I'm picking as I've been around long enough in the industry to see what I
call retrorevisionism. It's the terminology creep that has been occuring
since the PC became the computer for all things. Though its been going on
for load longer.
< I don't know why you would want to class that as a MPU. Most of these
< terms were invented because a new breed came into existance and it neede
< a new name to distinguish it from what came before. "Microprocessor"
< was coined to celebrate a logic integration landmark: a computer on a
< single chip.
the terms were invented after the fact.
< > < Microcomputer: a computer based on a single microprocessor.
< >
< > What if there are several performing different tasks in the same box.
<
< OK, Microcomputer: a computer that runs applications on a single
< microprocessor.
Lessee, my visual 1050 uses the 6502 for video and a z80 for the main cpu
and a z80 for the MFM hard disk controller (all running concurrently).
Teh single cpu thing is a sticking point.
Try: A computer based on microprocessors.
< I really don't know what to call a SMP PC, though. Microsupercomputer?
Or the s100 4 z80 loosely coupled SMP running CP/M2.2... Terminology
sorta gets mashed.
< > < Workstation: a computer designed to run Unix with a bitmapped displa
< >
< > What if it's a VAX running VMS? Yes the VS3100s were definatly
< > workststions.
<
< OK, Workstation: a computer with a bitmapped display designed to run a
< non-Microsoft multitasking OS.
;') a NON PC pc.
< > < Minicomputer: a timesharing computer that can support fewer than 10
< > < simultaneous users.
< >
< > VAX and minicomputer that could and often did have more than 100 users
<
< OK, Minicomputer: a general purpose computer without a memory-mapped
< display, smaller than a mainframe.
What about a MicrovaxII servicing a half dozen Xterms? Or a 11/780
equipped with a DECterm100 (bit mapped and the map is vax resident)?
Minicomputer: something significantly smaller and cheaper than mainframes
of the time. The definition was based on compact size not IO interface
or the presence or lack of a bit mapped display.
< > < Mainframe: a timesharing computer than can support 100 or more user
< > < simultaneously.
< >
< > Generally big iron and most that had that distinction where physically
< > large. AKA univac 1180.
<
< OK, Mainframe: a general purpose computer without a memory-mapped displa
< that weighs at least one ton.
Oh dear.. the video displays on some of the big ums... Actually the break
point was again size and especially cost. At the time mini and mainframe
were in vogue the difference was around 10/1 in cost and around the same
or greater for weight.
< Some people use PC's as dedicated controllers, but that doesn't make
< a PC an embedded computer in my mind. Cross-development seems to be th
< only common factor when people talk about embedded, although there are
< embedded environments, such as QNX, that support native development.
PDP-8s and 11s were some of the mainstays for embedded controls work
and some had local resources enough to develop insitu. Your viewpoint
is influenced by the current vogue. ***An embedded system is simply a
system that has a computer (ANY!) burried/coupled to it.*** It could be
a NC mill with a PDP-8, a production line with a PDP-15 or in later years
a PLC or a process control system with a s100 crate and Compucolor board
and color CRT. I have seen and worked on all of these and more.
Allison
I have a small (about 2"x2") box which has a 30 pin edge connector
on one end and a switch on the other. There is a label on one side
with says:
ON OFF
"THE PILL"
This came in a box of misc Atari 800 items but I don't know where
it would plug into an Atari. Anyone have any idea what it might be?
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
Hi,
Would it be possible to enforce a maximum size for each list message in the
classiccmp mailing list software? 20K maximum should be okay, and would prevent
people (accidentally or on purpose) sending large files through the list, as
just happened.
Otherwise when someone posts a large file to the list, those who subscribe to
the digest version especially must decide between downloading a huge digest
message file (containing the useless large posting), or skipping it and
therefore missing proper messages. (If they have configured their mail program
to alert them when large messages are waiting.)
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
-- Mark
Because people don't want to feel like they're singlehandedly
running the Ministry of Truth from a desk in their room. Something
engineers never seem to get is the concept of a nice look. Many of
the people on this list mention how ugly something is, and if I've
seen it, I'm often forced to agree.
