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

by paul＠wccnet.org

I have two pairs of BYAD 5.25" diskettes for CP/M-80 Version 2.20. One of each pair is a System Disk, the other is a Program Disk. Condition unknown, no way to test. Does anyone want these? Paul R. Santa-Maria Monroe, Michigan USA

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

CCITT G4 compression in WIN98

by mranalog＠attbi.com

I wrote: > And if I still have anyone's attention, does anyone > know where I can find program to do Group 4 fax > compression under Windows 98? Or a program to put > a .PDF wrapper around scanned pages (for the budget > conscious) under Windows 98? Again I'm on digest, so I have not seen any replies to these questions. But I have been searching the web half the night and ......... .....WILL SOMEBODY, PLEASE HIT ME WITH A HAMMER. After years of wanting one, it seems to have been right under my nose and I didn't see it. It turns out that Windows comes with a program that does CCITT Group 3 and 4 compression. OK, no more 15 MB files. --Doug ========================================= Doug Coward @ home in Poulsbo, WA Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center http://dcoward.best.vwh.net/analog Analogrechner, calculateur analogique, calcolatore analogico, analoogrekenaar, komputer analogowy, analog bilgisayar, kampiutere ghiyasi, analoge computer. =========================================

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment

by Robert_Feldman＠jdedwards.com

They're called "false cognates." My favorite one in Spanish is "embarazada," which would make you very embarrassed if you use it to mean "embarrassed" (as it means "pregnant.") There's the story of a female exchange student who told her host family "Tengo hombre" ("I have a man") when she meant to say "Tengo hambre" ("I'm hungry"). When informed of her error, she blushed and said "Estoy embarasada!", which only compounded her chagrin. (She said "I'm pregnant" instead of "I'm embarrassed.") :-) -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] Sent: Monday, January 07, 2002 11:03 AM To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment You're suffering from a misconception popular among immigrants from Germany and elsewhere, assuming that words spelled and even pronounced similarly actually mean the same. <snip>

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk] > the right punctuation. Or anything like that. Or starting and ending sentences with "Or." I had to say that. :) It reminds me of the legendary German tendency to say "Also!" a lot. 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, 11 months

2
1
0 0

FreeVMS

by msell＠ontimesupport.com

The VAX 11/780 is a 32-bit machine. Nuff' said. - Matt > > way so that some of the programs I tend to write would work. I guess you're > > going to try to make a FreeVMS for VAX clone, emulating 64 bits on a 32 bit > > machine would be a project killer from the start. > >Weren't there vaxen that didnt support the 64bit instructions? From >reading (excessively) the VAX Architecure Handbook, I seem to also >remember it saying that the address space was only 32bits. I could easily >be wrong, and it woudn't suprise me too much. Anyways, FreeVMS on a Sun >Enterprise 10k (or S/390 -- zSeries) would be cool, if not horribly wrong. >:P > >Personally (as I stated in my original post) I don't know much about VMS, >yet, I was just trying to throw some ideas off the top of my head. > >-- Pat Matthew Sell Programmer On Time Support, Inc. www.ontimesupport.com (281) 296-6066 Join the Metrology Software discussion group METLIST! http://www.ontimesupport.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler Many thanks for this tagline to a fellow RGVAC'er...

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

Strange and Possibly Wonderful Cable

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Doc Shipley [mailto:doc@mdrconsult.com] > cable with a (Doc ducks & prepares to rub) 36-pin Centronics > connector, > plus eyelet ground, on one end and a female card-edge connector on the > other. The shrouds are steel, squared, and embossed "TANDY" on both > ends. While I've never seen one, I'm guessing it's a Tandy printer > cable. Doc, this may be for a Tandy 1000. I have one in the basement which I seem to remember has a card-edge parallel port. I haven't counted the contacts, but I seem to remember the "port" is male (IE It's got the edge, the cable would have to clip on to it.) 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, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries

by doc＠mdrconsult.com

OK, I've been watching the thread for a couple of days about battery damage. I just realized what's confusing me. I'm also fully aware that I'm about to expose the true depth of my electronic ignorance. "Never recharge a lithium battery?" (Yes, I've also been watching the grammar thread.) My laptop has lithium-ion batteries. That Apple camera came with "Energizer Hi-Energy Lithium" AA cells that I was planning to stick in the wall-wart battery charger. I'm fairly certain they're _meant_ to be rechargeable. I think I'm missing a crucial concept here. As they say in West Texas, "Could somebody please 'splain this wonderment to me?" Doc

23 years, 11 months

5
4
0 0

Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>There are several non-rechargeable lithium batteries on the market, and >they most certainly _should not_ be recharged. Typically they are used for >cameras and other items that need short duration high current pulses of >power. I heard the advantage to Lithium batteries over Alkaline is that Lithium provides steady voltage right up until it is dead, where an Alkaline looses voltage as it dies. Any truth to that? Or is it simply Lithium provides more amperage at a given voltage? -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

