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101090 discussions

Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Eric Christopherson >> Anyway, the whole 'how do we find the info' is a part of why I started >> working on CHWiki, once I discovered it > Psst: it would've been a good idea to share the URL to CHWiki. Well, that passing reference wasn't an attempt to get people to go look at it, hence no URL! :-) I was focused on the abstract discussion about 'how do we make information accessible, if relying on search engines to find blog postings doesn't work'. I have on several occasions posted appeals to this list for people to contribute content to it, and gotten almost no response (with one notable exception), in terms of added content; that was a large part of why I merely mentioned it in an offhand way. > a site I was already familiar with, but not under the name you used for > it. Ah, formally it's the 'Computer History Wiki', except that's a lot of typing, so I've been using 'CHWiki' as a short, easy-to-type, name for it for some time now. > (It was a bit hard to find with Google, which just goes to show...) Yeah, I added "CHWiki" to the text on the Main Page to make it a little easier to find from the short name, after a previous case where I'd used that term here, to some people's confusion. But I see it still doesn't work well; I guess I'll have to add 'CHWiki' links from more pages. Using 'Computer History Wiki' as a search term only works slightly better, though; it's at the bottom of the first page of results for me, below a bunch of Wikipedia links. Noel PS: In response to a point raised in a private reply to me; the site is for _all_ historical computers: personal computers, mainframes, the lot. I myself have added a lot of PDP-11 material, but only because I'm very fond of them, and know them well. The field of historial computers is _way_ too broad for one person to cover in depth, which is part of why I previously appealed to people who knew/were familar with other corners of it to add detailed content in those areas.

7 years

Google site ordering (Was: Archiving information)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Christian Corti >> An additional issue, I think, is that Google is deprecating sites that >> use HTTP, versus HTTPS. > Not true, in contrary, Google even crawls through FTP sites :-) I did say "deprecate", not 'ignore totally'! :-) Here's what I know: An e-commerce site where I do a lot of business announced that they would switch to using HTTPS. I grumped, because I'd have to use a browser I don't like as much. The owner wrote back as follows: "next month Google will begin to demote all websites that are not https secure" I assume he knew what he was talking about (via his Web-site engineering people). I suppose I could research it, but I don't have the time right at the moment. I'd love to hear if anyone else knows more. Noel

7 years

ADM-3A question

by charlesmorris800＠centurytel.net

I found a newer version of the tech manual on bitsavers, which does mention the mysterious S8 switch (as well as the S6 switch that fills the screen with 0's upon clearing). "The gated EXTENSION port mode, when selected by switch S8, allows selective transmission of data from the keyboard, in Half-Duplex mode, or the communication line through the EXTENSION port. GT: Enables gated EXTENSION port mode which allows ON/OFF control of the EXTENSION port. LK: Disables gated EXTENSION port mode which allows locking and unlocking off [sic] keyboard." The wiring is on the newer schematic, too. Another of life's little mysteries, solved :) --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus

7 years

GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

by systems.glitch＠gmail.com

Connor Krukosky and I have been working on laying out a new quad-height DEC protoboard, which can also be sheared down into a dual-height board. Full announce on the VC Forums: http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?71177-GW-DEC-1-A-New-Quad-Height-… These should be available within a month or so. I'll be putting up a preorder soon to gauge interest in the production run, which as usual will have hard gold plating on the edge connectors. I haven't gotten a quote for the cost, but I expect them to be $30-40 each for production boards. They'll be available at VCF Midwest as well as online! Thanks, Jonathan

7 years

cctalk Digest, Vol 59, Issue 13 (Curt Vendel)

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> > Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2019 12:06:48 -0400 > From: Curt Vendel <curt at atarimuseum.com> > To: cctalk at classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 59, Issue 13 > > Will... > > I?m still waiting for you and the Rhode Island Computer Society to get my > brand new in the box 9766, the Alignment disk platter, the box of spare > heads and the other unit 9766 beat up unit up and running that I gave you > to donate to RICS for free in exchange for you reading the dozen 300mb > platters I have and then once the data was read they could keep the > platters... > > So still waiting on that... hint hint hint > There are two vintage computer groups in Rhode Island, The Rhode Island Computer Museum <http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/>, and the Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island <https://www.rcsri.org/>. In this case, Curt is talking about the Retro-Computing Society of Rhode Island. -- Michael Thompson

