test-drb February 2007

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

208 participants
390 discussions

by jwstephens＠msm.umr.edu

There is a Young Minds unit on Ebay right now, which was similar to the first unit I saw at sunsoft in about 1995 or so. This unit would have been from 13,000 to 50,000, depending on when you got hold of it. There was a kodak writer unit attached to this to do the writing. This particular unit seems to have a wide scsi under the connector marked "writer" so would most likely not be the same one as the one I encountered. Sunsoft could master the data and drive this unit via the SCSI port, and this in turn would write the cd. Overall the process took probably over 3 hours, but produced a cd which at the time was something that was pretty new, at least to me. I think there is was a Kodak unit recently, but I cannot find it now. they were packaged in a unit almost as big as this converted desktop. Jim 190046817654

17 years, 10 months

Removing labels - lighter fluid

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

For removing labels and their adhesive gum, I use lighter fluid (the kind made for old cigarette lighters) to remove labels. Zippo and Ronson are two major brands. You can buy it at almost any grocery or drug store (it may be behind the counter, ask). It's very effective and doesn't seem to leave a residue or cause long-term plastic damage. I also use it for cleaning old laptops, put some on a paper towel and it works great, it's just a good solvent. [Do not use it on the screen ... I will use Windex on an LCD screen, however. It's harsh and frequent use is definitely not recommended, but very occasionally, it's ok and works very well.]

17 years, 10 months

CD remastering (was Preservation of Correspondence - And Media)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> The analog to digital transition is not significant at all, really. > Once the audio is in those two RCA connectors or phono plugs, it does > not really matter if it is coming or going to digital or analog > source. Absolutely false. The reason early CDs sounded so bad was they often started with the Master mixdown tapes from the LP, which had a lot of bad juju done to them due to the limitations of the vinyl medium. That's why so much work has been put into remastering from original multitracks, when possible. The problem is people EXPECT the music to sound like what they heard on vinyl. Getting the remix to sound 'right' is tough to do. > Pretty much all of > this is mainstream, anyway, so the record companies do the > conversions. This won't happen, as people have said, for stuff out of the mainstream. When it's done, it is often from vinyl, since the original tapes have been lost. .. getting this back to preservation, at least we work (mostly) with digital saturation recording.

17 years, 10 months

Tektronix terminals [was: Re: Re: Humpty Dumpty]

by blstuart＠bellsouth.net

> I don't think Tektronix ever made a terminal that wasn't graphics > capable :-) and when they went to raster displays from storage scopes, > I believe they were all color capable. I remember at least on counter-example, the 4025. It was a mono raster unit. We had a 4025 at the research lab of the first company I worked for out of college. It was connected to one of those electrostatic printers. We drove it from a VAX 11/750 running BSD4.2 and later 4.3. BLS

17 years, 10 months

Copying a Mac Disk with a Single Drive

by compoobah＠valleyimplants.com

> If I am remembering correctly, older systems can't format during a > copy, but later ones can. What I seem to think was the single-disk > copying procedure is to eject the System disk (Flower-E or Flower-1?), > you want <COMMAND>-E for copying. the "1" thing (<COMMAND> <SHIFT> 1 if I remember right) was the "force eject" for the first floppy drive at startup if normal methods (drag-to-trash or eject command) failed. > It's all quite tedious, but possible. If there's anyway you can > borrow a second 400K floppy, you will find this somewhat trivial. You > can also copy 400K disks in more modern Macs, so don't think you are > limited to using a 128K Mac to copy single-sided MFS disks. I can't > say for certain how new the gear can be, but at the very least, I'd be > surprised if a Mac SE or SE/30 running System 6 couldn't still do it. You want to use either a Mac II or earlier, or a SE/30 or IIcx/IIci with an external 400 or 800k floppy. The SuperDrive (original SuperDrive, not the "new" CD/DVD one) [present on all Macs since the IIx, many IIs and some SEs (SE FDHD)] has the smaller head size and your older machine won't read it properly. WRT the swapping- can't recall at this point if changing the disk cache/RAM cache (depending on your system version) setting makes any difference, but the default gives you lots of wrist exercise even on a 4MB Mac SE/800k.

