test-drb February 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

175 participants
221 discussions

book conservation info: slightly off topic

by useddec＠gmail.com

I am not saying that any of my books are rare, and that is not the point of this, but I do want to preserve them. Most are non-fiction, some are from the 1800's, and a few were piblished by MIT. After being in storage for a few years during rebuilding, some have mold and or dirt on them. I wanted to clean them properly, and contacted the Rare Book Library at The University of Illinois. They were kind enough to send me the following links. I have not read through all of them yet, but I thought this might be useful to some list members Hello, XXXXXX asked that I send you a list of resources to aid you in your conservation needs. The following sites offer comprehensive and easy-to-follow guides: http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/publications/conserveogram/04-09.pdf http://www.nps.gov/history/museum/publications/conserveogram/03-04.pdf http://www.mnhs.org/preserve/conservation/bookspaper.html http://www.conservation-us.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=49… http://www.loc.gov/preserv/familytreasures/ http://www.nedcc.org/resources/resources.php This is extremely in-depth and may be above and beyond what you are looking for: http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/pcc/12_mold-fungi.pdf Thanks, Paul

14 years, 5 months

Teaching soldering skills

by marvin＠west.net

> On 2/17/10, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >>> >> From trying to teach soldering, the >>> >> unforgiving nature leads to student frustration. >> > >> > I am suprised. I've taught dozens of people to solder over the years, and >> > every one had success within half an hour. > > More particularly, I've taught several people over the past few months > how to solder at a few workshops. I've had mixed results. All were > enthusiastic, but not all were, in the old vernacular, "mechanically > inclined". A friend of mine was a 3rd grade teacher, and one or two of us would go in and help them build code practice oscillators. We really didn't have much trouble with solder joints after we showed them how to preheat the joint and apply the solder. The biggest problem at first was getting them to touch the tip to the joint long enough to heat it to the point the solder would melt when applied. The second biggest problem was getting them to realize that the color codes on the resistors actually meant something as to where they were inserted :).

14 years, 5 months

Teaching soldering skills (was Re: HP-IB, Amigo/cs80)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 2/17/10, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> From trying to teach soldering, the >> unforgiving nature leads to student frustration. > > I am suprised. I've taught dozens of people to solder over the years, and > every one had success within half an hour. More particularly, I've taught several people over the past few months how to solder at a few workshops. I've had mixed results. All were enthusiastic, but not all were, in the old vernacular, "mechanically inclined". What would probably have helped is an aspect of the workshop that was specifically soldering instruction, not kit assembly, with easy to reach and easy to inspect widely spaced joints. What we had at our disposal was a few joints on 0.1" boards - either a made-in-class PCB (not my design, or I'd have made the pads bigger which would have helped) or a factory-made strip-board (Lilypad prototyping board) that was soldered to after the web of interconnections were cut to route the signals. All of the students learned *something* about soldering, but even after 90 minutes and several attempts, the success rate (good joints) was probably between 50%-66%. I had to retouch a number of joints to get the projects working during the class period. More practice would have obviously been beneficial. -ethan

14 years, 5 months

Long persistence tube for vt100

by emu＠e-bbes.com

Hi all, any source for a replacement tube for a vt100 type terminal ? Specially, a long persistence phosphor type (vt640, retro graphics) ? Cheers

14 years, 5 months

CP/M for LNW-80

by alhartman＠yahoo.com

I have an LNW-80 Model I. If my memory is correct, this unit will run CP/M. Can anyone confirm that? And, if so... Can someone point me to where I can get disk images? Thanks! Al Keansburg, NJ

14 years, 5 months

Tubes (was OT: Televisions)

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

> That's a pile of random loktals. What I'm talking about is a set of the > five tubes called for in an All-American-Five design. I might have to > rewire this thing for regular octals. 14Q7, 14A7, 14B6, 50A5, 35Y4? All easily available at any of the places that have a broad stock of tubes. e.g. ESRC, Antique Electronic Supply, etc. One of my specialties is the loctal Zentih Transoceanic (8G005) which some describe as rare but really they're as common as dirt. I was surprised that many of the stocks of loctal tubes are recentish (60's, 70's) Eastern European production - I had always thought of loctals as a Philco thing of the 40's. The business sense in dealing with something that hasn't been made in decades (or indeed more than half a century) is contrary to most business rules of thunb. To have a profitable resale business as a rule of thumb you have to be able to turn your inventory over several times a year. Anything not sold after a few months has to be slashed in price or simply thrown out to make room for the new stuff. The tube resellers have to work differently - their stock is already decades old. It's not a business I'm in but I can appreciate some of the challenges. I think the business world of tubes has seen some tumultousness recently, what with the US Govt unloading huge stockpiles of many tubes and the de- nationalization of Eastern European/Russian factories, but may be stabilizing a bit. Tim.

14 years, 5 months

help navigating the DECUS archive

by nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com

Does anyone have experience navigating the DECUS archive at digiater.nl? Under this directory: http://digiater.nl/openvms/decus/vax000/ is this file: 11spp_87.001 which contains this reference: 11-SP-42 Symposium Tape from the RSTS SIG, Spring 1980, Chicago Version: Spring 1980 Does the archive contain the contents of this tape? I would rather not have to download the large 500MB+ ZIPs to find the needle in the haystack and I am not sure I understand how the "indexing" scheme works. I looked in here: http://digiater.nl/openvms/decus/zips_unix_attributes/ but I cannot match these files with those listed under /vax000/ Any tips or directions would be appreciated. thanks, nigel. www.retroComputingTasmania.com

14 years, 5 months

[comp.sys.dec] BASIC-Plus-2

by nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com

On Tue Feb 16 11:56:45 CST 2010, Dave McGuire wrote: > That's it...worked like a champ. Thank you Dave, that worked for me too; applying your tips might now allow us to try some of the other layered products (C and COBOL - although I notice the C TAP has a AUTOIN.COM file for auto-install so I suppose we invoke that, much like the F77 install). I used BP2 V2.6, only because I understood that version was intended for RSTS/E V9.6 - I will try BP2 V2.7 and see if it is stable on V9.6. I am still to discover which of the TAPs of RSTS/E V9.7 are worth trying. One surprise I encountered though on rebooting RSTS/E, BASIC/BP2 throws an error: $ basic/bp2 ?Unable to attach to resident library ?Can't find file or account I fixed this by executing these two commands (found in BP2INS.CMD): $ INSTALL/LIBRARY/NOADDRESS B26SHR $ INSTALL/LIBRARY/NOADDRESS B26SH1 Then $ BASIC/BP2 works again. So it is usual RSTS/E practice to add the install/library commands to [0,1]START.COM to "permanently" add the layered product to RSTS/E? I expected the install process to do this for me.

14 years, 5 months

help navigating the DECUS archive

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

Sorry, I do not have 11SP42. I think I had it confused in my head with 11SP47 (GCE's Portacalc of course). Lots of the SIG symposia tapes are a kind of "best of" collection with contents repeated or improved from year to year. Is there something specific you need from 11SP42? If so it's probably on some other DECUS tape I can help you find. Tim.

14 years, 5 months

OT: Televisions

by marvin＠west.net

> Is there a good source for these things (the TVs and the tubes) > today? I imagine people threw them away mostly. If these are > difficult to find and/or maintain, I've considered trying to create a > replica console television from a newer set, maybe even something > with an LCD in it. I'd probably prefer an original though. brian You can try thrift stores although the ones out here in California tend not to take them anymore. You can also check with a TV repair place as they tend to get questions from people about what to do with their old sets.

14 years, 5 months

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test-drb February 2010