HP2000 availability/nomenclature

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Mike Gortych asked: >> Also, I have a trivia question for you...what commands were used to add >> and remove files from the drum disk drive? "Rick Bensene" <rickb(a)bensene.com> wrote in reply: > Wasn't it SANCTIFY (SAN-<file>) and DESECRATE (DES-<file>)? That's what I think too, but I think I answered this question when Mike asked over in comp.sys.hp.<mumble> a couple or three years ago. Next trivia question: what did you have to do to a program file before you could SANCTIFY it? -Frank McConnell

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

OT: Time-Canada posts Apple early

by jhellige＠earthlink.net

At around midnight last night, Time-Canada posted a story, dated Jan. 14, on their website giving a look at the new Apple product line, a day before the products were to be announced! A few hours later the story was pulled, but not before people caught sight of it, and in one case, made a PDF of it. Jeff -- Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File http://www.cchaven.com http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>It's all part of syntax and style, not grammar as you say. How many >people on this list ever turned in a paper where the teacher/professor >insisted on strict adherence to "Strunk and White"? Me Me Me... but ironically it was a "Creative Writing" class... so I scratched my head, flipped him the bird, and walked out to see the registrar's office about being moved to a different professor. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

FORTH for TRS Model 100

by paul＠wccnet.org

Sorry for the delay, but my real life got busy. Back on Nov 12 I offered FORTH for the TRS Model 100 to the list. Two people replied, so I did not need a computerized random number generator this time. I flipped a coin. I will be contacting the winner by e-mail. Paul R. Santa-Maria Monroe, Michigan USA

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

KAYPRO 286

by kees.stravers＠iae.nl

Hi, I got a question on a Kaypro computer that I couldn't answer, never having seen one of these. But one of you sure knows. Leo Jormanainen <lexa(a)mail.island.net> wrote: >I have what appears to be a KAYPRO 286 motherboard on a full length 16bit >ISA card. >The CPU is a N80L286-12/S, 815DH31 AMD (M) INTEL 1982. >It has two AMD Bios's marked 81-1748 & 49, 1988 KAYPRO. >Facing the chip side, on the left are 8 memory slots. At the left top are a >9 pin connector >and beside it is a 4 pin connector with the center two clipped.. On the >right top it has a 4 >pin connector with one connector clipped. There is a red (reset)?? button >on the end plate. >It plugs into a standard full length ISA slot. >Question, What do I have and what are the connectors for? I'd love to see >this work! >Can I plug this into a empty motherboard and power it up, first I need to >know how the >connectors are hooked up.

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

Compenents Source?

by kentborg＠borg.org

In olden days I would go to Radio Shack, but that doesn't work anymore, so I though I would ask here. Anyone know where I could find a small, cheap, low power, amplified, battery powered speaker? Back when I would have bought a "telephone amplifier", but in 2002 I can't immedaitely find such a thing. Thanks, -kb, the Kent who is thinking he might need to buy something like a portable radio (do they still exist?) and hack it.

23 years, 11 months

6
8
0 0

Crescent wrenches (was: Nomenclature (was: NEXT Color Printer find

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com> > > > > > Heh. Mexican speed wrench... > > > > > > Funny, I've always heard it referred to as a *Kentucky* speed > > > wrench ;>) > > > > I like that even better! But down yonder, they have > > to be carefull with them, after all, they *really* > > hurt when they're dropped on bare feet... > > Same thing in KY ;>) That what I meant! Barefoot Kentuckians! -dq

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

HP2000 availability/nomenclature

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

oooo, good one.....lemme guess...I bet you had to csave the file first?

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

HP2000 availability/nomenclature

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Rick, You are correct! This command set remains one of my all time favorites. I just wonder who was the engineer who developed that command. We had a drum storage device on our 2000 and it spun a bearing one day and made a very loud squealing sound that scared the bejesus out of us. Before it died, I did have the opportunity to sanctify and desicrate several files. If you have any other 2000 tidbits like this one, please post them. Thanks! Mike

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries

by mhstein＠usa.net

I recharge primary alkalines all the time; roughly doubles their life, although useful time before they need recharging drops substantially. Can't let them run down too far though, gotta recharge 'em while there's still life left, sort of the opposite of NiCads.. mike -------------------Original Message------------------- From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) Subject: Re: Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries <snip> Incidentally, another statement often made which is also incorrect is 'Do not recharge alkaline batteries'. It's intended to apply to the primary alkaline batteries like Duracells. But, of course, the NiCd (and other) batteries use an alkaline electrolyte and those are designed to be recharged. - -tony

