- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de

Hallo to all members in SoCal. I plan to drop out of the Californian sky this weekend (just stoped by at the travel agency and found out that a flight Munich to LA is way cheaper than Munich New York - in fact even chaeper than a trip to Paderborn and back :). If the crater at LAX isn't too big (and our on board terrrorist doesn't have other plans) I would like to know if there is anything special in the LA area for the WE. Gruss H. BTW: Newsfactor has a nice cartoon about yahoo auctions today http://www.ecommercetimes.com/images/cartoon/king010302.jpg -- VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

23 years, 10 months

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Wanted: Empty SCSI SCA-80 RAID tower...

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

> ---------- > From: Eric Dittman > > > Well, I think I may have found that guy. I need to find out if a > > Digital BA 350-SA Storage Shelf is what I'm looking for... > > The BA350 storage shelves are narrow-only. You can't use the > wide SBBs in them. A BA356 would probably be a better choice. > A lot of the newer wide SBBs use SCA drives. > > The BA35x use a proprietary backplane, not an SCA backplane. > Fortunately, you can find the SBBs cheap. > -- > Yeah, probably the same backplane that's in the older AlphaServers here... So, to see if I understand you correctly... - The SBB is the tray for the HDD... - The SBBs for use in the 350, have a 50 pin connector, none have the SCA... -- If so, I wonder if there is room inside the tray to fit a SCA 80-50pin adapter? -If I want to use narrow SCA-80 drives in a Digital Storage Shelf, I should look for the 356 and SBBs for that? --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 90581 Mac OS X 10.1.2 - Darwin Kernel Version 5.2: Fri Dec 7 21:39:35 PST 2001 Running since 01/22/2002 without a crash

23 years, 10 months

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SCSI Bus Problem?

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Julius Sridhar [mailto:vance@ikickass.org] On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Tothwolf wrote: > > SCSI itself is confusing...basically the bus will operate at the fastest > > rate of the slowest device on the bus. > This is simply not the case. This took me a while to get... it would have been better if you'd said "this is not always the case." If I understand properly, you are saying that, for instance, you can plug a fast/wide disk into an ultra bus, and the bus (of course), wouldn't run the fast/wide disk at its highest potential bandwidth. Conversely, a narrow disk in a wide bus would not slow the bus down. On the other hand, I understood Toth to be talking about bus clock only. In that case, his previous statement is as true as yours, which, oddly enough, was made in argument to it. ;) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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OT: But too funny...

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Begin forwarded message: <original poster's info snipped> Yet another Microsoft Outlook exploit is on the loose... and this time the arrogance of the recommended solution is breathtaking. The problem is the built-in support for UUENCODED text within the body of a message. Prudent programmers will use a starting pattern such as "\n\nbegin ([[:octal:]]+) ([^\n]+)\n" and subsequently verify that each line has the expected format. Even checking only the first few lines (e.g., verifying that the first character correctly encodes the length of the rest of the line) essentially eliminates any chance of a false hit. Sadly, it will surprise few people that Microsoft cuts straight to the heart of the matter. If your line starts with "begin " (possibly with two spaces), Outlook/Outlook Express WILL interpret the rest of the message as a UUENCODED attachment. It doesn't need a preceding blank line, nor a following octal number. It doesn't need subsequent lines that actually look like UUENCODED data. There are some reports on slashdot that later versions of O/OE have discarded the "view source" command, with the effect that the rest of the message is permanently lost to the user. The use of this bug as a DOS attack on mailing lists that use a 'digest' approach is left as an exercise for the reader. Naturally, it hasn't taken long for the malware writers to jump on the bandwagon. All you need to do to get around the "strip executable attachment" killjoys is to put the malware right in the body of the message! Just start a line with "begin 666 www.myparty.yahoo.com" and you're off and running! Microsoft's official position, at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q265230 , is stunning in it's <s>feeble-mindedness</s> simplicity. We, and by "we" I mean every person on the planet who may ever send a message to an O/OE <s>victim</s> user, or have a message forwarded to such users, are advised (with editorial comments) to: * not start messages with the word "begin" (actually, it's *any* line starting with the word "begin". And that's effectively a ban on the word "begin" for anyone using a mail agent with transparent line wrapping, e.g., the web mail portals that some ISPs are pushing.) * capitalize the word "begin," even when used within a sentence. E.g., "We will Begin the new project when Bob returns from his vacation. * Use a different word such as "start" or "commence." E.g., all training materials for new Visual Basic programmers shall henceforce refer to "start/end" loops instead of "begin/end" loops. Microsoft's justification for suggesting a significant change to the English language instead of fixing their bug is given as: "In a SMTP e-mail message, a file attachment that is encoded in UUencode format is defined when the word "begin" is followed by two spaces and then some data,..." Needless to say there is no citation given for this "fact." That's probably related to the fact that UUENCODE was defined by UUCP, not SMTP, and that every encoder/decoder I have seen requires a leading blank line and a octal file permissions code. But the damage is done - since malware is exploiting this bug we now get to put into place filters that don't just strip executable attachments or properly formatted UUENCODED blocks, we also have to strip *improperly* formatted UUENCODED blocks! Bear Giles For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ -- Until later: Geoffrey esoteric(a)3times25.net "...the system (Microsoft passport) carries significant risks to users that are not made adequately clear in the technical documentation available."- David P. Kormann and Aviel D. Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research - http://www.avirubin.com/passport.html _______________________________________________ Am-info mailing list Am-info(a)lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/am-info -- ##################################################### | Put an end to the collusion of unconscionable | | corporate greed and bootlicking politicians which | | spawns bad law like the DCMA and UCITA. | |---------------------------------------------------| | Take back your rights to make backup copies of | | software, to own/sell the software you buy, and | | to use the software as you see fit. | |---------------------------------------------------| | "No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be | | satisfied until justice rolls down like water and | | righteousness like a mighty stream." MLK 1963 | ##################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: alg-unsubscribe(a)austinlug.org For additional commands, e-mail: alg-help(a)austinlug.org

23 years, 10 months

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OT: But too funny...

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Doc wrote: > > > Yet another Microsoft Outlook exploit is on the loose... and this time the > > arrogance of the recommended solution is breathtaking. The problem is the > > built-in support for UUENCODED text within the body of a message. Prudent > > programmers will use a starting pattern such as > > If people are still using MS Outlook inspite of all the viruses and crap > that have plagued that pathetic piece of shit in the past few years then > they not only deserve whatever damage gets done to their system via such > vehicles but they shouldn't be allowed to use e-mail at all since they > only end up contributing to the greater problem by running it! Until the govt performs a door-to-door search for all the script kiddies, whatever is the most-popular-and-prevalent-platform will be the target for such attacks. You may think that Pine has no way of being exploited (is Mark Crispin on this list?), but wait'll it's the only thing we're using... Seriously, Outlook isn't the source of the stated problems; half-assed, self-taught, sycophantic sysadmins who can't secure their systems are!

23 years, 10 months

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Wanted: Empty SCSI SCA-80 RAID tower...

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

Dick --- Well, I think I may have found that guy. I need to find out if a Digital BA 350-SA Storage Shelf is what I'm looking for... --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 90581 Mac OS X 10.1.2 - Darwin Kernel Version 5.2: Fri Dec 7 21:39:35 PST 2001 Running since 01/22/2002 without a crash > ---------- > From: Richard Erlacher > > There's a fellow who routinely sells SCA backplanes to be used in such > applications for somewher between 6 and 15 dollars on eBay. I'd look for > those as a starting point. ISTR that he had some for pairs of three > drives > and some for groups of 6. 't seems to me like that will be easier to deal > with than a search for a complete case, which will undoubtedly require a > redundant 500W PSU as well. > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "David Woyciesjes" > > > I figure I'll try here first... > > I'm looking for a case for some SCA-80 SCSI drives I picked up. They > > have plastic Sun drive rails, from their RAID tower, P/N 5402568-03... > > Those rails are useless to me, and therefore up for sale/trade; > > unless of course I can find a Sun box to use them in. > > > > --- David A Woyciesjes >

23 years, 10 months

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StarLink Multi-User System

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

Not the same thing, but similar enough to be relevant: AT&T made box (I think with an 80486) called a StarServer. It was a Unix box and had a card that could take two cables that went to "concentrators," which were 12 port (IIRC) addressible serial hubs, each with their own wall wart. The output went to a dumb terminal or serial-interface printer. Concentrators could be daisy-chained, so at least 4 could be hooked to one card in the StarServer. I baby-sat one of these in a law office half a dozen years ago. The concentrators were a real PITA, as they were static sensitive -- I blew one out once with a spark while connecting the RJ45 to a terminal once. Other times I must have looked at the concentrator the wrong way or some such. Got to know the local AT&T/NCR service tech pretty well :). Bob -----Original Message----- From: Tothwolf [mailto:tothwolf@concentric.net] Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 11:07 PM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: StarLink Multi-User System On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Norman Alcott wrote: > " Introducing StarLink the computer expansion system. The system lets > you link four "dumb" terminals or microcomputers to a single IBM > Personal Computer, and function as if it's the only terminal connected > to the computer." I believe I have something similar to this stored away. It has a full size card (can't remember if it is 8 or 16 bit, think it is 16), and a brown molded plastic "block" with 8 25 pin D-Sub connectors on it. The block connects to the card via a 37 pin D-Sub. Does anyone have any information on it or have the software required to use it? -Toth

23 years, 10 months

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Harris 17188

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

One of the things that I picked up this weekend was an evaluation board for the Harris H17188 IC. I've checked Harris' site and chip directory but I can't find anything on the H17188P. Does anyone know what this IC is? It's in a standard .6" wide 40 pin DIP package and was made in 1995. Joe

23 years, 10 months

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StarLink Multi-User System

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

I have docs and software for a similar device made by Digiboard. I think I have drivers for MS DOS, Novell and Xenix. Joe At 11:07 PM 2/11/02 -0600, you wrote: >On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Norman Alcott wrote: > >> " Introducing StarLink the computer expansion system. The system lets >> you link four "dumb" terminals or microcomputers to a single IBM >> Personal Computer, and function as if it's the only terminal connected >> to the computer." > >I believe I have something similar to this stored away. It has a full size >card (can't remember if it is 8 or 16 bit, think it is 16), and a brown >molded plastic "block" with 8 25 pin D-Sub connectors on it. The block >connects to the card via a 37 pin D-Sub. > >Does anyone have any information on it or have the software required to >use it? > >-Toth > >

23 years, 10 months

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THE best find of the weekend!

