On Tue, 10/23/18, Paul Berger via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> This is my issue with a lot of Linux distros they seem to try to hard to
> look and work like mac or like windows while I would rather have them
> look and work like the xwindows I knew and loved.? One of my biggest
> aggravations is cut and paste I would very much rather it worked more
> like it used to on X.
Amen Brother!
I mostly use rio (based on the same named windowing
system on Plan 9) for my window manager so at least
I get to avoid the dancing frogs. But back in the '80s
we were using a much nicer approach to cut-and-paste
on X than the commercial guys ever managed.
Time to take my cane back inside now that I've finished
yelling at the kiddies to get off my lawn.
BLS
I would be interested in any Rolm items you might have. (no promises.)
Thanks,
Peter VP
|| | | | | | | | |
Peter Van Peborgh
62 St Mary's Rise
Writhlington Radstock
Somerset BA3 3PD
UK
01761 439 234
|| | | | | | | | |
I just rescued? a? DG S-130 from a scrapper.?? The rack was being pulled out of a trailer with a
Excavator.? So the nice rack and the? hard drive where crushed.? The S-130 seems to be repairable, with? mostly sheet metal damage. The? front panels where both crushed. I would guess these are hard to come by? ??? but I thought I would at least ask if anyone had a spare they would part with.
I'm guessing its a S-130? by the blue and white front panel and switches. The upper front panel
which has the Model number is missing. Not sure? how to read the? Label on the back. It? has 8461 after the model.
Thanks, Jerry
[ Accidentally only sent to Eric originally ]
On Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 3:41 PM Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 01:46 Jim Manley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>> The Softcard was a Z-80 based single-board
>> computer
>
>
> It wasn't. It was only a processor card.
>
Eric,
I'm going to stand by my assertion that the Softcard was a single-board
computer on the technicality that it did have its own RAM - you apparently
forget that registers are a form of RAM - HA! They're memory, they're
addressed over a bus (that just happens to be within the microprocessor),
and you can directly access any register at any time (random access). As
for I/O, that's what the Apple ][ bus was for, right? As Opus from Bloom
County, among other comic characters, was known to utter,
"PBBBBBBTTTTTT!!! ?
Microsoft did offer a RAM expansion board specifically to allow the
Softcard to access 64K of RAM dedicated to CP/M, and the Premium Softcard
//e provided on-board RAM to CP/M for the Apple //e, as you noted. All
models of the Softcard could output 80 x 24 text, not only through
third-party cards, but Apple's own 64K RAM and 80 x 24 video combo card,
which was often offered in packages, especially through dealers that
supported business customers (that's how my system came delivered). The
"etc." I mentioned was the functionality provided through the glueware
logic on the Softcard that enabled RAM and 80 x 24 text output, as well as
other I/O over the Apple ][ slots bus.
When I was in the Navy, our ship called at HMS Tamar in Hong Kong, and I
followed verbal directions (26 stops on the then-new subway under the
harbor into the New Territories) to the basement level of a shopping
center. There, I found clones of everything from Apple ][s and //es to
every expansion board and peripheral available in the early 1980s,
including both the original Softcard and the Premium Softcard //e.
Everything came complete with the floppy disks and every page of the
documentation, not just photocopied, but professionally typeset and
offset-printed.
In your missing-the-forest-for-the-trees response, you completely missed
the point of my post - that the Softcard was an extremely important early
product for Microsoft, the critical connection between the Softcard and the
QDOS prototype for x86 MS/PC-DOS, through Seattle Computer Products, and
that the number of CP/M licenses was much larger on Apple computers than
S-100 systems.
For those that cited the Amstrad systems, I was referring to the S-100 and
Softcard timeframe. CP/M was only provided with the Amstrad CPC664 and
6128 floppy-disk based models, and the DDI-1 disk expansion unit for the
464 (only CP/M 2.2 with the 664, and 2.2 and 3.1 with the 6128). The
Amstrads came along four years after the Softcard was introduced, and three
years after the release of the IBM PC. By that time, Digital Research's
influence had faded into insignificance, despite the full release of
CP/M-86 within six months of the IBM PC's debut (albeit at six times the
price of MS/PC-DOS). I do know that CP/M was used in European banking
systems well into the late 1990s, mostly because it wasn't broken and
didn't need to be "fixed". It probably would have remained in use well
past 1999 if it weren't for Y2K's impetus for massive upgrades to current
technology for 2000 and beyond.