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Burroughs & adding machines

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: John Lawson <jpl15(a)panix.com> > I believe that in actual fact, Burroughs, after a few years of > night-and-day work on his mechanical calculator design, including tossing > one finished prototype out a second story window in frustration, patented > the *application* of a hydraulic damper to the actuator crank. His > problem was that if the actuator lever was pulled down by the operator > too quickly, the machine would jam very destructively. This 'bug' very > nearly killed the product in the early market. He added what amounts to a > small shock absorber to the crank lever, slowing it down enough so the > machine could operate efficiently but not be overdriven. Then, there was > no stopping it and the rest is well-known. I certainly don't mean to question your word, but can you provide specific references? Material published by William S. Burroughs (references available upon request) indicate that the problem was that *exactly* the proper amount of pressure had to be applied to the actuator lever in order to produce a correct result, which was nearly impossible. The hydraulic piston ensured that the same force was delivered to the machine no matter how much pressure was applied (as long as it was enough to depress the lever). This gave the Burroughs machine a huge advantage over competing products (several of which existed at the time and all had the same problem), and allowed it to capture the market. > Now, just a sec, I wanna check my spelling, grammar, syntax, > orthography, references, style, Flesch Rating, .... No shit, this list is a real shark tank these days when it comes to precision in expression ;>) Glen 0/0

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Moon Patrol?

by fernande＠internet1.net

Hello, Awhile back I bought a copy of Atari Moon Patrol for the PC on Ebay. The disk doesn't work, and I can't fix it with Norton Disk Doctor. Does anyone have a copy they could send to me? I looked on the internet and all I can find is roms for emulation use. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA

23 years, 11 months

2
2
0 0

Burroughs & adding machines (was Re: Language and English)

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

[John Lawson wrote] > > I believe that in actual fact, Burroughs, after a few years of > > night-and-day work on his mechanical calculator design, including > > tossing one finished prototype out a second story window in frustration, > > patented the *application* of a hydraulic damper to the actuator crank. [John Allain replied] > This is an interesting and worthy topic. > Just enter "William Seward Burroughs" into a search engine to > verify what John said. That's the name of both the calculator > inventor and the writer, but the writer seldom used his middle > name, making it a good search string. I just did that and came up with this site http://www.invent.org/book/book-text/17.html which contradicts Mr. Lawson's "destructive jam" theory (no offense to John L.) and supports the ideas I put forth in my previous post. Glen -- William S. Burroughs fan since 1973 0/0

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

never heard of qnx. will check it out

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Golemancd(a)aol.com > the idea is to have the robot take care of itself. just refer to the master os > for references and instructions. master os will be used like a server. > server of info, directions, traffic directions , scripts, etc. like a > co-ordinator. > to direct everything that is going on. > for example like a forman on a building site. > the forman gives everyone their job and they go to it. > if there are any questions you refer back to him. > or when you are finished your job, you refer to him > and he gives you another one. > and the forman monitors everything in progress. > if he sees something that isnt going correctly, > he may step in and give other instructions. QNX is a perfect solution for this since it's real-time and has great interprocess communication built in. Or, maybe you'd prefer to cook up an OS from scratch. Glen 0/0

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Any AMIGA users?

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Don Maslin [mailto:donm@cts.com] > I am unaware of such a thing as a hard sectored drive. It is a > controller function. So the sector holes are in exactly the same place as the index hole? > Change the controller card - and the operating system to > support it. It > has been done. I imagined it may have... especially with what I've seen done to a Northstar. :) > > Actually you might be able to get by with it in a high density > > drive, given some way of attaching the disk to the "spindle" of the > > drive, and provided that you didn't really want to keep the disk > > anyway (or possibly the drive!), and if you were willing to write > > mind-numbingly useless special-purpose software. Otherwise, I hear > > that CompatiCard will drive an 8" floppy ;) > As will a conventional AT FDC. Trouble is, most of them won't > read/write single-density (FM). However, some of the XT class clone > controllers with an onboard BIOS and selectable BIOS address > will drive > an 8" drive and do both FM and MFM. I think it was Fred in a previous post who said that CompatiCard would indeed do FM, but it's early and I'm too lazy to check right now. :) 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, 11 months

7
10
0 0

Fwd: COMPUTER

by cfandt＠netsync.net

Folks, Could anybody help Mr. Heaton with his search for info? Contact him directly, of course, at "Bob Heaton <wb4jpz1(a)strato.net>". Thanks much , Chris NNNN -- -- >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 >Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2002 08:16:55 -0500 >Reply-To: Bob Heaton <wb4jpz1(a)strato.net> >Sender: Boat Anchor Owners and Collectors List ><BOATANCHORS(a)LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV> >From: Bob Heaton <wb4jpz1(a)strato.net> >Subject: COMPUTER >To: BOATANCHORS(a)LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV > >Higuys > > Have just come into posession of a couple (2) really nice little computers. > They are basically portable, but require 115 ac AND a telephone line. > Each is in a nice carrying case, and has a fold down key board. > > The ID plate says > INFORMER computer terminal > model 207 102 V.22 P/N 990-0KI VO-20 > Pala Drive > Garden Grove CA 92641 USA > 714-891-1112 >Attemps via snail-mail and twisted pair have been un-sucessful ,seems like >they just dropped off the face of the earth. Both units power up...pushing >buttons from F1 thru F24 display menu screens and programing formats. > >Any one have an idea where I could find a manual, of information on these >guys ? Sure would like to get them >set up to do something useful . > >Please E-mail to: >Bob Heaton >wb4jpz1(a)strato.net > >----------------------------------------------------------- >This list is a public service of the City of Tempe, Arizona >----------------------------------------------------------- > >Subscription control - http://www.tempe.gov/lists/control.asp?listATANCHORS >To post - BOATANCHORS(a)LISTSERV.TEMPE.GOV >Archives - http://interactive.tempe.gov/archives/BOATANCHORS.html Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