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Claude Ceccon wrote: > > > Glancing at their site, they have a number of Opto-22 boards. The > > Opto-22 series have a number of inputs and outputs all optically > > isolated. I've got a number of the modules if you are interested... > > I know just about everything there is to know about Opto22 I/O systems, if > you need any help or programming docs or anything... I used to use Quatech I/O boards containing various Opto22 modules (and Quatech interface boards) to build materials handling systems (White carosels, Buschman sorters, scales, etc). But being a programmer and not an EE, I never understood why we needed extra load in the A/C output modules to get a light to turn on. With just a 110v lightbulb, we'd get nothing. But when we plugged in a soldering iron into the same circuit, it would turn on and off as we expected. I can no longer recall how we solved this problem... ideas? -dq

23 years, 10 months

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great site

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > While I sympathize with you here, a couple points: 1) you > probably got a > real good deal on it, which is why you aren't bitching too > loudly ;) 2) > you did ask them to make sure it powered up and it did. They Exactly, and 3) I got it because even in the event that it was broken, I have another shot LD player which may benefit from a source of spare parts. :) > you ask them to stick a laserdics in it and play it on a TV, they will > probably tell you "we don't have a laserdisc to test it with, Actually, the conversation went something like that... > Please note that I am not taking your comments as a > disgruntled buyer, but > am simply stating how they operate. Well, I don't consider myself disgruntled, so that's good. I do hope that next time I deal with them it will be more smooth. > > There was a shipping mix-up on that item, and they sent my LD > > player to somebody else, and send me this guy's mac clone. (I > > think I'd rather have the Mac clone at this point, though the > > LD player may be repairable...) > That's not excusable, but it can be attributed to the > shortage of people > resources. They are run so ragged that these kinds of mistakes can > happen unfortunately. We're working to smooth out the whole process > though. I attributed this to the fact that it was ordered just at the beginning of December, and even ACCRC may have an unusually high volume of orders at that time. > There is one person handling the high-end workstation sales. That's the impression I got... > One day a > laid-off geologist walked in and said "I want to learn some > nifty computer > skills" so they pointed to a pile of workstations and said > "go to work" > (this story is made up but I think it's at least half accurate :) Well, it's at least half convincing, anyway. > The guy taught himself everything about SGI, HP, DEC, etc. > workstations > and went about putting together and testing complete systems > for sale on > Aftermath. He does a pretty good job at it. He was able to find the faulty part. Honestly, I wish I'd been able to do that, myself, but I don't have the stack of SGI pieces to do it :) > That being said, I think he did his darndest to put together > a completely > functional system for you, and I'm sure it was when he boxed > it up. But > something probably happened to it in transit. It seems so -- had you seen the condition it was in when I got it the first time, you would be even more convinced. I think, but can't prove, that at least part of the problem may have been UPS. > Again, lack of resources (specifically people). These guys > will always > uphold their end of the deal and will NEVER screw you. You will NEVER > feel like you got ripped off from them. This is because the > organization > is run by one of the most ethical, honest and > straight-forward people I > have ever met, James Burgett. As far as I have dealt with them so far, that seems correct. I should make it clear that I didn't mean to scare anyone away with my previous message, but I wanted to give a relatively complete picture of my dealings with them. My case is probably exceptional, and I've heard from others who don't have nearly this much trouble. > Again, they will only test it as far as you ask, or as far as > they have > the time and skills to do so. They will never misrepresent > anything they > have for sale. No problem there, of course. They seem to describe their items in complete and accurate terms. > They are incredibly decent folk, and all of them have an expertise in > something, and sometimes it intersects with the expertise you need to > determine if they have what you want :) ... which is, of course, better luck than you'd have at any local store, in my experience. ;) Or maybe I'm cursed, and just shouldn't be allowed to make purchases. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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OT: Chicago (was RE: Dumpster in the alley.)

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

On State Street, as Russ said. Most were south of the Loop, but there was one in the north of the loop at Dearborn & Lake until a few years ago. Most of the active ones are just north of the river now. (I used to work in the Old Court House building on Hubbard & State, and there was/is one across the street. -----Original Message----- From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 3:06 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: RE: Dumpster in the alley. On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Russ Blakeman wrote: > Wacker for bus-only traffic and tore down the adult theaters at the SW > corner of Wacker and State. Harold Washington College wasn;t there then, no They had adult theaters on Wacker Street? Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

23 years, 10 months

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great site

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: g(a)kurico.com [mailto:g@kurico.com] > Has anyone tryed purchasing anything from these guys? Their > site has come up on > the list before. I have. Just recently, in fact. I purchased two items -- a laserdisc player and an SGI Indy. The Laserdisc player was purchased with the understanding that they'd test it to make sure it powered up. It did, however it was trashed internally. Not a big problem, since I understood that it might be when I purchased it. There was a shipping mix-up on that item, and they sent my LD player to somebody else, and send me this guy's mac clone. (I think I'd rather have the Mac clone at this point, though the LD player may be repairable...) The SGI was supposed to be tested and working, but shipped to me with some problems. The drive sled had become loose in shipping, and somehow managed to knock the RTC out of its socket half-way. Needless to say, it wouldn't power up when I got it. After carefully reseating the RTC, I managed to get it to turn on, but it wouldn't boot properly. I ended up having to ship it back. It seems that the power supply was bad. It was eventually replaced and sent back to me. The system is now in working order, however, the CD drive I got with the system seems to be having some trouble. (seemingly random read errors, for instance) They have offered to ship me a second CD drive and allow me to keep this one (which again may be repairable) for the cost of shipping. (this is really fine with me, since I like that drive, and I'd like to get it working for use as a spare) At any rate, I'm expecting the new drive sometime soon. The problem is that I placed my orders originally in early December. They're a little slow in responding. If you can put up with that, and with the fact that what you order from them may not be well tested -- if my experience is any indication -- I don't imagine you'll have a problem dealing with them. The prices are certainly good. They also seem like decent people, and sometimes know what they're talking about. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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SCSI Bus Problem?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 18:23, Tothwolf wrote: > There are also Differential versions of Fast, Ultra, Wide, and Ultra-Wide. > These use a "high voltage" (+-12VDC IIRC) signaling that is *NOT* > compatible with standard devices. That's not correct. Normal differential, sometimes called high voltage differential to distinguish it from LVDS still uses 5V, same as single-ended. It uses thresholds of 2V and 3V, zero-referenced, with a resistive divider asthe terminator, 150 ohms from ground to signal-, 150 ohms from +V (termpower supply) to signal+, and 330 ohms between signal- and signal+. > You will literally fry any non HVD > devices if you connect a HVD drive to the same bus. Ultra2 and newer have > a Low Voltage Differential bus Similar to normal differential but based on 3.3V instead of 5V, and the maximum bus length is halved. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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RS/6000 keyboard

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

Sridhar, I have a RS-6000 keyboard that you can use. And I'm in Orlando. My keyboard was good the last time I used it but that was several years ago. Joe At 07:12 PM 2/10/02 -0500, you wrote: > >Hi people. I am in need of an RS/6000 keyboard. I need it soon, though. >It doesn't have to be a permanent arrangement (like a sale or something), >it just needs to be a loaner. I am in St. Petersburg, FL at Dave >McGuire's place. > >Peace... Sridhar > >

23 years, 10 months

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Sell Chinese Forklifts

by moonship＠heinfo.net

Dear Sir and Madam, We sell Chinese Forklift from 4 tons, 5 tons, 6 tons, and 7 tons lifting capacity. Chinese Forklifts are good quality with the most competitive price. If you are interested, please contact us at: moonship2000(a)etang.com moonship(a)heinfo.net All request will be replyed with photos, specifications and price list. Best Regards. Liu Qi. president of Moonship International Trade Corporation http://www.moonship.esmartbiz.com moonship2000(a)etang.com moonship(a)heinfo.net liuqi(a)excite.com Tel&Fax:+86-315-2737253 使用极星邮件群发，无须通过邮件服务器，直达对方邮箱，速度绝对一流！下载网址：http://love2net.51.net/，更多免费的超酷软件等你来下…… ---------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION This message has been sent using a trial-run version of the TSmtpRelayServer Delphi Component. ----------------------------------------------------

23 years, 10 months

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Taking control of your collection

by lgwalker＠mts.net

I have a connundrum. I want to thin out my collection of computer artifacts and I'm having problems on what to part with. I also could use the money. Instead, even in the middle of nowhere, far from Toronto where I accumulated all this stuff, I find it growing. The problem isn't lack of space as it once was, but simply to have a manageable hobby. I admit, I'm a packrat, and I transported most of my treasures 2000 mi. shedding replaceable things like couches, beds and appliances justifying that in my waning years I could dribble-sell them off to supplement my pension. (even that huge Dumont tube scope that had been refused as a gift by a list member, shipping would be ridiculous.) Plus the idea of a small computer museum (a Toronto one had once been a justification) in the center of the continent in a totally unexpected environment had some appeal. I don't want to go the route of a massive sell-off like several list-members did, but clearly I have to take control of this addiction. My first fix was only to have a couple of Ataris to supplement what was already becoming a fixation. Then home computers, then CP/M, and you all know the downward spiral. Thenks got, I never got hooked on minis. I just went thru my collection and each time I contemplated selling something off I came up with a valid(?) reason not to. My SCO manuals because they give a good exposition of UNIX and I MIGHT want to install it on one of my boxes, an old 83 business computing text cause it had a pic of my prized Micom system, another text from 73 that had pictures of card processing equipment that I once worked on. Numerous programming how-to's cause I really have to get beyond hardware hacking, and then things like do I really need 2 Kaypros or the H89 I'm going to repair some day. And why in-hell do I have "Lex and YACC", Odysys Development", Computes 1984 "Guide to Adventure Games". Do I really need most of the PS/2s as well as several PS/1s for my IBM collection ? You get the picture. Sure I have things like my Apple IIc LCD display and DRI GEM volume I could sell off for wanted cash, but I WANT to keep them. How do YOU limit your collection when you aren't a Sellam, John Keys and others with warehouse space. Seriously. It must be a problem that many of you have made a decision on, even when it wasn't your S.O. giving an ultimatum. Any guidelines ? Be stern. Lawrence Reply to: lgwalker(a)mts.net

23 years, 10 months

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StarLink Multi-User System

by normanalcott＠worldnet.att.net

StarLink: I have one unopened package of StarLink. Information from the package: " Introducing StarLink the computer expansion system. The system lets you link four "dumb" terminals or microcomputers to a single IBM Personal Computer, and function as if it's the only terminal connected to the computer." Features: - Four operating ports - Onboard 8088 Microprocessor and 64K RAM - Concurrent PC=DOS - Shared Data Files - Intersystems Communications I am looking to sell this product. Any interest? Norm

23 years, 10 months

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THE best find of the weekend!

by steven_j_robertson＠hotmail.com

Joe, Sorry I couldn't make the show. While I don't have any micromint specific documentation, there's a good chance I have some of the docs for the STD-BUS computer. Get the numbers off the cards and I'll see what I have. The STD BUS supports all kinds of processors. I have seen systems with processors ranging from a 4004 up to a 486. The most common seem to be Z80 based. What processor is in your system? The systems fall into two general categories. Dedicated controllers with task specific operating systems and general purpose computers. If it's a dedicated system, the OS would be burned in ROM and be of limited use without reprogramming. If it's a general purpose computer, it would most likely run CPM or DOS. If it's a CPM based system and you didn't get any disks, finding a version of CPM that'll run can be a real challenge. I think you should hand the machine off to someone that specializes in STD BUS hardware <grin>. Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for setup and handshaking for this printer. See ya, SteveRob >From: Joe <rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com> >Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org >To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org >Subject: THE best find of the weekend! >Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 19:20:14 -0500 > >Besides that nice trinket I also got two Gould logic analyzers, a >MicroMint Std-bus computer... <CLIP> _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com

23 years, 10 months

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RFC: ClassicCmp Demographics/Geographics

