Well, maybe not so off topic...
I have two things I'd like to ask about. First, I'll be replacing the
display for my main computer shortly. I'd like to get something larger than
20". I'm thinking an LCD wide format thingy. I'm considering getting a
"flat" television instead of a monitor. Most of them have DVI or VGA
connectors on them. But they also include component inputs, HDMI, and maybe
some other things that can ease connection to classic computers. A
composite RCA is a must. Can anyone suggest a TV model that that's
relatively fast (like < 8ms), and has a high enough resolution that would
also be good for the classic stuff? I'm thinking 1080p would be fine for a
windows desktop.
The next question pertains to console televisions. I'd like to find (much
to my wife's dismay) a console television like the one my parents had back
in the late 70s. I'd like to use it to play old video game consoles from
the 70s and 80s. I believe these were all vacuum tube sets though, is that
correct? 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. Then i could invite my mother over and
sit too close to the television for her.
brian
Hi,
A friend of mine gave me a GatorBox CS recently. It works nicely, but the
firmware version is 1.6.1. I tried to update it to 3.0.3 with the software at
http://alfter.us/files/gatorbox/gatorbox-cs/ but when it goes to reboot into
update mode it stops with the Ethernet LED on. The same thing happens when I
try to do a software reset. A power cycle gets it unlocked but it's no longer
in update mode. Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Alexis.
Hello,
We are located in the Raleigh, NC area and have a three
car garage with a single room above it. We are planning on converting
this to an apt for my son. The problem is it's full of stuff I've
collected since the early 80's. The collection is heavily slanted
towards early computers and electronics.
These pictures are of a
single room, just showing different views of the collection when it was
spread out prior to storing it into stacks.
eCollection
( http://www.flickr.com/photos/60147280 at N00/sets/72157622274120485/ )
My question is, does anyone know of someone local to the Raleigh area that could help us in the sale of this?
Regards,
WPW
On 2/19/10, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Yes, I have been using breadboards for more than 20 years and never
>> had a problem with them. Sure, you must not try to stick thick wires
>
> I must have been unlucky. I tried several of them in my younger days
> (Eurobreadboars, the CSC/GSC Protoboards, etc) and had no end of
> problems. In the end I started just soldering upo the circuits on
> stripboard, and my desigens started working first time.
I've done both. I've personally never had mechanical stability
problems with protoboards, but then I don't tend to wedge in 0.1"
header pins into my boards. I insert ICs, 1/4W resistors, various
capacitors, wires, crystals, LEDs and such, but rarely do I insert
header pins. I've always felt that they were "too large", even though
I know lots of people stuff them in there all the time.
> [1] The local pound shop (a similar concept to dollar stores) was selling
> a camping lamp with 24 white LEDs for a pound.
I'd buy that for a pound! (and repurpose it, as you have).
>> BTW, the article says it is an MC68008, so you did not need to count
>> 24 pins (on one side) :-)
>
> Oh, I didn't . I noticed it was a 0.6" wide package. The 68000 and 68010
> DIL packages are 0.9" wide.
Indeed. Quite distinctive.
>> The 68010 is pin compatible to the 68000, but if you are in OS stuff,
>
> Indeed. There is also a PGA version of the 68010, which is used in some
> HP machines IIRC there's a 68012 which had more addres mins bought out,
> but otherwise had the same PGA pinout
I have read about the 68012, but don't think I've seen one in the wild.
>> you have to modify some software if you are handling stack frames.
>> Those are not identical on the 68000 and 68010.
>
> IIRC, the 68010 pushes more onto the stack on an interrupt.
It does. The difference isn't onerous - at least starting with
AmigaDOS 1.2 if not 1.1 (not sure about 1.0), you could upgrade your
68000 to a 68010 for an approximate 5% effective speed "boost" - this
was entirely due to the one-instruction DBcc "loop-mode cache" in
random places in the OS and in applications. As long as your
applications didn't try to execute any "MOVE from SR" instructions
(http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/68010/), no changes were required. If
you _did_ have some apps that did that, there a trap handler for that
on, IIRC, an early Fish disk. It would catch the privilege exception,
grab the status/condition code value and return the value to the
trapping instruction.
One app that was used to tell if you had the patch applied was the
AmigaDOS 1.1 calculator. With AmigaDOS 1.2, the app made an OS call
to get the required value. The older app used a "forbidden
instruction" so it made a good test.
If you are rolling your own OS or writing embedded code, it's not
really that hard to determine what size of stack frame you'll have and
handle both. I was responsible for replacing 68000s with 68010s in
the final COMBOARD product (partially to take advantage of "loop mode"
when dumping buffers across the DMA interface, increasing the block
speed of the board with a $50 chip). I don't think the code changes
relating to the 68010 took me more than part of an afternoon to
implement.
