test-drb

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101090 discussions

by david_a._vandenbroucke＠hud.gov

>Dauphin ? You're not talkin about the Dolphin ? >A kit system from the late 70's from Swizzerland ? No, I'm talking about the Dauphin DTR-1, a cute little 486-powered, pen-and-keyboard-capable portable computer. The "DTR" stands for "desktop replacement," which was overpromising a bit. As far as I know, there was no "DTR-2." Dav Vandenbroucke Economist U.S. Dept. HUD david_a._vandenbroucke(a)hud.gov

27 years, 10 months

ePay

by david_a._vandenbroucke＠hud.gov

Bill Richman (bill_r(a)inetnebr.com) says >Yeah, but it's *such* a pisser when the sniping twit gets it for your maximum plus 50 >cents!! Like you'd say "Golly - I *really* want that Altair that's autographed by the >original designers, and I'll pay $5,550 for it, but not $5,550.50!" I know I'm *way* too >good at convincing myself that my original bid was too low... And then there's always the >"Oh yeah??? Well screw _you_ buddy - take THI$$$$$!" mindset that has led me to establish >new records for ridiculous prices on eBay... (But I _did_ get the item, dammit!! ;-) One must cultivate serenity and patience if one is to participate in auctions, oh Grasshopper. On the other hand, I just got a NEC 8201 (TRS-80 Model 100 clone) for only $36.00. (If this isn't such a great price, please dont' tell me. It will interfere with my serenity and patience.) Dav Vandenbroucke Economist U.S. Dept. HUD david_a._vandenbroucke(a)hud.gov

27 years, 10 months

Y2K and immortal executables

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

But aren't there many machines that keep track of time and date? I've heard that credit cards are starting to fail if their expiration date is 2000. I don't know why all the fuss about the control tower computers or power plants (all scheduling should be doublechecked by humans anyway), but I'm sure there may be problems with checks/bills. >< >with in 1975, still running the same code. >< >< Sure, I can imagine that. But I can't imagine it will stop working >< on January 1, 2000, or that the clock couldn't be set back to 1975 >< without affecting the milling. > >Correction, what clock? Most control apps clocks are intervals, time >between events, maybe time of day or week for longer periods and its >rare that they even consider time of year. > >Keep in mind that until sometime past 1981ish clocks were not chips that >kept time of day/year. Of ten they were a periodic interrupt that was >totalized for time and date. So if the clock was broken it was software >not hardware. > >The one example where Y2K has hit a PDP-8 use was a nuke power plant >and the PDP-8 doing data logging had to print the right time date on >the page. If the time and date were wrong nothing stopped working >but the NRC would be upset with the dataing of the logs. FYI: Y2K >happens to hit every 7-8 years on PDP-8 OSs as they only use 3bits for >relative year. Bits used to be expensive! > >< If the source code has existed in some form since the late 50s or >< early 60s, no programmer since its creation has tinkered with it? >< I can imagine a slightly more plausible situation in which the source >< was written in 1961, recompiled and tweaked throughout the Sixties, >< and somehow the source was lost after recompilation in the Seventies >< so only the executable remains, and that it's been running in some > >This is likely the commonplace event and the machine by the 70s was >stable platform say like DG Nova, PDP-11 or other that has a lifespan >exceeding 10+ years or still being made. > >Lost in some cases means it exists and somewhere on a backup that is >in a room with 10,000 tapes of other backups that no one has looked >at for 7+ years. > >Heck my vax archive is over 7 years old and is more than 20 TK50s. I >don't recycle major backups as I've had tapes fail. So the deeper the >archive the less likely the loss and also harder to find a specific >item. This is only hobby use. business should do this far more often. > >< It's not that I'm denying Y2K - it's that I think it's overblown, >< especially when it comes to antique computers. > >Me too. Many system Y2K is a singular event or non event. The only >ones I even think about in relation to it are the PCs and maybe the >VAXen (I run VMS 5.3 to 5.5). The PDP-11s may not like the date but >most of the stuuff I do is not date centric so unless the OS breaks it >keeps cranking. The PC makes me worry as DOS/Win and internetorking >software may have bombs I don't know nor can fix myself. I've bumped the >clock and it seems to behave though. > >Allison > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