[GreenKeys] TTY stuff available (fwd)

by jpl15＠panix.com

Forwarded for the attention of DownUnder listmembers; for possible rescue / cross-pollenization purposes. J. PS: Huw Davies.. is this near you? Macquarie University... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 13:09:06 +1100 (EST) From: Ray Robinson <robinson(a)shlrc.mq.edu.au> Reply-To: greenkeys(a)mailman.qth.net To: greenkeys(a)mailman.qth.net Subject: [GreenKeys] TTY stuff available Hi Gang, Just got this notice of some stuff available. Available Melbourne Asutralia. I don't need it. Perhaps I'll just ask for the picture atpes to sent to RTTYART. Regards RAy vk2ilv ------------- Begin Forwarded Message ------------- Date: Fri, 04 Jan 2002 20:19:58 +1100 From: Peter Fraser <2pjfraser(a)optushome.com.au> X-Accept-Language: en,pdf MIME-Version: 1.0 To: robinson(a)shlrc.mq.edu.au Subject: TTY stuff Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ray I'm cleaning out my garage and I have some TTY stuff I just don't want any more. [snip] I have: Siemens Model 100 with tape punch and reader. I can't remember if it works. May be good for parts. VZ300 computer and RTTY modem kit. Lots of pictures on punch tape. Motor driven tape winder (good for collecting tape as it comes out of the machine. Hand driven tape winder. 3 or 4 rolls of tape to suit M100. Some rolls of paper to suit M100 Let me know if you can think of a home for it otherwise it all goes to the tip. 73 Peter VK3ZPF ------------- End Forwarded Message ------------- Regards Ray Robinson VK2ILV Electronic Engineer robinson(a)shlrc.mq.edu.au Speech Hearing and Language Research Centre 612-98508765 ph School of Linguistics and Psychology 612-98509199 fax Macquarie University North Ryde 2109 Sydney NSW AUSTRALIA web page http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/~robinson _______________________________________________ GreenKeys mailing list GreenKeys(a)mailman.qth.net http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Windows 3.11 disks

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

I had posted earlier about needing 3.11 disks for a friend. The said 'free' computer seems to have ran out of 'magic smoke' and is no longer running. I want to thank everybody for the help with the 3.11 disks. -- Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu * www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html

23 years, 11 months

2
2
0 0

HP2000 availability/nomenclature

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Well I gotta say it's great that someone out there is getting a 2000 up and running! I used to work at HP and know a few good hardware guys who might be willing to help you out. Also, if your interested I could ask a few of my old friends to scour their attics and basements for any paper tapes, sleep/hib tapes, or manuals for you...let me know. Also, I have a trivia question for you...what commands were used to add and remove files from the drum disk drive? Mike

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

PDP-11 memory question

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 17:52, Tom Leffingwell wrote: > On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Pete Turnbull wrote: > > > Many of the QBus processors have a set of terminators on the CPU card, > I guess this explains why my system has no BDV11 board in it. Although it > doesn't completely work either. What doesn't work about it? What's on the backplane apart from your 11/23 and MSV11-L, and in what order? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

PDP-11 DRV11-B question

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 17:58, Tom Leffingwell wrote: > > Does anyone have a list of the function of the switch settings on > the PDP DRV11-B / M7950 card? The smaller switch, S1, controls the vector. S1-1 to S1-8 correspond to bits 9 to 2 of the vector, respectively. ON sets a '1' in the corresponding bit position. Default is OFF, OFF, OFF, ON, OFF, ON, OFF, ON = 00010101 which gives a vector of 000124. The larger switch, S2, controls the base address. The DRV11-B has 5 registers, with factory-standard addresses as follows: WCR Word Count Register 772410 BAR Bus Address Register 772412 CSR Control and Status Register 772414 IDBR Input Data Buffer Register 772416 ODBR Output Data Buffer Register 772420 Note that the CSR is not the first address. S2-1 to S2-10 correspond to bits 12 to 3 in the base address. ON sets a '1' in the corresponding bit position. Bits 15-13 are fixed at '1'. Default is ON, OFF, ON, OFF, ON, OFF, OFF, OFF, OFF, ON = 1010100001, which gives 172410 (corresponds to 772410 with 18-bit addressing). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Dilog DQ614 - Third Chapter