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

Hey. Along the lines of last week's "specialty" thread, I'm kind of curious where the various members (including and especially lurkers) live. Maybe more to the point, where our various machines and parts dumps reside.... I've managed so far never to touch a database, but this strikes me as an interesting-enough and simple-enough first project. I'm interested in listing and correlating several things: Skillset resources - who knows what, where. For instance, if I had an Amiga with catweasel hardware and I knew Grumpy ol' Fred lived 30 miles away, I might just drive out one Saturday, set it up, and learn something. Or whatever. Collections. Who has what, where. I travel nationwide (when there's work to do, that is), and if I know a list-member lives in the area I'll be in, I might arrange to see their collection, or even do some very rare face-to-face trading. Commercial regional and local parts and components resources. Most of us seem to have pet electronics suppliers in our areas. Wish lists. Who _wants_ what, where. What do we do when we're not playing with very old toys? (Yeah, I know. Look for older toys) We could do this as an online db, although I doubt that we'd want a lot of it public. Comments? Doc

23 years, 10 months

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StarLink Multi-User System

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 2/11/2002 8:35:34 PM Eastern Standard Time, normanalcott(a)worldnet.att.net writes: << StarLink: I have one unopened package of StarLink. Information from the package: >> I think I have this setup as well with software called 10link or something like that. Isnt it just ethernet? -- Antique Computer Virtual Museum www.nothingtodo.org

23 years, 10 months

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SCSI Bus Problem?

by vance＠ikickass.org

On Mon, 11 Feb 2002, Jeff Hellige wrote: > > > But as you pointed out, it will slow it down. My boot hard > >> disk is a wide SCSI drive, so I'd just as soon not have it drop back > >> to the SCSI-2 speed of the interface for my scanner, which is an > >> older Relisys Infinity Scorpio. I also use the narrow interface for > >> checking out smaller (40MB-1GB) SCSI hard disks that I pick up. > > > >A narrow device *will not* slow down a wide bus. > > Ok, you're telling me that if I have: > > - a wide SCSI adapter, such as an Adapter 2940U2B, running at > 40mhz and I have the adapter set to SCSI ID# 7 > - a wide SCSI hard disk, such as an IBM DDRS-39130D, set at > SCSI ID# 0 and also running at 40mhz > > The above settings are the default ID# for the 2940U2B and > ID# 0 is the factory default for the boot drive on the Macintosh both > are installed in. 15 total SCSI ID#'s available on the 2940U2B. > > That if I add a narrow SCSI hard disk, take your pick, > running at the fast-SCSI rate of 10mhz, that it won't slow the wide > SCSI bus down? That goes contrary to what I've seen and I've seen > plenty of narrow drives have a problem running on a bus that much > faster. That's why Adaptec's PowerDomain Control software allows you > to manually tailor the bus speed to try and find a happy medium for > all the devices you have on the bus. You're adding another variable. You're adding a disk at *10MHz*. If you add a narrow disk at *40MHz* then it won't slow down the SCSI bus. Peace... Sridhar > I'm not trying to be argumentative, but if I'm > misunderstanding something, and have been for quite a long time if > that's the case, I'd like to be corrected. > > Jeff > -- > Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File > http://www.cchaven.com > http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757 > >

23 years, 10 months

1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Help them out. Point them to Google. Problem solved. Well, yes and no. Actually this list has been infinitely more helpful to me in recent months than google. :) ISTR, veronica, last I used it, was as helpful as google is now, at least. That's without nearly so much crap to sift through, too. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

2
1
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OnHandPC: help! (missing SDK)

by sieler＠allegro.com

Hi, Not quite 10-years old, but... I've misplaced the software development kit (SDK) for my OnHandPC (the 16-bit DOS computer on a watch). www.onhandpc.com apparently died, and the domain is now a porn site (no, not "digital", as in the recent thread :) www.matsucom.com apparently also died, and is parked. Does anyone have a copy? (Basically, Cygnus gcc with header files and (IIRC) a translation/reformatting program.) BTW, you can allegedly buy an OnHandPC from "shoplite" at: http://www.shoplite.com/onhand.htm for $225. thanks, Stan Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler

23 years, 10 months

3
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rk05 tester

by lemay＠cs.umn.edu

Is anyone here familiar with a RK05 tester? Any idea exactly what it is, and what it is capable of testing? I'm looking into possibly buying one. -Lawrence LeMay

23 years, 10 months

3
2
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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 22:21, Tony Duell wrote: > So yes, it can be got to work. But it's not trivial (as far as I can > remember, the commericial process involved a catalyst as well). Both commercial processes do (well, the NO2 in the lead chamber process isn't strictly a catalyst, but it goes in one end and is mostly recovered at the other, so it's similar). It's a question of speed and yield. > I am not saying that there is _no_ SO3 produced without a catalyst (so > that, for example, I would easily believe that 'acid rain' contains some > sulphric acid produced by the oxidation of SO2 in the atmosphere) It does. A good proportion of SO2 is converted to sulphuric acid by the action of strong sunlight on the SO2 and water vapour. A slow process, though. The major constituents of acid rain are SO2 and various nitrogen oxides, roughly 70% and 30% respectively. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

1
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Old HP scanner

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Well, I've seen a few parallel ports that lost their magic smoke after an >external SCSI zip drive was plugged into them. I'd have to say it at least >isn't safe to mix up parallel and scsi ports... I know the Mac SE will survive having its SCSI port connected to a parallel printer. Although the Mac will not boot unil the cable is removed (it will sit with a flashing ? as the printer will confuse it, and it will fail to check the SCSI chain for a boot device). I know this because I had a location do just this... and then bitch that the Mac was dead (and then ship it to me FedEx P1 to fix... costing the company about 10 times the value of the Mac in shipping charges). They left everything connected (literally, they just took a big box, dropped the printer in it, then dropped the SE on top, followed by the keyboard and mouse... leaving ALL cables still interconnected!). One look at the printer cable and I knew what the problem was that was keeping the Mac from booting... I wasn't very surprised the office staff had done this... but I WAS very surprised to see the Mac boot fine as soon as I removed the parallel cable... I had figured they fried the SCSI bus. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 10 months

1
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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 21:29, Tony Duell wrote: > There are stories of some UK machine (I want to say BBC Master, but...) > being shipped with a lithium battery installed in place of a NiCd but > still having the charger circuit enabled. Apparently it wasn't unheard-of > for said battery to make a large hole in the cover.... It was an Acorn/BBC Master 128, but it only happened once, and it didn't make a hole. However, it did happen in a teaching hospital, so there was rather a lot of fuss about it. When Acorn realised what had happened, they recalled all the lithium battery packs and replaced them with Duracell packs. I worked for Acorn at the time, and was peripherally involved in the recall. Basically, I had to contact/visit all the dealers, education authorities, and service centres in my patch and make sure they surrendered all the lithium packs, both in machines, as held as spares, in exchange for the replacements. Acorn didn't want to risk any repeat performance. I can't remember much of the detail now, but I do remember having a lifetime supply of 3V AA lithium cells (non-rechargable variety). Unfortunately, "lifetime" means "shelf life" :-( -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

1
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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 10-Feb-2002 Tony Duell wrote: [...] > Difficult != impossible. I am told it's difficult to repair HP9100 > calculators. Doesn't mean I don't attempt it ;-) OKOK, I'll try... ;-) [...] > That is possible. I worked on an HP9000/835 a few years back (not my > machine, so I can't check any details now), and I remember that one of > the 'logic' boards had to be in place for the PSU to start up. And it > wasn't just a dummy load -- we tried that. If that's the case I'll have to connect the PSU to the computer to test it :-( bye -- What the gods would destroy they first submit to an IEEE standards committee.

23 years, 10 months

5
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hp plotter

by KCorp54678＠aol.com

Hello, I had recently purchased a 7550A hp plotter and can't seem to find a users manual or guide, can you help find one? Thanks Mary

23 years, 10 months

1
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IBM PC cassette drive

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

FWIW Several times there have been discussions on this list about wheather or not IBM ever made cassette drives for use with the original IBM PCs. The general feeling is that they never made any cassette drives or tapes. BUT I was talking to Mike Haas about this recently and he told me that he has an original IBM Diagnstics cassette tape! Today he sent a picture and I've posted it here <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/ibm/ibm-cass.jpg> . As you can see it has the same burgundy color as the standard IBM PC diagnostics disks. Joe

23 years, 10 months

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Old HP scanner

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 9:22, Russ Blakeman wrote: > How many pins does the centronics have? Might be SCSI if it's Centronics 50 > rather than 36. The 20 is probably a db25 that is also an alternate SCSI. You mean "Centronics-style", I think :-) "Centronics" connectors are 36-pin. Anyway, it's not SCSI. It's a proprietary HP interface, and the 20-pin connector is for a proprietary HP sheet feeder. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 9:44, Joe wrote: > I wa swaiting for his. You're right. but SO2 can react with O2 and > moisture in the air to form H2SO4. In fact, that's how sulfuric acid is (or > was) prodused commercailly. I certain proportion of H2SO3 is also produced > I'm told that it's only a small amount and it's some how removed and > retreated to form H2SO4. No, it's not, and never was. There's practically no reaction at room temperature and pressure. In fact it's very easy to turn SO3 back into SO2 and oxygen. Just leave it alone for a while. In the normal "Contact process", SO2 is passed over a catalyst at about 500 deg F, usually VO5 (Vanadium Pentoxide, not hairspray) commercially, or occasionally platinum (in demos) because it *doesn't* normally react with oxygen. The SO3 is then dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid (H2SO4) because it doesn't dissolve very rapidly in water, particularly when warm, and and the heat of solution would boil water. The concentrated sulphuric acid becomes fuming sulphuric acid ("oleum", H2S2O7) and cold water is continuously added to reduce that to concentrated sulphuric acid again. The other practical[1] method uses very hot concentrated nitric+sulphuric acid as an oxygen carrier -- again, because the oxidation of SO2 is too slow and the activation energy would be far too high otherwise. The SO2, at about 500 deg F (again) combines with NO2 (from the nitric acid) and water to give H2SO4 and nitric oxide; the nitric oxide is then re-oxidised to nitrogen dioxide, which in water gives nitric acid again. Now all you have to do is separate the two acids. [1] Perfectly practical providing you have some concentrated nitric acid, a whole lot of stainless steel tubing, a couple of lead vessels (this process is called the "lead chamber process") and a tower built of acid-resistant bricks, and a water cooling tower. > Yes, but that's a lot less S02 than the amount in the batteries. I'm not > suggesting that everyone of the room is going to die but if one of the > batteries ruptures, it will certainly empty the room in a hurry! There's not much in a battery. The equivalent of about 1/4 teaspoonful of sulphur at most, and I suspect, much less. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

1
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Need docs & drivers for old tape drives

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Yes, yes, yes and yes. I neglected to mention TK50 (but have > a drive), I > don't know what QIC-1000 is but I want a drive for it. And > with regards > to the last two, if you read my message you know that I > already specified > those. Sorry. I did read it, but it's been a couple of days, and I'd forgotten (not surprisingly. :) QIC-1000 is -- I think -- a higher-capacity cartridge drive similar to the QIC-120. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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Old HP scanner

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 11, 23:39, Dave Brown wrote: > I recently acquired an old HP scanner- 9190AU. Can anyone give me more > information on this unit- HP don't support it anymore. (it is old!) > > It looks to be almost the original Scanjet, as that's what it has on the > front, HP Scanjet, with no letters or numerals following. The 9190AU > designator is on the nameplate underneath. It has a Centronics connector > on the back and came with a std IBM printer cable, so I guess is a parallel > port version. But there is another oddball ( 20? pin) connector on the back > too. What's it for? > > I don't have any software for it but I believe the original drivers were Win > 3.1x only, so suggestions as to getting software to run it would be useful > as well. It is indeed the original Scanjet; 9195 is the Scanjet+ Both used an HP ISA card with a proprietary parallel interface, but SCSI-like protocols. There is some support for it in SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy). If you look in one of my colleagues's ftp directoriues, you'll find a couple of relevant files: http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/ftpdir/pub/james/hp.diff http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/ftpdir/pub/james/hporig.patch -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