7 years

Event Reminder: DEC Legacy is back on 9th-10th Nov 2019, Windermere UK

by mark＠wickensonline.co.uk

Just a quick reminder for those folk thinking about registering... The next DEC Legacy will take place Saturday 9th November 2019 - Sunday 10th at the Marchesi Centre in Windermere, North West UK. With a focus on Digital Equipment Corporation and their legacy of hardware, software and ethos I'm also extending an open invitation to those who are interested in SGI, HP, Sun, IBM and other high end hardware to come along and share their passion with us. Several formal presentations will be mixed with plenty of hands on time with hardware brought by enthusiasts. Enthusiasts are encouraged to bring along hardware and software to exhibit. The personal nature of the event brings a unique atmosphere within which friendships are easily forged. Registration is now open. Please visit http://wickensonline.co.uk/declegacy/ for more details. Kind Regards, Mark Wickens, M0NOM

7 years

Identification of an HP minicomputer

by ggs＠shiresoft.com

Hi, I have sitting in my pile of stuff an HP minicomputer that I?m trying to identify (at least in terms of exactly what it is and what sort of configuration it might have). As far as I can tell, it?s an HP-1000 M-Series minicomputer (that should hopefully get us *some* details). The ?asset tag? lists the part number as 2113023-108. Looking at the back there?s space for 9 I/O cards (5 are occupied). So my question is which of the several CPUs could this be and how do I tell (for example) what the configuration is (e.g. how much memory, etc). Yes, I have looked on bitsavers, but short of disassembling the box to look at the (at least) 2 boards that are below the I/O slots, I can?t tell what?s there and I?d like to see if there?s a way to determine what this is without resorting to disassembly. Thanks. TTFN - Guy

7 years

Archiving information, was Re: ADM-3A question

by marvin＠west.net

Al Kossow via cctalk writes: > On 8/14/19 8:53 AM, Anders Nelson via cctalk wrote: >> I hope this thread will be written to a blog post > > Buried in a filing cabinet in the basement with a sign that says > "Beware of Leopard". > > Blogs are a stupid way to archive information, almost as stupid as > putting it on Facebook. The problem is not archiving, but rather retrieving the data. As a current example, I am looking for information on the Jonas Escort computers. A slight misspelling (Jonas instead of Jonos) resulted in a whole slew of graphic escort services. And spelling it properly has resulted in basically zero useful information about the computer itself. It is hard to believe the almost total lack of information on the Jonos. If the scarcity is real, it must be worth at least as much as the Apple I :). And ditto for the Molecular Computer although not as bad as the Jonos. BTW, these are two computers I'm looking at bringing to VCFMW if there is any serious interest. Instead of the search engines working to improve AI, they should be putting more effort into ESP. Marvin

7 years

GW-DEC-1: A New DEC Prototyping Board

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Birkel > But which bus? There are three ... So I'm clearly not very awake this morning. I can only think of two major quad-width DEC standard slots - SPC (UNIBUS) and dual QBUS. What's the third - PMI? (MUD is hex, as is Fastbus.) Or OMNIBUS, if we're not restricted to PDP-11's? Noel

7 years

Raspberry Pi write cycles

by athornton＠gmail.com

I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as the secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card. But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it was just something broken in the Pi itself. I will state here, for the record, that if someone can spam effectively -- or be a botnet C&C node -- from TOPS/10 on a PDP-10 emulated on my Pi, my irritation at having my systems abused will probably be overwhelmed by my admiration at their dedication. (Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful. You have to turn login delay waaaaay up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.) And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in those machines to fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering to back up any of the stuff inside 'em, btw (so those of you using 'em, seriously, save your work elsewhere if it's precious--and, um, yeah, unless you're on OpenVMS, TOPS-20, or ITS, you don't have a TCP/IP stack and since you don't have a direct terminal interface into it, that probably means copying and pasting from the terminal session...but if you have something you really want off it that's larger than a couple of screens full, just write me a note and I can likely extract it for you more reasonably). Adam

7 years

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