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 22:32, SP wrote: > * Somebody spoke about a possible modification of the U55 chip. If that was me, I picked the wrong chip. The one that's usually changed, to give a different address, is the PROM at U38, 91265D -> 91578A. > 25U-91353 > 69U-91354A > 64U-91355 > 21U-91356 > 22U-91357 > 55U-91358 Those all look standard to me. Anyone else got a DQ614 to compare? > The question is: Could be used some XXDP diagnostic to determine > the possible problem of the board that I told in my previous message > about it ? It might work. It might not. The DEC diagnostics make use of specific facilities in the RLV (QBus) controllers that aren't in the RL (Unibus) controllers, and may or may not be in a 3rd party device. The early diagnostics only cover RL01s and RL11/RLV11: ZRLA?? Controller Test Part 1 ZRLB?? Controller Test Part 2 ZRLC?? Drive Test Part 1 ZRLD?? Drive Test Part 2 ZRLE?? Performance Exerciser ZRLF?? Compatibility Test where ?? means any revision (a single letter) and any patch level (single digit), as usual for XXDP. The Performance Exerciser would probably work *once the disk is formatted*, as it just does a lot of read/write/seek tests. The compatibility test is pointless for a DQ614 as it tests moving packs between drives. The later diagnostics are for RLO1s or RL02s and RL11/RLV11/RLV12. There's an extra program to allow you to read and write the Bad Sector Table which exists on a real RL02: ZRLG?? Controller Test Part 1 ZRLH?? Controller Test Part 2 ZRLI?? Drive Test Part 1 ZRLJ?? Drive Test Part 2 ZRLK?? Performance Exerciser ZRLL?? Compatibility Test ZRLM?? Bad Sector Utility Finally, there's a pair of diskless tests written specifically to cope with differences between Unibus and QBus controllers: VRLA?? Diskless Test 1 VRLB?? Diskless Test 2 -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Let me try this again

by mranalog＠attbi.com

Someone privately wrote: > Sorry I dont use Winblowz. However, if you send > me a copy of those I'll convert them to a pdf > for you. I gave the filename to both Jay West and Hans B Pufal so the files should be available soon and anyone can grab them. I'm limited to email attachments of 2MB or less. And even uploading them to my web site took 17 minutes at 145 Kbps. Actually, I asked about compression and generating .PDFs for use with other documents I have scanned. I'm up to my hips in scanned pages from manuals that I would love to compress and wrap. I hate sending someone scanned pages to use as a reference. Regards, --Doug ========================================= Doug Coward @ home in Poulsbo, WA Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center http://dcoward.best.vwh.net/analog Analogrechner, calculateur analogique, calcolatore analogico, analoogrekenaar, komputer analogowy, analog bilgisayar, kampiutere ghiyasi, analoge computer. =========================================

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

7/01/97 ClassicCmp FAQ - Part 1

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 15:37, Ben Franchuk wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: > > suspect that's because the 'bot is too good, and it's actually hard to post > > as a newcomer, so interest has dropped off. The last few times I tried to > > post, my posts bounced, and attempts to contact the human moderators > > failed. Maybe I was just unlucky. > I suspect the bot was there because of all the OT 'PC' posts - buy a > pentium > abc computer.The news group is still active, as there was a posting > yesterday. achh died because of the huge number of posts from people who had bought a motherboard, case, and video card and wanted help to make it work. We referred to them as those who belonged on "alt.fix.my.peecee" or similar. There were some amazing arguments between newcomers, who thought such lamers should get a polite answer including a solution, and veterans who argued that doing so reduced the S/N ratio and encouraged even more OT crap, and that people should read the guidelines. Doubtless some members of classiccmp will remember Leon Heller. And, yes, that is exactly why the 'bot was employed (it had been tried on achh, but since that wasn't moderated, it had to be a retro-active cancelbot, rather than an approvalbot). As for active, well, yes, I saw the post. And all the others; there must have been at least ten posts in the last 6 months. Not a very busy group these days :-( -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

In a message dated 05/01/02 mhstein(a)usa.net writes: > I've got a T3100e, so this may be irrelevant, but FWIW: > > Just had to replace the Li battery in mine; cost $15 > the last time, $25 today. Since there was just enough > room in there for 2 alkaline AAs in a holder, I thought > I'd give that a try; seems to be working fine so far, > despite being only 3V instead of 3.6V. Thanks for the tip Mike. I had intended to fit some NiCds but opted for two AAA alkaline cells. They've done the job and fit nicely under the keyboard. > Re the HD: when mine failed a few years back, I heard > lots of info that it was an ST-512 drive with a special > connector. Apparently not; installed a standard 80Mb > (MB? mb? mB? :) IDE drive, Disk Manager to get around > the fixed drive type, and Bob's your uncle. > > Good luck with the cleanup. > > mike > Luckily the HD is OK. The floppy drive occasionally throws up seek errors and I haven't been able to clean all of the crud off the head stepper motor. I've found a source of replacement drives in the UK and at very reasonable prices. Cleaned up the mother board with warm water, detergent and a stiff brush, then let it bake in the oven at 70C for an hour. Had to use a small grinder and a wire brush on some of the metal work. Installed DOS and I now have a happy computer :-) Best Regards Chris

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Some pointers needed on a 11/70

