test-drb August 2011

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

143 participants
153 discussions

by wdonzelli＠gmail.com

> I also don't agree that modern software systems are in a better state to > be preserved. In the 'old days' you could get a shrink-wrapped package that > was the entire deal, docs, and media. Today, it's a blob that comes off the > web and gets patched very frequently, as well as potentially being tied to > the mother-ship to be functional. There are dozens (hundreds?) of products > now that are devices that were tethered to dead back-end services > (Danger Sidekick). How do you even start to preserve this? What is being done to preserve the online gaming scene? For example, one of these days WoW is going to go away. The cultural aspect of a game like this is pretty huge. There are other online games that are probably already gone. How will the archivists handle these? -- Will

12 years, 8 months

Dec RSX Login

by g-wright＠att.net

I Have a 11-24 here running RSX. The guy I got it from does not recall the login Name or account. Just remembers there was no password. Is there standard accounts set up when the system is loaded ?? or a way to hack into it. Boots saying " RSX-11M V4.0 BL32" Thanks, Jerry

12 years, 8 months

Rice R1

by rdawson16＠hotmail.com

An early vacuum tube computer, Houston Texas: http://www.cs.rice.edu/History/R1/ I have been close to a piece of this; about the form factor of the 2001 monolith, 9 feet tall, 5 feet wide, foot thick. Plexiglas and all the construction, tubes very neatly wired. It floated around town for a bit, it served as a coffee table at Autocad for a number of years and we all spilled a few beers on it during after hours CAD conversations... It was picked up by a friend and a conversation piece in his garage. This we guessed was just one register, there were perhaps 20 or so of these likewise panels in the original. When in Houston, drop by, it is now in a proper place, Rice Library in the Woodson Research Center.

12 years, 8 months

what's that watermelon doing there?

by jeffj＠panix.com

>> What do watermelons have to do with Buckaroo Banzai? > During a chase scene, the camera pans past a watermelon in a large > hydraulic press. Jeff Goldblum's character asks "why is there a > watermelon there?" The response is simply, "I'll tell you later", > and that's the end of it. Jeff (and the audience) never find out. Somewhere I heard the answer: the Banzai Institute was working on watermelons with a rind tough enough to withstand air drops. But the need for them went away before they were perfected. Or perhaps they were too much rind, not enough fruit inside.

12 years, 8 months

What Your Old Graphing Calculator Says About Technology

by stephane.tsacas＠gmail.com

An interesting article : http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-your-old-graphin… -- Stephane http://kiva.org/invitedto/kathleen/by/stephanefr

12 years, 8 months

Steve Jobs

by evan＠snarc.net

Now is a good time for a Steve Jobs thread. What do you guys think --- how will his resignation impact Apple? PS - TMZ.com posted photos of him allegedly taken in the past few days. I urge everyone to NOT link to the pictures as they show a morbidly ill person. Anybody who really wants to see can go look manually.

12 years, 8 months

WANTED: More regional collectors

by innfoclassics＠gmail.com

>> Send me your name, email, and what you collect, and I'll try to get you >> some good stuff (some people got some REALLY good stuff). I have replied by private email to Steven but felt I should mention to the list I have experience in shipping and moving computers up to and including IBM mainframes. I am a retired secondary market computer dealer from Portland Oregon in the 1990s. I am available to help move and ship computers and peripherals to anywhere in the world (they can legally be shipped). I specialize in packing for survival including terminals. I collect Intel Multibus 1, Tektronix, Xerox, CPM & MPM, Apple, some DEC, HP calculators/computers and more. Would love to set up a museum or some way to display my collection. Have helped fill many a collection around the world. Paxton -- Paxton Hoag Astoria, OR USA

