Howdy gents,
Working away on the recently acquired Osborne 1. Seems there's something
wrong with the KB - and if I didn't know better, I'd say it's a case of
shorted contacts.
The KB connector is 24 pins, double row header like a short floppy or IDE
header.
On the KB side, there are two "shorted" groups of pins. Group one is 2X
shortred pins, group two is 5X shorted pins.
Thing is, this KB is not really built to be serviced, best as I can tell.
The switch matrix is made of two layered flexible circuits, and the key
assys are 'riveted' in place, by melting over the plastic pins. So I see no
way to disassemble it and give it a clean.. and then, even so.
With such limited access, I don't see many avenues other than flushing with
solvent(s) and hoping for the best.
What's to be done? Is this one.. done already?
From: Paul Koning
Sent: Thursday, August 20, 2015 7:48 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Larry Niven's Altair
> On Aug 20, 2015, at 10:30 AM, Jay Jaeger <cube1 at charter.net> wrote:
>> On 8/20/2015 3:32 AM, Randy Dawson wrote:
>>> I assume all the 8K, 4K BASICs are in public domain by now. The
>>> demo for the kids will be the 15 minutes of paper tape, followed by
>>> READY.
>> Bad assumption. Things that were actually registered even if there
>> was no notice, or published with a copyright notice would still be
>> protected under U.S. copyright.
> Depending on when. If it was published without notice, the key
> question is whether publication occurred before Jan 1, 1978, or after.
> After, notice does not matter; before, lack of notice means no
> copyright.
Sorry to take so long to chime in on all the rampant speculation, but
I've had real work to attend to.
The following is excerpted from the main source file of BASIC for the
Altair, by Gates, Allen, and Davidoff. I have no further comment.
00100 MCSSIM(START)
00120
00140 TITLE BASIC MCS 8080 GATES/ALLEN/DAVIDOFF
00160 IFNDEF LENGTH,<PRINTX !!! MUST HAVE COM !!
00180 END>
00200 IF1,<
00220 IFE LENGTH,<PRINTX /SMALL/ >
00240 IFE LENGTH-1,<PRINTX /MEDIUM/ >
00260 IFE LENGTH-2,<PRINTX /BIG/ >
00280 IFE STRING,<PRINTX /NO $$/ >
00300 IFN STRING,<PRINTX /$$ $$/ >
00320 >
00340 SUBTTL VERSION 1.1 -- MORE FEATURES TO COME
00360 COMMENT *
00380
00400 --------- ---- -- ---- ----- --- ---- -----
00420 COPYRIGHT 1975 BY BILL GATES AND PAUL ALLEN
00440 --------- ---- -- ---- ----- --- ---- -----
00460
00480
00500 WRITTEN ORIGINALLY ON THE PDP-10 AT HARVARD FROM
00520 FEBRUARY 9 TO APRIL 27
00540
00560 PAUL ALLEN WROTE THE NON-RUNTIME STUFF.
00580 BILL GATES WROTE THE RUNTIME STUFF.
00600 MONTE DAVIDOFF WROTE THE MATH PACKAGE.
00620
00640 THINGS TO DO:
00641 SYNTAX PROBLEMS (OR)
00642 NICE ERRORS
00643 ALLOW ^W AND ^C IN LIST COMMAND
00646 TAPE I/O
00648 BUFFER I/O
00650 USR ??
00652 ELSE
00660 USER DEFINED FUNCTIONS(MULTI-ARG,MULTI-LINE,STRINGS)
00680 MAKE STACK BOUNDARY STUFF EXACT
00700 (FOUT 24 FIN 14)
00720 PUNCH,DELETE,,,
00740 INLINE CONSTANT CONVERSION--MAKE IT WORK
00750 SIMPLE STRINGS
00760 *
Rich
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Living Computer Museum
2245 1st Avenue S
Seattle, WA 98134
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.orghttp://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
Well, so much for catalog listings. One can only wonder about other
government documents--this was an important one historically. I am not
surprised.
NTIS's response:
Dear Sir,
I have checked our databases and we no longer have this item available.
Thank you,
Mary Brisbois
Customer Contact Representative
National Technical Information Service
US Dept of Commerce
P: 800-553-6847 or direct 703-605-6071
F: 703-605-6900
www.ntis.gov
Any Northern Calif folk (current or Ex) that might have been around
the BEVATRON - Ok this thing had pdp-8 computers ( the
classic first model rack mounted) and teletypes hooked to it
I am finding very little info on it...
Just scanning stuff on Crocker's Cracker (the 60 incher) here tonight
and putting together blueprints.
if you want a from the store solution try the hp 7612 scans and
prints in excess of 11x17
on sale less then 200 bucks! I highly recommend the Microsoft labs
stitcher program. I have had some scans with some pretty crappy
alignment and I made one giant beauty of a blueprint.
The 7612 also prints beautiful 11x17 color prints to go in displays
here for the museum.
Hi Guys!
I now have the (hopefully) final artwork for all four PDP-8
front panel variations.
I have made up a display file. The file shows the combined black
positive master for white lines, white text and logos for all four designs.
There can be up to five layers and hence screens for each panel.
The file is in .svg format because I use Inkscape to do most of the work.
