IMHO the ST-4096 FH 80 MG was the most reliable of this era. I spent over
600.00 for this drive new and used it for more than 20 years, and ended up
selling it to a business for 50.00 to replace their dead st-251.
----------
> From: jpero(a)mail.cgo.wave.ca
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: What Classic Computer are All About - A Lovers
> Date: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 7:59 AM
>
> Allison,
>
> I gently disagree with this assertion that ST251 series is good than
> ST225 series. I got too many dead ST251 series compared to ST225's
> due to weaker structral design, pushed design by driving steppers too
> hard byond 40ms average and not as rugged as ST225's.
> I noticed the relationship between higher stepping rate and
> terrible high failure rate on many hard drives such as ST251's,
> Miniscribes and early 40meg western digital drives compared to
> very slow stepping rate on most drives did last long time byond its
> goal set by designers. If one wants faster seeking time, go voice
> coil! I am dreaming wishing that ST251 drive was fitted with voice
> coil instead of stepper and better motor design...sigh.
>
> Those ST225, ST250 are really best consumer's drives and ST251 series
> might be a mistake at cutting corners well as ST277, ST296 are same
> design.
>
> I wished that segate designed ST251 case
> more rugged and used internal spindle motor with bearings on outside
> and one screw on top of cover to stablize the motor from top. Then
> this ST251's would be possible to be expanded to 100 or 120 size
> reliably. Whole problem was that design of this ST251 spindle motor
> is ill-designed to begin with in my opinion: Trying to fit all the
> coils and one bearing INSIDE that spindle results in weak axle that
> gets bent easily due to this design and the bearings failure rate on
> this one is high too.
>
> Recently I pulled this ST225 out of dumpter and fixed
> up the XT with this hd and LLF'ed it. Gave whole thing to poor guy
> to use vax at college. Still works.
>
> I tore down all kinds of drives from old and 3 years old types for
> post-failure analysis which gave pretty good info for me.
>
> > ->X-Sender: cerebral(a)michianatoday.com
> Snip!
>
> > First off why bother withg the st225s? They are slow (st251s are
> Snip! Tales of positive things about cooling...
> > If the fan isn't noisy it isn't moving enough
> > air past them, seriously!
> Actually, all drives old and new benefits from cooling and boards
> likes the flowing cooling air.
>
> > Also if they are in the smae box as all the
> > other hardware they raise the other components temperature lowering
their
> > life. Heat is not your friend, this is why computer rooms are air
> > conditioned an usuialy under 70 degrees F.
> We have no choice as many does not have AC so they ran in warm air
> but if you are careful, enough fans to make hurriance out of it and
> put a fan or two on monitor as well. My 17" needs two otherwise the
> HOT transistor will pop again. ARRGgghhh.
>
> > Allison
>
<PC500
<RCD31
<
<The PC500 seems to be a display with a 5.25 inch floppy drive and some
<electronics. It is mounted on top of the RCD31 unit which is in a pizza
<box style case. Is this some sort of PC clone or maybe a DecMate?
It's called a Vaxmate. what it is is a PC/AT clone(sorta) with a 8mhz 286
and most had 2meg of ram, wd1003 HD controller, an st225(rd31) or
st251(rd32) and a Lance eithernet interface. The floppy is RX33 (1.2mb).
These are nice machines and were aimed at running as a diskless workstation
to vaxen on eithenet using PCSA and later Pathworks networking. It will run
dos3.3 and 5.0 that I know of.
Allison
Typo was intended to be 10, but it was still undauntingly reliable.
----------
> From: jpero(a)mail.cgo.wave.ca
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: What Classic Computer are All About - A Lovers
> Date: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 8:34 AM
>
> > Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:07:09 -0500
> > Reply-to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> > From: "Bill Girnius" <thedm(a)sunflower.com>
> > To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> > Subject: Re: What Classic Computer are All About - A Lovers
> > X-To: <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
>
> > IMHO the ST-4096 FH 80 MG was the most reliable of this era. I spent
over
> > 600.00 for this drive new and used it for more than 20 years, and ended
up
> > selling it to a business for 50.00 to replace their dead st-251.
