> Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 01:05:53 -0500
> From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Don Maslin/Archiving system software (was: ftp
> archivesdisappearing?)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Message-ID: <001401c76ab5$d3760360$6900a8c0 at HPLAPTOP>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
> reply-type=response
>
> Hex wrote....
> > If you can't handle internet chat formats then you really do not
> > belong on the internet...as classic old timers like you guys sadly
> > fade away in time more of people like me with our new slang
> > and ways
> > of formatting messages will come in .....snip.....
>
> No more of Hex's "new slang" will be coming in.
>
> Jay
>
And for that, we thank you.
Dave McGuire wrote:
As far as "people demand decreasing prices" and "people demand
more functionality" etc...I hear that all over the place, but I never
seem to see any people lined up outside Seagate's doors demanding
that they make bigger drives, I never see people lined up outside
Intel's HQ demanding higher clock rates etc etc. What I DO see is
manufacturers constantly DELIVERING increased functionality, and
sometimes decreasing prices, and customers eating it up because they
have to have the "latest thing" in order to feel good about themselves.
You see...I am (in this context) the customer, the money in my
wallet is MINE, and *I* decide what I want to spend it on and
when...and *I* decide when the products I have are no longer capable
of doing their jobs. It is wrong for a manufacturer to tell me that
"thing XYZ" is "no longer suitable for use" SIMPLY AND ONLY BECAUSE
they've started selling something new and would like me to buy one.
Where I come from, that's called a lie. Perhaps I'm expecting too
much from the business world, especially in the USA nowadays, but
that's crossing a line that should never have been crossed.
-Dave
Billy Responds:
Dave, you obviously have had some bad experiences with obsolescence. I
don't know what they were, but I have NEVER seen an OEM change products
"SIMPLY AND ONLY BECAUSE" they've got something new. In fact it works the
other way around - remember how Adam Osbourne killed off his company by
prematurely announcing a new product? How many disk drives companies still
make ST506 drives? Or SCSI? If people won't buy your product, you have to
change or die. QED.
One of the points I was trying to make is that it costs big bucks to develop
new products. Every manufacturer I know would love to lay off the
development staff and just keep making the old products. Damn engineers
always expect to be paid! Get rid of them and no R&D expenses, old product
well down the price curve = lots of profit, no pressure.
But the world doesn't work that way. You may not see the people lined up
outside Seagate's door demanding they make bigger drives. But I do - they
visit us after they leave Seagate. And they give us their roadmap when they
want the next drive, what features it requires down to the weight in grams,
and how much they will pay and when. All vendors have to provide forward
pricing, product commits, detailed schedules, design reviews, detailed
testing data on the customer's systems and so on. Play the game as the
customer demands or get out. Ignore the customer and die.
It is extremely expensive to come out with new capacity points for drives
and RAM so frequently. It has killer expenses and often involves massive
infrastructure investment. Have you looked at the costs of going to 300 mm
wafers to build the next generation of microprocessors? We are talking
multi-billion dollar start up costs.
It's clear that you feel strongly that the vendors are all out to screw you.
I can't change that and won't try. But I can tell you that being in the
industry is tough and making products obsolete to ship new ones is painful
as hell. It is not vendors trying to screw their customers. It is people
trying to stay alive in a cut throat industry.
Think about how many casualties there have been in the field. Literally
thousands of companies have come and gone. This list talks daily about
respected companies with great technical expertise who didn't make it. And
most of those died because they couldn't keep up the pace of change, not
because they obsoleted their good products.
Not everyone who makes electronic equipment is a villain.
Billy
I've had it with the Computerworks in Austin. Please let me rant;
nobody else will appreciate it.
http://www.austingoodwill.org/crs/store%20locater%20pages/ComputerWorks.html
When I moved to Austin a couple years ago, I had high hopes. In the San
Francisco Bay area, you could spend a saturday hitting half a dozen
Goodwill's, looking for gems. Sometimes they appeared, often not. In
Austin (and San Antonio, and probably some other cities) Goodwill sends
all of their computer donations to a specialized goodwill, marketed as
"ComputerWorks"; the theory is that most goodwill's don't have skilled
employees to know what is interesting or not and how to price it; I
agree that is the case.
