test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 9 May 2010, at 00:02, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > Message: 28 > Date: Sat, 8 May 2010 15:12:25 +0100 > From: "Andrew Burton" <aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk> > Subject: Re: Lisa C and Lisa FORTRAN > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <013701caef02$62da30c0$87fdf93e at user8459cef6fa> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com> > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 11:08 PM > Subject: RE: Lisa C and Lisa FORTRAN > > >> >> I taught beginning FORTRAN in the 1980s at Merritt College (community >> college), and would not mind doing it again, if we could get a quorum for >> the classes. >> COBOL is gone from our curriculum :-( >> RPG is gone from our curriculum :-) >> FORTRAN is gone from our curriculum :-( >> APL is gone from our curriculum :-( >> BASIC is gone from our curriculum :-( >> The administration has cancelled C >> The administration has cancelled C# >> The administration has cancelled ASM >> We are down to "Using Microsoft Office", "VISUAL BASIC", >> and C++ (slated for cancellation soon) >> >> The CIS departments are circling the drain. >> > > That sucks. Indeed. > I am *so* glad I never went on to further education after > secondary school. I have learnt more on my own (thanks to books, people on > this list and retro computers) than I ever would have in *modern courses*. A > piece of paper doesn't make me a good coder, good software written by me > does. Fair enough but I am glad that I took a computer science degree (1971-74), though I must say that some of the people on my course who got better grade degrees used to come to me for advice when their programs did not work. There is now a degrading of the term programming to include entering data on things like an on board computer of a car to configuring spreadsheets and designing web pages. > How can BASIC not be taught? Every computer has it's own version of BASIC, Sorry I have to disagree there. There are MANY computers including modern ones which do not support BASIC. If you restrict it to modern desktop and laptop machines then you are probably correct but you are ignoring many pre 1980 machines and nearly all the embedded computers like PIC chips. A better choice would be C with the 1999 extensions. C++ is a good language but probably not for beginners as it is to easy to write opaque programs which beginners seem to think are good code because they are clever. As I hope all here would agree, a good program is the simplest you can write to do the required task, and that will mean it is easy to maintain (given adequate variable/function/method names and comments for the concepts you woke up with in the middle of the night). Or Pascal. I think almost any block structured language is better for beginners than Basic. > whereas (as I understand it) Visual Basic is only available for modern > computers.

15 years, 11 months

Amiga 1000 helps win against patent troll...

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

A fairly recent study has shown that any reusable launch system would have to be used at a rate around 100 times that of the shuttle to be economically advantageous over an expendable system. I wonder how they missed that calculation back in the 70s? Each shuttle mission, no matter what it's carrying, costs as much or more than an ambitious multi-year robotics mission to Mars. And the $150 billion orbiting hotel in search of a real mission that sucks funds away from real space science, the ISS, should be disassembled and de-orbited immediately before it sucks even more money away from the robotic exploration of our solar system. Robotic missions not only generate vastly more scientific payback per dollar spent, but they don't risk lives and they develop robotic and AI technologies that are potentially useful here on Earth, too. Here's an interesting 1974 popular Science article on what a bargain the Space Shuttle would be: http://books.google.com/books?id=tE0idc3G364C&lpg=PA70&ots=oONm3QBOYm&dq=10…

15 years, 11 months

RK05 disk on eBay

by hachti＠hachti.de

RK05 12 sector disk pack. New and in the box. Yes, it's me selling them. No, not sorry for posting here - selling for a third party. Ebay No. 190397088171 Link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190397088171 Regards, Philipp :-) -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 11 months

Omnibus memory available

by hachti＠hachti.de

Hi folks, any need for pdp8/e Omnibus memory? Talking about ====> G104/H220/G227 (4K system) board triples without top connectors The stuff is offered as tested working. Not something "might have been pulled from a working machine (saw some lights when applying power)" or "pulled from a working system a few years ago" or "was ok in 1983". I'm checking the boards using the extended memory exerciser maindec-08-dhkma-c in my pdp8/e test machine. Right now. 4 top connectors are needed for each triple. Sorry, but I cannot provide those at the moment. Selling that on behalf of someone else. I promised to convert it to some $$$ for him. Best wishes, Philipp -- http://www.hachti.de

15 years, 11 months

Longevity (Was: Re: Amiga 1000 helps win against patent troll...)

by brianlanning＠gmail.com

On Fri, May 14, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote: > At 12:00 -0500 5/14/10, Brian wrote: >> >> Cars have made it much (much) >> longer than that and still worked, why not computers? > > Well, wait a minute, cars pretty routinely have people go under the hood and > replace stuff. If you look at caps the same way you look at motor oil, the > computers might deserve a little scheduled maintenance too. And not many > batteries have a service life measured in decades (double-takes as he looks > at his Casio wristwatch...). But the items that are getting replaced are the wear items. No one replaces the ECM in a car unless it breaks. Most don't. My complaint about the amiga battery wasn't so much that it wore out, but that it was soldered to the motherboard. And to add insult to injury, it was a battery type that was prone to leak long-term. Electronic systems should be designed with replaceable (without a soldering iron) batteries. With a few notable exceptions (i'm looking at you, ipod) they usually are these days. brian