1
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Craftsman (was: Microdata "Microprogramming Handbook"

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Craftsman tools were available at any Sears store; Snap-On had a few > outlets, but sold mostly through trucks that went to garages. (One time, > on a cross-country drive, I started having some serious problems with a VW > bus, and pulled over a Snap-On truck on the freeway in Ohio in order to > buy a 30mm (1 3/16) socket) Never pulled them over, but when a Snap-On socket or wrench breaks (twice per decade), I carry them in the glove box until I see a Snap-On dealer truck parked somewhere, then go do business. > A few years back, Sears closed a lot of their stores, and even closed down > their mail-order and catalog operations! The Craftsman Tools catalog remains in publication... > I think that Craftsman is still owned by Sears, but not sure. Anybody > know for sure? Yes, but the firms that actually manufacter the tools no longer have exclusive contracts with Sears. For example, EASCO is one line of hand made by one of the Craftsman manufacturers. Regards, -dq

23 years, 10 months

3
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IBM PC cassette drive

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 2/10/2002 7:23:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com writes: > Several times there have been discussions on this list about wheather or > not IBM ever made cassette drives for use with the original IBM PCs. The > general feeling is that they never made any cassette drives or tapes. BUT I > was talking to Mike Haas about this recently and he told me that he has an > original IBM Diagnstics cassette tape! Today he sent a picture and I've > posted it here <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/ibm/ibm-cass.jpg> . As you > can see it has the same burgundy color as the standard IBM PC diagnostics > disks. > I have the same tape as well. Havent tried it out yet though.

23 years, 10 months

4
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Sell Chinese Forklifts

by tony.eros＠machm.org

Ouch -- that's cold... At 11:50 AM 2/11/2002 -0600, you wrote: >I like to handle these by sending the postmaster at the offending domain >a nice congratulatory note on having joined the Falun Gong. (I wish I >could say I was the first to come up with the idea, but I saw it on >Usenet.)

23 years, 10 months

1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by Huw.Davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au

At 03:48 PM 8/02/2002 -0500, Douglas Quebbeman wrote: > > Ron Hudson wrote: > > > Is it just me, or didn't someone here offer to take the > > lead on setting up a ClassicCmp UUCP map months ago? > > Or is that just symptomatic of excessive Red Bull > > intake on my part? > >All depends on what you're mixing it with.... ;) > >Yes, several of us had a full head of steam to do this... >I could dedicate a 486 running Linux to it and could >have it online from 8am to 5pm daily... as long as >someone puts together a step-by-step... We should think about tunnelling UUCP over IP. That way we could use our existing IP links. This would certainly make it easier (read cheaper) for overseas nodes to exist. Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au | "If God had wanted soccer played in the | air, the sky would be painted green"

23 years, 10 months

24
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RISC/OS, IRIX

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dan Wright [mailto:dtwright@uiuc.edu] > Just out of curiosity, does this indicate that the tapes I > gave you actually > work? ;-) Indeed. :) Some better than others. I was going to start out by installing a relatively early version but couldn't get that particular version to boot. I've taken that to mean that either the version is too old for the M/120, or that I'm booting it improperly. At any rate, I've tried a good three sets of system tapes, all of which seem to work. (Now to get those other computers running...) That said, I plan to back the things up onto images sometime soon, and eventually to try booting one of the M/120s off of a DAT with the image copied onto it, and possibly a CD-ROM with a dump of the newly installed system disk. (That would be amusing if it will work...) I hear from a friend that I may be able to get an external SCSI qic1000(?) soon which would read those tapes without making it necessary to use the MIPS machine for it. I may take that option, since the CD writer is internal, in a different machine. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jay West [mailto:west@tseinc.com] > Ok, I have been watching the UUCP network thread. I have one > question - WHY? Lots of reasons: JavaScript, Banner Ads, THIS REALLY WORKED FOR ME!!!!, Registration Required, AOL, Microsoft, "You are not using a frames-enabled browser," "Your browser does not support cookies," "These documents are only available in MS Word format," "This page is best viewed in 800x600 resolution with internet explorer 4.0 or greater..." Need I say more? Internet is starting to really suck. Maybe we can all do better out of our own basements. UUCP certainly lowers the bar for entry and maintenance of a useable node to the point where anyone can grab a peesee out of the dumpster and plug in. (Provided that they know at least one person who is already connected...) Everybody has an even chance to participate and contribute. Even those of us who like to use computers that wouldn't generally use TCP. :) A 20 or 30 node UUCP network could probably hold all of the useful information I've seen on the internet in the last three years. As long as the network remains a manageable size, you could probably count on government to not get involved much, and the type of business that caused so much trouble on the internet wouldn't be interested. There's also the fact that the small level of knowledge required to set up a node, or even connect to one would be sufficient to weed out utter idiots. This is no longer true for internet. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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Kinda OT but that what's true HW hacker do in a pinch.

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> I'm still searching for a hand operated coil winding machine. I've only > seen a few, and they were all still in use by other people. If anyone > finds one they don't want, even in non-working or incomplete condition, > let me know. These things are likely considered antiques now. I could be wrong, but I believe these are still listed in the Allied Electronics catalog... -dq

23 years, 10 months

1
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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Chris Kennedy [mailto:chris@mainecoon.com] > Uh, just _which_ libertarian ethos was that? ARPAnet had no such > thing, and NFSnet had acceptable use policies up the ass. The only > thing out there that had any such "libertarian ethos" was the > bang-path hell of UUCP connected systems. That's about what I think of it, and personally, I'm all for bringing that bang-path hell back. ;) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

1
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Sell Chinese Forklifts

by PasserM＠umkc.edu

I like to handle these by sending the postmaster at the offending domain a nice congratulatory note on having joined the Falun Gong. (I wish I could say I was the first to come up with the idea, but I saw it on Usenet.)

23 years, 10 months

1
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Spectrum makes a comeback

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Bill Girnius [mailto:thedm@sunflower.com] > Believe it or not, some of us are. My first computer was a > Sinclair, I > learned basic on it, I've even chatted on IRC with it at a > blazing 300 baud, > and it was the first computer I ever programmed on, learned > BASIC on it in > fact. It had a great manual that someone whom had never So you learned BASIC on it twice? :) > seen a computer > before could learn more about it. The Sinclair, Spectrum, Speccy or > whatever you wish to refer to them as, was the begining of my computer > knowledge. This foundation has provided the initial blocks > for the 12 years > I have been a Sysadmin professionally for. Oh, did I mention > we had to > solder it together as a kit too? Great. I think there are many people here who love Spectrums, but the question is, why pay money per game to download Spectrum games to your home phone and play them for some limited time, when you can have the real thing probably for much less? :) Regards, Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

1
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8" floppy disks

by oliv555＠arrl.net

> >Anybody have any single-sided, hard-sectored 8" disks they'd be willing to >part with? Need some for the old Wang OIS. > I diverted several dumpster-bound boxes of Nashuas a while back. They are labeled FD-132D WP-R ss/dd Hard-Sec 9024-300. These are not notched, look to be unused, NOS. Let me know if these fit the bill. Yours for the postage. -nick

23 years, 10 months

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RISC/OS, IRIX

by csmith＠amdocs.com

Hi everybody. I have a curiosity which I hope to satisfy with this question, and I hope that somebody knowledgeable with the history of Silicon Graphics or MIPS can help me out here. On working with the MIPS RISComputers that I have (one in full working order -- no drive light yet -- with three more and a drive light to follow), it occurs to me that the entire feel of the machine is astoundingly close to that of an SGI. To give some examples: The boot monitor is somewhat close -- using the same or similar commands, and the same or similar naming scheme for devices. The install script for RISC/OS and SGIs 'inst' are similar in ways. The FROM environment variable in the RISC/OS installer, and the 'from' command in inst, as an example. Directory structure is very close, and the configuration files seem to be in very similar locations -- by this, I mean more so than is normal between different unix systems. "The System is Coming Up" (Yes, this message is in the default install for both systems) These are all just superficial things, but they lead me to guess that there was a large amount of heritage from RISC/OS to modern IRIX. I assume this would have shown up around IRIX 2.0 (was 1.0 the IRIS 2000/3000 version?) Does anyone know whether I've come to the wrong conclusion? Does anyone know how deep the resemblance goes? I would be tempted to try a RISC/OS binary on an IRIX system at some point. In short, is anyone familiar enough with Silicon Graphics and/ or MIPS to explain this? Regards, Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

2
1
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What am I missing?

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Jerome Fine [mailto:jhfine@postoffice.idirect.com] > I have a problem - am I the one at fault? I'm not sure there's a "fault" here. I certainly wouldn't blame you for wanting to do a proper backup. > (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to > NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify > which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone > intermittent errors. Well, if a drive fails completely, just unplug one, and if the system still boots, you've unplugged the failed unit ;) > (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and > I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to > restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no > data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if > I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing > wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up Personally, I'd recover to a "spare" disk, and try that disk out afterwards. No reason to possibly trash a more-or-less working installation if the recovery fails the first time. Otherwise it sounds reasonable. > includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times > at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude > is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is: > "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the > system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem > to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the > client records don't need to be kept since everything in published > law books is how to start all over again after a fire. I think this is the windows mindset. "We can always re-build the entire system, data files and all (since our data files will all be corrupt by then) once a month or so." Some people tell me that they've had better luck with windows than this, of course, YMMV. The point is that after losing so much data to poor practices -- on the part of the user, and the people who wrote the o/s -- what's there to be afraid of? Taken a step further, what's the point in a backup at all? That's not my attitude, but I've seen it. It also seems that most "new" system management types consider backups to simply be an annoyance, and more often than not will do anything possible to get out of having to restore anything... > Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that > my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who > NEVER makes a back-up of the client files. I try not to do business with people who have such poor data management practices... Had you given the name of the business, this would have probably kept me away from them for life. > If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is > this a Catch-22 situation? Wait until there is a failure and they actually need a backup. Announce that you have a backup, indeed, but it only contains 9000 copies of a file called README. :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

1
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NEW email address

by jwest＠classiccmp.org

To all those on the list - I'm finally getting around to severing all ties with my old company. Please make a note of my new email address jwest(a)classiccmp.org The old address (west(a)tseinc.com) is no longer active Regards, Jay West

23 years, 10 months

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WHERE IS YOUR MUSEUM? Was:Re: What's your specialty?

