test-drb September 2009

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

163 participants
196 discussions

5.25" USB drive - can't modify a Teac 3.5"

by robert.stek＠gmail.com

As has been griped about in the past, I went on an all out google search for a 5.25" drive married to a USB adapter. Thought I almost had one when I saw a picture on the Teac website of what turned out to be a USB to IDE adapter they sell. I contacted them anyway and inquired about hacking their 3.5" USB drive. Their reply: Hello Robert, Unfortunately, TEAC did not make an adapter to convert a standard 5.25" floppy drive to USB interface. There is no solution that we can offer you. The USB 3.5" floppy drives can not be dismantled as these don't have a USB adapter, instead the USB chip is already built-in its main PCBA. Therefore, there is no single part that can be used to convert a 5.25" drive into a USB interface drive. You may want to search online; perhaps another company offers a conversion kit for a 5.25" drive. Regretfully, Mario Gomez Customer Support Manager Data Storage Prod. Division TEAC America, Inc. Ah, well. Looks like if it can happen at all, it would have to be home-brewed. Bob Stek Saver of Lost Sols

14 years, 7 months

2.5" laptop SCSI drive standards?

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 9/21/2009 11:23:37 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, g-wright at att.net writes: >> Hi, All, >> >> I have some 2.5" SCSI drives from Thinkpads - Toshiba MK2428FB, IBM >> DVAS-2810, and an IBM DPRS-21215. I don't think they have the same >> pin arrangement as older 68K-era Mac laptops that take SCSI drives >> (though I could be mistaken on that). Was there more than one >> standard pinout in the sub-1GB 2.5" SCSI drive world? >> >> Thanks for any comments, observations, and pointers. >> >> -ethan >Where are the ThinkPads, I know of only the Power PC >models that had SCSI. (8xx models) Getting very rare >these days. I'm always looking for these The thinkpad 700 and maybe the 720 used ESDI drives. All other models with maybe some early exceptions all used IDE.

14 years, 7 months

3.5" ESDI (was Re: 2.5" laptop SCSI drive standards?)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 9/22/09, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: > Ethan Dicks wrote: >> On 9/22/09, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote: >>> Zane H. Healy wrote: >>>> Wow, there is something I never knew. There were 2.5" ESDI HD's?!?! I >>>> didn't even know there were any smaller than 5.25". >>> Come to think of it, didn't the PS/2 Model 70 have a 3.5" ESDI? >> >> That sounds familiar. The PS/2 Model 30 (not 286) came with a 3.5" >> ESDI drive - with a full-width edge connector. >> > The full width edge connector drive was the one on the Mod 70, wasn't > it? I thought the Mod 30-8086 came with only two floppy drives? Wasn't > the Mod 30 hard drive option a 3rd party jobbie? This was 100% Big Blue. It was the only PC in a DEC shop, bought by and for the accountants who needed to run DOS-based accounts receivables and payroll apps. I'm willing to accept that it's some bizzaro IDE or MCA bus-extension drive (it does *not* have the usual ESDI cabling arrangement that I'm used to), but I was told at the time I was looking for an upgrade path that it was an ESDI drive - perhaps it's some flavor of IDE drive with an embedded ESDI controller, not an embedded MFM controller. -ethan

14 years, 7 months

I'm so stupid...

