test-drb

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101090 discussions

by billdeg＠degnanco.com

> > > My until-very-recently-working Amdek Color-I RGB Monitor (November 1983) has > given up the ghost. It was working perfectly the last time I powered it up, but > now it doesn't turn on. ><snip> > > I know that poking around CRTs has given a lot of electronics hobbyists a good, > non-lethal education. I'm hoping to follow in those footsteps. > > -Seth > Seth, I have also had my share of the closer to lethal education as well :-) Bill

16 years, 4 months

rare stuff available

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

That's "really rare", not "eBay rare". My employer was supposed to get its funding last week and give me a huge cash bonus for putting up with month-to-month "survival wages" for the past year, but instead, they've hit a legal snag and now they can't make payroll. I've gone from merrily making up shopping lists to abject financial terror over the course of a day. With my emergency cash buffer long since gone (see "survival wages" above), I am in serious short-term trouble. So it is with a heavy heart that I must consider parting with a few things that are dear and precious to me. Two things in particular are items that might bring in enough money to help my immediate situation. First, I have a set of original DEC OS/8 TU56 distribution tapes. I emphasize, these are *original*, nearly pristine, DEC-labeled distribution tapes. I've had these for nearly thirty years. 'Nuff said. Second, I have an Atomichron. Yes, a real one, a National Company model NC-1001. One of the very few left in existence. If you don't know what this is, you probably won't be interested, but in a nutshell it's the first commercially-produced atomic resonance frequency standard ("atomic clock"), built in 1956. As far as I've found in my research there are three of these left of the approximately fifty that were built between 1956 and 1960. I've written a short research paper describing this instrument and its history, including photos; I can provide copies of it upon request. I'm open to negotiation on pricing, but neither will go cheaply. If there's someone here who is interested in either of these fairly rare items, please contact me ASAP. I'm planning to put one or both of them on eBay within the next day or so. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

16 years, 4 months

Terminal servers (was Re: DEC Server 200/MC)

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

On Tuesday December 15th, Rod Smallwood wrote: 4. I have already done it but I used a windows internet modem simulator. I have loads of VAX's I wonder if it's possible to do Telnet in, serial RS232 with modem emulation (Assert DCD when connected) out on a VAX. I had both the Lantronix and Xyplex terminal servers (mentioned earlier) working as follows: I linked them to the serial ports of a communication multiplexor on a PDP-11. When someone TELNET'ed in to the IP address of the terminal server, they were automatically connected round-robin style to the next available serial port. This raised one of the signal lines high, which the operating system detected, and responded with the login prompt. Likewise, when the user logged out, their TELNET session disconnected automatically. T

16 years, 4 months

tube digital interest / was Re: Running Computers Cold

by wbblair3＠yahoo.com

> Speaking of digital tube equipment, while I'm not ready to get rid of this > stuff myself just yet, I'd like to ask whether others (the nearer the better) > might have any interest in tube-based digital frequency counters and such; > e.g: > http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/edte/HP521C/index.html > http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/edte/HP524B/index.html > http://people.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/edte/HP524C/index.html > > No, they're not computers (unless one really wants to stretch the definition), > they are boat anchors and of limited to no practical use, but they are > manageable (barely) examples of vacuum-tube-based digital equipment. Beautiful works of engineering art that look like they're new out of the box.

16 years, 4 months

Finding schematics, was Re: IBM RT-PC available

by marvin＠west.net

From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" <pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> > Maybe if someone comes up with the protocol (or some reference for > the original mouse, like...schematics :oD) I can help in doing > something like a PS-2 converter :) A rather neat trick I learned for (sometimes) finding schematics of such stuff is to look at the FCC ID number on the mouse. With that, you can do a lookup on one of the FCC databases, and you will find things like manuals, schematics, drawings, etc. A quick Google search (and a redirect) brought up the search engine: http://www.fcc.gov/oet/ea/fccid/

16 years, 4 months

Manual scanning: TIFF-to-PDF software with greyscale support?

