test-drb

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101090 discussions

by peacock＠simconv.com

> But I was reading the CP/M manual (pretty shallow), and it mentions a 16-user capability and password protection. How does this work and how secure is it? Also, would you say that the Z-80 was better than the 8088? It was certainly used much more... > The "16 user" isn't really a multi-user capability. Unlike MS-DOS, Unix, VMS, etc., CP/M did not have subdirectories. The main directory was it, everything fit there. This was not so convenient, so "user areas" came into being with CP/M v2. The 16 users are actually numbered subdirectories. The "C> USER 5" command would switch you to subdirectory 5, equivalent to a "C> CD \DIR5" in DOS. The idea was if multiple people used the machine, each would have their own area. On V3 the user 0 area was a common directory, I think there were some commands to control this (very rusty on CP/M V3). I don't think CP/M V3 was ever implemented on the Apple card, since V3 was designed to use banked memory over 64K. As for 8088 vs. Z80, I would rate the 8088 as one step above the Z80. It was slower, but had a larger instruction set and a crude MMU built in, out to the 1MB limit so familiar today. The Z80 was a bit faster at the same clock rate, and the 8088 never got to a very high speed, IIRC it got to about 8 or 10Mhz in the Intel version, NEC sold variants out to 12Mhz. The Z80H was an 8Mhz part, it kept up with the 4.77Mhz original IBM quite well, except for the memory limitation. BTW, on S-100 systems the 8086 was far more common than the 8088, since the S-100 could support a real 16-bit bus. Zilog and Hitachi eventually extended the Z80 out to 512K and then 1MB with an MMU too, but it was never as flexible as the segment registers in the 8088. As far as design difficulty, using an 8088 or Z80 was about equal. The 8088 had a minimal mode for small designs, or support chipset for expanded systems. The Z80 took some random logic for the clock signal and needed some type of MMU if you needed more than 64K. Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

I have a AC Adapter for Apple Portable

by webmaster＠pntprinting.com

Someone was looking for a Mac Portable PS? Too late for me. >X-Persona: <webmaster> >Return-Path: <rdeleon(a)newmax.dataflux.com.mx> >Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:33:03 +0000 >From: Rolando de Le?n <rdeleon(a)newmax.dataflux.com.mx> >Reply-To: rdeleon(a)newmax.dataflux.com.mx >Organization: MAC S.A. >To: webmaster(a)pntprinting.com >Subject: I have a AC Adapter for Apple Portable > >I have an AC Adapter *NEW* Apple Brand. have also a base for recharging >the battery outside of the computer. > >I Want $15 US Dlls. for it > >Please let me know. > > >Rolando de Leon >

28 years, 2 months

Pre-Color Computer Terminal??

by archive＠navix.net

Woops... sorry, I didn't include my e-mail address, name, etc., on the header of my first e-mail here. Again, problems with my mail software and just some tempory settings. I'm really not anonomous, just appear to be on my last e-mail. Thanks, CORD COSLOR archive(a)navix.net -- ____________________________________________________________ | Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |\ | Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net | | | on AOL Instant Messenger: DeannaCord | | | http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/4395 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421 - (402) 872- 3272 | | |------------------------------------------------------------| | | If you don't have AOL (like us) but want a great instant | | | chat feature, just go to http://www.aol.com/aim | | |____________________________________________________________| | \_____________________________________________________________\|

28 years, 2 months

Mini-Monitors?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Which reminds me of a hardware question: I can get lots of nice LCD <displays very cheap. How hard is it to convert one to a VGA display (or <even to convert an old laptop with built-in VGA controller to something <that will accept VGA input)? Reduce the number of variables and we may have a shot... I have one >from a dell laptop. It's rather interesting to drive and it ain't VGA or even mono! Allison

28 years, 2 months

IIRC

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

What IS up with them? I don't get "their" reference to themselves in plural. Was it really a group? >On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Francois wrote: > >> Well, "If I Recall Corectly" that's what it means. > >BTW, whatever happened to lisard/communa? The consistency with which >"they" used pronouns was impressive: IIRC -> iwrc. > >-- Doug > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<BTW, as a bit of trivia, a friend of mine who worked for the CIA in <Vietnam had the job of actually grinding off all the oxide on retired <disks and drums, so there would be no possibility of recovering data Along the same lines the A6 aircraft in the Vietnam era used a drum based computer for the bomb targetting computer... a 10g turn could really mess up the computer. Allison