12 years, 8 months

Printing replacement Alps plotter motor pinion gears

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 1:45 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >> > ... one of those Alps 4-pen plottre mechanisms. Unfortunately, >> > as wityh many such plotters, the motor pinion gears have split with time, >> > so it's not useable at the momnet, I should have a go at cutting soem >> > replacements... >> >> ? ?Sounds like it's RepRap time.. > > Assuming that's one of those '3D printers'. I doubt it has the resolution > to make something like this. It does not (as I mentioned in my previous message that you might not have seen), *but* I may have an alternative method to use this technology. > The pinions are about 3mm overall diameter Yes. > and have perhaps 10 or 12 leaves (teeth to the rest of you ;-)) Something like that, yes. I don't recall the precise number and can't find the previous discussion threads that have happened on this list over the years. I realize that to a trained machinist with the right tools, cutting gears is just another day on the job. I am very much a novice when it comes to lathes and mills. To me, cutting a gear that's 3mm across the face is a serious challenge. It's also time consuming - paying someone else to do it starts to get rather expensive (at two pinion gears per mech). The size is a bit on the small side, but it may be possible to order printed gears made from sintered metal from Shapeways. Their requirements are that all dimensions be 2.5mm or larger. This gear barely qualifies. If someone just happens to have an STL-format file of this gear, that'd be terrific, but if not, if one has a 2D image of the face of the gear, OpenSCAD or, now, the Shapeways website itself, can easily extrude a flat outline to a 3D version of the silhouette. One such tool for generating (self-described low precision) gear patterns is here: http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html ... and I'm sure there are many others. Shapeways charges by the cubic centimeter of material used. There's not much volume in a 3mm-diameter gear with a 1.3mm-diameter hole in it - my first estimate is under 20 mm^3 (a cube 3mm on a side is 27 mm^3 after all). You could fit 27 gears in 1cc with lots of room to spare, and 1cc of Shapeways "stainless" bills at $10 with no apparent setup fees for standard finishes. I haven't handled any of Shapeways' metal products, but I'm imagining a surface smoothness based on the grain size and the laser focal point diameter and the stepper resolution, but until clarified, I'd consider 300dpi to be a starting point for estimation purposes. One can do some shaping and smoothing work after the printing process, naturally, but the less of that required, the better. So is there anyone here who has the CAD skills to draw a gear, or at least sufficient skills as a machinist to completely and adequately describe the critical parameters for someone else to work from? I think it could be inexpensive to do a run of a handful of gears through Shapeways. Because of the strictly functional nature of the part, there should be no worries of trademark or other IP infringement, to head that discussion off. I can bang out something that's close, but I don't believe I have the skills to evaluate if my attempts would be close enough (specifically something that's going to fit on the motor shaft and not chew up the next gear in the train). Is there anyone here willing to draft a gear profile or at least parametrically describe the gear in terms suitable for reproduction? If so, I can see about taking that beginning to the next stage. -ethan

12 years, 8 months

S-100 6502 CPU board prototype

by lynchaj＠yahoo.com

Hi, at the N8VEM project we were working on an S-100 6502 CPU board. It was built as a wire wrapped prototype and the design has been shown to work. Since then, we've designed a PCB and have some prototype boards. Most of those have already been sent to builders. However due to some injuries and other unfortunate events, those projects are on hold indefinitely. I still have one S-100 6502 CPU prototype board left. I have high confidence in this design that it will boot with little or no modifications. If we could get a volunteer to build and test this board, then I could get additional PCBs for other S-100 builders. However, without some knowledge of whether the actual PCB really works, I am hesitant to release it quite yet. If you are an experienced builder, familiar with S-100, and would like to volunteer to build and test this prototype PCB, I will send it to you at no charge. All we really need for confirmation is that the S-100 6502 CPU board can boot with a basic monitor ROM. There is some sample code available for a notional S-100 6502 CPU board boot ROM. Basically, this project is stalled at its very last step and I would like someone to volunteer to build and test the prototype for confirmation of the design. Certainly this is not for everyone but if you would be willing to help out I would greatly appreciate it. Please contact me by email. Thanks and have a nice day! Andrew Lynch

12 years, 8 months

Getting a Sun Ultra 5 To Work

by jonas＠otter.se

On 2011-08-26 19:00, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: >>> > > I think the contents would be disappointing, and prob'ly not worth >>> > > breaking them open. They are glued. I could prob'ly cut the glue joint >>> > > and pry one open, but it would be much more fun to use a LARGE mallet ot >>> > > open it. > On Thu, 25 Aug 2011, Tony Duell wrote: >> > I preFer to open things up in the least destructive way possible. Often > That depends on the thing, and whether re-assembly is to be considered. > Unlike ARD, some of us sometimes feel that the greatest value that some > things have may be as a recipient of mindless brutal violence. (even > though neither SC817 bears any resemblance to a college administrator) > >> > the reason for opening some is at least to investigate the internals, if >> > not repair them, so the less damage done the batter. Hitting it with a >> > mallet/hammer could break an intenral PCB (if there is one) making >> > tracing tracks a lot harder... > Well, the largest mallet that I have handy is only 4 pounds, so I'm going > to mail it to Poughkeepsie, instead. THAT might subject it to enough > impact(s) to open it. If not, then somebody else can maturely and > carefully unseal it. Hit it with a college administrator? ;-) /Jonas

12 years, 8 months

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test-drb August 2011