The Austin Computerworks even has a vintage computer museum, so that led
me to believe the appreciated vintage computers.
https://www.austincomputerworks.org/museum/index.html
Bzzt. Not so.
Clue #1: the "museum" hasn't been open in the eight or so times I've
stopped by. Their hours are sunday 1-5, monday 9-11, wed 1-3. 8 hours
a week. One time I snuck in when the door was open and had a look -- it
is a hands-off museum. Each of the 20 or so machines has a 5x7 card
fully explaining what is interesting about the machine and how it fits
in to the tapestry of computing ... not. Name, date, and manufacturer
is about all.
Clue #2: they got rid of 80% of their books, leaving only "popular" titles.
Clue #3: they never have any vintage computers for sale when I'm there.
A year ago I had dropped off an HP 85, an HP86, and 30 lbs of software
and manuals, even replacement paper for the 85's printer. I was nervous
when they told me to go around to the side to drop it off at the general
donation dock, but I did it.
Today before donating, I asked a few questions.
Me: I have an apple II+, and apple IIe, and a kaypro 10 to donate. Are
you interested in them?
Clerk: Yes, sir, we are! Drive around the side to the loading dock and
drop them off there.
Me: I've been here a dozen times (I'm stretching the truth with him to
make a point) and I've never seen any old computers for sale -- I mean,
70's micros.
Him: Oh, we get them, but most people aren't interested.
Me: So what do you do when you get them?
Him: We send them to a room where were separate out the metal from the
plastic and ...
Me: (interrupting) Wait a second... you mean you don't even try to sell
them to that segment of the market that is interested in them, for
nostalgia's sake or whatever? You just trash them?
Him: No sir, as I just explained, we don't throw them away. We separate
out the metal from the plastic ... (I didn't hear the rest as I walked away)
So the nice hp 85 and 86 that I donated last year with docs and apps,
memory expansion carts, serial interface carts, and which was in much
better condition than the one in their museum, never saw the light of
day. Bastards.
What makes this even more insidious is that when I go to the local run
of the mill goodwills and inquire about what they do with old computer
donations, they say they ship them to computer works to deal with them.
So essentially it is a vintage computer magnet attached to a wood chipper.
I understand that goodwill gets far more stuff than can ever sell, but
to not even try is sickening. There was no hint of regret about it from
the clerk -- in fact, he was rather proud that they were recycling bits
of them vs tossing them whole.
After leaving the computerworks, I drove a mile or two up the road the
to recently mentioned MC Howard electronics. They have room for lots of
funky stuff, and they were happy to accept them.
Phew, I feel better. Now I need to write a rant to the goodwill
organization to enlighten them on the subject.
PS: Doc Shipley, don't bother driving to MC Howard to get the kaypro 10,
if you were. I have a nicer one that I'm still sitting on for you to
collect some day.
I've been thinking recently about the whole issue of archival and
preservation of classic software, especially system disks, as it
is the "essential first step" to getting a classic system up and
performing useful work. Several recent things have happened to
prompt me to put my thoughts into words:
- Mention of Don Maslin, and archival topics in recent postings
here.
- During a recent google search, I stumbled across a posting
reminding me of details of the situation with Dons archive
and family.
- Correspondance with someone geographically quite distant from
me that needed assistance in generating system disks for a
classic system. Turning to the list I thought I could find
someone closer to help him, yet the single response I received
was from someone just as far away as I.
I never got to know Don personally, however I did correspond with
him on several occations, and it was apparent to me that he was
knowlegable and committed to his work in preserving classic
software. Add to that many testimonials and references to him that
I've encountered in my travels, and It's clear that his
contribution was not small.
But... as we all know now, there was a fatal flaw in Dons
operation. He put "all the eggs in one basket" by keeping his
archive in a single physical form, and did not make arrangements
for the preservation and continuance of that archive/service.
We can learn from this.
No matter how many times we say "too bad", and how much we hope
that the archive will "reappear", this has not happened, and does
not appear likely to happen. To my mind, there is really only one
thing to do, which is to build a new archive.
