> From: js
> as a frequent buyer, it also highly annoys me when systems on eBay or
> Craiglist are found and rebroadcasted here. Now, my chance find has
> been made aware to a much wider audience, the competition shoots way
> up, and I have to pay more.
Since I'm one of the people who has been doing this (e.g. recent PDP-8
postings), I'd like to weigh in with a few thoughts on this topic.
To begin, as to the point that it's costing you more money, I'm afraid I
don't find that a big factor, for several reasons. First, as Mark Tapley
explained down-thread:
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2015-January/002533.html
>from the point of view of saving history, higher prices are better. If people
start to think of these older machines as possibly collectable items of some
value, they are less likely to toss them into the trash without further ado.
(Yes, yes, I know, not all old computers are worth saving - just like not all
old cars are, either. But unless you ask someone who knows, you don't know
whether your old junker is a clunker or a jewel in the rough.) Second, you're
only getting that item 'for cheap' because some other collector, to whom it
might be even more emotionally important, doesn't know of it.
I do have more sympathy with the point of view that says 'I spent a lot of
time trawling through eBay, etc listings looking for that one diamond in a
sea of pebbles; why should all my work be devalued by someone who just posts
the listing so everyone can get on board?' I have some sympathy for that take
(especially since I myself spend a fair amount of time looking through eBay
for PDP-11 stuff :-), but for me it's out-weighed by the 'hey, I have this
information, it's no use to me, I'd like to share it with people for whom it
might be highly useful'.
> Auctions are not collegial -- they're competitive, and since when is
> competition a negative?
I'm not sure of your point here (the second part seems to be at odds with the
first), but I will say that I think widely-attended auctions, starting at a
modest price, are desirable: they are the best way to set the _true_ value of
something.
Too many items on eBay have some incredibly high Buy-It-Now price, and they
sit forever, until someone really desperate buys it - which just encourages
other sellers to ask for un-realistic amounts. So I applaud the sellers who
put things up for real auctions.
Noel
In my further adventures in restoring a Compaq Portable, I have these
problems:
1) Missing brightness knob. Solution: I posted earlier about this. A few
people in #classiccmp think they may have one.
2) Capacitive disks under the keys are rotten. Solution:
http://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/sol_keys.html sounds good, except
I'll use 3M 77 spray.
3) I can't get the keyboard to respond at all. I tried touching the
capacitive pads with bare fingers, anti-static bag material, etc.
Nothing works. Solution: I don't know. I suspect the scan driver and/or
the sense amp chips may be bad. These are Exar 22-950-3B (sense driver)
and 22-908-93A (sense amp). Does anyone here know a decent source of
these and/or data sheets?
--
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?
I have this six-disc CD changer by Pioneer which I do not expect to
have further use for - or, more precisely, the chance of future use is
small enough I don't consider it worth the space it takes to store it.
It's a SCSI device. I hooked it up and it showed up as six drives at
ID 6, one at each LUN from 0 through 5, and accessing two of the drives
gave me the contents of the two discs I put in the magazine, so it
seems to work at least minimally. (IIRC there's a switch which
controls the ID.) The box trumpets it as "THE ONLY SIX-DISC
DOUBLE-SPEED CD-ROM CHANGER", which may give some idea of its age.
Here's what autoconfig printed for it:
probe(esp0:6:0): max sync rate 8.33Mb/s
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd0 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 0: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd1 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 1: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd2 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 2: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd3 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 3: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd4 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 4: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
scsipi_inqmatch: 2/5/1 <, , >
cd5 at scsibus0 targ 6 lun 5: <PIONEER, CD-ROM DRM-602X, 2902> SCSI2 5/cdrom removable
I have the box, interior packing foam, and one 6-disc magazine for it.
I don't think I have anything else that may have come with it (maybe a
rudimentary user's guide, not sure). The box has a sticker on it
saying it includes a "PC SCSI Interface" and "SIX EXCITING CD-ROM
TITLES"; none of those are actually present any longer.