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: John R. Keys Jr. [mailto:jrkeys@concentric.net] > Sent: 11 February 2002 15:44 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: WHERE IS YOUR MUSEUM? Was:Re: What's your specialty? > > > It's nice to see someone else reaching their goal with having > a museum. > Where is it located? Best of luck with it. Ta :) It's in the North-East of England. The building itself needs a lot of cleaning up since the current occupier has a plaster moulding company - the whole place is practically white top to bottom! The roof needs fixing and it needs security measures too, but size wise it's spot on, and the ground floor is concrete so there's space for some big DEC iron there too...... Best of all it's 50 yards from the house..... a www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

23 years, 10 months

1
0
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Old HP scanner

by Richard.Sandwell＠roebry.co.uk

Dave Brown wrote : => is a parallel => >port version. But there is another oddball ( 20? pin) connector => on the back => >too. What's it for? At a guess its a connector for an optional sheet feeder? //Rich

23 years, 10 months

1
0
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Classic Game Console Search

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: John R. Keys Jr. [mailto:jrkeys@concentric.net] > Sent: 03 February 2002 03:53 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Classic Game Console Search > > > Does anyone on the list have one or all of these; The Adventure Vision > by Entex, the COSMOS by Atari, or the Microvision by Milton > Bradley? I > hope to get a Microvision in a couple days but the others are hard to > find. The COSMOS for example has only 5 known to be left and only 2 of > those are working units. I've got a Microvision with extra faceplate.....anything you need to know? a www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

23 years, 10 months

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What's your specialty?

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > Sent: 05 February 2002 14:55 > To: Classic Computers Mailing List > Subject: What's your specialty? > > Ok, now's your chance to discuss your specialty and get the > attention of > other folks who have stuff that you may want. I collect anything related to home computing apart from IBM-compatible PeeCees 'cos there's far too many of the bloody things and they don't interest me. My definition of the 'interesting' times is from the Magnavox Odyssey to the Escom Amiga 1200 (ie the last one, not the CBM one). I'm also very interested in the development of the early machines; how they came about, what thoughts and ideas were to go into them, what actually ended up IN them etc etc. This means I'm collecting documentation, books, software etc as well as the machines themselves. Anyone got a spare Magnavox Odyssey? :) I've got one game (Baseball) but no console...... Other news: I'm buying Bo Zimmerman's spare C65, and hopefully soon will be hosting several machines from the early development of Sinclair products, such as a prototype Spectrum board and one of the prototype Grundy Newbrains. Museum premises are nearly finalised too - 500 square feet of space over 2 floors; the only downside is I'm renting rather than buying so I'm limited as to what I can actually DO to the place. a

23 years, 10 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

Now Richard, my experience with Otronas is quite different from yours (or, more likely, what you heard). I used mine (an 8:16, which I still have) for 5 years in Peru on archaeological projects, without any problems. Other archaeologists I know at the Oriental Institute here in Chicago used them for a number of years in fieldwork in the Middle East. They even got John Walker (of AutoDesk, not of the Taliband) to write an Otrona version of AutoCAD (Version 1.4, which I also have) for them, which they used quite successfully for mapping their sites. In addition to "IRS types," a number of Otronas were used at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and (at least) one was used in space in Skylab. At the time Otrona went under, they were starting to produce a Tempest-certified version. I will have to admit that the 8:16 was expensive and only partially IBM-compatable, and the graphics emulation could could be terribly slow. But all-in-all, I was quite satisfied with my Otrona. Bob Feldman -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 2:32 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: No one likes Otronas? I personally have never seen an item with a reserve that I felt was within range of what I'd pay. As for the Otrona ... which is a local product, having been made in Boulder ... these things were trouble from the "git-go" in that several things were known sources of trouble, including but not limited to the FDC. The only ones (in terms of organization users) I've ever seen with Otrona machines have been IRS types. I wouldn't want one, even as a gift. Now, I'm not a collector, i.e. I wouldn't want a non-functional i8080 chip either, no matter what the color. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wayne M. Smith" <wmsmith(a)earthlink.net> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2002 6:16 PM Subject: Re: No one likes Otronas? > > Just curious if anyone has an opinion on why this didn't move. > > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001112267 While I > > don't know what his minimum is, seems like anything in this family should be > > worth about $100 or so, based on what Kaypros and a few others go for. He > > had it up once before, and it didn't sell. > > > > And I'm not interested in the merits or demerits of eBay, reputations, yada > > yada yada. I just want to know what someone thinks why a classic like this > > didn't even get bid on, except by one guy (me). > > > > --John > > > > > > I don't normally bid on items with reserves, and I think many others operate the same way. People use reserves because they think > that starting low may generate a bidding frenzy that will drive the price up. It probably has the opposite effect by attracting > bottom feeders that will never bid high, and turning off some people who might actually be interested but don't want the additional > hassle of having to bid against the seller's reserve. > > -W > >

23 years, 10 months

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Orlando hamfest last weekend

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

Great fun. Lotsa driving. Lotsa great people, Lotsa classic computer stuff! First, I knew that Joe's CC reentry was being fueled by a *few* cool Intel MDS-800 systems so I brought down an Intel MDS 235 for him (that was originally his to begin with) to add to his growing 'Intel Gravatational Field' Joe and I started early Friday and Saturday and I scored all this real cheap: Technical Careers Instutute, Electrical Department's, X-80 (z-80 sbc) SUN SparcStations 1, 2, 5, 20 (all stripped except the 2,) and 2 keyboards TI-2500 Datamath LED calculator DEC puck mouse, LED Test Light Panel GenRad's/DEC M7516, M3107, M7546, M7608, M7609, ClearPoint, WQESD/04 Commodore VIC-20 ML and Monitor Cart and 3 Slot Expanders Commodore 1571 and 1541, Simon Basic Cart, Infocom's HGTTG (my perile sensitive (driving) sunglasses are wearing out) COCO Basic09, OS9, OS9L2, and Pascal docs (some lamer ebayer borrowed and kept mine) DANA Counter (for the 8 NIXIES) X-10 Telephone remote controller and a few split wall recepts. ARC 40A (rs232) Data Analyzer Books: PN's Inside the IBM PC TRS-80 Sales catalogs RSC-7, CCF-832, 8/24/82 Sale The new RTTY Handbook (Joe's) RTTY A-Z (Joe's) Mags: Rainbow 84, 87-92 Color Computer 3/84 (premier) - 11/84 Creative COmputing 10.11 - 11.4 Byte 3/84 TRS-80 Microcomputer News 4.5 - 5.7 PE Aug/76, Sept/76, Mar/77, Mar/78, 78 Electronics Experimenters Handbook, May/80 At the end, when we were about done, Joe stayed behind to guard our piles while I fetched the car to load up. When I returned, Joe had found *my* RCA VIP. I felt several blood vessels then pop behind my forehead... ;) There were also several classiccmps not picked up because of high prices like: Several TRS-80 100 portables and one with the portable floppy and a Model 4 SGI Indy Timex ZX81 There was also a cool computer (not purchased) from Chrystler that was a old 8080 (embedded maybe) multiboard system in a cardcage. It's 8080 chip was >from '74, and there were a few 2020 Emulator boards (??) in there two... There was even one 'Vintage Computer' table. This guy had CoCo stuff galore. He said that I was his only customer the first day. So I made some ancillary purchases from him for the coco and commie stuff mentioned above. Oh yeah. And I may just score a full rack with a PDP 8M and a few ASR 33 TTs based on a random conversations struck up while there with another shopper (!!!) ;) - Mike: dogas(a)bellsouth.net

23 years, 10 months

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32-bit bit slice?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> Odd questions, perhaps: > Was there ever a commercial 32-bit machine built with 2901s? > Other bit slice devices? > > What is the longest word length machines done in bit-slice? > > Is there a practical limit to the word length of a 2901-based > machine? The Prime 400 was built using the 2901; it was 32-bit and supported a paged, segmented virtual memory space. -dq

23 years, 10 months

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Taking control of your collection

by Adrian.Graham＠corporatemicrosystems.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Lawrence Walker [mailto:lgwalker@mts.net] > Sent: 05 February 2002 06:00 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Taking control of your collection > > How do YOU limit your collection when you aren't a Sellam, John Keys > and others with warehouse space. Seriously. It must be a problem that > many of you have made a decision on, even when it wasn't your S.O. > giving an ultimatum. Any guidelines ? Be stern. Fortunately for me I've got an understanding gf who also packrats stuff :) I was supposed to be limited to one room in the house, but sharp filled up that, then the room next to it, then a spare room on the ground floor, then the garage, then a small storage room then a much bigger storage room, and now that I've got 500sq ft to play with who knows what's going to happen! I only have 1 rule; since I'm going to be exhibiting I keep the best/cleanest machine and pass on/sell the others. Obviously this gets broken for machines I'm exploring/fixing/hacking, or with stuff I think will be good for trades. Machines I'll collect till I stop are things like Lisas, Enterprise64/128, Memotechs etc - things I really *really* wanted when I was younger and which never quite 'made it' in the real world. a

23 years, 10 months

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Keyboard for Cifer T5 terminal.

by timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

Paul Williams wrote: >Pete Turnbull wrote: >>On Feb 9, 13:46, Paul Williams wrote: >>>Is there any form of address for Cifer on the terminal? I don't >>>even know which country they came from. >> >> The UK. A friend of mine went to work for them for a while in the >> late '80s, but I know very little more about them. Except that they >> made some quite cool black terminals, one of which I had until >> recently. > >You actually get rid of stuff occasionally? Shocking behaviour. > >It appears that Cifer made terminals and CP/M boxes. I haven't checked >the termcaps, but it appears that some were VT100-compatible (the ones I >used at Poly) and some weren't. Not adding any useful information, but I remember using a Cifer CP/M box at school (donated by a local major pharmaceuticals company IIRC, who didn't go to any of the trouble of deleting anything :-). Came with a massive 10MB hard disk and a 5.25" floppy, and a little greenscreen all in a single unit. We opened one up (after it had blown the magic blue smoke - the foam 'filter' on the cooling fans at the back had jammed the fan blades and it overheated rather horribly.) At the time I couldn't get over the fact that it had a Z80 for the main processor, but a 68000 (IIRC) driving the display hardware... As a 680x0 bigot, that always seemed the wrong way round :-). Cheers, Tim. -- Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] > start a fire with two sticks. Give me a break. And the only "noise" > there is on the internet is the noise that you decide to tune in to. > The internet is pull, not push. The internet of today is ... but you can only pull in large chunks. :) Perhaps you have no more trouble finding good information than you used to -- but I have to say that everyone else I've spoken to about this has almost given up actually trying to find information. > bigger, faster, > and better than the internet of 10 years ago, infinitely more useable, > infinitely more useful, and I'm sorry but there's no going back. Well, I disagree on all points except "bigger," and "faster." :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

23 years, 10 months

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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:30, Russ Blakeman wrote: > Not sure if there were rechargable litiums but they have had, and still > have, rechargeable alkalin batteries - my son has 2 sets he swaps in/out for > his Handspring Deluxe PDA (AAA). There are rechargeable lithium batteries. One type is lithium - carbon dioxide, and some *specially-made* lithium-manganese dioxide batteries are rechargeable. Don't try to recharge ordinary ones, they *will* exlode. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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Dead CMOS Battery - NEC Powermate portable

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 23:04, Tony Duell wrote: > > Some (mostly non-consumer type) Lithium batteries use sulfur dioxide in > > them. Not the kind of thing that you want to rupture inside your PC (or in > > But presumably in solution, not as a gas... Yes, but I'm not sure what it's dissolved in; it's not very soluble in water. Probably there's something else there to help (like dissolving iodine in potassium iodide solution). > > your house!). For the ones of you that aren't familar with the stuff, > > sulfur dioxide is nuseating and toxic, and it also reacts with moisture to > > form sulfuric acid, INCLUDING the moisture inside your lungs! > > No it doesn't. It forms sulphurous acid (H2SO3), which is a much weaker > acid than sulphuric (which is what you get if you disolve sulphur > trioxide in water). Except that SO3 isn't very water soluble either, commercially it's normally dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, to make more sulphuric acid. > I an not suggesting that SO2 is particularly pleasant, but I am sure most > of us here have burnt sulphur as part of a school chemistry experiment > and lived to tell the tale. It's used as a bleach, and as a preservative in foodstuffs (look for sodium metabisulphite on the label -- it releases SO2 in acidic conditions). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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THE best find of the weekend!