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 21:44, The Wanderer wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: > I actually did mean that I exchanged them for 2 other, identical boards. Ah, I see. Sorry, I made the wrong interpretation there :-) > I did, all the jumpers are where the are supposed to be. OK. From what you've written there, and a few other places, I assume you have some manuals and/or printsets? > At the bottom of the console in the metal fram, there is a small > pushbutton made which leads directly to the M9312 tab1 & tab2. > This looks like a 'push button' bootstrap and the previous owner > made it apparently to have a quick (re)start of the machine when > needed. That makes sense. On an M9312, it simulates a power-down and then power-up. > > > Also memory location 400000 through 477777 are accessible via the > > > console and > > > I can dump data and read from it. > > > > That's an unusual address, and it's only 32K bytes (16KW). You said you > > had two 64KW boards. What type are they? They probably have switches to > > set their base addresses. Are these set correctly? It would be worth > > There are 2 M8728 boards in the memory box. Are they M8728-AA or M8728-CA? The latter is only 16KW. The easy way to tell the difference, if there's no -A or -C beside the number, is that on etch revision B and higher, the 64KW board is fully populated with 64K DRAM, while the 16KW is only partly populated. I suspect there might once have been a fully-populated 16KW version that used 4K DRAMs, though. I was, no surprise to anyone, wrong about their having switches -- showing my ignorance about the specifics of 11/70's. Most of the things I've written are gleaned from the meagre information in one or two of the processor handbooks, or from my (incomplete) collection of microfiche. Anyway, the memory box has switches on the front (and I assume you've checked those?) but as far as I can see from the 'fiche, the memory card base addresses depend only on their position in the box. So the two cards have to be adjacent, and nearest the other cards, I think. Do you agree? It looks as though the box might be set to the wrong address -- 400000 is 131072 decimal, or 128K -- and is only showing 16KW (32KB) of memory. I don't know how you set the address of the box, though. > > > At 344 (addr) and 116 in the data display. No idea if this a valid value > > > though... [...] > It is the 23-233F1 diag rom. OK, I've found some data (actually the listing) for that ROM. It's assembled at 165000 (but it looks like position-independant code, so that's possibly not its real address). It ends at 165776, ie 1000 bytes (octal) later. It is indeed an 11/70 diagnostic ROM for the M9312, probably just a later version than the 23-616F1 my other docs refer to. The docs say there's no way to enter the diagnostics directly, only by entering a bootstrap at the "run with diagnostics" address. They suggest that would be 173006/173206/173406/173606 depending on whether you're booting from a bootstrap ROM in socket 1, 2, 3 or 4. The docs also say that when the 11/70 powers up (or you press a boot switch attached to TP1 and TP2 on the M9312), it loads the PC from address 773024, and PSW from 773026. And indeed every boot ROM has a reserved word at that address for the PC, followed by 000340, which is the usual interrupt mask to set in the PSW for booting. Every ROM has code (opcode SEC) starting at 173x04 leading to a BCC BDIAG at 173020. In every boot ROM, that branch goes to an absolute jump, JMP @#DIAG, which in turn leads to a PC-relative jump at absolute address 165564, which goes to 165000 (the actual code is 165564 000167 177210 DIAG: JMP START). Why do you think address 777644 is the diagnostics ROM start address? All the 11/70 tests halt on error (unlike the CPU diagnostics for the 11/34 and other processors, which loop on error). The first section tests assorted instructions that needn't to use memory, the secondary CPU tests use the stack (R6 set to 000776). However, the very first instructions in the diagnostics code store registers at 000700...000704, and use 000706 to hold a flag which tells the code whether it's running on an 11/60 or an 11/70. If the memory isn't working, this will cause problems later in the diagnostics. Address 165344 is one of the error halts partway through the secondary CPU tests (assuming the diag ROM starts at 165000). What it does is set SP=776, then does a PC-relative JSR to the address 2 ahead of where it is. The code there checks to see if the top of the stack contains the correct return address, and should halt at 165326 if it doesn't (it should halt at 165320 if the JSR didn't execute). If it does see the correect return address, it adjusts the stack contents, does an RTS, ending up at 165342. At 165342, it pushes a zero and an address on the stack and then tests RTI. 165344 is the address of the push instruction, and 165350 is the RTI. That's folowed by a jump to the next test, which is the memory-sizing routine. So having it loop until you stop it, and then halt at some address ending in 344 doesn't make much sense to me. Either you're not starting at a sensible address, or there's something wrong that is sending it into a loop. That could be a CPU fault, or maybe (I've not read all the cache test code) something to do with not having memory between 000700 and 001000. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

7/01/97 ClassicCmp FAQ - Part 1

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 6, 11:20, John Allain wrote: > (comp.arch.hobbyist) > > The last few times I tried to post, my posts bounced > > -- Pete T > > Well, I must say, Pete, that your posts here are among > the most valuable, from my point of view. <blush> Thank you! They'd be even better if I learned to always engage the brain before putting the keyboard in gear... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