Let me know who would like a copy
Regards
Rod
sad to lose a good person at a young age....
Ed#
In a message dated 8/24/2015 9:47:50 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
vbiersch at gmail.com writes:
I've got his stuff here at Keep America At Work.
I knew he was bad, but I had NOT heard this and I'm very sorry to hear
this.
http://keepamericaatwork.com/category/bob-hall/
I never had the opportunity to meet him, but we exchanged emails frequently
and I wish I had been able to meet him.
Virgil
Keep America At Work
On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 9:33 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote:
> Friends,
>
> I know some of us knew Bob Hall, an amazing character, who spent the
last
> decade of his life crusading for the restoration of US manufacturing and
> railing against the perils of the Giant in the East - among other things.
>
> Sadly, I learned only today that Bob passed away on July 28th, 2015, due
> to intractable pancreatic cancer. Our friend was a tender 61 years in
age.
>
> You can find a page, with an obit here: http://tinyurl.com/paspfax
>
> Rest in Peace, Bob.. your 'dispatches from the front' will be missed. We
> need more voices like we had known in Bob hall.
>
> (It seems all of his content has been removed from FB and YT. Might still
> remain in archive.org)
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
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>
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> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
>
Friends,
I know some of us knew Bob Hall, an amazing character, who spent the last
decade of his life crusading for the restoration of US manufacturing and
railing against the perils of the Giant in the East - among other things.
Sadly, I learned only today that Bob passed away on July 28th, 2015, due to
intractable pancreatic cancer. Our friend was a tender 61 years in age.
You can find a page, with an obit here: http://tinyurl.com/paspfax
Rest in Peace, Bob.. your 'dispatches from the front' will be missed. We
need more voices like we had known in Bob hall.
(It seems all of his content has been removed from FB and YT. Might still
remain in archive.org)
Hello All,
Recently I came across a complete Pertec interface (card, manual, software,
and, cables) thanks to list-member Shaun. Of course what is the point of
having an interface if you have nothing to interface it to!
So I've been looking at, and learning a bit, about 1/2" tape drives. I've
also looked into acquiring one. But before going down this path I wanted to
see what pitfalls, warning signs, etc. I should be on the lookout for. I am
looking for a unit mostly to experience the tech and to play around with. I
do not plan on recovering data from any particular system or format.
However, it would be nice if I could setup a system that actually worked for
backups of say an IBM AT for demonstration purposes.
Having read some old InfoWorld and PC Mag articles I can see there were a
number of tape drive manufacturers well into the early 90s. Based on the
reviews the Cipher and Qualstar units seem to be well suited for my
purposes. Any other brand/models I should keep an eye out for. I know IBM
also had some 1/2" 9 track tape drives (9437 and 9438) but neither was a
Pertec interface from what I have gleaned. The 9347 used a proprietary
interface and the 9348 used HVD SCSI which is atypical. There was apparently
a 9348-012 model which used narrow SCSI so should interface with a standard
Adaptec card. However, I have not been able to determine if it used standard
SCSI commands and could be accessed say with a tape backup program under
Windows 9x/NT or DOS.
Of course the biggest problem is finding one locally in the LA area.
Unfortunately my only resource is eBay and prices there are definitely not
hobbyist friendly (not to mention shipping). If anyone has a line on a
working drive in the LA area (to save on S&H and avoid the dangers of
shipping) or a reasonably priced one elsewhere I'd appreciate it. TIA for
any help.
Hi List,
This relates to the ongoing discussion about vintage computer software
copyright.
A year or so ago I did some Beta videotape backups for the Australian
Computer Society. They're of keynote speeches at the 10th Australian
Computer Conference in 1983. One that I'd like to mention is by Tania
Amochev from (then) Control Data Corporation, titled Information
Services of the Future.
In it, things we now call data mining and Google AdSense are discussed,
and the potential of data services in general (this is in 1983). One
thing that struck me was the contrast between traditional copyright of
material items, and how such ideas don't apply very well to non-material
information.
I was left with the impression that the idea of "Intellectual Property"
is in some ways an attempt to force information to be treated like
materials, which is an easy way to put a value information, but also
allows it to be hoarded. This goes directly against how information
behaves, which is to flow freely. This free-flow of information allows
more information to be derived or generated, enhancing productivity and
overall knowledge.
To quote: "Information is diffusive - it leaks. The more it leaks, the
more of it there is. Information is aggressive, even imperialistic. It
simply breaks out of its unnatural bonds, the bonds of secrecy in which
'thing minded' people try to lock it. So secrecy, property rights,
confidentiality, all enshrined in Western thought and law, are not
particularly effective restraints on information."
This is not a cry to abolish copyright and intellectual property laws,
but to highlight some of the inadequacies of the thought process behind
these laws when dealing with high speed, global information.
Does anyone have any thoughts? If there was a massive shift in the
fundamental philosophy of how information should be valued, where would
you like that shift to go? For example, is there a way to pay
programmers and similar professions by the quality of their work, rather
than just the number of lines of code they write. How do you measure the
quality of information?
I'll see if I can get permission to have the six keynote addresses put
online, because they're all fascinating.
Cheers,
Alexis.
P.S., if this is way off topic, my apologies.