>The problem in my mind was that there was no guiding thread, no >hook",
no core story, no moral or lesson - just fumbling computer >companies,
insane investors, inept marketroids, crazy genius types, >etc. Is this
interesting enough, or just interesting to Amiga-heads?
The former. I can read commodore anecdotes for hours and never get
tired. One of my favorites is that they drilled circuit boards (some
early machine) to prevent people from putting their own upgrade chips in
(rather than have the dealer do it), and it cost them more to do this
than the cost of the actual chip. I mean, there does have to be some
tie-together, but it's always there if one has a lot of information.
Here's one: Capitalism, the abode of stupidity, is the crematorium of
ingenuity and creativity. Just off the top of my head.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
<> Why are folks scrounging on this list for blank 8" floppies when they a
<> readily available by mail order?
<
<I'd guess lack of information and price, Tim.
<
< - don
I'm as baffled as you two as if I ship disks I'm going to charge $5 just
so I have shipping covered for a box of about 10. After all of I have a
handful of people doing a send me some it could very likely incur some
serious $$$ in shipping. No real bargan there.
Allison
>The 512K uses an older mouse that is internally compatible with a PC bus
>mouse or an Amiga mouse, just one button. I do not know the pinout of
>the Mac, but it should be a trivial exercise to build a pin swabber. You
Speaking of Mac Mice... At the MIT Flea this past weekend, I picked up
a mouse for the Mac Classic I mentioned in other mail... it is the
'original' style of apple mouse. My question is whether this will work
correctly with the Mac Classic -- it does seem to plug in, but since I'm
not getting much response from the system, I don't know...
BTW - another question -- when the Mac Classic boots, it shows the smiley
disk and I hear the internal HD working. The screen goes light grey with
a pointer on it. This is displayed for a few seconds and then I get the
'Welcome to Macintosh' screen. This remains this way for as much as 10
minutes (I didn't wait longer). Is this normal? Have I simply not
allowed the system adequate time to boot to a user screen? (I'm used to
an RT system which boots in about 30-45 seconds, depending on amount of
memory).
Also, there are two buttons on the left side of the case... one apparently
does the mac equivalent of the three-fingered-salute on PCs... the other
one causes the 'Welcome to Macintosh' screen to go away and be replaced
by one which lookes the same (banner background) but with a '>' sign...
What is this?
Please pardon a really naive Mac user (this is my first use of a Mac, and
I'm not impressed so far), and I'm trying to get this thing working for
my partner's pre-school class.
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry(a)zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg(a)world.std.com |
| Digital Equipment Corporation | |
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+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
I would honestly LOVE to visit that web site, but my proxy denies fulfilling
the request. Like it's got sensitive info.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, June 25, 1998 7:40 PM
Subject: Re: Loss of early UCSD P-System materials...
>kroma <kroma(a)worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>Damn! I wish I'd known about your museum - last summer I helped clean
>>>>>out the lab that had been Ken Bowles and we found a bunch of 8-inch
>>>
>>>OH MY GOD, THEY KILLED KENNY!!! YOU BASTARDS!!!
>
>At 06:06 PM 6/25/98 +0300, Hotze wrote:
>>Ha. You think that you're funny, don't you?
>
>Well, even I laughed. Ken's not dead, though. He's at
><http://www.electriciti.com/~bowlesk>.
>
>- John
>Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>
<> Firstly a CD player is not that easy to convert into a CD-ROM drive. My
<> CD-ROM drive _is_ based on a CD-player, and I have the service manuals
<> both for the CD-ROM drive and the player. The mods are not that simple
<
<I'm not talking about converting - I'm talking that in 25 years
<still new drives will be available to read CDs - Maybe some kind
<of hyper-DVD-super-ultra drives - but able to read 'regular' CDs.
That may be longer than reasonable... I'd use say writable CDrom
and if 9 years from now the ability to read that start getting scarce
I'd use the next technology that is current then and copy to that.
This would allow reading using available technology and also insure the
data was fresh. FYI: checksums and various other means can be used to
insure a file has not been compromized and also make recovery possible.
<
<> Secondly, where do I get a 78rpm record player these days (new, of
<> course). Or a Playtape player. Or an 8-track cartridge player. Music
<> formats do go out of production as well.
Some do some don't and a few are easy to make. a player for 78rpm disks
would be pretty trivial. Certain tape formats are fairly easy like
800/1600 bpi magtape.
<shure ther will - I bet any money you want - or wait - I what
<about my Pascal Microengine ? You'll get it if there is no new,
<working, CD reading device availabe in 2023 :)
It is necessary to look at the entire archival picture. copies of the
eproms/roms PALs are only a peice, spares to reproduce them and the
tools needed to insert code are also required.
Allison
I have about two xerox paper boxes of 8" floppies. this is several
hundred floppies.
Box one is the entire sigm and cpmug volumes and they are readable.
Box two is mostly blanks or believed to be.
Local pick up or shipping would be small quantities of disks so they can
be packed in plastic disk boxes.
If there is no interest I intend to dump these as it's filling the garage.
Also I have another box load that have programs (orginal disks) of the
likes of deadline, planetffall, Aventure and more.
Allison
> Now, I've found 9tack tape to be _very_ reliable, second only to paper
> tape. Certainly a lot more reliable than EPROMs, PROMs, etc.
If kept in proper environment.
>> I had even new taps failing to record.
> Good, branded tapes, or just random cheap ones?
Branded - a pcs at 140 USD.
> The other thing is, nobody has said that you only keep one backup, right?
:)
> Keep the original EPROM, in use, and hope you don't need a backup
Shure thats why I have them - Backup isn't the bussines it's
the tool.
