test-drb April 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

172 participants
242 discussions

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

A more broad summary than the arstechnica one (which seems to harp on some points that I'm sure make sense to the arstechnica author but make no sense at all to me!) is in The Register: http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2010/03/26/ibm_turbohercules_response/prin… and on the patent issue: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/ibm_hercules_project_patents/ A factoid I ignored or never knew until now: the 1956 consent decree's applicability seems to have expired in 2001 for IBM mainframe stuff. Wow. This is, for me, like finding out that Captain Kirk was engaged in a battle of wits with Opie's little brother. (I'm not making it up, it's true! Look up the cast for The Corbomite Maneuver.) Tim.

14 years, 1 month

seeking PDP-11/93 CABKIT for BA23, swap or sell MicroVAX BA23 parts, and SBOX CQD223A/TM

by nigel.d.williams＠gmail.com

More details and pictures here: www.retrocomputingtasmania.com/members/nw-retrocomputingtasmania-com/pdp-11… If anyone knows the part numbers for the KDJ11 CABKIT or front/rear plastic panels for the BA23 that would help me contact suppliers. My aim is to run RSTS/E v10 on this machine so I am open to suggestions for the simplest path to this goal. I have a SBOX CQD223A/TM SCSI card which I would be willing to swap or sell for the QBUS variant or some other manageable RSTS/E compatible storage device. cheers, nigel. www.retroComputingTasmania.com

14 years, 1 month

Masscomp still available for rescue

by shawn.t.rutledge＠gmail.com

I finally put up pics: http://ecloud.org/pics/Masscomp/ and got around to powering it up to see what would happen. I saw an amber power light, a quick blink on the green "run" light, the fans work, and the hard disk spins up, but I didn't see any output on the serial port which I thought should've been the console. Supposed to be a 68k-based Unix box. Apparently these were known for graphics, but I don't see anything looking like video output (other than a coverplate with video signals labeled) so maybe that's missing from this one. Manuals, disks and a tape will be included. Anyway... if anyone wants it, it's free for pickup in Phoenix, AZ, and if not, it's going to get scrapped pretty soon. My wife's been nagging me to get it off the patio (clean, dry patio, out of the weather) for years, and now there is a good chance we might be moving.

14 years, 1 month

eBay disaster

by shoppa＠trailing-edge.com

> could someone please explain me THIS? > http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190385486840 I myself have put up something for sale that I was sure was "dear" and "valuable" and "rare", and it got no bids at all. Obviously the rest of the world didn't agree. Certainly telling the whole broad world that what you have is rarer then hen's teeth and ultra-desirable is a common ploy, so common that it means little. I'm guessing that the people who use RK05 packs have metric buttloads of them and don't need anymore, new or not. Certainly that describes the existing RK05 users I know of. Tim.

14 years, 1 month

Reading ancient paper digital media (was Re: Hamurabi Focal source)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On 3/31/10, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: > OK... I was worried for a moment that somebdy had tried to archive paper > tapes by scanning them a foot at a time on a flatbed scanner or something > equally daft I did that exact thing with punched cards as an experiment. I did not (and still don't) have a punched card reader, but I have a correspondence course in "Data Processing" I picked up at a thrift store that came complete with blank coding forms and punch cards as teaching aids for the homework. I put the punchcard in a flatbed scanner with the unprinted side down (the "back" side) with a dark backing sheet to contrast the holes. I scanned it to a TIFF then converted it to a GIF and used Tom Boutell's GD library to import it into a C application that did some simple image transformations (edge detection, etc). I didn't complete the code to the point of converting spots to bits, but I did scale and locate the card in the scan area and was on the verge of writing the code to check for holes when I got distracted and set it aside. Making an 8 or 9 channel papertape reader from scratch is not an impossible exercise (witness the ancient Byte article referenced here every so often). Making a punchcard reader from scratch is a very different level of effort, so back then I figured that it'd be easier to use a flatbed scanner than try to make a 12-level reader and mechanical feed system on my own. These days, though, with inexpensive fabrication tools (access to laser cutters, home CNCs, Makerbots, etc) it might _not_ be as hard to make a punchcard reader >from scratch as it was 10 years ago. -ethan

14 years, 1 month

eBay disaster

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

> From: Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> > Subject: eBay disaster > > What did I do wrong? Maybe you didn't use the right words in the title line. My ebay search terms do not include 'beyond', 'rare' or 'new', they are fine for the main description but the title is too precious for them. The words 'computer' and either 'classic' or 'old' or even 'vintage' for instance would have been more useful. Some ebayers might even have an exclusion for new items by using -new. I wish ebay would divide computers into decades or generations, I find it useless using eBay categories or I end looking through 90s, 80s and for me even 70s stuff for hours looking for probably just one computer item from the early 1960s, often none at all. Roger Holmes (owner of a 1962 mainframe)

14 years, 1 month

Anyone have an image of a Japanese PET chrgen ROM 901447-12?