by Watzman＠neo.rr.com

The best program is .... Adobe Acrobat (real, full version Acrobat; not the free "Acrobat Reader". Acrobat is an incredibly rich and powerful tool for doing EVERYTHING related to PDF files. It's far more powerful than most people have any idea. Unfortunately, it's expensive. But it can do what you want, and more. Scanning: Generally, scan at 300 dpi, in Grayscale (256 shades of white-to-black). [Obviously, this is for monochrome documents]. There is no reason to use 600 dpi unless the document is very unusual, it will only make the file 4x larger and, in most cases, no better. JPEG is ok, but keep the compression light. Your file size should be a few hundred thousand bytes (up to approaching a megabyte) per page, although this depends on the document. This works for both text only and documents with [black and white] photos. [you MAY want to use 600 dpi on pages with halftone (dithered dot) photos to get rid of moir?]. Do not use "black and white" (e.g. 1 bit per pixel; every pixel either white or black) even for "black and white" documents. Grayscale always produces a MUCH better result. I know it's counter-intuitive when the document is just black text, but it's true. There are ways to get Acrobat cheaply. The best way is through educational channels. Students at participating institutions can get current version PROFESSIONAL editions ($449 list) [OUCH !!] for anywhere from $55 to $110. Another approach is to buy an OLD, full version copy of Acrobat used on E-Bay so that you qualify for the "upgrade" editions of the latest (or later) versions ($99 to $199 instead of .... $449). Speaking of educational discounts, Students can buy a copy of Windows 7 PROFESSIONAL for $30. I won't go into other student deals (I teach part time at a local school), but the software deals available to students are so good (Thousands and thousands of dollars worth of software (Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, AutoCad, etc. available at like up to 90% off) that it can easily pay to take one course just to become a "qualifying student" and be able to buy this stuff. Barry Watzman Watzman at neo.rr.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:15:30 +0000 From: Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> Subject: Manual scanning: TIFF-to-PDF software with greyscale support? Hi guys, I'm after a program that can convert TIFF files into PDFs. I've seen Eric Smith's "Tumble" app, which works great... but only for B&W TIFFs. While I can use Imagemagick to convert the images to B&W, that defeats the point: there are photos on the scanned pages, and I'd rather like to keep them as photos, not black splodges. Also, has anyone come up with a "best practice guide" for manual scanning? At the moment I'm scanning like this: B&W text only: 600dpi, black and white, threshold=50%. Text + photos: 600dpi, greyscale, then despeckle and scale down to 300dpi. Obviously if there are better ways (in terms of quality and/or speed) I'd like to know before I scan a ton of testgear manuals... Also, does anyone know of an app that can take the PDF file, OCR it and then insert the text as a background layer while leaving the image alone? I'm pretty sure Acrobat can do this, but like most Adobe software, the price tag is somewhat... eye-watering. "If you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it." Thanks, -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk

16 years, 4 months

DEC Server 200/MC

by tiggerlasv＠aim.com

As mentioned earlier, the DECServer 200/MC won't work for your application, as it only speaks LAT. Additionally, it needs to boot from a host every time it starts. I've experimented with a few different terminal servers, and there are several out there that should be adequate to the task. The Lantronix ETS series is very compact, and easy to set up. It speaks LAT as well as TCP/IP. The drawback is that when you telnet IN to the Lantronix, it displays a rather annoying welcome message that I don't believe you can disable. (At least that was my experience.) The Xyplex 1600 series of terminal servers seemed to work the best, but configuration can be a PITA, if you're not used to them. I would recommend the 1620 with flash card, and 4MB of RAM, if you go that route. T

16 years, 4 months

Ferguson Big Board question

by hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca

I'm just considering divesting myself of a Ferguson Big Board system that I've never played with. Looking it over and reading about the FBB .. just out of curiousity, does anyone know offhand whether the on-board video display relied on the system Z80 CPU (such as in the Apple II or sinclair ZX80), or was it a 'pure peripheral' to the CPU?

16 years, 4 months

tube digital interest / was Re: Running Computers Cold

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:57:04 -0300 From: "Alexandre Souza - Listas" <pu1bzz.listas at gmail.com> Subject: Re: tube digital interest / was Re: Running Computers Cold >>If I might be permitted one small cavil... the possessive "its" takes >>no apostrophe, any more than its close kin-words "his", "hers", "ours" >>or "theirs". Every one makes some of us flinch in discomfort. It's the >>only thing wrong with an otherwise-immaculate display, and as such, I >>thought I'd draw it to your attention... ------------- >This is something that would be waaaaayyyy more apropriate in private... >;o) ------------- I respectfully disagree. I think the above suggestion applies pretty widely these days; not only does it's instead of its make some of us flinch, but it can be distracting and make the relevant text seem to be less professional. m ***********************************************************************************

16 years, 4 months

Manual scanning: TIFF-to-PDF software with greyscale support?

by thomas.gardner＠sbcglobal.net

> Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:15:30 +0000 > From: Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> > Subject: Manual scanning: TIFF-to-PDF software with greyscale support? > To: cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> > Message-ID: <4B264882.4010901 at philpem.me.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Hi guys, > I'm after a program that can convert TIFF files into PDFs. I've seen > Eric Smith's "Tumble" app, which works great... but only for B&W TIFFs. > While I can use Imagemagick to convert the images to B&W, that defeats > the point: there are photos on the scanned pages, and I'd rather like to > keep them as photos, not black splodges. > > Also, has anyone come up with a "best practice guide" for manual > scanning? At the moment I'm scanning like this: > > B&W text only: 600dpi, black and white, threshold=50%. > Text + photos: 600dpi, greyscale, then despeckle and scale down to > 300dpi. > > Obviously if there are better ways (in terms of quality and/or speed) > I'd like to know before I scan a ton of testgear manuals... > > Also, does anyone know of an app that can take the PDF file, OCR it and > then insert the text as a background layer while leaving the image > alone? I'm pretty sure Acrobat can do this, but like most Adobe > software, the price tag is somewhat... eye-watering. "If you have to ask > how much it costs, you can't afford it." > > Thanks, > -- > Phil. > classiccmp at philpem.me.uk > http://www.philpem.me.uk/ Try ABBYY FineReader, http://finereader.abbyy.com/ or http://www.abbyyusa.com/adx/aspx/adxGetMedia.aspx?DocID=2314 I expect the US$50 Express version will do what u want, I have been a very happy user of the PRO version for many years. Tom

16 years, 4 months

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