test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by barythrin＠gmail.com

Is he also in the UK? Details or dates would help. Did he say it was a floppy like disk or just disc like a platter? I have to look around but i actually have something that sounds like it but I've never looked up what it really was. Figured it'd be disappointing and newer than it looks lol. I dont have a web site to display pictures but i can look for it and email you or someone else a shot of it. ?My guess is its really a magnetic backup tape. ?I haven't measured it but venture i can take a picture of it in front of a trs-80 model 2 that has 8" drives for comparison. <div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: Adrian Graham <binarydinosaurs at gmail.com> </div><div>Date:09/15/2015 3:39 AM (GMT-06:00) </div><div>To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> </div><div>Subject: 12" Floppy Disks </div><div> </div>Morning folks, I've been contacted by a teacher who's looking for any information about 12" floppies. Am I imagining that they really existed? I'm sure I've seen one or seen adverts for them, maybe at Bletchley Park. Others he's contacted think he's getting confused with 12" laser discs but I'm not so sure. Anyone? -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

10 years, 7 months

Canon Cat for sale

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I have a Canon Cat in terrific shape for sale. It works just fine. The screen is bright and clean. It also comes with the Canon Cat printer. See photos here: http://vintagetech.com/sales/Canon%20Cat/ More information available upon request. Asking $1,400 or best offer. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 7 months

ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Al Kossow >> the machine had to be configured (via connecting up computing units >> with cables) > In 1947 ENIAC was modifed at BRL to be a stored program computer. Well, I did say "in the original ENIAC usage" it had to be configured by plugging! I was aware of the later conversion. > http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1339839 Crispin Rope, "ENIAC as a Stored-Program Computer: A New Look at the Old Records", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 29 No. 4, October 2007 Thanks for that pointer. I couldn't get access to that paper (it's behind a paypal I don't have the ability to pierce - I would be grateful if someone could send me a copy), but in looking for it online, I did find the very similar: Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestley, Crispin Rope, "Engineering 'The Miracle of the ENIAC'", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 36, No. 2, April-June 2014 which includes the same author, and is later, so hopefully more definitive. It's quite interesting: according to that, the conversion of ENIAC to a 'stored program' configuration, after a period of about a year of discussion and planning, took place starting around March, 1948, and the first problem was run using it in April, 1948 - and it cites a lot of contemporary documents to that effect. (As the article points out, this contradicts the long-and-widely-held impression, from a statement in Goldstine's book - and if anyone knew, it should have been him! - that gave the date of that as September, 1948.) Anyway, the new, earlier date is of course is very shortly before the Baby ran _its_ first program, in June, 1948. So there is a rather interesting question as to which 'computer' ran first. I'd always gathered it was the Baby, but this new data may overturn that. It is true that the 'program ENIAC' (to invent a term to differentiate that stage of the machine from the earliest configurations, which used the cabling method) did not store its program in the same read-write memory as data, as the Baby did, instead storing it in 'EPROM' (switches). However, I don't consider that very important; nobody says that a machine running out of PROM isn't a computer! The important thing is that it's a program, with things like subroutine calls >from different locations, address modification for data access, etc, and the 'program ENIAC' apparently had all that (see the list at the bottom of page 51 in the article). So it's likely indeed be the 'first computer'. Noel

10 years, 7 months

12745 HP-IB Adapter

by ball.of.john＠gmail.com

So last week I did a rather insane 3000km road trip that had me travel through four states (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montanna) and over an international line to pick up a "pack-loading HP disk drive". It turned out to be a rather nice condition 7925B with a 13037C controller in the cabinet. It has the usual nasty foam you gotta remove and replace but otherwise it's extremely clean inside and out and powered up trouble-free. Unfortunately I didn't receive any 13356A packs with it, nor did I receive the critical component I needed: the 12745 HP-IB adapter kit. I don't actually own any HP minis unless you include the PA-RISC HP9000 D350 but I have a number of machines that will support mass storage over GPIB/HP-IB, including a Silicon Graphics machine. Anyways while I found all the documentation I needed for the drive, controller and adapter and there's that one pack on ebay for a less-than-modest $350 I cannot find even a hint of anyone who has a spare 12745 kit for sale. Was this an uncommon addon or am I just not looking in the right places? -John

10 years, 7 months

Paging Wayne Smith

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

Wayne, if you see this please contact me ASAP. Thanks. -- Sellam ibn Abraham VintageTech ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintagetech.com Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. The truth is always simple. * * * NOTICE * * * Due to the insecure nature of the medium over which this message has been transmitted, no statement made in this writing may be considered reliable for any purpose either express or implied. The contents of this message are appropriate for entertainment and/or informational purposes only. The right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.