>
> Had to ask! Are you kidding? :) None 5.25" hds came out til after
> '82 when lot of hds bigger than 8" was king. !!!! 20 yr old
> ST4096? Impossible! More like 8 or 9 years.
>
> Seagate started on this design after 1986. Is this one of yours
> that only have one board on bottom with only platter cover painted
> black? That is last generation of this design which is finally
> reliable. Earlier ones had teething problem of all kinds, no
> kidding. All the way back to early first linear voice coil of ST4025
> between 1985 through '88. I pick them up all the time are almost
> always dead due to bearing failures. These drives are best left
> running horizontal right side up.
>
> Jason D.
> The PC500 seems to be a display with a 5.25 inch floppy drive and some
> electronics. It is mounted on top of the RCD31 unit which is in a pizza
> box style case. Is this some sort of PC clone or maybe a DecMate?
No, I suspect it's a VAXmate. The VAXmate is a 286 PC clone with some
special DECness (Ethernet, included software to do DECnet).
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
PS: Rumor has it that the VAXstation 2000 folks were really pissed that
the name 'VAXmate' was already taken...
Picked up an ActionMax system from the thrift store today. I got it
nearly complete, which is rare. Only missing the power supply (common
9V) and the VCR cable. This is a game that you hook to your VCR. It has
a light gun and some sort of red either sensor or light (don't know
yet). It came with a fighter combat VCR tape that you play in the VCR
and I assume you use the gun to shoot at stuff on the screen. I'm sure
someone else knows more about it than me. I haven't hooked it up yet.
But I won't be able to do anything with it until I get the VCR cable.
Anyone know how to rig one up?
I also finally found a C16 but it has a broken key in the upper row :(
These things apparently aren't too common in these parts as this is the
first one I've ever seen.
Sam
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Does anyone know what the following Digital part numbers refer to?
PC500
RCD31
The PC500 seems to be a display with a 5.25 inch floppy drive and some
electronics. It is mounted on top of the RCD31 unit which is in a pizza
box style case. Is this some sort of PC clone or maybe a DecMate?
--
David Betz
dbetz(a)xlisper.mv.com
DavidBetz(a)aol.com
(603) 472-2389
Glenn:
Thanks for the encouragement. It seems that at one time, one of us did try to
contact TA to no avail. Should we try again?? I'd need to get the contact info
>from the gent that tried it the first time, and I'll give it a second
go-around.
-------------------------------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCPS Windows 95/Networking
----------
From: Glenn Roberts
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 1997 10:23 AM
To: Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Cc: bcw(a)u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: Altair Construction Manual
outstanding! i continue to applaud your efforts.
i would think that all we need to proceed is a trail of evidence showing a
"reasonable effort" to receive permission in this area.
this can be a precedent-setting effort for publication of all kinds of
useful historical information that might otherwise be lost forever.
thanks again for blazing the trail!
- glenn
At 02:04 AM 7/13/97 UT, you wrote:
>To all Altair fans...
>
> Well, my more-than-kind individual has provided me with the first of three
>installments of the original Altair construction manual. He scanned all 102
>pages of the doc and made it into a PDF document -- almost 7mb in size. He
is
>also providing me with manuals for "the 88-4K, 88-ACR, and other stuff." I'm
>not too familiar with all of the available options since the Altair was
really
>before my time, but it looks like the 4k memory board and other stuff.
>
> I'm not going to U/L the docs yet, first for size reasons, and second,
until
>we determine if we should try to contact Triumph-Adler...
>
>On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Jim Willing wrote:
>>>So, it can be assumed that TA [Triumph-Adler of Germany] now >>owns all of
>the rights to things MITS/Altair. I've tried to contact them >>on
occasion on
>related matters and have gotten no response of any >>kind to date.
>
>Anybody have any thoughts?
>------------------------
>Rich Cini/WUGNET
> - ClubWin Charter Member (6)
> - MCPS Windows 95/Networking
>
>
>
+=========================================================+
| Glenn F. Roberts, Falls Church, VA
| Comments are my own and not the opinion of my employer
| groberts(a)mitre.org
If you like the History of Personal Computers you might like to read my
review of the Stan Veit book I just received from him.