It's good to remember that it's so, but rather easy to accomplish once
you are that deep in the code.
-ethan
uss Bartlett <arcbe2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Don't forget that the DO loop in Fortan has not the same effect as an iteration as the Do condition is performed at the end.? The DO component is therefore performed at least once.? An iteration must be able to be performed zero times.?? This was why in JSP it wasn't used.
It differs. What you describe is how it is in FORTRAN IV and older.
It was changed in FORTRAN 77, so that a DO loop can run zero number of
times as well.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
I'm going through some stuff my Aunt brought me last month, she's
apparently helping someone that was seriously into Commodore
computers clean out. In the pile is a Commodore 1520 Plotter. I had
one of these back in the 80's. Am I correct that there isn't any
source of pens any more? Of course I haven't even had time to see if
it works.
The real treasure is all the books. There are dozen's of books on
the VIC-20, C-64, and electronics (lots of Radio Shack books from the
70's and 80's, and other books). There are at least the first two
Compute Guide to the VIC-20 and the first 3 for the C-64! :-)
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Rob Jarrat wrote:
> If there were no interest in things that pre-dated our own lifetimes then
> there would not be any museums.
Of course, but that wasn't my point. My point is that I observe there
to be, in general, LESS interest in collecting items that predate our
own existence. For example, I know many more people who own classic
cars like Mustangs simply because they always wanted one while growing
up, or maybe had one... than those collectors who own Ford Model Ts.
You could make the argument that Mustangs are more readily available,
but that wouldn't be true. It's just that few if any those Mustang
owners have any interest in Model T's for any number of valid
reasons. So, I'm drawing a distinction between personal nostalgia and
emotional response, vs. collecting purely for historical enjoyment or
purposes.
Rob Jarrat wrote:
> The peculiar problem faced by computer
> history is perhaps the frenetic pace of computer development, which has
> meant that historically interesting computers are not generally recognised
> as such because they are still relatively recent and become obsolete so
> quickly that they are discarded far too readily.
Excellent point. Which leads to wonder if only the early computers --
when development moved slower and there were far fewer models in
existence -- will remain the collectible ones. I don't see any
computers in most of the 90's, and none at all from 2000 onwards that
I'd ever want to collect. Wonder how others feel? Will a Dell PC
ever be collectible? Are Apples the only ones that might stand a
chance? Are all computers now merely appliances with zero personality?
John Singleton
Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> On 2/25/10 12:56 PM, Richard wrote:
>
>> > Bottom line for me is that this looks like a 3rd party memory-mapped
>> > framebuffer
>
> I'm not convinced. There was no sign of it in the machine room.
There is nothing visible in the machine room for a graphic subsystem.
It's all in the Unibus box, with just a couple of cables coming out.
> I still think it is a raster terminal. The repaint speed is consistent
> with that.
I'd definitely say no to that. I was working at DEC in 1986. At that
time, the VT241 was the hottest thing DEC had, and it could do bitmapped
graphics. But let me tell you how long it took to just get a picture
uploaded on that terminal, and then we are talking much lower
resolution, and fewer bitplanes.
Admittedly, the DEC sixel graphics format wasn't the most efficient, but
you at least transferred 6 bits of graphic data for each byte, giving it
a 75% efficiency.
You would have had to wait almost forever to get a picture like in the
video over a serial line at 9600 bps, or even 19200. And once again, no
faster serial interfaces were available on a Unibus machine.
(Nor did any terminals appear to go that much faster either.)
Just make a small calculation. Let's assume a resolution of 640x480,
with just 8 bits per pixel. That would mean approximately 300Kbyte of
data to transfer. At 19200 bps, that would take 160 seconds to draw one
picture. (Assuming all bits were actual data, and no overhead.) Almost 3
minutes...
This is easy math, if people just try it. :-)
And I dare say, that picture have higher resolution, and more depth than
my simple calculation above used.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
I checked with a friend whose memory is better than mine.
A TRS-80 Model I can duplicate bootable Model III diskettes. The Model III disk controller cannot produce all the address marks the WDC 1771 can, so a Model III cannot duplicate a Model I diskette if the OS or bootcode is dependent on having those address marks present.
So, anyone with a Model I who has good copies of Model III OS disks should be able to help the poster.
I'd make several copies of each just to control for the age of the media and different drive alignment. Do one drive 0 to 1 and the other drive 1 to 0.
My system isn't setup yet, else I'd volunteer. Hopefully, I'll have it setup in a couple of weeks.
Al