15 years, 11 months

Longevity (Was: Re: Amiga 1000 helps win against patent troll...)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

At 12:00 -0500 5/14/10, Brian wrote: >Cars have made it much (much) >longer than that and still worked, why not computers? Well, wait a minute, cars pretty routinely have people go under the hood and replace stuff. If you look at caps the same way you look at motor oil, the computers might deserve a little scheduled maintenance too. And not many batteries have a service life measured in decades (double-takes as he looks at his Casio wristwatch...). -- - Mark 210-379-4635 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Large Asteroids headed toward planets inhabited by beings that don't have technology adequate to stop them: Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.

15 years, 11 months

Last day for John Blankenbaker's Kenbak-1

by classiccmp＠vintage-computer.com

eBay item number: 320522921808 This is one of John's original hand-built machines. Details in the auction. It's at $6,400 now. I personally expect that to more than triple by the end, but that's just me. :) Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace

15 years, 11 months

Shipping floppy drives - Disk in or out?

by ian_primus＠yahoo.com

When floppy drives were new, they usually came with that cardboard piece inserted, and with the drive door closed. When shipping a floppy drive, is it really best to have something closed in the drive? I'm talking about single head 5 1/4" drives here. I've seen several methods: Nothing inserted, drive open nothing inserted, drive closed Disk inserted, drive closed cardboard protector, drive closed disk, in sleeve, inserted *sideways*, drive open (can't close it like that) disk inserted backwards, drive closed. Now, on a single head full height drive, there really isn't a whole lot to damage. The sping on the lever mechanism is pretty strong, so it's unlikely that it'll slam down and hit the head unless it's really dropped hard. And, if it does, it's just got a fuzzy pressure pad there - not another head. Also, with something as thin as a disk inserted, does it really protect anything? I suppose that the closed position is more stable, since then the mechanism would be fairly solid, and you'd have less chance of damaging the drive door, but would that mean any shock would press on the head? A similar question would probably be - when single head full height drives were new, did they ship with a cardboard protector? I primarily only remember those from the half height and double sided drives. And only once have I seen one for a 3 1/2" drive (it was basically a solid plastic disk). And I also remember getting some new high density 5 1/4" drives that were not shipped with a protector. -Ian

15 years, 11 months

HP3000 Series 37 Front Panel Key

by dm561＠torfree.net

----------------Original Message: From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: HP3000 Series 37 Front Panel Key > > Lee, > > I've got a micro 37 and the key is like nothing I've ever seen before. It's > a flat bar about 3/16" of an inch wide and 7/16" long. There are a series of > holes drilled in the sides of the key of varying depth. If that's the same > one you computer needs, I've got no idea where you'de find one :-( If I am understanding the description correctly, this sounds like a smaller version of the keys used on some VAG (Volkswagen, etc) cars. As you imply, it's the hole depth that varies from key to key. --------------Reply: Same type of key used by late model Cromemcos (KABA Micro?). mike

15 years, 11 months

Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re: thebeginningof

by roger.holmes＠microspot.co.uk

On 10 May 2010, at 21:29, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote: > > Message: 26 > Date: Mon, 10 May 2010 13:28:32 -0700 > From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> > Subject: Re: Greatest videogame device (was Re: An option - Re: > thebeginningof > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <4BE80A00.31785.DF06BA at cclist.sydex.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > > On 10 May 2010 at 19:11, Andrew Burton wrote: > >> So if someone in the US orders a billion <insert item here> from a >> company in the UK, how many of the item should they expect to >> receive?! Is that why orders are given in numbers and not words, and >> why cheques have both? > > Well, as I mentioned, I listen to the BBC World Service a lot and > today they were taling about the ECB bailout fund as being one > Trillion dollars. > > Economics aside, I don't think they were talking about 10**18 > simoleons, unless they were Zimbabwean simoleons. > > If the BBC uses the short form billion, trillion, then it's pretty > safe to assume that the long form is sunsetting. > > --Chuck About ten years ago the BBC made an official statement that when talking about money, a billion would mean a thousand million but elsewhere it would mean a million million. To me a number is a number and that was b......t but the problem is US has a bit too much influence on broadcasting, you only have to look at the questions on the UK version of 'who wants to be a millionaire' where they asked what you would do with a 'brown betty' in a fairly low value question. The contestant and I guess 75% of the audience had no idea. Of course the other 25% might have just guessed randomly. Actually there is really no excuse for creating confusion as they could just as easily talk about GigaPounds or GigaDollars or for 10^12, TeraPounds/Dollars. I have no problem with the many americanisms in my life but to me numbers are sacrosanct. Just because a single US journalist made a mistake in the 1930s should not make us all roll over and play dead on a matter of principal. Roger (UK born and bred)

15 years, 11 months

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