10 years, 7 months

Spelling reforms [was RE: punchcard svg file available]

by RichA＠LivingComputerMuseum.org

From: Dave G4UGM Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:06 PM >> From: Liam Proven >> Sent: 10 September 2015 16:17 >> On 10 September 2015 at 15:42, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: >>> He also said that the colored pencils that I manually did graphs with >>> were "COLOUR PENCILS". >> Sounds legit to me. But then in the old world we still spell the proper, >> old-fashioned-way. ;?) > I believe that historically "color" or "colour" was acceptable in English. Correct. "Colour" reflects Norman French, "color" reflects Latin. > It was the Victorians that pushed the current "English" spellings in an > attempt to "Latinise" or "Latinize" or even "Posh Up" English and Webster > who pushed the simplified spellings that the USA uses today.... However, it was far earlier than the Victorians. Noah Webster (1758-1843) only overlaps the Victorian era by 6 years; he was reacting against the aristocratic spelling norms of the 17th and 18th centuries, when Latin and Greek were held to be more important than English in the learning of the latter language. His spelling book was originally published in 1783. Rich Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Living Computer Museum 2245 1st Avenue S Seattle, WA 98134 mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

10 years, 7 months

HP 2225A HP-IB Thinkjet Parts wanted (in Europe)

by Martin.Hepperle＠dlr.de

Hello, in order to repair a HP-IL device I am looking for remains of HP-IB (yes) Thinkjet Printers. I only need the PCB resp. the HP-IL chip on the PCB for desoldering and implanting into another PCB. The mechanics can be damaged or even missing. Martin

10 years, 7 months

ENIAC programming Was: release dates of early microcomputer operating systems, incl. Intel ISIS

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From Dave > AMD29K isn't "Modern" Well, compared to the ENIAC it is! :-) To be serious, the 29K is fully what we now think of as a 'computer'; that's all I meant by saying it's "modern". > If you have to use another external mechanism to arbitrarily change the > program, then it's a calculator..... Alas, if you hold to that, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, because to me, a 29K with only ROM on the I-bus is clearly a 'computer'. Noel

10 years, 7 months

Cryptolocker (was RE: Is tape dead?

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

I took on a brand new client a while back, and before doing any real work for them they were hit by cryptolocker. I hadn't yet even done a "IT Review" for them, so didn't yet know what systems they had in place. Thus, under the gun, I started looking at their backup setup, and found it "severely lacking". They did have a backup system from the previous IT guy, but due to the way it was set up it would have taken days to get the data off of it and all moved back into the correct spots. So given days of billable time/work or paying the ransom, we chose to pay the ransom as the most expedient solution. They only accepted bitcoin, and there was a deadline after which the ransom doubled or more. So we jumped through hoops to get a bitcoin account set up, funds deposited, etc. That was a rather convoluted process and took time (albeit less time than working with the existing "backup" system). Soon as the bitcoin was transferred to the hostages account, a key was received online via the TOR browser. Yep, the key worked, and decrypted all the data. A new (and easy/functional) backup system was put in place immediately thereafter. I've also talked to a few of my associates who own IT consulting firms, and any of them that decided to pay the ransom did in fact get a working decryption key. ZFS is a good solution :) Best, J

10 years, 7 months

Additional config info for Camintonn CMV-250, CMV-500, CMV-254, CMV-504

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

So I have a couple of these Camintonn boards (a -500 and a -254, to be exact), both using 256Kx1 DRAM's. I wanted to upgrade them both (by adding memory chips) to be -504's (2MB), and I noticed that the -254 had a couple of jumper wires that the -500 did not, so I needed to know what those jumpers did. I looked online, and although there is a little bit of info, it doesn't cover those jumpers. My first thought was that they might be timing-related; one board used -12 parts, the other -15. However, after some poking around, I think (with 98% certainty, although I haven't traced etches to be 100.000% certain) that they actually allow the boards to be used with both 64Kx1 and 256Kx1 memory parts. I hereby offer up all the details in case anyone's interested: I found a document which described them as "Starting and ending address boundary" (alas, without giving any detail, but which confirmed they aren't timing-related). The clincher as to their function was the capacities of the various board versions: CMV-504 2 MB Memory Module CMV-254 1 MB Memory Module CMV-500 512 KB Memory Module CMV-250 256 KB Memory Module How do you get a 256KB board using 256K devices on a memory board that has to produce 16-bit wide words? Clearly, the board was first produced with 64Kx1 chips, and so it likely (like the similar NS23C) that it can be configured to use either 64Kx1 or 256Kx1 chips. Here are the details of how to do that: down near the fingers, there are a block of 6 solder pads, denoted thus: MPR NOS (Note that there is _another_ 'S' on the board, at the top.) On board #1, the CMV-254, it has jumpers on M-N, P-R (apparently the configuration for use of 256K chips), and etch cuts on R-S, N-O (likely the configuration for 64K chips). On board #2, the CMV-500, it has a slightly different PCB (likely a later rev), and has no jumpers, and has etch connections M-N, P-R (note - the same as the #1 board has jumpers). Hope this is useful to someone! Note that the board was normally sold with 1, 2, or 4 rows of chips. (Interestingly, there must be two ways to produce a CMV-500 - 1 row of 256K parts, or 4 rows of 64K parts. I've never seen one of the latter, but would be interested to know if anyone has.) I plan to verify that the board actually works OK with _3_ rows of chips (i.e. as a 1.5M board), with the appropriate settings - will update when I try that. Noel

10 years, 7 months

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