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 21:15, Steve Robertson wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. Some... this isn't direct from Diablo docs, but from a book I have that lists lots of RS232 setups: Diablo Systems, Inc: RO 630 Pin Function Direction 1 protective ground n/a 2 transmitted data from 630 3 received data to 630 4 request to send from 630 (note 1) 5 clear to send to 630 6 data set ready to 630 (note 2) 7 signal ground n/a 8 rec. line signal detector to 630 11 printer ready from 630 (note 3) 20 data terminal ready from 630 (note 3) Note 1: Pin 4 is always on (high) Note 2: Pin 6 must be on (high) before the 630 can receive data Note 3: Pin 20 can be used instead of pin 11 for hardware flow control -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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This weekends finds

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

This weekend's haul still doesn't top some of the $5 boxes I've bought >from other local spots, but it seemed like a good enough haul to mention. So without further delay... 25 data books and 3 computer books for $5 20 assorted twist-lock plugs and receptacles [many are available for trade, see my earlier email] 2 12ft. mac serial cables 1 'AT&T 353A3' cable with a BNC and a RJ45 connector 1 'modem' cable for a custom application, 25-30ft. 9/25 pin 4 14 pin dip IDC ribbon headers 1 25 pin gender changer 2 pkgs sip resistor networks 1 pkg 6 50 pin IDC ribbon cable connectors 3 assorted pc boards - misc assorted components and parts in the bottom of the box 1 Glenmarc Portion-Aire PV-200VP pneumatic actuated fluid dispenser controller Each of the above items excluding assorted stuff and the books cost me $0.50ea for a grand total of $18 plus $5 for the books. Strangely enough, I purchased the foot switch for the Glenmarc unit from the same shop about 6 months ago for $4 or so. Does anyone know much about that unit? I don't have the handpieces for it, but they seem to still be available from the manufacturer. -Toth

23 years, 10 months

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Diablo 630 flow control (was Re: THE best find of the weekend!)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Steve Robertson" <steven_j_robertson(a)hotmail.com> wrote: > Speaking of Daisy Wheel printers... I prefer to use a daisy wheel for > printing plain text stuff. Currently, I have a DIABLO 630 and am having real > difficulty talking to it. Seems like when I try to print anything, I get > buffer overruns, the wrong chatracters printed, and all kind of other > errors. I have tried every possible combination of comm settings, flow > control, etc... to no avail. Does anyone know where I can find the specs for > setup and handshaking for this printer. RS-232 interface? I don't recall the details precisely, but I used to be responsible for a bunch of HP 2601As which were badge-engineered Diablo 630s. As shipped by HP they did not do hardware flow control. There was a jumper on the top edge of one of the boards inside the printer that got it to do some sort of hardware flow control though (I think with it driving pin 20 to indicate whether it could accept data, but I may be confusing it with other HP serial printers of the day), and this was described (somewhat oddly) in one of the manuals that came with the printer. If I had that manual in front of me I could look it up -- I can almost see it from 15 years ago, but not quite. -Frank McConnell

23 years, 10 months

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RFC: ClassicCmp Demographics/Geographics

by rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com

At 05:46 PM 2/10/02 -0500, you wrote: >On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Doc Shipley wrote: > >> Hey. >> Along the lines of last week's "specialty" thread, I'm kind of curious >> where the various members (including and especially lurkers) live. >> Maybe more to the point, where our various machines and parts dumps >> reside.... > >Yeah, that sounds like a good/useful idea. I'd be willing to do some work >on setting this up. I could even host the database... right now, using >a server on Purdue's campus. > >> I've managed so far never to touch a database, but this strikes me as >> an interesting-enough and simple-enough first project. I'm interested >> in listing and correlating several things: > >The last time I've really played with a database was back in Windows 3.1 >days with Microsoft Access. However, I know people that know what they're >doing and could assist me ;). [I'd propose a system set up on a Linux >server, not Windows of course.] Linux, bah! Set it up on a 64k floppy drive only CPM system using DBase version 1. Joe

23 years, 10 months

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RFC: ClassicCmp Demographics/Geographics

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

I seem to remember reading that "Ashton" was Tate's pet parrot. . . . On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:04:58 -0800 (PST) "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com> writes: > On Sun, 10 Feb 2002, Jeff Hellige wrote: > > The Ashton-Tate product started with dBase II...there > never > > was a version 1. Myself, I always preferred Rbase. > > There also wasn't an "Ashton" in "Ashton-Tate". George Tate just > though > that publisher names like Prentice-Hall and McGrah-Hill sounded > neat. > > > He was once asked what the best moment of his career was. He > replied that > it was building a radio controlled blimp to use for advertising > inside > Comdex. He was then asked about the worst. "finding out that we > couldn't > use the blimp in Comdex" > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

23 years, 10 months

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semi ot: cardreader connected to a PC

by djg＠drs-esg.com

My online PDP-8 is hung off the parallel port. If you use the iopl call to set privlages to do raw IO port reads and writes (must be root) then you can directly talk to the parallel port with inb and outb from a user program. I use the 1284 mode stuff which is probably more trouble than it is worth. >From what I remember the control signals are either input or output, the outputs can all be controlled by the PC and I think read. The data lines can be bidirectional. If you want it I can send you the source for my parallel port I/O routines, email me. Also you can email if you have questions and see how much I remember. For the simpler modes the stuff I found online a couple years ago was pretty good. I don't seem to have any at hand but can dig them up if you haven't found anything good. David Gesswein http://www.pdp8.net/ -- Run an old computer with blinkenlights.

23 years, 10 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Ah, yet another valuable application of E-Bay: Spamcop. Cool. Why didn't I think of that? On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 14:47:33 -0600 (CST) Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > Don't get me wrong; I do a lot of after-auction business with > resellers I found on eBay. > What I don't like is a business/person who refuses to sell the > item to > a high bidder that didn't meet reserve (entirely reasonable), offer > to > sell the item off-eBay at retail or higher (still acceptable, if > irritating), and then *continue* to offer me high-priced crap by > email > after I've requested to be taken off their list. > That's when I complain to ebay. > > Doc > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

23 years, 10 months

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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 15:21, Tony Duell wrote: > > It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use > > But IMHO less of a pain than tracing faults cause by so-called AUI cables > that are nothing of the sort! <grin> No other comment neccessary or desired. > > lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to > > Is it? The drop cable I got was 4 twisted pairs. A thicker one for the > power connections and 3 more for the Tx, Rx, Collision pairs. With an > overall foil screen. Hmm... I was about to say that's one of the cheaper office-type cables. I'd forgotten that the cables are actually four individually screened twisted pairs plus a pair for power. But if yours is only a single overall screen, then it's not full-spec AUI, which is thick, about 1cm diameter or a little more, very unwieldy, and bright blue. Not that it matters if it works -- the only difference between office-rated cables and the full-spec ones is that the office-spec is limited to a maximum of 12m (possibly less for some makes) while the full-spec is rated to 50m. It does mean that for some applications, office-spec won't do; for example if you use an AUI concentrator (the best-known being a DELNI) that isn't a repeater and it has an equivalent cable length which is quite long (15m ?), so you have to be careful about the length of office cables you attach to it. > Finding the proper cable in short lengths (i.e. not a 100m reel) is the > hard part. Soldering up the DA15 connectors is pretty easy. The best way is to find a long blue AUI cable and cut it up. For some reason, I find long ones are more common than short ones. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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DIGI-COMP1

by dittman＠dittman.net

Wasn't someone looking for a DIGI-COMP1? I saw one on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001170316 -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

23 years, 10 months

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RS/6000 keyboard

by vance＠ikickass.org

Hi people. I am in need of an RS/6000 keyboard. I need it soon, though. It doesn't have to be a permanent arrangement (like a sale or something), it just needs to be a loaner. I am in St. Petersburg, FL at Dave McGuire's place. Peace... Sridhar

23 years, 10 months

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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 10:10, Robert Schaefer wrote: > From: "Pete Turnbull" <pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com> > > It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use > > lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to > > find the pinout easily enough on the 'net, eg > > I was wondering, because ISTR the conventional wisdom on cat5 patch cords is > to purchase 'em new-- more cost-effective than making & testing 'em > in-house. Yes, except if you can get the cable, (or cannibalise a very long one) it might be cheaper to make your own AUI. > The longest one I need is ~2m and the shortest would be ~.5m depending on > how flexable the cabling is. Is there a shortest allowed length? No, you can connect the transceiver directly to the computer's AUI socket without any cable at all, providing there's room, you can get at the latch, and it doesn't impose too much mechanical strain. > My wife just asked for a cable modem, so network stuff > seems a lot more interesting all of a sudden! Don't hesitate! -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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Ongoing System/36 5362 saga ... PS

by ceby2＠csc.com

PS - Forgot to mention... the family's about to grow by one. I just forked out for a 5363 little sibling to the 5362. My flat's turning into an IBM orphanage. YES!!!! SCORE!!!!!!! Colin Eby Senior Consultant CSC Consulting

23 years, 10 months

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Ongoing System/36 5362 saga

by ceby2＠csc.com

Hi again folks, I'm back again for a frantic weekend of chores and housework before heading back out on the the road doing this roadwarrior/consulting gig. Between laundrymat runs I'm trying to push forward with this 5362 project. To date, I've gotten it to IPL consistantly, read a diskette and go into diagnostic mode. I've dug up some diskettes for it -- and may in fact have the SSP here now -- that's what the labels say, but I can't confirm it. The only problem is even the SSP diskettes appear to be password protected. I don't yet have installation documentation for the beast. So I'm not sure what the initial password would be. The SSP diskettes use an account called SYSSSP. Does anyone know what the default password for that would be? I'm also working on some password cracking information I found, to try and recover the existing installation. The only problem is I don't yet have a working diagnostic diskette, and the disk doesn't have the right routines installed anymore. Meanwhile, Al Kossow, has been slaving over a hot scanner with some 5360 maintenance docs. I'm working on a PDF version of those docs. With luck and a fast spin-dryer at the laundrette, I hope to have them finished in the next week or so. There's a buttload of them, so this is taking a while -- I'm setting up bookmarked TOCs to make them manageable/navigable. I'm doing the same with the few pieces I have from my own system. A number of other list members are trying to help me out -- and I thank everyone for their assistance. You'all know who you is. Colin Eby Senior Consultant CSC Consulting

23 years, 10 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

I always considered this to be a *legitimate* application of E-bay (their retarded rules not withstanding of course). These assholes can't tell me *who* I can communicate with via e-mail, or for what *purpose*! Jeff On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 03:13:28 -0600 (CST) Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > I think a lot of resellers don't expect to sell on ebay, they just > want contact info of people with a demonstrated (by bidding) > interest in > their product. > > Doc > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

23 years, 10 months

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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 10, 8:46, Robert Schaefer wrote: > I didn't know about that. Are AUI cables easily made, or are they better > purchased? I need a small handful to connect my VAXen to the DELNI anyway. > I have two of the DEC mfgr'd 10Km^H^H^H^H20m cables, and two or three that > came with the DELNI that I expected to work. Another assumption on my part > I should look into. Big thick things? They're probably OK. It's a pain to make proper AUI cables, but if they're short, you can use lower-quality cable. It's multiple coax inside. You should be able to find the pinout easily enough on the 'net, eg http://www.techfest.com/networking/lan/ethernet5.htm#5.4.2 > > What is the ORnet transceiver connected to? > > Uhhh... $PC for testing, I believe. Some NE2k clone card most likely. It > was a quick go-nogo test. Should be OK, but make sure the AUI connector is actually enabled. Most cards have several jumpers to select between AUI and whatever else is there. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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32-bit bit slice?