7/01/97 ClassicCmp FAQ - Part 1

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 5, 23:24, Lanny Cox wrote: > I loved alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt... only lurked there, but it was > sweet... are there any newer alternatives out there these days? You probably remember that the rapidly-increasing number of off-topic posts led to a variety of attempted solutions. That culminated in the creation of a moderated group, comp.arch.hobbyist. The moderation is done by a 'bot, with human backup, but the group traffic level is very low. I suspect that's because the 'bot is too good, and it's actually hard to post as a newcomer, so interest has dropped off. The last few times I tried to post, my posts bounced, and attempts to contact the human moderators failed. Maybe I was just unlucky. Anyway, you'll find the FAQ and charter on Mark Sokos' website, http://home.supernet.com/~sokos/cahfaq.htm although it's seriously out of date and a lot of the links are broken. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

FreeVMS

by msell＠ontimesupport.com

The actual idea was to create or assist with the creation of a completely "free" (GNU?) implementation of VMS that "looks and feels" just like the original. The next step was to port this version of FreeVMS to i386, VAX, and AXP. I've seen a few projects that have started or have stopped that attempt to achieve similar goals. - Matt At 07:46 PM 1/3/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Why not just get a VAX (or two or three?) > >Peace... Sridhar > >On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Ron Hudson wrote: > > > Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 09:51:27 -0800 > > From: Ron Hudson <rhudson(a)cnonline.net> > > Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > > Subject: Re: FreeVMS > > > > I for one, would LOVE to run a VMS look alike on my > > i386 machine (or at least one of my spare machines...) > > It would bring back younger days when I was an op on several > > vaxen. (also some dg and some apollo) > > > > please please please!!! : ^ ) > > > > > > > > Matthew Sell wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > I know I'm going to open up a can of worms on this post, but my > > > curiosity is killing me.... > > > > > > > > > Now that I have OpenVMS 6.1 running on my VAX 4000, I'm curious about > > > the status of the various "FreeVMS" projects that are in progress (or so > > > it would seem....). > > > > > > Are any of these projects really in active development? Which projects > > > have the greatest potential for operation? I checked several sites > > > related to "FreeVMS", which actually seems to be a common name for > > > several different projects with different goals. > > > > > > I'd love to "cut my teeth" with kernel development after working with > > > Linux for several years. I personally think it would be neat to have an > > > accurate version of FreeVMS that would work on VAX, AXP, and i386 > > > (gulp!). When I say accurate, I mean that FreeVMS would respond the same > > > as VMS would for the various commands and peripherals. > > > > > > Some of you probably think it would be silly to take an i386 version of > > > FreeVMS and port it "back" to VAX and AXP, but it would be a neat way to > > > use FreeVMS, especially if the OpenVMS hobbyist program (or OpenVMS) > > > were to go away. > > > > > > Nuts? Probably. Neat? Yes! > > > > > > Here are links to the various FreeVMS projects I have visited: > > > > > > http://www.panix.com/~kingdon/free-vms.html > > > http://www.freevms.org/ > > > http://www.djesys.com/vms/freevms/ > > > > > > > > > - Matt > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Matthew Sell > > > Programmer > > > On Time Support, Inc. > > > www.ontimesupport.com > > > (281) 296-6066 > > > > > > Join the Metrology Software discussion group METLIST! > > > http://www.ontimesupport.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi > > > > > > > > > "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad > > > "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler > > > > > > Many thanks for this tagline to a fellow RGVAC'er... > > > > Matthew Sell Programmer On Time Support, Inc. www.ontimesupport.com (281) 296-6066 Join the Metrology Software discussion group METLIST! http://www.ontimesupport.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler Many thanks for this tagline to a fellow RGVAC'er...

23 years, 11 months

11
18
0 0

Dilog DQ614 - Third Chapter

by spedraja＠ono.com

Hello. About the probes with the DILOG DQ614 over one PDP-11/23 PLUS with one MFM hard disk using the diagnostics program for these board, I have some matters to speak about: * Somebody spoke about a possible modification of the U55 chip. I have the reference of the chip mounted. It's the 55U-91358. In fact, the order number of some chips of the board is: 25U-91353 69U-91354A 64U-91355 21U-91356 22U-91357 55U-91358 The question is: Could be used some XXDP diagnostic to determine the possible problem of the board that I told in my previous message about it ? * I want to use another hard disk, one IBM MFM full height of 44 Mb. Is one Type 31 (for the IBM PC) disk. Somebody has the complete geometry of it ? I don't have it actually available in the BIOS of my PCs, but I suppose that one 486 or 386 could have it. Thanks and Greetings Sergio

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Some pointers needed on a 11/70