You will find it at:
<http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~e.tedeschi/news/news73.htm>
I know that the book has been published in 1993 but some of you (like
me) might not have been aware of it till now. Stan has seen all the
personal computer revolution from the inside as he opened the second
computer store in the USA and the first on the East Coast (New York).
Please forgive my spelling mistakes....
Thanks
enrico
--
================================================================
Enrico Tedeschi, 54, Easthill Drive, BRIGHTON BN41 2FD, U.K.
tel/fax +(0)1273 701650 (24 hours) or 0850 104725 mobile
website <http://www.ndirect.co.uk/~e.tedeschi>
================================================================
visit Brighton: <http://www.brighton.co.uk/tourist/welcome.htm>
<> wash them out throughly and disassembled and dried them well. Generally
<> water is not that damaging. Just don't power them wet.
<
<I would remove anything high-voltage (front end of the power supply) and
<BAKE them for quite some time (a day is nice). Water has a way of getting
<into windings and comprimising the insulation (remember, in a transformer
<the insulation is _thin_ - often paper and painted on varnish).
This is a good point for the masses. I've done enough design(20+ years)
so transformer design and the like are familiar to me.
But then again I've cleaned boards in the dishwasher! Works great too.
Also while In has I made a business of salvaging and repair marine gear
that had been dunked in salt water which is very nasty to electronics.
Part of the repair process was to very throughly wash out the unit in fresh
water as no salt could be left (it's very hydroscopic) then repairing any
damage if any. I've had marine equipment work better for this due to
residual salt and dust accumulated being cleaned out!
A good temp to bake at is just under 200f, it's slow but works and most
plastics and semis are ok at this temp! Do monitor it though.
Allison
Sounds like Mattel Electronic Football. My friends and I were the reason
they stopped letting us take to school! damn...that was ages ago.
----------
> From: jpero(a)mail.cgo.wave.ca
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: Classic Video Games
> Date: Friday, July 11, 1997 5:34 PM
>
> One comment,
>
> Is the display looks like it was using same LED display, "hair thin"
> segments under the plastic lens?
>
> Jason D.
> > Uncle Roger, etc:
> >
> > In regard to your post about the old hand held football game... I
> > certainly do remember that game. There were actually a couple of
different
> > companies or stores that sold them. Radio Shack did have one, but I
> > believe it was the SAME one that was manufactured by Coleco, or a
similar
> > company. I know up until a few years ago I had one... I'll have to look
> > around. Just the other day, I was in a thrift store in Nebraska City,
NE
> > and they had a pile of 'old' handhelds. I didn't have time to look
through
> > it close, though.... but I'm darn sure they did have a football game or
> > two though. I'll go back and check it out for you, though. Oh, while
were
> > on the subject of old football games.... how about those darned
magnetic
> > full-field table football games they used to make?? Do they still
exist?
> >
> > Until next time,
> >
> > CORD
> >
> >
//*=====================================================================++
> > || Cord G. Coslor P.O. Box 308 - 1300 3rd St. Apt "M1" -- Peru, NE
||
> > || (402) 872- 3272 coslor(a)bobcat.peru.edu 68421-0308
||
> > || Classic computer software and hardware collector
||
> > || Autograph collector
||
> >
++=====================================================================*//
> >
> >
> > On Fri, 11 Jul 1997, Uncle Roger wrote:
> >
> > > At 02:03 PM 7/11/97 -0400, you wrote:
> > > >Depends on your definition of "videogame" (coin-operated, home unit,
> > > computer, commercial, etc.) One of these should fit what you're
looking for:
> > >
> > > When I was in high school, there was a precursor to the
Lynx/Gameboy/etc.
> > > crowd that was a football game. There were little red LED's(?) to
represent
> > > players, and you had up, down, and run buttons to control the quarter
back.
> > > It was very simplistic; you basically just ran the quarterback until
you got
> > > a touchdown (but I think you could do a fieldgoal?) Anyway, I think
Radio
> > > Shack sold one, but it may have been someone else.
> > >
> > > Anyone else remember this? Know what it was called? Got one you'd
part with?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > >
> > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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/
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
