test-drb May 2010

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

189 participants
248 discussions

by elazzerini＠interfree.it

Hi, i correct the 2nd wrong url. Hi at all, today i begun to scan my issues. At this moment i done MICRO CORNUCOPIA No.14 Oct 1983 http://web.tiscali.it/enrico.lazzerini/MICRO_CORNUCOPIA_No.14_Oct_1983.pdf and MICRO CORNUCOPIA No.16 Feb 1984 http://web.tiscali.it/enrico.lazzerini/MICRO_CORNUCOPIA_No.16_Feb_1984.pdf Is out there who has issues from 1 to 11 and would scan some his issues??? I think this would be the only change we have to : - gain issues we not have - save this wonderful past and defunt magazine Regards Enrico

14 years, 1 month

RD53 Restoration

by ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk

> > I have posted before about an RD53 I am trying to get back to working order. > After unsticking the heads I thought I had a working disk as I have been > able to format it and do an image restore of the VMS installation media to > it. However, intermittently it has been failing. When this happens the heads > completely fail to move when I power on the disk, so the controller and > firmware cannot even determine its size. After a few moments the disk spins > down. As I said, this is intermittent, sometimes it will work OK. > > A friend has been helping me and he gave me a complete set of the three > boards in the RD53 from a known working disk (he can't give me the disk for I will pretend I didn't read that... > reasons not worth going into). I changed all three boards and the drive > still completely fails to move the heads, in fact now the fault seems > permanent. My friend suggested that the positioning coil may be faulty. He > measured the resistance of the coil on one of his working disks (at the plug > that goes to the coil from the motor control board), it came to 3 ohms, mine > also measured 3 ohms. I measured the voltage at the plug going to the coil, > one reads 2V the other 3V, but when it works they both go to about 5V. I assume you mean the voltage between the pins on the plug, that is the voltage across the coil. As I am sure you know, the positioner is simple in concept. It relies on the magnetic attraiction and replusion between the coil and a fixed permanent magnet. If there is current through the coil, there must be a force (I have never heard of a permanent magnet going intermittant!). You are applying a voltage to the voice coil. Is it the smae polarity in both cases (is it possible that you are trying to move the heads in the wrong direction)? I asusme you didn't plug the coil in backwards!). But even wih the voltage applied, are you sure there's a current? Could be be something as simple as a back contact at the connector? What about a hairline crack in the flexpriint to the coil? It may work OK when the ohmeter is conencted and fail in the operating posiiton (yes I have seen faults a senaky as that!). is there any form of head locking device? If so, is it being releaed? With the disk spinning (essential!), what happend if you 'blip' a DC supply across the posiitoned coil with the latter disconnected from the PCB? Do the heads move then? If you undo the board swap and go back to boards that you know worked on this drive, do you get it working properly sometimes? -tony

14 years, 1 month

RD53 Restoration

by robert.jarratt＠ntlworld.com

I have posted before about an RD53 I am trying to get back to working order. After unsticking the heads I thought I had a working disk as I have been able to format it and do an image restore of the VMS installation media to it. However, intermittently it has been failing. When this happens the heads completely fail to move when I power on the disk, so the controller and firmware cannot even determine its size. After a few moments the disk spins down. As I said, this is intermittent, sometimes it will work OK. A friend has been helping me and he gave me a complete set of the three boards in the RD53 from a known working disk (he can't give me the disk for reasons not worth going into). I changed all three boards and the drive still completely fails to move the heads, in fact now the fault seems permanent. My friend suggested that the positioning coil may be faulty. He measured the resistance of the coil on one of his working disks (at the plug that goes to the coil from the motor control board), it came to 3 ohms, mine also measured 3 ohms. I measured the voltage at the plug going to the coil, one reads 2V the other 3V, but when it works they both go to about 5V. Can anyone suggest what might be the problem? Thanks Rob

14 years, 1 month

offer: manual

by rtellason＠verizon.net

Anybody want an Epson RX-80 User's Manual before I toss it? Please contact me off-list... -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

14 years, 1 month

Anyone pick up the Manx ball yet?

by steve＠cosam.org

Towards the end of last year, the Manx documentation catalogue was pronounced dead by its maintainer and taken offline. Understandably, many pleas for a dump of the database followed, and this was subsequently made available. Thankfully the site was soon up again, although no longer maintained and apparently missing a few PDFs. Since then it seems to have gone quiet. Did anyone end up doing anything with the dump, or were all the requests for this simply to ensure that the raw data was preserved? Cheers, -- Steve Maddison http://www.cosam.org/

14 years, 1 month

Amiga 1000 helps win against patent troll...

by ken＠seefried.com

PJ writes an unabashedly fawning article highlighting the value of old computers and the classic computer community in the context of patent litigation, and predictably that community shits on her because she doesn't have a dedicated practitioner of obscure arts understanding of how 20 year old computers can be preserved. Somehow, I think a paralegal (hint: non-technical) in her (I think) 30s not steeped in computer history beyond the SCO case can be given a pass there, but clearly some of you, the predictable ones, have different ideas.

