Hey, how about Soviet military parades? Best of both worlds!
>
>At 05:34 PM 8/24/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>
>>Myself, I prefer dancing and singing to celebrate things. What
happened
>>to dressing up in costumes and building floats and giving away free
stuff
>>like candy or food?
>>
>>Ah well...
>
>Blame the lawyers and the liabililty laws... (from a one time float
>builder and one who remembers when it was actually fun to be in a
parade)
>
>-jim
>
>---
>jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
>The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
>Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
>
>
>
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I was going to suggest that but since I've never used them, I was
afraid someone might like them. Why the Altair, though?
How about we all pitch in and build a nuclear-powered electromagnetic
mass driver to hurl the ENIAC into space (inadvertentley destroying
an oncoming alien fleet and being the saviours of the world)?
>
>< > Here's a question: what _obsolete_ computer would you choose for
this
>< > miracle machine, assuming you have unlimited power?
><
>< I'd get out my best documentary camera, place an Altair on the
catapult
>< and then film you guys trying to catch it. :-)
>
>I'd want to be the one pulling the catapult release. ;)
>
>But, before I did that one it would be a TI99/4a... nice cpu hobbled by
a
>really bad design.
>
>Allison
>
>
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Anthony Clifton wrote:
> It never ceases to amaze me that, when offered an opportunity to
> celebrate in a positive manner, groups of people will choose to smash,
> burn and destroy things instead. If it were some kind of demonstration
> against a particular company for some kind of social violations, it least
> smashing a computer made by that company would have some kind of symbolic
> purpose (albeit still a negative one). But to just smash something for
> the hell of it.
>
> I think there's a song about smashing a "perfectly good guitar."
>
> Myself, I prefer dancing and singing to celebrate things. What
> happened to dressing up in costumes and building floats and giving away
> free stuff like candy or food?
I was hoping not to get drawn into this somewhat strange thread, but...
I agree with Anthony. (Why is smashing pottery always such a popular
sideshow at the fair?) I have noticed a similar trend in other areas,
such as sponsored events to raise money for charity. People always want
to be sponsored to do something useless like walking 1000 miles or
jumping out of an aeroplane (airplane). If it's a worthwhile cause they
are supporting, I'll go ahead and sponsor them, but why can't we have
sponsored events like "Pick up all the litter in the neighbourhood -
sponsorship per bag collected"? The worst thing is, no-one would
sponsor people to do something useful because "Aren't the council
supposed to be doing it anyway? Why am I paying council tax? [Rant,
Rant]"
Sad, but that's human nature for you.
Philip.
At 11:45 AM 8/24/98 PDT, you wrote:
>Today I saw an Atari 5?0ST and an 800XL. As I understand, the ST ran
>GEM. Is this an interesting computer at all? What about the XL? Was
>this one of the BASIC computers?
520ST does indeed run GEM; it's about equivalent to a Mac Plus or so. 512K
RAM, (unless expanded) 68000 CPU. What it does have that other machines in
the same class (early Mac's, early Amigas) don't have is built-in MIDI
ports for connecting to musical keyboards and synthesizers.
That's what I (would) use in my studio (if I had it all set up) for
composition and sequencing. (Doncha just hate moving?)
The 800XL is an updated version of the venerable 800. Has BASIC built-in
and only one cartridge. Nice machine.
Today I saw an Atari 5?0ST and an 800XL. As I understand, the ST ran
GEM. Is this an interesting computer at all? What about the XL? Was
this one of the BASIC computers?
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Well, I don't necessarily see anything wrong with once in a while
destroying a useless piece of junk, like a PC or a C64 (despite
popular belief, third world countries will _not_ be better off with
more computers). In general, moderated violence is vital in society,
so that unmoderated violence is not as common. Singing and dancing
is good too, but remember that Cain is the one who was a vegetarian.
Of course, I have no idea why people showing off technology would
want to do it by smashing stuff. Ah, that's life...
>The whole exercise is such a Beavis and Butthead thing to do.
>
>It never ceases to amaze me that, when offered an opportunity to
>celebrate in a positive manner, groups of people will choose to smash,
>burn and destroy things instead. If it were some kind of demonstration
>against a particular company for some kind of social violations, it
least
>smashing a computer made by that company would have some kind of
symbolic
>purpose (albeit still a negative one). But to just smash something for
>the hell of it.
>
>I think there's a song about smashing a "perfectly good guitar."
>
>Myself, I prefer dancing and singing to celebrate things. What
happened
>to dressing up in costumes and building floats and giving away free
stuff
>like candy or food?
>
>Ah well...
>
>Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
>
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--- Tony Duell wrote:
>
> RE: the discussion on converting the Sun Remarketing Mac XL back to a Lisa
> 2 - I called Sun Remarketing and spoke with their most knowledgable Lisa
> person (thanks Marion!) who was less than encouraging about the project.
> According to him, it is not just replacing a few ROMs and PALs, and removing
> a transformer from the CRT yoke - it requires replacing the main logic board
> from an original Lisa, and unless you have a wrecked Lisa, that item may be
> a little hard to find.
I thought the only difference between the logic boards was the
PROMs/PALs. Of course, not owning a Lisa, I can't be sure about this,
alas...
--- end of quote ---
This is what I've heard, too. In fact, one of the newer Lisa gizmos sold by Dafax is a "ROM switcher" so you can use both the original Lisa H-roms and the modification 3A-roms without further tinkering. (I guess you'd just put up with oval circles and whatnot in Mac apps, since the ROM switcher doesn't do squat about changing the video.) All these repair manuals say "hang onto your old ROMS so you can run Lisa stuff in the future" which seems to indicate that it's feasible to revert the change. ???
-- MB
< Thanks, that's about the sort of detail I needed (I assume that was jus
< written from memory)....
mostly.
< One question, what's the difference between the AB and CD slots in the
< backplane?
varies. There are generally two styles of cards dual width (AB) and quad
width (ABCD) and two styles of backplane those that are bussed with the
same signals on AB/CD pairs and those that are bussed on the AB side and
the CD has a unique bussing for user configs and special use.
Allison