All the Best,
Jim
On Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 3:41 PM Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 01:46 Jim Manley via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> wrote:
>
>> The Softcard was a Z-80 based single-board
>> computer
>
>
> It wasn't. It was only a processor card.
>
> that plugged into an Apple ][ slot, equipped with its own
>> 80x24 character x line black-and-white video output,
>
>
> No version of the Softcard had it's own video output. It used normal Apple
> video output. If you wanted 80x24, you had to use a separate third-party
> 80-column card, or (later) and Apple IIe, IIc, IIc+, or IIgs.
>
> RAM, etc.,
>>
>
> I'm not sure what you're referring to by "etc.", but the vast majority of
> Softcards and their clones did not have their own RAM, and used that of the
> Apple II.
>
> The PCPI Applicard and it's clones had their own RAM. Some very late
> models of the Softcard had their own RAM.
>
>
Hi Eric,
My name is Tom Hollowell. I took the US support of Rolm in 1998. PWA assumed the international. I noticed that you have some ROLM hardware. I may be interested in finding out what you have.
Let me know,
Thanks,
Tom
Sent from my iPhone
I received this message this morning, if someone in Germany would like a data book collection
"The computer club at the RWTH Aachen University has to move from a larger collection of semiconductor data books. These
are 2..3 steel cabinets full of data books of various manufacturers, for which there is no more space in the new
premises. I have seen your website and that you are dealing with the archiving / digitization of such books. Would you
be interested in taking over this data book inventory? You would otherwise have to go to the waste paper ..."
--
From: Alfred Arnold <alfred at ccac.rwth-aachen.de>
Guten Tag,
der Computerclub an der RWTH Aachen mu? sich im Zuge eines Umzugs von
einer gr??eren Sammlung an Halbleiter-Datenb?chern trennen. Dabei handelt
es sich um 2..3 Stahlschr?nke voll von Datenb?chern verschiedenster
Hersteller, f?r die in den neuen R?umlichkeiten kein Platz mehr ist.
Ich habe Ihre Webseite gesehen und da? Sie sich mit der
Archivierung/Digitalisierung solcher B?cher besch?ftigen. Best?nde
eventuell Interesse an der ?bernahme dieses Datenbuch-Bestandes? Sie
m??ten wohl ansonsten ins Altpapier gehen...
Viele Gr??e
Alfred Arnold
--
Alfred Arnold E-Mail: alfred at ccac.rwth-aachen.de
Computer Club at the http://john.ccac.rwth-aachen.de:8000/alf/
Technical University Phone: +49-241-406526
of Aachen
it's too bad that I am on the other side of the great pond . I would have been very interested in it :-(
Pierre
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pierre's collection of classic computers moved to: http://www.digitalheritage.de
--------------------------------------------
Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> schrieb am Mo, 22.10.2018:
Betreff: Re: 1970s CDC disk drive (Craigslist, Washington DC)
An: "Ken Shirriff via cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Datum: Montag, 22. Oktober, 2018 08:16 Uhr
On 10/21/18 7:12 PM, Ken Shirriff
via cctalk wrote:
> Someone pointed out
this CDC disk drive on Craigslist in the Washington DC
> area:
> https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/zip/d/early-computer-era-rolling/67…
>
> I have no connection
to this, and don't know anything about it, but
figured
> someone on cctalk might want to
pick it up, rather than it getting scrapped.
>
Looks
like a 9746.
--Chuck
Someone pointed out this CDC disk drive on Craigslist in the Washington DC
area:
https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/zip/d/early-computer-era-rolling/67…
I have no connection to this, and don't know anything about it, but figured
someone on cctalk might want to pick it up, rather than it getting scrapped.
Ken
Hello alltogether,
i am restoring a PDP8A at the moment. The machine got a problem in the
Powersupply. I think one of the emergency ciruits trigger a shutdown of
PSU. In tracing this isue i hab two questions.
My 8A`s manufacturing year is 1977. It`s model is 8A620. On Bitsavers i
found a matching shematic for the BA8C Power distribution Board from
1976 (File: EK-8A002-MM-002_PDP-8A_Miniprocessor_Users_Manual_Dec76.pdf
page 597). The Board Number is 5412000-0-1.
My first question is if somone has the Board Layout with it's component
locations?
My second question is about the DEC4011 Chips. As i inspected the Board
i found the DEC4011 Chips. First i think they are the standard CMOS 4011
quad two-input NAND`s. In the shematic it look more like a four
Transistor array. Did anyone know somthing aput these Chips? Are there
any equivalent parts? Have anyone a Datasheet of it?
Marco