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101090 discussions

classic computer stuff in Scientific American

by cswiger＠wilma.widomaker.com

Alex Knight[SMTP:aknight@mindspring.com] reports: >One of my more interesting acquisitions along the way of looking >for early-model calculators has been a nearly-complete set of >Scientific American magazines from 1965-1978. In the 1960's Good collection. All that Martin Gardner and Dr. Matrix, Conway's 'Life'...waaaaa So do you have the Sept. '74 issue in which the Amateur Scientist, IIRC, taught us how to breadboard 74xx logic gates - so then one could build a machine to solve 'truth tables' as in Irving Copi's "Symbolic Logic"? What fun they were. Karnaugh maps were just ahead. Chuck cswiger(a)widomaker.com

27 years, 8 months

Computers for children

by jfoust＠threedee.com

At 10:00 PM 1/12/99 -0800, Sam Ismail wrote: > >Gee, I wish I was your daughter. My dad's idea of cirriculum was: > Raking Leaves Rake > Mowing Lawns Lawnmower [...] >I had to learn everything else on my own :) No personal aspersion on Chuck's plan, but in both Sam's dad and many other parents I've seen, the curriculum (in general, not just computer-centric) seems to be driven by the parent's interests and perhaps the child's own natural interests are forgotten. My three-year-old likes to doodle on my Pilot and PC, but something inside me wants to let him be a kid for a while, as opposed to pushing him to become the latest "youngest NT certified engineer." When I furnished him with an old Mac SE with a kid-paint program, he enjoyed it, but after a while he removed the mouse and used it to lasso his fire truck until the magic smoke left the mouse. Yes, there's a 100bT port in his bedroom, and a T-1 to the house, but I haven't told him about that yet. It's scary how the words "e-mail" and "dot com" worked there way into his vocabulary, though. I flinch when I see how computers are used in schools. I help the local school board with some technological issues, and recently took a tour of the new network wiring at the high school. They've got fiber to the closets, DS-3 feeding the place, video distribution, it goes on and on. "What's it going to be used for," I asked the director. "Well, it might be ten years before we get the budget to refurbish, so we thought we'd ask for as much as possible, and we'll let the teachers figure out how to use it." Meanwhile, the teacher's union is requesting funding for substitutes so that teachers can take mornings and afternoons away from their classrooms in order to attend seminars to learn how to use the marginal Win95 machines they have now. Meaning, of course, that they don't know how to use what was installed from the last round of funding. The only use of the Net I saw on the tour was five kids in the library, surfing sites about their favorite bands. Surprisingly, the "porn filter" consisted of keeping the monitors in sight of the librarian's desk. Of course, we all know the Web is peer-reviewed and scholastically approved, so any material you find there is OK to cut-and-paste into a book report. - John

27 years, 8 months

No subject

by dhansen＠zebra.net

27 years, 8 months

RT-11 Help

by mbg＠world.std.com

"Mike" <dogas(a)leading.net> wrote: >an MSCP disk ??? This was a cardkey application for a rather large site >so mayhap the app did this... The problem is that we need to know a little more of the system configuration first... do you know exactly what the system has? If you know it has MSCP disks, then we need to know how they have the partitions setup. >>What you may want to suggest to him is to >> >> 1) Delete all sensitive files from all disk partitions > >how? DELETE myfile?? Yep... standard DCL (Digital Command Language), not something obscure like 'rm' (Sorry... couldn't resist :-) >>Not counting the documentation which can be purchased for it... > >really? where? sign me up. ;) As someone else has already mentioned, a Doc set is something like US$1300+... I doubt hobbyists will run out and buy it... that's why the best you can probably hope for is someone who can let you 1) borrow, 2) have, or 3) copy select pages/manuals of their doc set. Megan Gentry Former RT-11 Developer +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ | Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com | | Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com | | Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' | | 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ | | Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler | | (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

27 years, 8 months

NorthStar Dimension

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

Was anyone aware that in 1984 North Star Computers introduced the North Star Dimension, a DOS-compatible "workstation"? Seems to have been a typical IBM PC XT clone. North Star's last foray into computers before they folded altogether no doubt. Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Always being hassled by the man. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 12/27/98]

27 years, 8 months

Seriously *bad* ebay auction...

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

Not in the same league, but I noted to the seller of an Altair 8800b currently on eBay that, despite the item description's statement to the contrary, $3000 was NOT a low starting price. He begged to differ, stating that these things are going for over $6000 now. A -----Original Message----- From: Kirk Davis <kbd(a)ndx.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 6:41 PM Subject: RE: Seriously *bad* ebay auction... Hey, don't forget that $100 Atari Belt buckle (only one at that price!!!) :-)

27 years, 8 months

FW: Fellow needs help using a paper tape reader

by kyrrin＠my-dejanews.com

Can someone please get in touch with this guy? He asks a most interesting question. Thanks! Attachment follows. -=-=- <snip> -=-=- From: "Bill Mohler" <bill(a)cs.oberlin.edu> Newsgroups: sci.electronics.misc Subject: Help: Paper tape reader to PC Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 14:51:55 -0500 Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site Lines: 11 Message-ID: <77g9a4$ie4(a)news.cc.oberlin.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: pmohler.physics.oberlin.edu X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3110.3 Path: news1.jps.net!news.pbi.net!131.119.28.147!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!malgudi.oar.net!news.cc.oberlin.edu!usenet Xref: news1.jps.net sci.electronics.misc:7212 Greetings, Any advice on how to attach a paper tape reader to an IBM compatible computer? How about making the PC emulate a tape reader? Sounds crazy, but we run some software from paper tape...would be easier if it were on disk. Thanks! -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com "...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."

27 years, 8 months

Bulbs in parallel

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 01:31 PM 1/11/99 -0600, you wrote: >> > Or an entire digital computer out of ropes and pulleys? >> >Gag? Mechanical computers are serious stuff, Hans. Like Danny Hillis' >tinker-toy tic-tic-toe machine: See also: http://moose.spesh.com/lego/ http://weirdrichard.com/machine.htm There was another one, but I can't seem to find the page now. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

27 years, 8 months

y2k stuff

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

In einer eMail vom 12.01.1999 15:06:43, schreiben Sie: << I've come across enough machines that use 6-bit characters internally.... 6 Bit ? thats new - I never have seen a 6 Bit byte computer - I know 6 Bit only from some serial line encodings. >> 6 bit characters were quite the standard BEFORE /360 days, say for CDC 6600, CDC 7600 (the most powerful computers from mid-60s until the appearance of the CRAY-1 machines, forerunners of the Cyber 170 series), or IBM 7030, IBM 7090, IBM 7094 say, back in the '60s. They were not called bytes, and could not be addressed directly; there were 36 bit or 60 bit words, and shift / logical instructions used for character manipulation. In fact this is probably the origin for the six character namelength limit in FORTRAN IV : 6 chars x 6 bits = 36 bit word. John G. Zabolitzky

27 years, 8 months

What's a VAX 6000/300 ?

by cmcmanis＠freegate.com

My guess is that it isn't "classic" yet, but there is a nice example of one at Berman for _next week's_ auction. (unless they are saving it and the tape drive for someone) --Chuck

27 years, 8 months

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