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On February 9, Steven M. Jones wrote: > I believe Digital's VAX-11/730 is actually implemented using > AMD's 2900-series bitslice chips. Lemme go fetch a processor > handbook and get back to you... It is indeed. As is the FP11-A board for the pdp11/34, and the FPF11 board for the pdp11/23 and pdp11/24. Am2901 chips kick ass. I really like them. Back in 1987 or so I worked at Princeton University on the Navier-Stokes Supercomputer Project. The microsequencer for the vector ALU in that machine is an Am2910. That was LOTS of fun. -Dave -- Dave McGuire St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf

23 years, 10 months

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32-bit bit slice?

by classiccmp＠crash.com

I believe Digital's VAX-11/730 is actually implemented using AMD's 2900-series bitslice chips. Lemme go fetch a processor handbook and get back to you... --Steve. Steve Jones smj(a)spamfree.crash.com (think about it) Aspiring Curmudgeon old: ...!think!liable!steve Crash Computing, Inc. older: steve (at) yoyodyne.mit.edu

23 years, 10 months

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Looking for URL

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Anyone have url or email address for the Classic Tech Eletter? Thanks

23 years, 10 months

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Getting Irix or sub OS for used SGI boxes...

by claudew＠videotron.ca

Hi all I recently started to find some SGi boxes up here. Some old (Personnal Iris 4D/20, Indigos) some not too old (Origin 200!) These could be considered a bit rarer up here in Canada. All with blank HDs of course... But now I run into the problem of finding an OS for these....since Irix is expensive and/or hard to find... Ports of NetbsdMips or Linux for Mips seem incomplete, very experimental and only support a few boxes... I wonder if that what a wise decision of SGI to keep even old obsolete versions of Irix "closely guarded" like they have... I compare with Sun Solaris and the Sun decision to make it free...doesnt that make so much sense?...when we see SGI and Sun are struggling in a PC/Windows dominated market? I also think about SGIs decision of using all the proprietary simms and dimms in almost all of their machines, how wise was that? Anyone that can help me with my hunt for a cheap and recent to semi-recent version of Irix, please contact me. Thanks Claude

23 years, 10 months

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OT: What am I missing?

by jhfine＠postoffice.idirect.com

I have a problem - am I the one at fault? I am upgrading to a "newer" system and one of my concerns is adequate backup. Normally, I do a full backup about once a day - or once every other day. It has been suggested that the "newer" have a "RAID 1" controller which would use two 40 GByte EIDE drives. A "RAID 1" system uses two disk drives and keeps two copies of ALL files at all times. This provides a duplicate set of images - so that even if there are only intermittent errors with one drive, I would be aware of the problems before both drives became bad and (normally) have time to make a complete backup before I replace the bad drive. However, I am experiencing two difficulties: (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone intermittent errors. (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is: "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the client records don't need to be kept since everything in published law books is how to start all over again after a fire. Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who NEVER makes a back-up of the client files. If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is this a Catch-22 situation?

23 years, 10 months

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32-bit bit slice?

by ken＠seefried.com

Odd questions, perhaps: Was there ever a commercial 32-bit machine built with 2901s? Other bit slice devices? What is the longest word length machines done in bit-slice? Is there a practical limit to the word length of a 2901-based machine? Ken

23 years, 10 months

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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 10-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: > Uhm, have you checked the output voltages since you replaced the diode? If > it only works for a few seconds before it shuts down, that should be > possible. I wasn't there when they tried to repair it. So I don't know if they checked the voltages after they saw it shut down in the first place. But they where pretty sure that the error is somewhere in the control circuits and no one (me included) wanted to touch those. :-) Especially after someone (who should know) told us that it's extremly difficult to fix such a PSU even if the schematics are available... > If they are not over-voltage, maybe it is shutting down due to > no load? Many switching supplies do that... I've seen PSUs not start up at all without load, but a PSU which starts up, detects that there's no load and shuts down again? Of course that would explain the large amount of control circuits... I'll add a dummy-load and try again. I think it could also be possible that the computer somehow has to tell the PSU what to do... bye -- Try to remove the color-problem by restarting your computer several times. -- Microsoft-Internet Explorer README.TXT

23 years, 10 months

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Keyboard for Cifer T5 terminal.

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 13:46, Paul Williams wrote: > Is there any form of address for Cifer on the terminal? I don't even > know which country they came from. The UK. A friend of mine went to work for them for a while in the late '80s, but I know very little more about them. Except that they made some quite cool black terminals, one of which I had until recently. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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old laptop BIOS???

by mrgray＠gil.com.au

press the esc key when booting to get in cmos. you can find some some info no the t2200sx at (http://pilot.ucdavis.edu/toshiba) luck to you Alan

23 years, 10 months

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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 21:56, Robert Schaefer wrote: > Ooops-- I assumed you had one in front of you too. ;) The raylan is a > 15-port managed concentrator with (currently) 10bFL hot-swap cards > installed. Maybe concentrator is the wrong word-- that's what was used to > describe it to me. I was going from the tranceiver directly into the > raylan. I'm pretty sure I had Rx & Tx right, as I got a link light on the > raylan, and the error on the transceiver. Bad assumption on my part. When someone mentions "concentrator", I tend to think of something with several places to connect AUI cables, and I assumed that's how you'd connected them. It's basically a repeater, with it's own transceivers (instead of just AUI) and probably management/control of individual ports. It ought to work, with Rx on one connected by fibre to Tx on the other, and v.v. > Ok. They have a three-positon DIP switch, labeled `SQE TEST', `ALTERNATE > COLL MODE' and `FULL STEP'. Does that narrow it down? SQE TEST is the "heartbeat" function, or Signal Quality Enable setting, which is normally off if connecting the AUI to any kind of repeater, otherwise on. Try it both ways. ALTERNATE COLL MODE is to do with collision detect timing. On 3Com units (and they bought ORnet/Chipcom) turning it on is the default, and arranges that a single collision-presence (CI) signal is sent to the AUI interface. If off, CI is active all the time the collision condition persists, which is the normal setting for IEEE 802.3 compliance (the 3Com setting is an optimisation for certain interface chips). FULL STEP is to do with the signal sent at the beginning of a packet. HALF STEP is normally used for 802.3 Ethernet, FULL STEP is used for DIX Ethernet. It won't hurt to try both ways. Another possibility is that you have the wrong type of AUI cable (old ones use different shielding arrangements, and most "office" type cables are way below spec) or even the wrong kind of AUI interface for this device. Still another is that your fibre is too lossy, and the transceiver is seeing something, but not recognising it (there's a continuous series of pulses at 1MHz rate when it's active). Try cleaning the ends with iso-propyl alcohol, and swap the sides over. Blow out the connectors with dry compressed air and/or IPA. What is the ORnet transceiver connected to? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by Huw.Davies＠kerberos.davies.net.au

At 07:46 PM 9/02/2002 -0500, Julius Sridhar wrote: >I would prefer DECnet, but a lot machines don't grok DECnet. Most of mine >do, though. No reason why we couldn't do DECnet as well. As I alluded to in a previous e-mail, there are other network protocols that we should try to preserve, just like we are trying to preserve the hardware. I understand that there's a reasonable DECnet implementation for Linux as well as real implementations for lots of DEC machines :-) There's also third party DECnet stuff from Xi? we used to run DECnet on a couple of our AIX boxes to maintain connectivity to the _real_ systems running VMS (this well before I "went with the flow" and put TCP/IP on the VAXen). Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)kerberos.davies.net.au | "If God had wanted soccer played in the | air, the sky would be painted green"

23 years, 10 months

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WTT: Hubbell twist-lock connectors

by tothwolf＠concentric.net

I'm sure there are other folks on the list that have systems that use twist-lock connectors, so I am posting here before I contact a surplus company to work out a trade. I have the following Hubbell twist-lock connectors that are surplus to my needs: Qty Description Hubbell Part # NEMA 4 125V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL2611 L5-30P 3 125V/250V 20A Insulgrip Plug HBL9965C N/A 1 125V/250V 20A Insulgrip Flanged Receptacle HBL3326C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL3331C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Flanged Inlet HBL3334C N/A 1 125V/250V 30A Insulgrip Flanged Receptacle HBL3335C N/A 2 125V 15A/250V 10A Insulgrip Plug [Not UL Listed] HBL7567C N/A I am looking for these connectors to get power to my old SGI systems: Qty Description Hubbell Part # NEMA 2 125V 20A Insulgrip Plug HBL2311 L5-20P 3 125V 20A Insulgrip Connector Body HBL2313 L5-20R 4 125V 20A Single Flush Receptacle HBL2310 L5-20R 2 250V 30A Insulgrip Plug HBL2621 L6-30P 2 250V 30A Insulgrip Connector Body HBL2623 L6-30R 3 250V 30A Single Flush Receptacle HBL2620 L6-30R Hubbell twist-lock catalog: http://www.hubbell-wiring.com/new/sectionb.pdf If anyone wants to make a trade, email me directly. -Toth

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Brian Chase <vaxzilla(a)jarai.org> wrote: > For the scenerio of running a private netnews network, it'd probably > make the most sense to just use NNTP over TCP/IP. Again, the "in > network" servers would have to only allow traffic between themselves. > Maybe, we could gateway in some of the better groups from the regular > Usenet hierarchy, and then create a vunet.* (or whatever) hierarchy > which is only carried within the network. If you want to run a private netnews network, you just set up another hierarchy and control who you feed that hierarchy to. This is pretty much transport-independent and you can use either NNTP or UUCP to do the feeding. You can also run it in parallel with less-private netnews feeds (e.g. Big 8, alt, geographic hierarchies, Usenet II) and even exchange feeds for the less-private traffic with hosts that don't have anything to do with the private netnews hierarchy. The difficult bit is keeping it private. It's way too easy for a site's admin to set up a new feed of everything to a site that might not be welcome at the party, and about the only recourse that the rest of the private network has is to stop feeding the loosely administered site if its admin won't fix the leak. It is also hard to detect outgoing leaks if they do not permit posts to leak in. One rule that you must have is: no cross-posts to groups inside and outside the private hierarchy (e.g. cross-posting to alt.folklore.computers and vunet.classiccmp is not to be done and preferably not to be allowed). It is generally suggested that you set up the feed for the private hierarchy as a separate feed (separate lines in the newsfeeds file, if you're running INN) so that this rule can be enforced. It might be worth looking at http://www.usenet2.org/ and the links there as something of a how-to. > But now we're not talking about vintage computers or software. We're > talking about vintage values--where there's a global network with the > intent to further education, research, collaboration, and general > discussion (pointless or otherwise). Personally, I'm sick of the over > commercialized monstrosity that the internet has become. Yes, you really should go look at http://www.usenet2.org/ . Consider that the plan was to have a viable alternative when Usenet became unusable, which was expected to happen but didn't (hasn't yet). Usenet II exists but is not really used today. -Frank McConnell