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 18:18:33 -0400 From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Anyone have an image of a Japanese PET chrgen ROM 901447-12? On 4/5/10, M H Stein <dm561 at torfree.net> wrote: > ----------------Original Message: > > Date: Mon, 5 Apr 2010 02:13:20 -0400 > From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> > Subject: Anyone have an image of a Japanese PET chrgen ROM 901447-12? > It would certainly be nice to find the 'official' ROM, but I thought that > the ROM that Philip (the owner of that PET on your bench) created > was pretty well complete and correct; it seems to match my Japanese > keyboard perfectly except for one character, and I suspect it's the key > that's wrong and not the CG. Why would the key be wrong? *MS: What I meant was that one of my keys might have been replaced; the picture of the chiclet keyboard has a Yen symbol, the normal graphic symbol and a Japanese character where the \ key usually is, whereas my keyboard just has the normal \ and graphic symbol. --- > Did you try that image and match it up to your Japanese chiclet > keyboard? I have not. If you could send me a copy of it off-list, that would be appreciated. I don't seem to have it in the place I store such things (though I do remember the conversation). *MS: I'll send you the binaries, character charts and pics of the keyboard off-list. --- > I've been playing with the idea of having all three (four?) character sets > available on screen at the same time, using the reverse video signal. How would that work? Obviously, you'd use some new means of toggling upper bits on the CHRGEN ROM, but I don't get how the reverse video signal would be the trigger... the upper bit on a PET character cell inverts the data out of the bit shifter (unlike the C-64 where it's just another address bit). I can see how you could steal that upper bit and pipe it into A11 on a larger CHRGEN ROM, but how do you get 3 or 4 sets from one bit? *MS: As you know, PETS have two mutually exclusive sets, upper/lower case or upper case/graphics; when you install the Japanese characters you have to give up at least one of those half-sets and you can't for example have Japanese characters and upper/lower Roman characters on the same screen, not to mention graphics. I haven't looked at the older PETs to see if/how it might be feasible, but the newer ones with a CRT controller have provision for selecting an alternate character set with one of the unused address lines, so I thought it might be easily possible to use that somehow, perhaps even connecting it to the reverse video signal so that the RVS on/off key would select the alternate set on an individual character basis and allow mixing (e.g.) Japanese, upper, lower and graphics characters, all on the same screen instead of switching the mode of the whole screen with the text/graphic poke. mike

14 years, 1 month

eBay disaster

by marvin＠west.net

Did you do any market research before listing? I have no idea what a new disk pack would be worth, but obviously not a lot to the people who buy on ebay. In checking past US auctions for the past 90 days, there were only five listings and the highest price paid was about $15.00. On top of that, each auction had very few buyers; that tells me NOT to start the listing at one Euro. But the 15 Euros or so you got was still higher than anything sold here in the US. What did you expect (hope) it to sell for? > could someone please explain me THIS? > http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190385486840 > > What did I do wrong? > > Regards, > > Philipp

14 years, 1 month

*free* NEC APC in Schenectady, NY

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Julie writes to me: --------------------------------------------------------- "I have *three* NEC APC's: two mono, one color. There are manuals and operating system diskettes." jhorn5555 at yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------- Contact her to get your very own NEC APC computer. They have freaky-cool 8-inch floppy drives.

14 years, 1 month

Some original "IBM" software - $5 each

by tosteve＠yahoo.com

Gene wrote to me: Contact Gene below if interested: ---------------------------------------------------- "I have a bunch of very old IBM software in original boxes that I would like to find a home for. I hate to throw them way when I know there must be those who would love to acquire them. $5 each + shipping. Ami Pro, Writing Assistant, Professional Write, Professional File, Professional Plan, QA3, Word Perfect and more Contact Gene at: ygehrich at yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------

14 years, 1 month

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test-drb April 2010