17 years, 10 months

ISO: A good explanation of EBCDIC control seuqnces

by ptykodi＠tykodi.com

Hi Chuck, If you know the name of the WP package that created the files, I can check and see whether I have the manual that would explain the command formats utilized. Best Regards, /Paul -- Paul Tykodi Principal Consultant TCS - Tykodi Consulting Services LLC E-mail: ptykodi at tykodi.com > Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 16:25:20 -0800 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Subject: ISO: A good explanation of EBCDIC control sequences > > Lately, I've been plowing through a bunch of EBCDIC-encoded WP > documents. I don't have a problem finding EBCDIC charts with > mnemonics, but I'd like some more detail on control character > operation. For example, what's the difference between IT PT and HT? > What sequence does CSP introduce and what are its variations? > > I've done some web searching but can't come up with anything > definitive. Any pointers would be welcome. > > Cheers, > Chuck

17 years, 10 months

ISO: A good explanation of EBCDIC control seuqnces

by cclist＠sydex.com

Lately, I've been plowing through a bunch of EBCDIC-encoded WP documents. I don't have a problem finding EBCDIC charts with mnemonics, but I'd like some more detail on control character operation. For example, what's the difference between IT PT and HT? What sequence does CSP introduce and what are its variations? I've done some web searching but can't come up with anything definitive. Any pointers would be welcome. Cheers, Chuck

17 years, 10 months

HP 2117f cables needed

by g-wright＠att.net

Hi, All of this HP 1000 talk got me going on mine. I have most of the drives, paper tape punch and tape drives and a real nice 2117F. But thats where it stops. No Cables Does anyone have a stash of these. I have no cables and cant seem to find anyone that does. It seems that most of these are offered with out the cables. I would guess they all go to bulhead connectors and are just easier to slip off the connector on the cards. Need these at minimum - Console 12966a - HPIB disk 12821a - HPIB Mag tape 13183 Also Trying to figure out 2 cards HP 12250 60001 and a FDS n612 4256-001 Thanks, Jerry Jerry Wright JLC inc g-wright at att.net

17 years, 10 months

[ot] broadcast radio

by aek＠bitsavers.org

How is it that a station that covers about 20 years, only plays about 4-8 hours of music! I'm sick of the radio and how few songs they actually play. -- Terrestrial broadcast radio (and television) is in a death spiral. Corporations want to move to the subscription model, and are putting the least resources they can into traditional media. Most stations are automated with feeds from satellites. They are programmed by consultants looking for least common denominator programming for the desired audience demographic by the advertisers. Mean while, most people under 30 have abandoned radio for iPods or webcasts. There are a few eclectic non-comms left. I'm involved with KFJC in the SF Bay area, and William is working on a program for WFMU.

17 years, 10 months

wire wrap machine

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

Chuck Guzis wrote: On 7 Feb 2007 at 11:08, jim wrote: > any other observations on WW as far as clocking? I know that > the more expensive stuff ran mini coax around the backplane > to get much better signals, but we just used regular old 32 or > whatever guage WW wires, sometimes 26 guage for high > current. How about ECL? Moto used to advertise that the 10,000 series was "wire-wrappable", but the WW samples I've seen have lots of twisted pairs on them. Looks like a real pain to do. Cheers, Chuck ---------------------------------------------- The Cyber 170 series from CDC used twisted pair wire-wrap. I still have a bunch of it. The wires were color coded for length. The early back planes were hand wired using a machine like Al described. Later machines were more automated and wired from a reel. Proper nightmare to troubleshoot. You had to feel a wire through the mat since all wires were the same color. The logic was standard MECL 10K. The normal and complement outputs made it a natural to use as a differential transmitter. So some of the signals were single-ended, twisted with a ground wire. The longer signals and I/O lines used the twisted pair as a differential line - no ground wire. If I remember correctly, the standard single ended wire was 100 ohm impedance terminated to 220 ohm resistors to -2.2v or 550 ohm resistors to -5.5v. The differential lines used two resistors at each end. Real pain doesn't do justice to working with these back planes. The wires were 30 gauge single strand and brittle. When removing one, you had to carefully trim off the bare wire end before pulling the wire out of the mat. If you didn't, the ends would break off and fall down the vertical back plane until they disappeared. Then you got to spend an hour trying to find them. We used to call them "tingles". If you didn't get them all out and applied power, they became "twinkles" as they shorted out and vaporized. Which did wonders for the logic and gave you a couple more hours of overtime trying to get the machine going again. Of course this always happened late on a Saturday night, especially if you had a date or tickets. Putting ECOs in became a total complete nightmare. We calculated the size of work by number of wires to change. If you were good, you could do 8-10 wires an hour. 4 years of twisted pair wire wrap experience is probably the best explanation I can give for volunteering to move off main frames and on to disk drives. Billy

17 years, 10 months

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test-drb February 2007