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101090 discussions

by ekman＠lysator.liu.se

Kevan wrote: > I think the Microbee also originates from Australia. Correct. The Microbee is Australian. I'd love to have one of these. Is there anyone on this list who has one or used to have one? Or who knows if there are still any user groups or similar in Australia? /Fredrik

28 years, 8 months

Help me identify a component.

by kevan＠motiv.co.uk

Ok, I have an old Anita 1000 calculator which I think dates from around 1967. It is all discrete components mounted on a number of seperate boards. One board has a funny spidery type component on it and I don't know what it is. You can see a picture here: http://staff.motiv.co.uk/~kevan/card.jpg I have a second Anita that has three of these things on it so I really would like to know what they are. Thanks -- Kevan Old Computer Collector: http://staff.motiv.co.uk/~kevan/

28 years, 8 months

Xerox 860's available

by dcobley＠island.net

Forwarded from comp.os.cpm:- From: schach(a)garnet.berkeley.edu (Linda B) Subject: Xerox 860's -- anyone interested Date: 6 May 1997 17 : 59 : 43 GMT Organization: University of California at Berkeley Have several Xerox 860 8080 CP/M computers as well as Diablo 630 printers modified to work specifically with them. They are located in Berkeley, nyone interested in them? Linda B

28 years, 8 months

Victor Computer anyone?

by dastar＠crl.com

One of the things I saw at the last swap meet I was at was a Victor PC. I am pretty darn sure this is some PC clone because it had the requisite function keys and 2 5.25" floppy drives. The drives and monitor and CPU were all one unit (the monitor may have been detachable or just sitting on the CPU). It was labelled "Victor" and the "o" was like a multi-band colored sun (or something). Um, don't know what else to say about it. Does anyone know what this is? I was tempted to pick it up but it was priced at (I think) $40 and wasn't even going to bother haggling (this was the same guy trying to sell two VIC-20s at $25 a piece). Sam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass

28 years, 8 months

by dastar＠crl.com

Well, here's this weekend's take: Among several computer's, I also brought in quite a few books. Here are the titles in case anyone's counting: PET Personal Computer Guide (1982) TRS-80 Color Computer and MC-10 Programs (1983) CP/M Handbook with MP/M (1980) How to Get Started with CP/M (1981) Mastering CP/M (1983) Using CP/M (1980) Color Computer Basic09 Programming Language Reference (with software) Osborne CP/M User's Guide [not Osbourne computer] (1981) The Elementary Commodore 64 (1983) Programming Techniques for Level II Basic (1980) Color Computer Playground (1983) Sams ToolKit Series VIC20 Edition (1984) Graphics Guide to the Commodore 64 (1984) TRS-80 Color Computer Programs (1982) I also got these manuals/software: TRS-80 Model II Operations Manual TRS-80 Scripsit Manual TRS-80 Videotex Commodore 64 Bonus Cassette Pack (this is 5 cassettes still in the original shrinkwrap of all things) I'm finding that I am more interested now in the accessories, like cables, manuals, modems, datasettes, etc. than in the computers I find now because I pretty much have all the common systems. What I really need to get a lot of my systems running are power supplies or, in most cases, the original video cable. A lot of these lame-o manufacturers of yester year (namely Commodore) used cables with ridiculous pin-outs for the video. Now onto the hardware...first some accessories: TRS-80 Modem I (very cool) (2) C64 1541 drives VIC 1541 drive Commodore 1531 Datasette And these systems: Commodore Plus4 Commodore 64 (for parts to fix my broken one) Atari 5200 (have 5 of these but none with the funky video/power adapter...this one had one so I bought it). Odyssey 3000 [!] (stand-alone unit with 4 built-in games...Pong-type games...by Magnavox) Laser 50 PC [!] (cool little "portable computer"...has a one-line 20 character LCD display with built-in BASIC...it is about half the width and thickness of a typical laptop...it is not a serious computer, more like a toy; manufactured by Vtech, which is the company that makes all those kids computer toys; circa 1985) Between the Odyssey 3000 and the Laser 50, I can't decide what I should choose as my catch of the weekend. Both are systems I had never even heard of or seen, so its always a nice surprise to pick up something like these out of the blue. Last but not least, I got this luggable that I need some help identifying. It is a portable that looks very much like an Osbourne (which is what I thought it was at first but realized it wasn't). It has a built in 7" screen and two 5.25" floppies. It has one knob on the front for contrast, and next to that is an RJ-14 (6-conductor) jack for the keyboard. There is no identifying mark on it anywhere. The front cover pops off revealing the screen/floppies and contains the keyboard. When it boots up, it just shows a flashing "K" with an underscore beneath it located at the upper left-hand corner of the screen. It doesn't do anything beyond that, which is making the identification process all the more difficult. The back has two DB25's, one male labelled SERIAL and the other female labelled PARALLEL. There are also some peripheral card openings. Cracking it opens reveals that it has what looks to be an XT bus with 4 slots. There are 2 cards and a hard drive inside. One card is labelled "Hyper CLOCK" and is obviously a clock card. The other is a Racal-Vadic modem. Then the 3rd & 4th slots are taken up by a hard-card (hard drive on a card) which plugs into one slot. It is manufactured by Tandon. The only chip of significance inside is a Motorola labelled MC6845P. I'm speculating that this is the CPU. There is a label on the motherboard (which is huge, measuring almost 2 feet square) which says "Corona Data Systems" and then "200290-512" which I am guessing means it has 512K. There are 4 rows of 16 each RAM chips...half are soldered in and half are plugged into sockets. Lastly, a label on the back of the outside say "Model M18P-2" and the keyboard is made by Keytronics. I didn't write it down but I believe I saw a date somewhere of 1981. Any help figuring this behemoth out would be appreciated. After figuring it wasn't an osbourne 1, I was going to pass on it but I offered $5 and for the hell of it and got it. Maybe it'll turn out be something cool. Oh yeah, total bill was $44.00. Sam ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass

28 years, 8 months

Victor Computer anyone / Heath

by scott＠saskatoon.com

> Hi All, > > Right on. The Victor 9000 was quite a system. Monochrome hi res > video. Way ahead of its time IMHO. If I remember right, it was an > 8086 based PC that was designed by the same fellow who designed the > 6502 chip. Unfortunatly, his name escapes me. Chuck Peddle.

28 years, 8 months

movie computers (The List! )

by David_A._Vandenbroucke＠hud.gov

On Tue, 6 May 1997, Roger Merchberger wrote: > > And the 64,000 byte question: If Scotty had *never* seen a QWERTY keyboard > before in his life... how the *he!!* can he type so fast!?! > > Inquiring minds want to know! > Not to mention that he was able to quickly sketch out the formula for "transparent aluminum" using ghod knows what software. --Dav david_a._vandenbroucke(a)hud.gov

28 years, 8 months

Pournelle (The decline and fall of Byte)

by David_A._Vandenbroucke＠hud.gov

>I have read many letters here and I hope this is NOT what we are going >to continually hear - Microsoft reps patting themselves on the back >because they and the company can NEVER BE WRONG. Let's keep company >reps out if they only want to glorify the company (that basically has >the computer world in turmoil with poor quality non-innovative >software). I don't work for Microsoft, but I have had a similar run-in with Dr. Pournelle. I am a professional economist (a "Dr." too, as it happens), and in some discussion forum or other on GEnie I once quoted Milton Friedman's well-known (among economists) remark that "we're all Keynesians now." If you know the way that macroeconomic theory has converged over the past few decades, the remark makes perfect sense and doesn't detract from Friedman's status as the leader of the believers in the unfettered market. However, Pournelle was on me like a ton of bricks. He clearly _didn't_ understand what Keynesian theory was all about and thought that it just stood for government policies that he didn't like. He didn't care about references, because he "knew" that Friedman just _couldn't_ have said that, sort of like those guys who didn't bother to look into Galileo's telescope because they _knew_ the sun couldn't have spots. Eventually I just gave up on the conversation, and I suppose Pournelle thinks that he won the argument. --Dav david_a._vandenbroucke(a)hud.gov

28 years, 8 months

Victor Computer anyone?

by tomph＠ix3.ix.netcom.com

Hi Again, <snip> > I remember playing around with some Victors at the neighborhood computer > store in 1981 or so. . .did they run CP/M? The original lot we used ran CPM/86. As the IBM continued to grow in market share a version of MS/DOS modified specifically for the Victor was released. > I also remember reading that they had a wierd disk format, and Victor > wanted to control all of the software available for the machine. The wierd disk format came from the multi speed floppy drive and the zones. 600K on one side of a 5-1/4" disk. Not bad for it's time. > The > article said "You couldn't even get a copy of Dbase II unless you got it > through Victor". Any truth to that? Yep, due mainly to the disk format. Can't remember if there were problems with the video driver portion also. The system had a very high resolution. I once saw video being played on the screen. Looked every bit as good as a black and white TV except it was green and black. In any event, you just couldn't bring programs straight over. As far as applications went, they had Victor versions of Lotus, Supercalc, MultiPlan, Multimate, dBase II, Crosstalk, Wordstar and others. It even had a 3D spreadsheet called Victor Calc. There was talk of Victor releasing a disk drive that would read and write IBM format and an emulation board that would allow it to run IBM software. As I remember it, this board was giving them all kinds of headaches. Never really got it to work bug free or at least free enough so that users wouldn't complain. Shortly after this the company went belly up. Seems that they were will established over seas and had a good share of the market. In an attempt to migrate the system to this side of the pond they overextended themselves in the marketing department and opened up too many sales locations all over the country but the sales didn't materialze. I remember them shutting down location after location. That's about all I can remember. Hope that helps. Tom

28 years, 8 months

movie computers (The List! )

by gmast＠polymail.cpunix.calpoly.edu

I'm sorry but I can't recall a scene in any movie that resembles a real use of a computer. Face it computers on film are boring. That's why every movie computer has animated graphics and makes noises every time you do something. I worked with a guy in 3-D modeling. He learned how to spin a shaded object on the screen. Every time a (computer clueless) manager came by he'd start spinning. They were really impressed! Then after they left, he'd ask me how to make it do something else. What I really enjoy is the blank screen where you type in "find Bob Smith" and it comes back with everything about the guy including pictures, tax returns, blueprints of his house, and always that little piece of information that ties him to the crime. Where can I get one of those? I remember trying out a little accessory for my mac that caused the thing to beep every time you hit a key. just like in the movies! Drove me crazy after about 30 seconds.

28 years, 8 months

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