28 years, 2 months

Early Mac Clones

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

How does this soft-microcode thing work? Doesn't it imply that there is some kind of "sub-microcode" needed to load and process the soft one? Or was there a completely separate storage subsystem that booted first (which would essentially make it two computers)? Also, where was the microcode stored? Could you upgrade special "microcode cache" to store more complex microcode? Sounds pretty unusual! >and with a somewhat interesting design. > >The PERQ 1 was first sold in 1979 for (I think) $30000. For that you got >a personal computer (!) with about 1MIPS of computing power. You also got >a megabyte of memory, a bitmapped display (768*1024 points, portrait), >a blitter, a 20 bit CPU, a Z-80 based I/O processor, a hard disk, a >pointing device (normally a Sumagraphics bit pad 1), etc. Options >included networking (ethernet came out pretty soon after the first >machine) and a laser printer. > >All 'classic PERQs' (everything apart from the PERQ 3a) have a >soft-microcoded CPU that loads the microcode (and hence the instruction >set) from disk when the machine boots. Writing your own microcode is fun. >The PERQ 1a introduced the 16K CPU board with 4 times the control store >and other improvements (multiply/divide support, indexed addressing of >the _registers_) over the original 4K board. > >The PERQ 2's all had a revised I/O board with an extra serial port, >battery-backed real time clock and ethernet as standard. The multitasking >I/O software was only present on these boards AFAIK. You could add the >same I/O option boards to the PERQ 2's, so in theory you can have a PERQ >2 with 2 ethernet ports. > >Older PERQs were 20 bit. The rare PERQ 2T4 was 24 bit. > >If you're interested in finding out more, look at Bob Davis's PERQ web >page (a web search should find it). There's a number of text files there >which explain a few things. There's also a somewhat dead Usenet group, >alt.sys.perq, which would love some on-topic messages again :-). > >> here on the rebellious side of the Atlantic? (I know _nothing_ of > >They were a USA machine (3 Rivers Computer Corporation). But some bits >of the design were done by ICL in the UK, and they were sold by ICL. >They were also one of the standard machines supplied to UK universities, >which may explain why they're more common over here. > >> these machines beyond your messages, if I saw them advertised the >> references went into brain cells that have been foully murdered). > >> Ward Griffiths > >-tony > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

FA: Various systems

by rcini＠email.msn.com

Auction services have their place, but I think that we on the list should be given the "right of first refusal". If one of the list members has something to sell, give the others a first crack, with some time limit (like a week), before listing it on eBay or Haggle. Just my $0.02. Rich Cini/WUGNET <nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use) ClubWin! Charter Member (6) MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking Preserver of classic computers ============================================

28 years, 2 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> wrote: ] That used to be one of my interview questions for Unix programmers: your ] buggy program just created a filename with {control characters, leading ] dash (-), leading slash (/), '*', etc} in it. How do you delete it? Oh shoot. And I thought I was Unix-competent. I thought the only way to put a slash in a filename was with a low-level filesystem hack. I mean, the OS calls themselves will take "a/b" to mean file "b" in directory "a", right? It isn't up to your program to parse the filename that way. That isn't something you can get get around, even with any ordinary sort of bug. Is it? Of course, given root permission, you could run the appropriate disk utility, open /dev/root as a file, find the directory block, and put anything you like in a filename. But then you would have to do the same thing to access that file or get rid of it, wouldn't you? How could 'rm' get around that? ObCC: I just noticed /dev/drum on a Dec here. Now I *know* there is not a drum on this thing, so this must be a holdover from some earlier implementation of some Unix. True? Were filesystems on drums managed the same as those on disks? I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be, offhand. But I thought drums died out before Unix appeared. Does anyone still have a functional magnetic drum memory? That would be one _awesome_ peripheral. :-) Bill.

28 years, 2 months

Unix filenames and drum memory (was: Files as files)

by franke＠sbs.de

> ObCC: I just noticed /dev/drum on a Dec here. Now I *know* there > is not a drum on this thing, so this must be a holdover from some > earlier implementation of some Unix. True? Were filesystems on > drums managed the same as those on disks? I don't see any reason > why they wouldn't be, offhand. But I thought drums died out before > Unix appeared. Does anyone still have a functional magnetic drum > memory? That would be one _awesome_ peripheral. :-) No, no functional drum, but I own _parts_ of a drum from an SIEMENS 2002 - this wasn't a storage drum like later on, this computer stored the (working) REGISTERS on the drum (Background: the 2002 was the first fully transistorized computer). Thats prior to core memory tek. Gruss H. -- Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

28 years, 2 months

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