>Message: 20
>Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 20:36:52 +0100 (BST)
>From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
>
>I remember an article in Byte about soemthing a bit like this. The word
>'Travesty' is coming to mind, but I am not sure why. But I thought that
>only took one input file and amy a piece of 'similar' text from it.
>
>-tony
Byte, V9 No12, November 1984.
Also at http://www.scribd.com/doc/99613420/Travesty-in-Byte
Bob
> > Is there anybody in the San Francisco Bay Area that could create images of
> > three 5.25" floppies for me? I think that they are 720k with 256 byte
> > sectors, but I'm not sure. In any case, I've not been able to read them so
> > far.
>
> 1) Do you know what computer created them?
>
> 2) FM? MFM? GCR? (Sirius/Victor 9000?)
>
> 3) What have you triesd so far?
> What messages do you get?
> The difference between "General Failure" and "Sector Not Found" IS
> significant.
I believe that they were created on an OS-9 68000 (the Microware, not
the Apple variety). I don't have the computer any more, just the
floppies. I tried to image them. If they are what I expect them to be,
then they would be 720k MFM. I've tried to read them with a 1.2M 5.25
drive, using fdutils, on a LINUX box, but I'm not sure that I've got
my drive strapped to spin at the correct RPM. In any case, fdutils
reports an error 40. I'm not sure that the hardware I'm using will
even talk to a 720k floppy.
> From: Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org>
> So, what drives actually need to be 'parked'? My understanding was that if
> you de-energize the spindle motor and the voice coil that positions the
> heads and the same time, the heads will have plenty of time to retract and
> lock before the platters slow down enough for the heads to land. Was it
> only needed on drives that used stepper motors for head positioning?
> Either way, in what technology generation and/or time frame did the
> requirement go away?
>
Most drives today either have springs, aerodynamic forcers (wings) or
extract
energy from the spindle motor to send the heads to the park position.
Still, landing the heads on the platters is a lot harder on them that
lifting the
heads like in the "old days". I've seen plenty of drives where the
heads were
WELDED to the platters by old head lube that had either degraded over
time or
spread from the landing zone to the rest of the platter. Not sure if
they are
still using that landing zone lube or not.
Anyway, all drives that are supposed to be parked can be assumed to handle
it autonomously when power is removed, for nearly the last 20 years.
Jon
________________________________
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org on behalf of Tony Duell
Sent: Fri 9/7/2012 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: DECwriter II LA36 being given away
>> I'm looking for a couple of keys for mine, If you end up parting it out, c=
>> ould I get the R and X keys from it?
>I would rather a complete machine was not parted out, not even an LA36 :-)
>
>Somewhere I have a lot of LA36 bits. I probably have a keyboard PCBm adn
>could remove keycaps if you cna't get them any other waye. Aren't they
>the same as VT100 keycpas? The keyboard is much the same design.
I agree, and would not wish him to part one out. However, if the alternative is that he's going to send it to the scrapper....
Also, I don't believe the key caps are the same as the VT-100. If you get a chance, and have a spare KBD assembly, I'd be interested!
Gary
The DECWriter II has been picked up. Thanks to all who replied.
There were 5 replies which makes me glad I saved it from being
thrown away.
Thanks,
Corey.
Curious what causes a several day delay in mail getting out of
classicmp.org? I typically see people's replies to postings other have
made a day or more before I see the original posting. Postings about
gear for sale or trade show up long after the gear is gone. What causes
the bottleneck? How do some people see postings and are able to reply
to them while some of us incur the delay?
One example,
Received: from huey.classiccmp.org (huey.classiccmp.org [209.145.140.19]) by
azure.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71DCC40A3E8; Mon, 10 Sep 2012
08:59:51 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from huey.classiccmp.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by
huey.classiccmp.org (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q8ACxGmi065486; Mon,
10 Sep 2012 07:59:16 -0500 (CDT) (envelope-from
cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org)
Received: from billy.ezwind.net (host-209-145-140-29.ezwind.net
[209.145.140.29] (may be forged)) by huey.classiccmp.org
(8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q88MpUSX042100 for
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>; Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:51:30 -0500 (CDT)
(envelope-from
mc68010 at gmail.com)
Received: from mail-pz0-f51.google.com (mail-pz0-f51.google.com
[209.85.210.51]) by billy.ezwind.net (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id
q88MpNgW039919 for <cctalk at classiccmp.org>; Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:51:29
-0500 (CDT) (envelope-from mc68010 at gmail.com)
Received: by dajt11 with SMTP id t11so765659daj.38 for <cctalk at classiccmp.org>;
Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:51:23 -0700 (PDT)
The mail was received at huey.classiccmp.org on
Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:51:30 -0500 (CDT)
but then didn't move to the next step at huey until
Mon, 10 Sep 2012 07:59:16 -0500 (CDT)
Not intending to bash anyone or anything here-- just wanting to understand
the issue.
Chris
--
Chris Elmquist
Hello everybody,
did some cleaning this weekend and it turned out that I had some duplicates of CDS Trident Series disk drive binders.
Contact me, if you're interested in them, I give them away. For pick-up or I can send them, if you pay the shipping costs. I'm located in Germany.
documents list:
76200-202 : Models T200 & T300: Installation & Operation
76200-400?: Models T200 & T300: Field Parts Catalog
76205-005 Rev3?: Models T25, T50, T80 Field Parts Catalog
76203-101 Rev1: Model T2000B: Exerciser Technical Manual
Model T80 :schematics & logic, book 1/2
Model T300 :complete schematics & logic (twice of this one are available)
Please contact me off-list.
Kind regards,
Pierre
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pierre's collection of classic computers : http://classic-computing.dyndns.org/?
Here's a puzzler.
One of the two memory boards from my PDP-11/35 is short four ICs. See:
http://www.loomcom.com/projects/pdp11-35/ms11_j.jpg
It looks like it was an 8KW board that was user-expanded to 16KW, and if
I'm reading the switches correctly it was configured for starting
address 000000. (The other 16KW board I have is configured to start at
address 100000)
Those four missing ICs seem weird, though. The other board is is fully
populated. Were they just pulled before the PDP was trashed? Or is that
a valid configuration?
-Seth