14 years, 1 month

VMware appliances

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I was curious to see if anyone mentioned VMware as an emulation environment on this list. The archives show a brief conversation about it in 2002 regarding whether it could run OS/2. I've been using it for a client's servers for the past few months and it is mind-blowing. Drag-and-drop, super-fast start and stop of entire virtual servers. One of VMware's demo appliances is a DOS environment running old games. Linux large and small is a common OS in appliances, too. With the free VMware Workstation version, you can easily click-click and be running a downloaded appliance. So why aren't we using VMware appliance images to exchange pre-made, pre-set environments for running emulated OSes? - John

14 years, 1 month

FFS or pickup: "almost complete" Aquarius set, Apple II drive, etc.

by spectre＠floodgap.com

I am at work thinning down the ranks for a possible move in a few weeks, so here are the first things that need to go: - An "almost complete" Mattel Aquarius system, the system of the 1970s from the 1980s. I rather enjoyed playing with this but it's a terribly limited machine and I had nowhere to keep it hooked up, so I regretfully must bid it farewell. Working when stored. Main unit, tape storage, thermal printer (this one is a bit iffy), mini-expander with controllers and 2x 16K RAM expansions. Also has (loose) Utopia, FinForm and FileForm (the pathetic attempt at productivity apps), and Night Stalker, and (boxed) Utopia, Tron Deadly Discs, Biorhythms (see, I said it was the System of the 1970s) and Night Stalker, and a complete unopened Logo language kit. I'm pretty sure I have the modem too, but I can't find it (I will ship it separately if I do). Has most of the manuals and all of the kitsch. I will not part this out. - Third-party Disk ][ clone (says "Fourth"). Two drives for connection to a standard disk controller card (not a UniDisk or floppy port connection). Working when stored. Pick it up from Inland Empire region, California; or cost of shipping. I'll consider shipping internationally, but USA requests get priority simply because it's easier and cheaper. These guys need to be gone one way or another by the end of the month. More likely to come. -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Consider the lilac. And while you're doing that, I'll go through your stuff.

14 years, 1 month

Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re: thebeginningof

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 13 May 2010, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 9 > Date: Thu, 13 May 2010 07:22:59 -0500 > From: John Foust <jfoust at threedee.com> > Subject: Re: Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re: > thebeginningof > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Message-ID: <201005131228.o4DCSXPC034526 at billY.EZWIND.NET> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > At 04:15 AM 5/13/2010, Roger Holmes wrote: >> To me a number is a number and that was b......t but the problem is US has a bit too much influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at the questions on the UK version of 'who wants to be a millionaire' where they asked what you would do with a 'brown betty' in a fairly low value question. > > Another phrase with a British meaning and a USAian meaning. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Betty > >> I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life but to me numbers are sacrosanct. Just because a single US journalist made a mistake in the 1930s should not make us all roll over and play dead on a matter of principal. > > Principal? Are we talking about money again, or values? There's a principle at stake! Ok so I make spelling mistakes. I meant principle not principal. English is a language generally defined by common usage not statute but if we allow that anyone can redefine some number, any number to mean something different we are on a very slippery slope leading to mayhem. Just because the numbers are ones which few people used back in the 1930 does not mean that nobody used them, otherwise they would not have existed. We now have the ludicrous situation that we have to consider when a number was used, which side of the atlantic it was said, whether it refers to monetary units or some other meaning and carry round a table in our heads of so if I read a scientific american book written in say 1920 which refers to so many billion atoms then I know it is 10^12 but a similar book written twenty years later would be 10^9 and if it was written in the UK in 1940 it meant 10^12 but if I read something written in 2000 by a BBC economic journalist about dollars or pounds or euros it means 10^9 but if the same journalist wrote about the price of a billion grammes of water he would mean 10^12 according to the BBC rules. The principle is that numbers are not context sensitive. Roger.

14 years, 1 month

Lisa C and Lisa FORTRAN

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 9 May 2010, at 00:02, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 28 > Date: Sat, 8 May 2010 15:12:25 +0100 > From: "Andrew Burton" <aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk> > Subject: Re: Lisa C and Lisa FORTRAN > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <013701caef02$62da30c0$87fdf93e at user8459cef6fa> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 11:08 PM > Subject: RE: Lisa C and Lisa FORTRAN > > >> >> I taught beginning FORTRAN in the 1980s at Merritt College (community >> college), and would not mind doing it again, if we could get a quorum for >> the classes. >> COBOL is gone from our curriculum :-( >> RPG is gone from our curriculum :-) >> FORTRAN is gone from our curriculum :-( >> APL is gone from our curriculum :-( >> BASIC is gone from our curriculum :-( >> The administration has cancelled C >> The administration has cancelled C# >> The administration has cancelled ASM >> We are down to "Using Microsoft Office", "VISUAL BASIC", >> and C++ (slated for cancellation soon) >> >> The CIS departments are circling the drain. >> > > That sucks. Indeed. > I am *so* glad I never went on to further education after > secondary school. I have learnt more on my own (thanks to books, people on > this list and retro computers) than I ever would have in *modern courses*. A > piece of paper doesn't make me a good coder, good software written by me > does. Fair enough but I am glad that I took a computer science degree (1971-74), though I must say that some of the people on my course who got better grade degrees used to come to me for advice when their programs did not work. There is now a degrading of the term programming to include entering data on things like an on board computer of a car to configuring spreadsheets and designing web pages. > How can BASIC not be taught? Every computer has it's own version of BASIC, Sorry I have to disagree there. There are MANY computers including modern ones which do not support BASIC. If you restrict it to modern desktop and laptop machines then you are probably correct but you are ignoring many pre 1980 machines and nearly all the embedded computers like PIC chips. A better choice would be C with the 1999 extensions. C++ is a good language but probably not for beginners as it is to easy to write opaque programs which beginners seem to think are good code because they are clever. As I hope all here would agree, a good program is the simplest you can write to do the required task, and that will mean it is easy to maintain (given adequate variable/function/method names and comments for the concepts you woke up with in the middle of the night). Or Pascal. I think almost any block structured language is better for beginners than Basic. > whereas (as I understand it) Visual Basic is only available for modern > computers.

14 years, 1 month

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test-drb May 2010