test-drb

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101090 discussions

by kyrrin2＠wizards.net

For those of you in Washington state (Puget Sound area), RE-PC currently has a good assortment of classic stuff in their 'as-is, where-is' department, including at least a pair of Commodore 64's. They're located south and slightly east of the Kingdome, 1565 6th Ave. south, about two blocks north of Holgate on 6th. They may be reached locally at (206) 623-9151. I'd suggest a visit before the end of the year. They tend to do these big purges every so often. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272) (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin2(a)wizards.net) http://www.wizards.net/technoid "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

28 years, 4 months

relative age

by sinasohn＠crl.com

At 10:52 PM 10/21/97 -0400, you wrote: >1985 Apples, macs, Rainbows, PRO350s maybe some PCs > >1980 s100, apple][, swtp, LSI11, micronova Microprocessor chips Actually, ca. 1980-83, I had access to a DEC PDP-11/70 (RSTS/E), PC's, Atari 800's, TRS-80 ModIII, and maybe a couple others. But I think computers may have been a little more prevalent here in San Francisco. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

28 years, 4 months

relative age

by fmc＠reanimators.org

allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) wrote: > if highschool was x years ago: > 1980 s100, apple][, swtp, LSI11, micronova Microprocessor chips > 1977 PDP-11, vax, nova Some LSI and bit slice ... HP 3000 Series II. Well, that's what we had at my high school in 1977. Sometime along about 1980 it got upgraded to a Series III. Micros weren't in the schools in 1977 but some of us were aware of them (I used to hang around the Radio Shack and poke at the TRS-80). HP brought the 2000A timeshared BASIC system out in...1967? I know there were some (later models, 2000F and 2000 Access) still in service at various Washington DC suburban area high schools into the early 1980s at least, maybe into the mid-1980s. Prince Georges County (Maryland) and Fairfax County (Virginia) both had them, maybe others too. ... We had a mark-sense reader way back then in 1977. An HP 7260A, hooked up as a pass-through device between the terminal and the 3000, but the 3000 had some special "driver" software (in the form of the FCARD intrinsic, which sent the right escape sequences down the wire to get the card reader to Do Stuff). We used it daily to "run attendance": each student had an associated IBM card, and the homeroom teacher would send the cards for absent students to the office. Read cards into disc file, run programs to generate report (print report on continuous-form ditto paper with tractor holes) and update database with attendance information. We also used it twice quarterly to do progress reports (mid-quarter) and report cards (end of quarter). These used mark-sense forms that were pre-printed, then printed in the line printer, then sent out to the schools and teachers where they were torn apart along their perfs, marked, folded, spindled, mutilated, and sent back for reading. Note that bit about being torn apart along perfs. Feed a few thousand of these through (the 3000 at our site did processing for about a dozen schools) and the torn perfs leave lots of paper dust all over in the reader. Twice a quarter, we used to have to call the CE to come out, take ours half apart, and vacuum all the paper dust out so we could read the attendance cards. After I graduated I found that they'd replaced the 7260As with Scan-Tron readers. I saw one once but, well, it's been 14 years or so and I didn't really look at how it plugged in -- given that they had it talking to the 3000 somehow I would bet that it did RS-232. I think I remember being told that they had had to write some software to deal with it, but I guess that wasn't too big a deal as they had also changed the mark sense forms, from two that would fit down a slot designed for IBM cards to one that was wider and didn't need to be kept synchronized with a partner. -Frank McConnell

28 years, 4 months

finally found: Your Computer

by mhop＠mail.snip.net

---------- > From: thedm <thedm(a)sunflower.com> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> > Subject: Re: finally found: Your Computer > Date: Saturday, October 04, 1997 12:00 AM > > I'll take it Oh, sorry it took so long to reply. I had 5 people reply within minutes, so I gave it to the first person. His email was only 2 minutes earlier than the next. :) sorry. mhop(a)snip.net

28 years, 4 months

Info on a Scantron unit?

by BROBSTONA＠wartburg.edu

>Wow! A high schooler who's into old computers? Unless there is a >pre-pubescent teenager on this list, I think Daniel has the record as the >youngest collector of old computers. Well, he beats me by two years for age (I'd guess), but when did he *start*? -- Andy Brobston brobstona(a)wartburg.edu ***NEW URL BELOW*** http://www.wartburg.edu/people/docs/personalPages/BrobstonA/home.html My opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Wartburg College as a whole.

