mop it up from time to time. It's still working. Doug

16 years, 9 months

IBM mechnical devices

by dm561＠torfree.net

------------Original Message: Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:51:17 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Message-ID: <20071129184544.W60333 at shell.lmi.net> Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 29 Nov 2007, M H Stein wrote: > LOL! > There were several different models - see: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products > They were used mainly for utility bills, etc. which were often printed on > punched cards to be returned with your payment for processing. We > didn't do that sort of work very often, and when the cards had to be easily > human-readable (such as your COBOL cards) they'd be punched on a > printing keypunch (026) in the first place. Unfortunately, the card output punches of most of the computers, and the stand-alone duplicator didn't print when it punched. <snip> ------------Reply: Afraid I don't get your point; after all, that was the purpose of interpreters like the 557, to print the data that the computer or EAM had punched (and not printed). The 500 series output & reproducing punches couldn't punch *and* print because AFAIR the print mechanism essentially replaced the punch mechanism (except for the 519 which had a small numeric printer added, mainly for serial-numbering the cards). The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80 columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding to the 12 zones of the cards. Your COBOL source cards on the other hand would have been punched on a keypunch and could have been printed as they were punched, no? mike

16 years, 9 months

cctalk Digest, Vol 51, Issue 94

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:19:15 -0800 From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices On 30 Nov 2007 at 5:46, M H Stein wrote: >> The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output >> operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80 >> columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked >> on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding >> to the 12 zones of the cards. >...and if you were one of the poor unfortunates to get saddled with >the 024 keypunch in a room of 026s, you needed the 557--the 024 >didn't print on the card--you flew "blind" or you just read the punch >holes visually. When they did it full-time, keypunchers and EAM operators got pretty good at sight-reading cards... >Fortunately, there was a standard IBM card form that numbered the >interpreter print columns on the two top rows as 1-60 and 61-80, so >you could figure out what printed character corresponded to what >punched column. Unless of course, some practical joker decided to >swap a couple of wires on the 557 plugboard... Heh, heh... yes, there was lots of opportunity for practical jokes... >Later, some keypunches could be used as light-duty card punches for >systems. I recall a CDC 1700 mini being hooked to a Univac keypunch. >Tab offered a keypunch that had an RS-232C interface on it and >probably were not the only ones. Both of those, IIRC, had "buffered" >keyboard interfaces--you typed in the card, then the punch punched >the whole thing. So did the later "normal" keypunches from IBM et al. >I preferred the 029 "press a key, get a kerchunk". >Later, I had the same issue with the daisywheel typewriters that >seemed to print asynchronously with one's typing. Cheers, Chuck Yes, they definitely had audible and tactile feedback; in fact you could feel it in your feet ;-) And then there were "light" keypunches. I've got one here by Wright that works like the old Dymo label makers: you dial up your character, press the punch bar and it moves to the next column (and prints BTW). mike

16 years, 9 months

Amiga languages

by lee＠geekdot.com

> HeliOS was just an operating system, not a language, no? Not according to the readme .. "HeliOS is an innovative, fast and efficient Amiga programming language which has been developed over many years. It is fully compatible with ALL Amigas running any operating system newer than AmigaDOS 1.1, including AGA and 68060 based machines." .. though I've not used it. Lee.

16 years, 9 months

NNC Computers, was Re Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

I've known about NNC for quite a while and have at least one of them around here along with documentaion. It is a box with two vertical 8" drives and about the width of a regular S-100 box. I just took a look in the 1983 DATAPRO Small Computers notebook, and didn't see anything about them. That makes me think they had disappeard by then. BTW, I've found the DATAPRO marketing information to be a *great* souce of information on a lot of the companies. I think Sellam might have a more complete set of them. > From: jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu <http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> > > > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and > > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside. > > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange > > name. > > > There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the > late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a > friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box > and not a vector graphics system. > > I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware > appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from > parts using an NNC mainframe. > > The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply > initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The > manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal, > and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't > know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible. > > Jim > -----REPLY----- Hi Marvin! Wow! You have a NNC machine? Would you mind popping the cover off on it and taking a couple of photos? I am very interested to see what is inside and it may clear up some of the mystery surrounding this machine I am restoring. If the documents mention anything about VG parts, surely that would be interesting as well. Looking at my NNC chassis, if you put two 8" floppy drives in there it would use up nearly all the room inside. I can't see how there would be any left for an S-100 motherboard so maybe it is an external drive enclosure? I am using an old IBM PC chassis as a homebuilt drive enclosure for the floppy drive on the NNC machine here. I had assumed that since the NNC was full of exclusively VG parts and the case is essentially a repainted VG 1 case that NNC was some sort of VG VAR or shell company maybe from the post VG bankruptcy era. If it were a homebuilt machine, I would think there would be a more diverse selection of parts, however, it is just a guess. Thanks! Andrew Lynch PS, is the DATAPRO Small Computers notebook available online anywhere? I can't seem to find it.

16 years, 9 months

NNC Computers, was Re: Vector Graphic restoration progress update

by marvin＠west.net

16 years, 9 months

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test-drb November 2007