>> STD Bus 8080 Computer board set mounted in a compucolor comercial
color
>> terminal. This terminal was a large metal box with a 19 inch monitor
>> inside. It weighed 70 or 80 pounds. No one would have wanted it in
their
>> house. It was ugly, huge, very unwieldy and heavy. You could attach a
8"
>> hard drive, 8" or 5 " floppys and any other interface availiable on
STD
>> bus that would fit in a near full 6 slot backplane. No comparison to
an
>> Apple II, which many people wanted in their homes.
>
>Well, you just spent a paragraph telling us your opinion of the
>Compucolor, without giving any technical reasons as to why one would
>prefer an Apple II over a Compucolor.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Ever onward.
>
> September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
> [Last web site update: 08/25/98]
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Hi,
The other week I bought an IBM 4869 5.25" floppy drive. This is an external
unit that hooks up to a PC via a 37-way D connector. The case is massive, for a
simple floppy drive.
Anyway, I can't get it to work properly. It is probably a 360K drive mechanism,
and my PC (Philips 386SX AT clone) boots normally with this type of drive set
in the backup RAM.
I can format disks and use DIR, but reading or writing any files always gives
an Abort/Retry/Cancel error. Unsurprisingly, cleaning the heads made no
difference. Actually, to elaborate on this copying a load of files to a newly-
formatted disk gives an error after copying (say) the first two files.
Does this drive have some non-standard pinout, different from the 37-way D
5.25" port on the back of the PC, or maybe only work with IBM PS/2 machines?
If it is just faulty, what might the problem be? The cable is unlikely I think,
as is the power supply.
The casing has a couple of tamperproof Torx screws. I'd like to know what size
they are so that I can buy a suitable screwdriver bit.
Finally, on another subject, if anyone has an old PC with at least three ISA
slots (386SX would be fine) I could give it a good home.
-- Mark
Jason,
I have a card like that too. There's no same on it or the manual but
the description is the same. It even has the Cirrus Logic video Bios. It
has nine sets of jumpers near the center of the board and a single pair
toward one end. The floppy and IDE connectors are mounted vertically near
the center of the board. Let me know if you want to compare them and see if
they're the same. I have the manuals and software for mine.
Joe
At 12:45 PM 9/13/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>I had a multi-I/o card that did 2 serial, 1 parallel, 1 game, SuperVGA
>(Cirrus Logic 5424 I think), IDE and floppy all on one card. But it was a
>VLB card. I used it in my 486SLC I had at the time. I don't remember who
>made it. It was "generic" -- no name printed on the card, and all of the
>large number of jumpers where labelled "JPx" so it was quite difficult to
>reconfigure without the manual.
>
> -jrs
>
>At 11:18 AM 9/13/98 -0700, you wrote:
>>I'm looking for a slight variation of a card I have in an old PC/XT,
>>one card with:
>> - video (monochrome text only is OK, VGA at best)
>> - floppy disk controller (3.5in, 1.44MB is necessary)
>> - serial/parallel I/O (optional, one serial port would be nice)
>> - and (optionally) a hard drive controller (MFM is OK, IDE better)
>>With such a card I can construct a minimal, full system on an old
>>386sx I have using only one expansion slot, which is a necessity.
>>
>>The card I have is an 8-bit ISA card, and that or a 16-bit ISA card
>>would be OK. The card I have only does up to 5.25in, 720KB floppies,
>>and that's why I can't steal it from my XT.
>>
>>Was such a card ever made? (It's not too much of a step beyond what
>>I have.) Does anyone have one around? Does someone still make such
>>a card?
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Dave
>>
>_______________________________________________________________________
> \/|/\ | Jason Simpson | http://www.xio.com/jason/
> /\|\/ | jason(a)xio.com | Wanted: '87-90 Volkswagen Fox 2 Door Wagon
>
< the Compucolor came with an "integrated display", and featured 160x192,
< 8-color (vector) graphics (the Apple was capable of 280x192 bit-mapped
The Compucolor had raster graphics. It did run it as raster too. The
software was written as vector to raster.