> Keep a copy on your PC's hard disk, for looking at, and for burning an
> EPROM from if your screwdriver slips and applies 12V to the Vcc pin of
> the EPROM...
I still use an 8085 systems for the EPROM thing :)
> Keep a copy on floppy disk or PC streamer tape, just in case you delete
> the wrong file
> Keep a copy on paper tape in case all else fails.
> And keep a copy on CD-R, 9-track, Zip, etc. Whatever else you can store
> it on. The more copies you have, the more likely one will be readable in
> the future.
:)
>>>> And any magnetic media is crap for long time archival.
>>>> Just ask some (ausio) tape fans about tapes from the 60s.
>>> Oh, I don't know. I've managed to play 1960's reel-to-reel audio tapes
>>> (and early 19790's video tapes, reel and cassette) with no real
>>> problems. If you pick a suitably redundant format for the data I suspect
>>> it'll be OK.
>> Managed to play and recovering all information are
>> different things.
> Yes, but
> (a) you'd use a partially redundant encoding system (I _know_ I
> would) so you could recover partially damaged data.
> (b) 'damage' that affects audio or video recordings may not have much
> effect on data (and vice versa). For example minor print-through would
> certainly be audible, but it might be possible to set the read thresholds
> so a digital tape drive wouldn't notice it. Ditto for fading. On the
> other hand drop-outs have a much greater effect on digital data than on
> audio or video recordings.
true.
>> And back to CDs (to reunite the two threads):
>> Theres a huge difference between your listed magnetic things
>> and CDs - the music sector - I bet any summ you want that
>> there will be new drives in 20 years from now, able to read
>> a CD made today (if the CD contend isn't damaged of course).
> Firstly a CD player is not that easy to convert into a CD-ROM drive. My
> CD-ROM drive _is_ based on a CD-player, and I have the service manuals
> both for the CD-ROM drive and the player. The mods are not that simple.
I'm not talking about converting - I'm talking that in 25 years
still new drives will be available to read CDs - Maybe some kind
of hyper-DVD-super-ultra drives - but able to read 'regular' CDs.
> Secondly, where do I get a 78rpm record player these days (new, of
> course). Or a Playtape player. Or an 8-track cartridge player. Music
> formats do go out of production as well.
Stop. 8-track - or what ever special formates beside regular
phonographic disks had always only a special small ocurence -
like ZIP drives, or almost any old media on computers beside
mybe tapes. For 78rpm players you should take a look at a
shop for analogue enthusiasts - there are still _new_ players
available - ok, I don't know if they sell more than 100 pcs
a year word wide, but they are available - and for 33/45rpm
players, almost any audio store still has at least one _new_
model to offer. Even Quelle (big mail order company in Germany)
still offers players. And now it's almost 20 years after the
CD.
Again, I give no chance for special devices and solution, but
I think there will be new CD Players even in 25 years - I am
shure ther will - I bet any money you want - or wait - I what
about my Pascal Microengine ? You'll get it if there is no new,
working, CD reading device availabe in 2023 :)
Servus
hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
<Cool Stuff about the history of computer speech SNIPPED>
> A year or two earlier, Texas Instruments got into speech synthesis in a big
> way using a technique halfway between digitized speech and speech
> synthesis, a
> process that might now be called "smoothed sampling". It worked much better
> than true synthesis in that its intelligiblity was quite good. Because of
> that, TI was able to sell a variety of manufacturers on the idea of having
> talking washing machines, microwave ovens, vaccuum cleaners, etc. The most
> expensive of these talking machines was the Chrysler LeBaron automobile
> -- and
> people (the end-users, not the engineers) found all of this incredibly
> irritating. The single most requested option on the LeBaron, by far and
> away,
> was to have the speech generator deleted.
>
> Talking appliances were a technological fad that lasted only about three
> years, 1979-1982.
/NOSTALGIA = ON
Wow, this brings back a funny (well to me, anyway) memory. In 1983,
I used to service two way mobile radios for a Motorola Service
Center in Los Angeles. Typically, the customer would bring in his
car, explain the problem, and then wait in the lounge whil I worked
on it.
One day, this guy comes in with this big, shiny new luxury car (well,
maybe it was a Buick? Chrysler? anyway . .), with a broken two-way.
I'm sitting next to him in the front seat, and he's trying to explain
the trouble. The whole time, the car is saying <<The key is in the
IGNITION>>, <<The key is in the IGNITION>> . . . in a decidedly
mechanical pseudo-woman's voice.
The guy gets pissed, and angrily jerks the key out of the ignition
(shutting up the robot), and continues to tell me how he can't talk
to his dispatcher . . .
An hour goes by, and I replace a bad antenna and feed line, and clamp
down the BIG +12v lead, and so on. I start the engine, the radio
works ok, so I kill it, and head for the lounge where the customer is
waiting.
We step outside, I explain the work I did, and he signs the invoice.
As he turns towards the car, he asks me where are his keys. Using
the best mechanical voice I could muster I replied: <<The key is in
the IGNITION>>, <<The key is in the IGNITION>> . . .
/NOSTALGIA = OFF
Well, it was funny at the time.
You really had to have been there . . .
Jeff
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Disclaimer: |
| |
| These opinions are entirely my own, and in no way reflect the |
| policies or opinions of my employer. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Jun 25, 2:12, Tony Duell wrote:
> Alas I don't have Inside Macintosh, and the old volumes seem to be out of
> print. From what I rember, the keyboard sources the clock signal, and the
> data line is bidirectional. The Mac starts a transmission by pulling the
> data line low and releasing it, or something, doesn't it?
That's right.
> As to what the actual bytes mean, well, I've not hacked it yet.
Looks like I need a trip to the photocopier again :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