by msokolov＠ivan.Harhan.ORG

Back in 1998 (actually more like from summer 1997 until summer 1998, i.e., the 1997-98 school year), before I started Quasijarus Project, I was searching the World high and low for a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set. That was before PUPS got its momentum with getting the $100 "Ancient UNIX" license deal from SCO, and more importantly, getting people interested in preserving and working with Original UNIX, and at that time the entire world was basically in a conspiracy of anathema against original Bell/Berkeley UNIX, everyone just wanted it to stay buried in its grave and not come up. Getting a copy of the 4.3BSD tape set seemed next to impossible. www.berkeley.edu was shockingly silent about the fact that Berkeley UNIX aka BSD, UC Berkeley's greatest accomplishment in all of its history, ever existed, much less saying how to order a tape. Finally I found a phone number and a couple of E-mail addresses for some office at UCB that was apparently kept for sending out tapes after CSRG itself was gutted. The office was basically a voice mailbox and a couple of E-mail addresses, with the two people who were actually supposed to get those E-mail and voice messages being away somewhere in San Francisco and taking a few weeks to answer inquiries. Finally they got back to me and told me to send a check for $2400 for 4.4BSD and $1000 for 4.3BSD. Ouch! And of course some murky business about licenses. At that time, however, I attended Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and had a semi-staff relationship with their computer science department. I realised that the university must have had a UNIX source license from back in The Days, and most probably had the actual 4.3BSD tapes at some point as well, especially given that the old-timers told me that they were indeed running 11/780s before. But again the conspiracy of anathema was working: everyone had completely forgotten about it, and no one on the entire campus even knew that the university had a UNIX source license (and old-timers confirmed that indeed there was one). When spring 1998 came around, PUPS was making its debut with the $100 license deal from SCO. I didn't care so much about license stuff, but it meant a resurgence of interest in Original UNIX and a community of people involved with it, something that was completely lacking only a few months prior. I wanted access to the PUPS archive, and I wanted to use the university's license rather than fork over $100 for a personal one. The only issue was *finding* that license. Then I got a bright idea: since the license agreement was between CWRU and AT&T, there must have been copies of it on both sides. If CWRU had chosen to forget about the license they once paid big money for, how about if I dig up a copy of the license agreement from AT&T side? So I asked SCO's Dion Johnson about it, and lo and behold, a few days later a copy of CWRU's original UNIX license agreement shows up in my box in the computer science department mail room! Warren Toomey got another copy and soon I got an overseas fax from him with passwords for his PUPS Archive! Whoo-hoo! But I still needed 4.3BSD. It wasn't in Warren's archive since they were still PDP-only at that time, and me holding a copy of my school's AT&T UNIX license agreement didn't help convince anyone I knew who might have had 4.3BSD tapes to share them with me. In late 1997 I got myself an office at CWRU, it was the CES department's computer junkyard room. I was quite happy, a room full of classic computers was the best office I could get. It was actually two rooms, 411 and 412. Only 411 was accessible from the hallway, the entrance to 412 was inside 411. Both rooms were filled with classic computer gear, but 411 was a little less full and actually had some room for a desk and was usable as an office. 412, on the other hand, was *completely* filled with classic computer gear (mostly Sun 3) and it was difficult for a person to make it through to the end of the room. At the very end of room 412 (the end opposite the entrance door from 411) there was something that looked like a plastic curtain or plastic window blinds. The architecture of that building was really intriguing, the kind one finds only on good old university campuses, and I couldn't really tell if there was supposed to be a window there or not. I just never gave it much thought, and it was too difficult to climb over all that Sun 3 gear in the way to see exactly what it was. On a shelf in room 411 there were some magtape reels, and I thought that if they ever had 4.3BSD tapes, they ought to be there. But I looked through all the tapes I could see and 4.3BSD wasn't there. Bummer. Then one day in summer 1998 I came to work in the morning, went up the stairs to my beloved Computer Engineering and Science department 4th floor, went to the end of the hallway to my office, and got in. I turned on the lights and per my usual habit, peeked all over the room to make sure all the fun classic computers were still there. And lo and behold, at the very end of room 412, where I previously saw those plastic curtains or window blinds or whatever, I now saw two racks full of magtapes! It turned out that the plastic "curtains" were actually vertically sliding doors (kinda like garage doors) of two huge magtape cabinets! Another staff member must have had a need to get some old magtape and didn't close the cabinet after he was done. With trembling hands, I raced there and started looking through all the tapes. And sure enough, in a few minutes I found all 3 tapes of the 4.3BSD 1600 BPI distribution. I spent pretty much the whole year prior to that moment searching the World high and low for 4.3BSD tapes when they were sitting the whole time in my own office! Now that's a "Duh!" moment. MS

14 years, 7 months

FFS: Wacom ADB Tablet

by silent700＠gmail.com

Got a nice old Wacom Digitizer II (Model UD-0608-A) tablet, about 8" x 6" on the drawing surface, for classic (ADB) Macs. Goes inline with the keyboard or mouse, I don't remember. Worked the last time I had an ADB Mac up and running. I've got the pen and holder as well. Free for the cost of shipping from 60074. -- jht

14 years, 7 months

Atari/Amiga History Talk at ECCC

by wgungfu＠gmail.com

Just a heads up for anyone that might be interested, I'll be giving a speech at the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention on Sept. 26th. The material is based on the latest research by myself and Curt regarding the previously muddled claims and relationship between between Atari Inc. and Amiga, Amiga and Commodore, and Commodore/Amiga and Atari Corp/Tramiel. I'll be giving a glimpse in to our research and setting the record straight on a lot of the issues, as well as covering some material related to the split and sale of Atari Inc. itself. Visit the ECCC site for more info on the show, I believe my talk starts around 3:30pm. http://starbase.globalpc.net/eccc/ Marty

14 years, 7 months

CDC SMD drive + ps spotted on vendor's for sale list

by jws＠jwsss.com

I found this CDC drive while looking at a large ebay vendor's site. They also have a CDC Hawk listed. High priced, but perhaps of interest. Search eBay with string "CDC Magnetic Peripherals" and a tester also shows up. Hawk ebay id is 200255855015 and the item below is either an EMD or FSD drive and its item id on ebay is 150328274824. Their prices are quite high if that puts you off. I am not affiliated with them in any way. Jim http://www.recycledgoods.com/34913_CDC%20Magnetic%20Peripherals_81542301_Ha…

14 years, 7 months

Olivetti Underwood 288 adding machines

by pat＠computer-refuge.org

I have a few electro-mechanical Olivetti Underwood 288 adding machines that a friend rescued from a dumpster, which look like they're in great shape (possibly never used). I haven't tried plugging them in yet, and can't promise that they work If you're interested in one or all three, let me know. I can post a picture if you're interested. From the instruction card that is with them, they appear to be from about 1960. They're about the size of a desktop calculator. I'm in West Lafayette, IN, USA. They're fairly small, so I should be able to ship them anywhere in the US without much trouble. Sorry, but no international shipping. Pat -- Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/ The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org

14 years, 7 months

Two VAX's available

by SHale＠sclay.com

2 - DEC MV3100/40 32 MB, RZ26 (3GB Disk), RZ28 (2GB Disk) (1) 40-user VMS License 6.2 QL-095AB-AA Vax Basic License QL-MC1AB-AA NAS 200 License Exabyte EXB8505XL tape drive (external) DECHUB-BA hub with power supply DECserver 90TL Terminal server DECRepeater DETML-MA-16 hub RRD42-FA-CD-ROM (external) Incls Xentis 4.6 reportwriter software licenses (reference manual available) DecWord Taker pays shipping costs from Calif.

14 years, 7 months

Mumps and diseases

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

All this talk of Mumps made me remember while I worked for Marconi Elliott Avionic Systems Ltd we had a library called MEASLs library. Another branch of GEC came up with another library which they decided to call Rubella.

14 years, 7 months

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test-drb September 2009