It's in /earth/northamerica/canada/ontario/ottawa. The box is
moderately large, about 11 by 15 by 22 inches, and is somewhat beat-up
(scuffs, small tears) but basically intact. Free to a good home.
Pick-up preferred; I could probably wrap another layer of paper around
this and ship it, but the bother factor is high enough it would take
some persuading.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
There are still three months until VCF East (April 17-19), but we are
charging toward it at full steam!
What's going on at the show?
- There will be 16 technical classes on Friday.
- We're at 18 exhibits and counting (30-ish expected)
- We have four very special events planned: 1. Restored Straight-8 debut
(Friday lunchtime); 2. Ted Nelson lecture (Saturday morning); 3. Just
announced: Wes Clark lecture (Saturday night dinner -- very limited
tickets available); and 4. Bob Frankston lecture (Sunday morning).
Hi all --
Was given this machine today, it's a Scenic Comptuer Systems Corporation
Model One. It's a 68000 based machine with a custom (I assume) 44-pin
bus with two 8" dual-sided floppies and four serial ports. And it was
built right here in Seattle, WA :). The serial number on the CPU board
is 9, which makes me wonder how many of these were produced. I powered
it up after giving it an examination and I get a boot monitor prompt out
of it.
I can't find much information at all on this machine, a brief writeup in
an Infoworld magazine from '83 indicates that it was a UCSD Pascal
machine, but that's about all I know. Anyone have any info on this
thing? Better yet, anyone know of any surviving software? (Well, I can
dream...)
Thanks as always,
Josh
Anyone here interested in an HP 9836? One of the keys is broken off but
present. It boots up but reports some memory issue. I've had it for a long
time but don't have the time nor interest any more to work with it. Heavy
box so local pickup preferred but if you want to arrange and pay for
shipping we can try. Located in Houston TX.
David Williams
www.trailingedge.com
> From: Guy Sotomayor
> http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/Almost_moved.html
Doesn't work (for me) as a deep link; I had to go through:
http://www.shiresoft.com/new-shop/Shiresoft/New_Shop.html
first.
I have to say, you've probably made 99.9% of the list green with envy with
those photos... :-)
> I've shipped stuff with both "white glove" movers and just regular
> freight companies. ... It all depends upon what you're moving and how
> it's packed for shipping. If you don't have it packed/packaged, then
> "white glove" is the way to go especially if it's just "big stuff".
More importantly, I'm not sure the commercial people will _take_ stuff unless
it's on a pallet.
I originally tried to ship a group of DEC corporate cabinets (with stuff in
them - ~400 lbs per) via non-white-glove people. (I didn't care if things got
dinged a bit during shipping, and hey, it was on wheels, right? And although I
didn't have a loading dock, they said they could send a lift-gate truck, and I
was happy with kerb-side delivery.) Then they found out it wasn't on pallets,
and they wouldn't take it; I then had to switch to a white-glove firm.
And that's when I got the bad news - it cost twice as much, for the same
volume/weight. (They send a team, not just one driver.) So white-glove has a
major downside, IMO.
Noel
I am looking to test the power supply board of my VT101 before connecting it
all up and switching it on.
Reading to the Pocket Service Manual it seems to suggest that you can check
the outputs of the power supply board with the terminal controller board and
the video monitor board both disconnected. This would mean no load on the
power supply. Does this seem wise?
Regards
Rob
So, I've recently shipped an antique computer across-country (in the USA), and
for those who need to do this, I can point out the shipper (well, technically,
a broker - they work with a range of companies who actually do the work)
which/whom I used:
Shiphawk
805-335-2432
http://shiphawk.com
Having learned (with me :-) a number of lessons about the potholes and
pitfalls of shipping antique computers, they should be pretty well up to speed
if someone else needs to do some shipping of same.
Key point: shipping of largish things is much cheaper if the item is
palletized. There are two kinds of shippers: cargo/freight people (I forget
the exact term), who only deal in palletized things, and so-called 'white
glove' shippers, who will move anything (they usually do furniture, hence the
name). I know palletization's not cheap, but you'll probably save more in
shipping than you spend on the preparation.
Noel