< Yet the Apple II is celebrated as having been the first home computer wi
< built-in color graphics, and almost no mention of the Compucolor is eve
< made in any general computer history texts. The obvious difference
< between the two is that the Apple II went on to enjoy tremendous succes
< for the next 15+ years while the Compucolor was relegated to an also-ran
< The victors do indeed write the history, or at least get the lion's shar
< of the mention.
Such are the vagarities of history.
< I think its odd that a system such as the Compucolor, extremely comparab
< to the capabilities of the Apple II (if not more so in some respects)
< hardly gets mentioned in the computer history books I read.
the difference is the apple could be had peicemeal for less and the
Compucolor was big and expensive. the CC was intimidating and aimed at
the highend, appleII was cuddly and inviting being aimed a bit lower.
Think of it this way it's wasnt' what the hardware could do it was waht
the user perceived (s)he could do with it.
< The lesson of this story is, you can have the best, most amazing produc
< in the world, but "build it and they will come" does not apply. You've
< got to advertise. Apple was obviously more masterful at this.
DEC did not learn that several times over starting with the PDP-11/150
(destop pdp-11 system), the VT180, Pro350 and Rainbow. Yet the DECMATE
series which were fairly capable but generally used for wordprocessing
are like flies!
Allison
What are the expansion port specs (if applicable) of an Atari ST?
Research on the internet turned up info about a cartridge port expander
made to connect a scanner to an ST via a Navarone Cartridge Interface
(ref:) http://www.ataricentral.com/wwwboard/messages/366.html
Other found info:
Navarone Industries is (was) located at:
Navarone Industries, Inc.
510 Lawrence Expressway #800
Sunnyvale, CA 94086
(ref:)
http://cws86.kyamk.fi/Computers/Commodore/articles/Enhancing_Your_64/
---------------------------------------
Navarone apparently made stuff for the TI99. I wonder if it is a
pass-thru cart for the side connector of a TI99, where the speech module
connects to (I forget if the port is male or female)? Or, even though it
may not be as wide as a regular TI cart, does it slide into the front
cartridge connector anyhow and possibly be used for copying cartridges?
<insert standard liability disclaimer>
---------------------------------------
Jeff Salzman
>It certainly seemed about the right size for a 64 cartridge, but it doesn't
>work that way. Also, the passthru plug is a teeny big too large to easily get
>a cartridge to attach to it.
>
>> On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Uncle Roger wrote:
>>
>> > Similarly, does anyone remember a truck-like thing (big trax?) that you
>> > could program sorta like LOGO? I remember the commercials showed it
>> > bringing a soda (or beer?) to one lucky owner. Unfortunately, my family's
>> > gift budgets never would have covered such a nifty gadget... 8^(
>>
>> My oldest brother got one of those for Christmas in maybe '78. Those were
>> cool! I hope I run into one of them one of these days. Weren't they made
>
>When I was in 4th grade a classmate had one. We were all jealous of course.
>I think he said it went for $80.
>
>Seems like maybe it picked itself up on a turntable in order to make
>turns in-place. I'm pretty sure the wheels didn't steer.
>
I believe you're talking about the Mattel "Big Trak"? My nephews had one of
those many years ago. I believe it used tank-type steering; six wheels, and
it could either lock one set and pivot using the others, or reverse one
side. I've got some surplus gearboxes and motors from the Big Trak that I
purchased several years ago. They're kind of neat; they have two motors and
gear trains, linked together with a couple of big magnets. If you run both
in the same direction, the magnets are strong enough to force both motors to
turn at the same speed. If you reverse one of the motors, the magnets
alternately repel and attract. This either forces the machine to drive in a
straight line, or to pivot about its center, respectively. They also have
an optical interrupter on one gear so the CPU can tell how far the motors
have turned. It had a hookup to dump the trailer, and I think some other
options that never were released. It was a pretty cool toy.
A quick web search found this:
BigTrak User's Guide:
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/courses/year3/358/cwk/brown/BT_UG/
BigTrak Simulator Project:
http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/courses/year3/358/cwk/corke/
BigTrak Repair Service:
http://www.lavalamp.demon.co.uk/bigtrak/bigtrak.htm
Bill Richman
incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r
(Home of the COSMAC Elf
microcomputer simulator!)