28 years, 4 months

387 emulators (was: Wanted:387 SX)

by sinasohn＠crl.com

At 05:07 PM 10/20/97 +0000, you wrote: >> 2) I saw several emulators, but the only one I found that actually worked >> well, the file was called "FRANKE87" and was German in origin. It actually >> fooled AutoCad 10 into believing there was a co-processor chip on my 386SX >> and actually did speed up FP instructions (measured with CheckIt). >Not. Autocad is processor heavy program and better unload that FP to >that coprocessor result in even powerful system when using the >suitable s/w like autocad. IIRC, Autocad *requires* a mathco, so one has a choice of a) buying a mathco (used to be $$$), b) running with an emulator, or c) not running autocad. As to whether the system will run faster with or without a software mathco emulator, I must admit, it would seem obvious that an emulator would only slow the system down (by using more Cpu time to handle the emulator than going straight to the CPU -- kinda like buying direct from the mfr and eliminating the middleman) but I cannot say that that's true without testing it. The FRANKE87 program may be really good at what it does, enough to make a difference when compared to Intel's idea of FP math. I have to say that if Merch says he measured the difference and the emulator is faster, I'll take his word for it until proven wrong. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

28 years, 4 months

CLASSICCMP digest 211

by prp＠hf.intel.com

> Program the world's first computer! "First" is always difficult, especially in computers. Here are some examples of early machines, draw your own conclusions. The Harvard Mark I was electromechanical. It was fully capable of running a complex calculation, with the program on punched card stock separate from the data. This is where the term "Harvard machine" comes from, referring to a machine where the program and data are in separate memory. The ABC (1939) was mostly electronic, including electronic storage with mechanical access. But its program was, I believe, on a plugboard. It was not as general purpose as, for instance, the Mark I. The Colossus (1944?) was all electronic. It was very special purpose and barely if at all programmable. The Eniac (1946) was all electronic and general purpose. It was programmed by plugging. It and the Harvard Mark I were decimal and a lot like a bunch of adding machines cobbled together. The SSEM (1948) was all electronic and general purpose (but extremely small.) It was a true stored program machine. It was also binary. The Univac I (1950) was all electronic, general purpose and generally useful (and also decimal.) It was a commercially available computer, unlike all the previous ones. Paul Pierce

28 years, 4 months

items available..

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

i'm organizing command central here some ,and have a few things that *might* be useful to someone else. epson equity I user's guide. i'm a big fan of original documentation and shipping materials that things came in so i have two empty boxes available. the first is for a tandy cm11 monitor and the second is for an apple imagewriter I which i'm using to store 10 meg bernoulli carts at the moment, lol. i dont have the foam packing material though. message me before it all gets round filed one day. david

28 years, 4 months

Wanted:387 SX

by COAKLEY＠AC.GRIN.EDU

> Right now I'm using this checkit 3.0 to debug a motherboard because I > am trying to get it into turbo mode by keyboard, It's Nec Powermate > 386 33i (386dx 33 cached all in one board). What is the key combo > to enable turbo? It's Phoenix bios. I think Phoenix bioses use Ctrl-Alt-KeypadMinus. Perhaps that's Ctrl-Shift, and perhaps it's KeypadPlus. This is what I seem to remember, though. -- Ben Coakley coakley(a)ac.grin.edu Station Manager, KDIC 88.5 FM CBEL: Xavier OH http://www.math.grin.edu/~coakley

28 years, 4 months

FWD: Manchester Baby Programming Competition

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> > Program the world's first computer! > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > >The world's first computer program was run on June 21st 1948 on the > >"baby" Mark1 at Manchester. As part of the celebrations to mark the 50th > >.... > > Could some of the list members with more historical knowledge comment > on this? I thought the first "electronic digital computer" was the ABC - > Atanasoff Berry Computer from 1939. This was verified in some high > powered patent cases in '73 and '74, that concluded Sperry-Univac could > not claim patents for the ideas from thier Univac machine ("43 or '44?). > Honneywell, CDC, IBM, and others did not want to pay royalties to Sperry. > The Sperry machine is the first "commercial" machine that was offered for > sale. Are you _sure_ the ABC was electronic? I was under the impression that the 1930s machines were all (almost all?) relay computers. Konrad Zuse is the pioneer whose name is oft mentioned here... As I see it, the sequence of events is as follows: The 1940s saw the valve (vacuum tube) computers begin to emerge - in some order (still in debate) ENIAC, Univac and the hush-hush British project, Colossus (hush-hush because it was part of the war effort), all appeared in 1943 I think. Colossus currently claims to have been first, but it is hard to verify with all the wartime secrecy that surrounded it. The Manchester machine claims to be the first _stored program_ machine. It was the first electronic computer, and I think also the first computer, to hold its software in main memory. It was far too small for this to be sensible - the purpose was to demonstrate the principal of it with a view to using similar hardware and software designs on larger machines in the future. All previous machines had a main store for data, and a programming panel for patch leads etc. to hold instructions. Soon after the Manchester machine ran, the EDSAC project in Cambridge pulled ahead with a large scale stored program (Von Neumann) machine. Professor Wilkes, who ran this project, said in one talk he gave that they had wanted to include floating point in EDASC, since it was already available on many relay computers, but this had to wait until a later design... Philip.

28 years, 4 months

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