27 years, 10 months

Noise levels increasing and have become deafening

by franke＠sbs.de

> Well this list used to be good, now it has degenerated into 80%+ noise. depends - I'll like it more every day. > I joined the list some time ago because it was a means to get information > about some of the old computers I have collected, hardware and software > wise. This list no longer serves that purpose. Depends waht you think information is - if it's just about some date, most searchbots will give you faster information (heaps). But if its about living knowledge the list is great. I'm talking to people, not a database - and the asociative search engine here delivers very interesting, related things beside just numbers. In fact, most of all questions I ever had to get information of a special kind from the listended up nowhere, but I recived _very_ interesting implications about the information I needed (And I'm still searching for a second Commodore B500 and who owns the ROM rights on the KIM-1). > What does a 64 bit Z80 have to do with old computers It's an idea with some relations to the past (you know, the good old times) wich imples a lot about fundamental things. And if People are arguing about, it can't be realy OT (even I belive it was just a troll). > What does gripes about EBay have to do about old computers Now come on - where you living ? eBay is a mayor place for trade of our old stuff. Hey, this is on topic as on topic can ever be. That are actual problems of collecting. > What does a modern college education have to do with old computers See the fist one - just a good old time thing - AND a never ending question if we are the last generation able to build a computer from scratch, even including the CPU. > I have been watching closely what has been comming though and I have found > that by just looking at the heading I trash 95% of all messages, spot > checks have shown me that there is nothing worth while reading. Reading just the headers is missleading - very missleading. I did it sometimes, especialy when they where talking about DEC stuff, where I have no personal link, even no information about, and before I even realized I passed some _very_ interesting themes - nobody can reflect complex things in just a header. I've learned my lesson - now I peek at least inside _every_ message. > Go back and re-read what this list was supposed to be about. Hmm ever noticed that the FAQ is very vague about it ? Maybe because a living list was intendet, not a list where no talks at all are happening, because nobody is able to say soooo important things that the holy charter will grant him the right to post ? > 99% of useful information I now get is off other peoples web sites. Good for you. Single source information is always bad. Gruss H. I beg for excuse for some cynic parts, but I cant withstand my nature, especialy when its abaut regualtions. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

27 years, 10 months

Dolphin (was Re: ebay)

by franke＠sbs.de

>>Dauphin ? You're not talkin about the Dolphin ? >>A kit system from the late 70's from Swizzerland ? > No, I'm talking about the Dauphin DTR-1, a cute little 486-powered, > pen-and-keyboard-capable portable computer. The "DTR" stands for > "desktop replacement," which was overpromising a bit. As far as I > know, there was no "DTR-2." One more for the I-Want-Them-All list. :) H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

27 years, 10 months

Dumpster Diving was Re: Washington DC area vintage sources (was RE:ebay)

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

> At 10:00 AM 10/27/98 -0000, you wrote: >>Sam wrote: >>> But I ended up getting a visit from my friendly >>> neighborhood police. It seems some local concerned citizen saw me pulling >>> out all sorts of computer gear from the trash and decided something evil >>> was being perpetrated. Go figure. >> >>What did the police have to say about it? >> >>At what point does the contents of the dumpster become publicly available? >>I imagine that this might be a different point than the one at which police >>are aloud to search for evidence, but IANAL. > > I know a couple of guys that dumpster dive nearly every night. The > police have pulled them over numerous times. They usually check them and > their stuff then let them go. Sometimes they tell them to leave but that's > all. They've never been taken in or arrested. FWIW There was a court case > (supreme court?) some years ago that involved the police searching trash > cans for evidence. The court ruled that stuff thrown into the trash and and > placed on the public right of way (street) for pickup was publicly > available and no longer private property. Of course, many commercial trash > dumpsters are still located on company property so this may have no bearing. I don't know what the law is in the UK regarding dustbins (trashcans) but regarding skips (dumpsters) it is something like: Person X makes a contract with a waste disposal contractor Y. Y delivers a skip to X's premises, and probably leaves it in the road (at precisely the worst place for motorists trying to get around it :-) ). X throws stuff into the skip, but it remains X's property, and to pull it out is theft. Eventually X has thrown in all he wants and phones up Y to collect the skip. When Y does, the stuff in the skip becomes Y's property. At work, I used to skip-dive a lot. I was once told that I was breaking the law because I had removed a Superbrain from the skip. Not so - I am a PowerGen employee; the item was PowerGen property, and I hadn't removed it >from the PowerGen site; I actually offered L15 for it, since that is what I thought it was worth. However, skip-diving is now officially banned. I have been quite strongly warned off several times, once for just looking at the skip! The warnings came from quite high up, passed down through my boss. They claim there is a policy by which items are offered to staff before disposal. Some stuff (PCs etc.) is offered by competitive tender. Some stuff (Commodore 8296) is offered to me personally for L1. But a lot (incomplete Silicon Graphics Personal Iris) just goes in the skip anyway. I don't know how much goes in the skip - I don't go there very often now :-( - but I just happened to be walking past and saw the Iris :-( :-( Philip.