To that end, I would like to present as a topic for discussion
the idea of a concerted effort by the members of this list to
build a long-term archive of classic system software.
Here are some of my own thoughts on such a project:
= How to obtain material
Although Dons archive has been lost, I would guess that between
us we have much of the content of that archive (heck, many of us
got copies of boot disks from Don), and also a whole lot of
applicable material that was not in the archive. Between us we
represent a great variety of working classic systems. I also do
not expect to build a "complete" archive overnight (or ever),
but with an ongoing effort, it will grow and grow...
= How to store the archive
I am a strong believer in preservation of the physical media as
historic artifacts, however I believe it is also vital to preserve
the data separately in modern formats, for several reasons:
- It allows easy replication and mirroring in multiple locations.
This will help insure that the material is not lost in the
future through any single failure point (fire, flood, death,
loss-of-interest - all of these things and more can wipe out
a single physical archive).
- It removes dependance on specific (and usually obsolete)
physical media. No need to put wear and tear on the original
artifacts, and allows for contingencies in the event that the
original devices become inoperative.
- Allows for easy sharing and movement of the data.
- Allows everything to be tracked in a central repository
(appropriately mirrored of course).
- Allows anyone who wants to set up the required equipment
to have complete access to the repository content.
= How to go about building it
A tricky question - Who's going to do all this work? The good
news is that it can be shared, but it will require a bit of a
committment. Not everyone is going to want to put up the
investment to acquire the means to process their disk collection.
What I am thinking of is several key volenteers positioned so as
to cover the major geographic areas who would be willing to set
up the necessary software and equipment to handle as many
different media types as possible, and provide a service to
nearby collectors to turn media into images, and to turn images
into media. Working with others in the project, the images
could be transmitted and shared so that any particuylar system
disk can be accessed from anywhere.
= How to make the archive available
Another tricky question, which has two major components, legality
and accessability. On the legal side, copyright issues are a
concern. Among other things, we could consider doing what the
SEBHC group has done with it's Heathkit archive, and NOT make
the archive public. With SEBHC you have to apply for a (free)
membership to access the archive. As for accessing the archive
- how does someone get a boot disk for classic system X - if
he's lucky and it can be created on a PC (or another Classic
system that he has running), then he could obtain the image
and necessary software directly from the archive. If he is not
equipped to recreate the media, the the "key volenteers"
mentioned above come into play - think of them as a worldwide
network of Don Maslins, able to provide disks to others, but
doing so in coordination with other archivists and using a
central repository. If any one person drops out for whatever
reason, someone else can fill in, and the system just keeps
going.
Lots more thoughts, but this is long enough for now...
As most of you know, I've been taking some small steps along
these lines with my own system disk repository, however it's
simply not enough - I can only preserve the systems I come in
contact with, and I would feel better if I knew others were
keeping up to date mirrors of the material... (fortunately
in addition to my two local copies, Jay has the actual complete
site on classiccmp and backed up via his computer center).
So whatdya say, is there any interest?
(lotsa room for discussion here)
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
To bring this back to the original subject...
Although I have a problem with some of our Hex friend's
suggestions, I do like the idea of on-demand availability
(in addition to on-line archives).
I've seen it mentioned, but are there actually any plans to host
a master catalogue of old software somewhere where people
could just list what they have available, with a search mechanism
that could essentially look like bitsavers et al and let you select a
brand/model/title but instead of (or in addition to) a direct FTP link
return a list of web sites and/or email addresses where it could be
found or requested?
For example (and I doubt that I'm alone in this):
I have a bunch of Cromemco software but not the time or even
the inclination to copy and archive it in all its various formats, but
if anyone ever wanted a copy of something in a specific format
(and knew that I have it) I'd be glad to help out, and I could probably
find the time to make a list if there were a place for it and an
agreed-upon standard for its format and content.
Same thing with documentation; I'm not about to scan all the
manuals, tech bulletins, etc., but I could make a list and would be
happy to scan a few crucial pages if someone needed some specific
info.
(Note to Al: I haven't forgotten; still working on your pile).
