On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 12:20 PM, Alexandre Souza - Listas
<pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Want a sturdy computer? Buy an IBM machine. Ops, Lenovo :P
>>
>> Lenovo Thinkpad laptops sadly are sliding towards 'plastic crap' and
>> away from the 'solid built IBM quality' end of the scale.
I have 3 Lenovo laptops in my possession, a T61 (from a former
employer) a T420 (on-loan from a current customer) and a G550. They
have consumer-grade and commercial-grade lines, with the T-series
being the commercial-grade. The T420 still seems of excellent quality,
even when compared to the T60/T61-era machines, and the T43 (T60
precursor and last of the IBM-branded stuff.) It has been sad to see
them go from metal (magnesium?) casing to plastic over the years, but
IBM had already initiated that change, IIRC. Given the abuse I've put
my T61 through (weekly commutes from IND to YUL, IND to MSP, etc.) it
has my vote of being a solid laptop. I don't see the T420 (current
Lenovo) straying too far from that mark. Both my "T" systems run
Windows 7. The "G" system is running Windows 8 preview.
The G550 is another story. It's a consumer-grade system with a 16:9
screen and 1366x768 resolution. It's body is solid enough, but I've
managed to have my DVD-ROM drive bezel pop off and go MIA. I can use
it for browsing the internet, but not much else.
I have now confirmed that one of the mainframe guys has rescued the
IBM docs. Thanks all for offers of help. You may eventually be called
for duty again, as there is apparently a whole bunch of microfiche
there than needs to be rescued as well. I do not know the details, nor
the urgency.
--
Will
On Tue, Jul 3, 2012 at 4:19 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> At 11:40 AM -0700 7/3/12, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> I figure it's just a matter of a short time before the view held
>> among young-uns is that Steve Jobs invented the computer.
>
> But... But... He did!
And Paul McCartney is rumoured to have been in a band before "Wings".
-ethan
On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 8:52 PM, Camiel Vanderhoeven <iamcamiel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Guys,
>
> Today me and my brother (truck driving license, no interest in old
> iron) had the biggest haul of DEC stuff I ever had (ex-collector
> moving to a smaller apartment). I'm picking up a second load in a week
> or two. Pictures at
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/7816395 at N04/sets/72157630422540146/
I did a little first sorting today, and have the following to offer
for free to a good home (pickup in Wageningen, the Netherlands
only!!!)
- Bunch (15 or so) of BA350xx disk cabinets; some with personality
module, some without; some with disks, some without; some with skins,
some without. See this picture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7816395 at N04/7507055270/
- New-in-box US Robotics modem
- Complete VMS 4.4 documentation set (orange wall)
- Presumed complete VMS 7.1 documentation set (paperback)
- Complete RSX-11M 4.2 documentation set (orange wall)
Of the BA350's, I already have way too many. The manual sets are those
I already have.
Contact me off-list to arrange pickup. If these aren't gone before the
end of the month, they'll end up at the scrapper's (frankly, I don't
expect much interest in this).
Camiel.
The key point behind it is the price is well on the right side of the
price threshold between 'I'd like one but it's a bit too much' (about
40-50 GBP in my case) and 'That's cheap and looks good, I'll have one'
(about 25GBP in my case). That's an important factor and why demand is
so high (a little too high at the moment).
Also yep there's more cost for extras but they, as many pointed out,
are requisite for any board you buy, so a more expensive board shoves
the total price point up by the comparative amount. In this case cheap
means 'less than most other equivalents' not 'it's only 35 bucks!!'.
The third factor is that by the time I had mine all the files,
tutorials, etc. I meeded to get it going inside 2 hours were on hand.
Last time I bought a minature ARM dev board I paid a lit more and it
went back in the box after a couple of days because I couldn't find
the stuff I needed to get it going (it was a few years ago) Raspberry
Pi has been the dismetric opposite. Satisfyingly inexpensive, easy to
setup and use.
Now mine is running 24/7 pretending to be a VAX. The whole lot
including extras cost me less than 50 GBP. Mark me satisfied.
--
Mark Benson
http://markbenson.org/bloghttp://twitter.com/MDBenson
I figured I'd pay my last respects before these got chucked. Could be in better shape cosmetically (but, uh, everything about a monitor is cosmetic, no?), but they were working the last time I turned them on. I used to get big bucks for these bad boys. But their day has long come and gone :(. Damned LCDs!
Can someone point me to a source for replacement switch paddles for the
IMSAI 8080? Todd Fischer of imsai.net tells me that he has red ones, but
no blue ones left.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2012 11:07:27 -0500
From: Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Subject: Modern computers with docs (was: Re: PM 6100/60, was:
Powermac...)
Message-ID: <p0624080bcc18c0b8657a(a)[129.162.151.118]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 19:48 -0500 7/1/12, ARD wrote (more or less):
> >More seriously, can you name a present-day computer where the
> >manufactuers do supply schematics, data on ASICs, and the like?
>
Ummm, you want the transistor-level prints on a Core 2 Duo CPU?
290 million transistors! Really, if put on paper, it ought to
fill a large room.
The last machines I ever saw where schematics were available to the
end users were the VAX-11/780 and the uVAX-II. The 780 schematics
were as thick as a phone book and 11 x 17" pages. The uVAX-II
was a lot smaller, it was a hierarchical description, but gave a lot
of insight on how the processor and interface chips were organized.
Jon
Does anyone recall anything about the availability of (cross-)
assemblers for 1802 development back in their day?
Not that I need to find an original, I'm disassembling and 'reverse-
sourcing' the firmware (~700 bytes) for some equipment from 1977 with
an embedded 1802, and just idly assessing what the likelihood is that
it was produced with a machine assembler vs. hand-assembled.