27 years, 10 months

64bit data 128Bit address...Re: Building a Z-80 (64bit!

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> I therefore see address buses growing at 16 bits every 30 years. That's >> just over a bit every 2 years - slower than I expected but not much. >> Someone (I forget who) said that memory chips double in capacity every 18 >> months. This would give 16 bits in 24 years. > > Interesting szenario, especialy when connected to the Mores Law > (didn't he tell this regarding integration ?). Thanks. That's the one I'm thinking of - the amount of memory you get on the same area of silicon doubles every 18 months. Apply it to the memory sizes of computers and it seems to work: in 1974 a small computer was a PDP-11/05 with perhaps 16 K bytes of memory (up to 56 K if you were lucky, IIRC). 24 years later = 16 * 18 months, a small computer is a pentiyuck PC with rather less than 2^^16 * 16 K = 1 gigabyte, but not that much less. A computer in the same market slot as the 11/05 is perhaps a Sparcstation, in which a gig of memory is by no means out of the question... > Hmm I will have my 88th by then - jets join :) Your place or mine? :-) :-) Philip.

27 years, 10 months

Commodore 128D

by maxeskin＠www.hotmail.com

Well, it's been about two months, and I still haven't started on the C128D that Hans gave me (sorry, Hans!). Could someone please post the PSU pinouts for it (this is the one with an internal PSU)? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

27 years, 10 months

Dolphin (was Re: ebay)

by franke＠sbs.de

> Does Stephen own a Dauphin? I don't think they're quite old enough > for the "classic" definition. Dauphin ? You're not talkin about the Dolphin ? A kit system from the late 70's from Swizzerland ? Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

27 years, 10 months

Haggle Online (Was: ePay)

by franke＠sbs.de

>> Jep. If not eBay, maybe another system will pick up the idea. >> This could maybe give em the right difference for competition. > I wish it were this simple. eBay already has the reputation among > "collectors" (I use that term to include the speculators and idiots as > well) as being THE place to go to sell and buy vintage computers. I'd > much rather this place be Haggle Online since that site has a specific > "Antique Computers" listing (http://www.haggle.com/cache/cat43.html). > Someone has to come along and actively market their site as THE place to > buy/sell vintage computers, and then institute a good auction policy that > will cut down on the gripes we are hearing here. I don't think that 'marketing' is the most needed. It needs some different details to get more attention. The Antique Computer colume is one step - also keeping the theme (dash out OT). But there is still this anoying min bid thing and the sniper possibility (althrough I haven't seen any special Haggle sniping SW until now). Why I'm aginst min bids ? Now, first it prevents from giving a bin in an amount I think is reasonable. Second, thru canceling this maybe very low bid, it avoids any bidding competition wich eventualy will rise the price above ana limit. For an example there is an actual SX-64 on Haggle with an min bid of 75 USD and no bid from any of the more than 30 visitors. When comparing to eBay, where SXes are sold for something like 70 to 120 USD the price idea isn't wrong, but nobody jumps in. While on eBay such a SX starts at some 10 USD and rises. In fact, until now the minbid has disatracted me from at least 5 items. I maybe would have end at a price above the min bid, within the auction, but for shure to expensive to start with. The reserved price thing, where the seller reserves the richt to refuses if a specific price isn't reached is a lot more usefull. No seller will claim his reserved price if the auction ends just 5 USD below, but at least a price is negotiated. The only thing I dislike is the automatic lift to the reserve, if the _maximum_ bid is above. > I'm ready to start if someone is willing to follow my lead. Oh master, be my leader (Or was it Heil Salaam?). SCNR. For real, I look at Haggle Online at least twice a week, but as long as I cant't go for what I need, I have still to stay at eBay. Gruss Hans -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

27 years, 10 months

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