I realize that this doesn't address the issue of actually archiving
this stuff and I appreciate the efforts of Al and others to make
sure that it doesn't disappear, but I suspect there is a lot of
software and information out there that can't be found anywhere
on the 'Web just because its owner doesn't have the time or doesn't
think it's useful; in fact there's probably a fair bit of stuff that people
wouldn't even know existed until they saw it listed somewhere.
Granted, there'd be dead links etc. after a while (although I suppose
it wouldn't be too difficult to automatically verify them every now and
then), but nevertheless I think it would bring a few useful items out of
the woodwork...
mike
Today I stumbled across something that may explain why some
people I've corresponded with have had such a hard time
getting single-density to work with disk imageing.
For my own setup, I have a couple of trusty Aopen AP5T
mainboards which do single-density nicely, installed in
cases with an internal 3.5" HD (1.44M) drive as A:, and
an external cable allowing me to connect any of the
following as drive B:
- 5.25" DD 40 track (Teac 55-G)
- 5.25" DD 80 track (Teac 55-F)
- 5.25" HD 80 track (Teac 55-G)
- 8" DS (Qumetrack 242)
I'm also quite a stickler for using the proper drive when
I read/write images - so if it's 5.25" 40 track, the 55-G
gets connected etc. This has worked very well for me.
Today I was setting up another system to do 5.25" disks
only, and I wanted it to be self contained within one case.
To minimize the drives, I decided to modify a Panasonic
JU-475 with a switch on the front bezel to force it to 300
rpm to serve as both the DD/80 and an HD/80 drive.
To verify that the drive was good, I hooked it up and tried
to read/write some disks - to my surprise I could not do
single density (at 300kbos). Tried a couple other HD drives
with the same result. On a hunch, I modded it to 300rpm, and
sure enough, I can read/write single-desnity fine at
300rpm / 250kbps.
(Yeah, I know the SD rate is really only 1/2 - by 250/300kbps,
I am referring to the MFM settings for the AT controller data
rate select register).
To rule out some odd ImageDisk quirk, I tried several versions
of TeleDisk - with the drive at 360rpm and configured as a 1.2M
HD drive, none of them could read a single-density disk either.
So at least for my AP5Ts, it appears that the internal controller
can do single or double density at 250kbps, but only double-
density at the "at compatible" 360rpm rate of 300kbps. My guess
is that the data separator does not work at that rate (works
fine at 500kbps however).
I'm curious to know if this is a charactistic specific to the
machines I am using, or if it is common among PCs that do single-
density to not work at 300kbps. Has anyone here read and/or
created single density 5.25" disk on a 1.2M HD drive spinning
at 360rpm?
Regards,
Dave
PS: I've added a note to the ImageDisk help file and manual
about this (that you may need a DD drive to do single-density),
and I've also put up a brief page describing the modifications
I made to add the speed switch to the Panasonic drive on my
images page.
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html
>From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
>
>Dave Dunfield wrote:
> >
>
>OK, a more considered reply now I've got a few minutes...
>
>>= How to go about building it
>>A tricky question - Who's going to do all this work? The good
>>news is that it can be shared, but it will require a bit of a
>>committment. Not everyone is going to want to put up the
>>investment to acquire the means to process their disk collection.
>>What I am thinking of is several key volenteers positioned so as
>>to cover the major geographic areas who would be willing to set
>>up the necessary software and equipment to handle as many
>>different media types as possible, and provide a service to
>>nearby collectors to turn media into images, and to turn images
>>into media. Working with others in the project, the images
>>could be transmitted and shared so that any particuylar system
>>disk can be accessed from anywhere.
>
>That much makes sense to me. I've been steadily collecting various relevant
>odds and ends for the past couple of years with a view to doing just that -
>various drives, controllers, tape units etc.
>
>In order to spread this around as much as possible, we could probably do
>with some "style guide" documents produced by some of the list gurus as to
>what hardware works with what etc. (e.g. summarising things like the
>responses to my recent question about hooking an 8" floppy drive up to a
>PC). That will hopefully encourage more people to participate.