23 years, 10 months

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10Base-FL

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Feb 9, 16:29, Robert Schaefer wrote: > Interesting. I don't know too much about the kit I have (I would > desperately love info on the raylan fiber concentrator &| it's SNMP card) > but from what I did see it's pretty standard 10bFL. The tranceivers are > `ORnet FIBER OPTIC TRANCEIVER' by chipcom. Model 9301T-ST, about 4" x 4" x > 2", and every bit of a pound and a half. when I connected the tranceiver to > the concentrator, the diag led on the tranceiver indicated `invalid data'. > That was just the carrier-- nothing else was plugged into the concentrator. > Perhaps I didn't test it enough-- there are three DIP switches on the end. A concentrator is the wrong thing to connect it to. Is your concentrator something you would normally plug some computers into? If so, it's like several transceivers. In other words, you're plugging something meant to connect to a computer (the transceiver), into something meant to connect to a computer (the concentrator). That's like connecting two computers on a serial line with neither modems nor a null modem cable between. Does the transceiver have a male 15-pin D-connector? Does the concentrator have a female 15-pin D-connector with a slide lock, or a male one with pins? If both are male, they don't match, and it won't work. BTW, if it's ORnet, it's old, and almost certainly FOIRL not 10baseFL. The size you mention bears that out, too. 10baseFL transceivers are mostly small, about half the size of a cigarette pack. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 10 months

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Chips on Talon board for VAX

by rdd＠rddavis.org

A while back, I posted a message about a mystery board that came with my VAX-4000/200 manufactured by a company named Talon. This board has one 15-pin connector, a couple of 32x8 SRAM chips, a 68K CPU, assorted logic chips, and a couple of chips that I can't identify, such as: - Rockwell R65NC22J4 11484-39 9244 94314-3 - is this just a Rockwell version of a 6522 interface chip? - (unknown mfr.) 9206 SC11290CN There's one area where a second, much smaller, circuit board is attached to this one with chips between the two boards; however, there are many wires soldered between the boards holding the two boards together, and I'd rather save unsoldering them all as a last resort. Any thoughts on what this board might be? -- Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

23 years, 10 months

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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 09-Feb-2002 Tony Duell wrote: >> OK, lets say the PSU is beyond repair for me and everyone else I asked. > I've lost count of the number of 'beyond repair' things that have left my > workbench working again :-) [...] > I can't believe it's any worse than the DEC PSU in the PDP11/44. That > darn thing has _3_ independant choppers, a full H driver for the (AC) > fans, and a fair amount of control electronics. And I've managed to work > on those. OK, you win ;-) >> I'm sure it's repairable with a lot of time and many years of experience. >> But neither I nor my fellow students have that experience. > > I don't want this to sound like a flame, but surely a 'student' is > supposed to be learning. In which case you might as well learn about PSU > repair :-). When I was a Ph.D. student I learnt how to fix SMPSUs, laser > printers, and so on. Because somebody had to do it :-) I knew this would backfire... :-) Well, this discussion has motivated me enough to sit down in front of that darn PSU again :-) At least I will learn something... [...] > If the PSU will run at all, there's probably not a lot wrong with it. My > first suggestion would be (as ever) dried up electrolytics. OK, I'll take that into account. bye -- To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Ron Hudson <rhudson(a)cnonline.net> wrote: > I don't know how UUCP works, is there a good primer out > on the net somewhere? Try these: http://www.uucp.org/ http://www.airs.com/ian/uucp-doc/ uucp is really a file transfer mechanism (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) with some remote-job-execution stuff layered on top of it. One host sends a file to another host along with instructions to run some commands that use the file, e.g. "rmail" to process a received mail message or "rnews" to process a received news batch. Hosts generally have some idea about what commands they will allow other hosts to ask them to execute. uucp can use any of several different protocols; the administrators at each end of a link choose a protocol based on the sort of link (e.g. whether it's 7- or 8-bit clean, perhaps other packetization characteristics of the link). Then there's all the infrastructure that was built to make this livable when it was all you could get. If you know I'm user "fmc" at node "west", and you're "rhudson" at "cnonline", how do you get here >from there? Well, maybe you know which hosts talk to which hosts between here and there and can construct a bang-path for the route, but you probably don't. This is where the UUCP Map Project and pathalias fit in: hosts would publish uucp map entries, these map entries would get collected into regional maps by the UUCP Map Coordinator for that region, and the regional maps would get posted to comp.mail.maps every so often. Interested nodes would take a feed of this group and feed the articles to pathalias, which would work out a database of how to get there from here. This would allow you to address your mail to west!fmc, and the mail software at your end would consult the database to figure out the best way to route the mail to west, and construct a !-path from that. When that Internet thing and the domain name system caught on, it became possible to set up a domain with a mail exchanger that would know to queue received mail for that domain as uucp jobs. That is how mail to reanimators.org works: it goes to one of my uucp upstreams and I poll them every hour or so to get e-mail. This removed a lot of the need for uucp maps and pathalias, and the maps generally fell into disuse (most folks didn't bother to delete their map entries when they moved on from uucp connections to IP connections) so the UUCP Map Project shut down about two years ago. -Frank McConnell ...!daver!west!fmc

23 years, 10 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by Innfogra＠aol.com

It didn't sell because it was listed in the wrong categories. Fatal error. If you are interested, send him an email with an offer. This is how you find those bargains. Paxton Astoria, OR

23 years, 10 months

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BBS systems on PDP-11s (was: Original Searchlight bbs...)

by timwa＠snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

rdd(a)rddavis.org wrote... > Were most others here sysops of BBSs at one time as well? This brings > back memories of BBSing back when I was in college Indeed... Happy days :-). I was sysop of Protocol BBS in lovely Horsham, Sussex, UK up until late 1993 or so. Frankly, Fidonet was more enjoyable than most stuff on the internet if you ask me :-). The phone bills were a killer though (I was zone gatewaying for Amiganet, between zone 1 and 4 IIRC (US and Europe, anyway,) so nightly international phone calls were fairly scary...) That ran on the Amiga - I forget the name of the software I used, although writing my own was my first big project in C, so in the latter days it ran on my homebrew "Panorama BBS" software... If I ever get to recover the Miggy it's probably all still on there... To drag slightly back on topic, before that I had been a great user of Compunet, Prestel & Telecom Gold (BT's X.25 network,) all via the good old Commodore modem for the C64... A roaring 300 baud half duplex, or breaking the sound barrier at 1200/75 full :-). I really hope that modem is still in the loft somewhere... Anyway... Re. the suggestions of a sort of classic private network, I'd love to be involved somehow. I've always wanted to do something like that with packet radio, but never got round to it... Cheers, Tim. -- Tim Walls at home in Croydon - Reply to tim(a)snowgoons.fsnet.co.uk

23 years, 10 months

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No one likes Otronas?

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

Well, for one thing, this guy didn't list it under classic computers category: He used 'Other Antiques' and "PC's:Other'. NG. Secondly, judging by his opening bids amounts (and the likelihood of *very* high reserves), I would say that the seller is a crack addict looking to pay for his next fix. Either that or he's on acid . . . . Jeff On Sat, 9 Feb 2002 17:04:59 -0500 "John Chris Wren" <jcwren(a)jcwren.com> writes: > Just curious if anyone has an opinion on why this didn't > move. > http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2001112267 > While I > don't know what his minimum is, seems like anything in this family > should be > worth about $100 or so, based on what Kaypros and a few others go > for. He > had it up once before, and it didn't sell. > > And I'm not interested in the merits or demerits of eBay, > reputations, yada > yada yada. I just want to know what someone thinks why a classic > like this > didn't even get bid on, except by one guy (me). > > --John > > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

23 years, 10 months

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Classic Comp UUCP network.

by classiccmp＠crash.com

Why do it? Because it's there. We run old computers, why shouldn't some of us be into old protocols as well? [only a 1/2 ;^) here] I've been thinking I want to see what if anything of Usenet (versus NetNews, remember?) was left in the area and hook into it. The first reason that comes to mind is the way non-Bell DSL providers were dropping like flies. Add to that the ever-tightening restrictions on cablemodem terms of service. I'd just like to make sure I've got a back door that'll let me get mail in and out vs. a shell account someplace. The second reason is, admittedly, conspiracy theory type stuff -- I want to be ready to set up an ad hoc net that's a little more resistant to interception and resilient in the event of disruptions. Of course the latter means I should dust off my ham radio license and look and AMPRnet as well... The third and final reason is just because it might be fun to do. Perhaps for an unusual value of "fun" I grant you -- I do seem to rememeber having a heck of a time getting my first feed up and running and I came to the party way, way late -- 1990, as I recall, with a Telebit Trailblazer (Plus?) and a Sun 3/140... Anyway, I'm up for it. Next steps? --Steve. Steve Jones smj(a)spamfree.crash.com (think about it) Aspiring Curmudgeon old: ...!think!liable!steve Crash Computing, Inc. older: steve (at) yoyodyne.mit.edu

23 years, 10 months

1
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What's your specialty?

by thilo.schmidt＠unix-ag.org

On 09-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: > On Sat, 9 Feb 2002, Thilo Schmidt wrote: >> On 09-Feb-2002 Tothwolf wrote: >> >> > I've used a dremel tool to cut/grind away carbonized areas of boards >> > and replace it with new material or wire jumpers. >> >> Good point, when I'm at the university next week, I'll try to remove >> the charred areas around the diode. > > Well, unless you know for sure that the area is indeed carbonized, and > that is causing a problem, you should leave it alone. Usually this only > causes problems for high voltage or highly sensitive parts of circuits. Of course I don't think the charred area is responsible for the PSU failure ... it wasn't even there when it failed ;-) But it may become a problem later, so I'll check if the resistance is way below a few mega Ohms and clean it if necessary. > I imagine something else took out that diode, which is still causing your > problems with the supply. Maybe that's true, but maybe the diode was there to protect something that got damaged when the diode died. Or even worse the HP9000 got damaged... But the beast is old, there are a lot of possible points of failure inside and I don't even know how the PSU behaved when it was still operational. If I could figure out if and how the PSU interacts with the computer I could put another PSU in the case. But without that knowledge I'm stuck :-( bye -- The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov

23 years, 10 months

1
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semi ot: cardreader connected to a PC

by quapla＠xs4all.nl

This question might be somewhat OT. I'm currently making a little interface comprised of 4 TTL IC's to let my punchcard reader work with a PC (Linux). I think I have the interface made as much close as possible with regards to the signals generated by the card reader, but I need some info on the parallel port itself. I have searched the web, but not all my question are answerd with regards to the possible usage of the control and status signals. What I need to know is if all the control signals can be controlled from a program (not sure if it will be a kernel device driver or a user driver). If so, I have better control over the reader, if not, it may make the interface a bit more complicated. BTW, the program will most likely use the parallel port in EPP mode, not in ECP mode. The reader is a CR11 aka the Documentation M200, and I found the user manual with very usable schematics on www.pdp8.net. I was also fortunately to find a supplier for the connector at the back, so I didn't have to change anything of it's orginality. Thanks, Ed --

23 years, 10 months

3
2
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eBay: WOW L@@K R4R3 (no, really)

by Innfogra＠aol.com

I watched it close. No Bidders. Seems to me that he doesn't want to sell them very much. He indicated they will show up individually. We shall see. Paxton Astoria, OR

23 years, 10 months

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