>
>(There's certainly been a lot of knowledge shared on this list in the past
>about recovering old tapes too - it'd be nice to see that written up
>somewhere "central")
>
>Hmmm, it's not really a FAQ, but there's perhaps scope for something like a
>"classiccmp.org knowledge base" containing info like this?
>
>>= How to make the archive available
>>Another tricky question, which has two major components, legality
>>and accessability.
>
>I still think the key here is distribution. Allow people who have
>specialist knowledge in a particular area to run their own little corner of
>the web as they see fit - but they also "publish" what they've made
>available through some defined mechanism. In addition, they present some
>unified way of searching across *all* participating sites for content.
>
>To extend that concept a little further (thinking on my feet here), how's
>about we say that each "published" bit of data can be marked with different
>levels:
>
> "Offline" (say pending copyright issue resolution!)
> Free for download (i.e. available to all users)
> Available for mirror (to specific peers)
> Available for mirror (to anyone wishing to make a mirror of the item)
>
>Obvious benefits:
>
> 1) The "specialists" in any given area retain control over what they
>have available, the format that it's in, and the "look and feel" of
>whatever frills surround the actual data.
>
> 2) There's no unwieldy central repository, with corresponding high cost
>of maintenance.
>
> 3) Mirroring is more controllable.
>
> 4) Searching (from a user POV) can be flexible and tailored to certain
>pre-defined "classes" of content.
>
> 5) Copyright is at least a little less of an issue; if someone publishes
>something that violates copyright, it's far more likely to come down on
>their own head than jeaporising the distributed archive as a whole.
>
> 6) Dictating a "common archival format" that everyone agrees on probably
>isn't possible, for various reasons. Look at what happened with Sellam's
>efforts. However, dictating a common set of different content types (disk
>image, documentation scan etc.), and the metadata fields that they can be
>searched for with, is a heck of a lot easier!
>
> 7) Admin is a lot easier, as every participating site owner is an admin
>of the stuff that *they* make available, rather than having one person (or
>a team) trying to look after everything - Al can probably comment on what a
>headache this is!
>
>Downsides:
>
> 1) Probably needs a web interface at least for the searching (but that's
>not to stop someone making the actual data available over FTP or whatever,
>and the search interface code could be produced in a variety of languages -
>PHP, ASP etc. - to provide flexibility)
>
> 2) The actual database of "what's where" probably still needs to be
>central, because distributing that across multiple sites (ala DNS) is
>likely impractical, plus the majority of websites probably do have some
>server-side scripting ability, but not necessarily any kind of coherent
>database support)
Hi
I thought I'd add a little here. One thing that is missing. We'd need
some way to keep it running beyond when we are gone. There should
be a trust setup. It should have at least two or three people maintaining
is and willing to deal with the tax issues.
I tend to agree that it shouldn't force format. Dave's open format is
vary well thought out and his tool is good but there is legacy data
that would need to be converted. As an example, the disk image
data I have for the Polymorphic 8813 is in the format used by the
Polymorphic software to move disk images through modems to other
Polymorphic machines. It does currently lack a method to restore it
to a machine that has no boot floppy ( over time I hope to fix that ).
Other images are not even as floppy images. As an example, all the
data that I have for my Nicolet floppy disk system is images on
paper tape data ( in files on my PC ).
And of course, I also have cassette data images.
Some people like to store cassette images as audio files. I like to store
the actual data. I have done this for my Poly88 stuff and have a bootstrap
method to get things started without a first tape.
I also have images in a format that I'm just too lazy to convert. As an
example,
the images I made for my H89. These also have some legacy issues, as
my tool was used to create the images for the hard sectored images
on SEBHC. I've included a method to bootstrap without having a first
disk.
Of course, there should always be some form of readme with each
group of files explaining how to use the files. In the past, this has been
one of the hardest things to figure out on random archives. Many times,
I've seen images with no information on what to do with them. This
has happened because the directory was copied from someplace without
the support. Each directory should have at least a simple readme describing
how the images were made and what tool should be used to recover
them. Just a readme at the top directory is not enough. The top directory
may get separated. A readme is minimum.
These readme's may need updating as time goes by. Things like the fact
that some tool needs to run under a particular OS and not some future OS
that
may be more common, needs to be passed on. It is hard to tell what bit
of information that is assumed today may be key for extracting useful
data in the future.
It must be a living archive.
Just my thoughts
Dwight
_________________________________________________________________
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Chuck Guzis wrote:
The background drives are probably 607's or 609's--the photo's too
fuzzy for positive ID--but my money'd be on 607's which were far more
common (I loved those drives and despised the 657 "cost reduced"
replacements).
Unfortunately, there are no mainframe cabinets anywhere in the photo--
what you see in the foreground are 3000-series controllers, but that
doesn't mean a thing, as both the 3000 and 6000 series used 3000
peripherals for tape., card and printing. The 6000 used a 6681/2
channell converter, which then would interface to, say, a 3423 tape
controller.
The cabinet sitting next to the 415 card punch in the middle
foreground is probably a 3447 punch controller.
Maybe Billy Petit can recognize some of the cabinets--it's far too
fuzzy to make out any numbers.
Cheers,
Chuck
Billy responded:
It is hard to tell much. The tape drives are definitely 606 or 607's. I'd
lean toward 606 because the lights for density seem to be the 200/556
configuration, not the 200/556/800 set.
The cabinets in front are unusual. The one on the right has a window in the
top (see the shiny plate) and that was only done for printers. The one on
the left also has two rows of lights, instead of one and that was only done
on early printers (non-train) and one of the early disk file controllers.
So my guess is that these two cabinets are dual printers.
The photo is blurry but it looks like two of the tape units are set to Unit
4, which means a dual tape controller.
Main frame is impossible to tell from these limited bits and pieces. Like
Chuck says, 3100 to 6600. The number of tapes suggests a bigger system.
Billy
Dave Dunfield wrote:
Hi Chuck,
I think this is a separate issue, what to do to protect the physical
artifacts in our various collections - In this sense, diskettes are
no different than computers, S-100 cards or any other physical thing
that you consider valuable/important enough to want to insure it's
survival bayond your own ability to care for it. Each of us must put
in place whatever arrangements we feel are appropriate.
[snip]
Physical artifacts are a topic for another discussion. I would
suggest that at the very least we place the following information
somewhere where it will be available to anyone with the unfortunate
task of having to clean our our basements:
- And indication that the material is important and should not be
contributed to landfill. (If you have valuable items in your
collection, I assume you would identify those for your estate).
- Names and contact information of knowlegable people who can help
in it's disposition. If nothing else, information about how to
contact this list.
Regards,
Dave
Sorry Dave, but I disagree with you; at least in my personal case. I'm
retiring in 3 months and my number one object is to clean out the garage.
When I die, my family has no interest and will ship it all to a land fill
unless there is something specific they know is promised to someone.
So my top priority is not to copy the files and get them to an archive. Top
priority is to physically ship them to someone who gives a damn. I've been
giving Al bits and pieces, but by the end of this year, I'm talking truck
loads - more than he can absorb. Some of it will go to eBay just because of
the value of it - with no income, money is more precious. I've promised Al
I would sell nothing until he can scan it. But rarer items go to the
auction block. I've no choice; the money will be needed.
Software is tougher. If it was common, I've already thrown most of it away.
But there are still piles and boxes of floppies and CDs. If Al wants them,
they are his. I'll put a notice on this list and give the rest away if they
are wanted. If not, they go to the dump. I'm not going to bother to sort
and list hundreds of floppies.
So I'm doing part of what you mentioned. But with thousands of items, it's
not possible to make a detailed list. The more valuable items are
identified. But the rest goes as land fill unless I do something ahead of
time. Hence being my top priority.
You youngsters don't have to face this for a while. But I've seen too many
book collections lost or destroyed. Lingering or putting off these
decisions usually result in total loss of the collection.
A bitch isn't it? Save items 40-50 years; then have to get rid of to see
that they maintain some overall usefulness.
Billy
I am in desparate need as are others of that type of RAM sadly no one seems to solder the surface mount to carriers anymore and EVERYONE wants you to buy $500 minimum.
Is there anyone out there who supplies this stuff anymore?
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