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 5, 23:41, The Wanderer wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: > I swapped the Unibus map and the cache control board, and the machine > behaves > apparently much better. Hmm.. Lots of DEC CPU backplanes have dedicated slots for various things, and the position/order of the boards is very important. I don't know if the 11/70 is like that, but I'd not be at all surprised if it were. Have you checked that everything is in exactly the right place? If you've removed any optional boards, have you checked in case any jumpers need replaced? > After pressing the bootstrap key (someone made a > small > switch between tabs 1 & 2 of the M9312) and it goes into a sort of loop > after > a second or so. Do you mean that someone swapped the wires from their normal places, or that someone added a switch that wouldn't normally be there? > When pressing halt, the address display ends in 344, > while the > data display shows 116. > > Also memory location 400000 through 477777 are accessible via the > console and > I can dump data and read from it. That's an unusual address, and it's only 32K bytes (16KW). You said you had two 64KW boards. What type are they? They probably have switches to set their base addresses. Are these set correctly? It would be worth trying just one, set to address zero, and see if that improves things. Start with the minimum in the system, and build it up as you get things working. > > That sounds encouraging. At least it seems to be running the diagnostic > > code. I think, though, that the address it halts at is what tells you what > > (if anything) failed the test. If you can tell where it halted, it may be > > able to look that up. > At 344 (addr) and 116 in the data display. No idea if this a valid value > though... It's an odd sort of address. I'd expect it to stop at an address in the ROM. If you had to halt it manually, it must have been running in a loop. Why that address, I have no idea, because according to the M9312 manual, it only runs code from ROM until it has booted some device. According to the M9312 manual, it runs various CPU instruction tests, then tests memory >from 1000 to as high as it can go (up to 28KW), then tests the cache. It will halt if it gets an error in any of the memory or cache tests, but you can press CONTINUE to ignore the fault and carry on. > > Do you have the manual for the M9312? There are several ROMs that might > Yes, the 9312 has the 233 type rom (11/70 diagnostic, so this is ok). All DEC ROM numbers begin 23-<something>. All DEC diagnostic PROM numbers end in F1. The correct bootstrap for a M9312 in an 11/70 is 23-616F1. If that's not what you've got, it's unlikely to work correctly. > Has the location of the available ram in my case anything to do with the > high address > limit register? According to the usermanual it is the high imit of the > memory, not > it starting address? Well, you ought to set it to the correct value, obviously, but I've no idea what would happen if you set it too high or too low. Yes, it's the high limit. > On the other hand, the starting address of 400000 can maybe also the > result of some > initial values in the unibus map registers? I think the bus init is supposed to set them to zeros. Of course, the map may be faulty. Normally each memory board has a switch pack to set its starting address. What type of board(s) do you have? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

maybe weapons. depend on what the bot is needed for. for defense it may have weapons,

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

i think you and i are saying the same thing. except i am putting more emphasis on the bot being self controlled with outside help. you are putting more emphasis on remote control with eventual self-control. the thing is; the brain is the easiest part. the brain of the bot will be self learning so each bot will learn as it goes as opposed to me having to do a lot of designing. Follow nature for ideas for example a little child has just enough knowledge to ask about what he or she doesnt know about. so each bot will know just enough to refer to the master os on whatever it doesnt know until it learns. it will be set up to sort , retain, recall various information. joee

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

those who asked. golemancd pc collection

by Golemancd＠aol.com

i am in florida

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

DECstation hardware guide

by meltlet＠fastmail.fm

Hello, does anyone know of a copy of the DECStation 3100 hardware guide (or whatever it is called) available online? Also, does anyone have a handle on a URL for a piccie of the backside of one of these beasts? Thanks for listening Alex -- melt meltlet(a)fastmail.fm

23 years, 11 months

4
4
0 0

Virtual Computer

by dedgrossman＠dsinw.com

I too had a Digicomp, which was more of a calculator than computer. Goto www.incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r/computer_simulators.htm to see examples of other classic computers built virtually instead of replicating the entire kit with plastic and wire ;)

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

PDP-11 memory question

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 5, 16:34, Tom Leffingwell wrote: > On Sat, 5 Jan 2002, Pete Turnbull wrote: > I did find on the MSV11-L > that X was connected to U. I'm not sure what U is for, but seemed to be > grounded, so I removed it, which I assume set the address back to 0. At > that point it started working. Yes, U is the ground for V...Z (K is the ground for L...P). X-U (with all other bank pins disconnected) gives a start address of 00100000 (32K, decimal). > How do I know whether or not I need to enable or disable I/O page > setting? I haven't tried to enable it on the MSV11-L, although it was > enabled on the MSV11-D before I removed it. What symptoms occur if its > set wrong? If you have any devices in the lower 2KW of the I/O page, you should disable memory access to that area. If you don't, you'll get a conflict when both the I/O device and the memory try to respond to the same address. However, not many small QBus systems have I/O devices in that address range (160000-167777). It's normal to leave the whole I/O page for I/O devices, and disable memory in that area, though. > > And that's the second thing. The MSV11-L doesn't use BBS7 for everything > > it decodes, so you have to set it according to whether it's in a 22-bit > > system or an 18-bit system. If there's a jumper from R-T, it's set for a > > 2MW system. Remove it for 128KW systems. > > I did find out that I have the 22-bit KDF11-A, although I haven't checked > the backplane yet. If the backplane is 22-bit, should put the R-T jumper > in the M8059? Does it matter if I only have 128KW of memory? I don't know; try it and see :-) I suspect if you set it to 18-bit mode and use it in a 22-bit system, it will respond to multiple addresses. If you set it to 22-bit mode and use it in an 18-bit system with no termination on the upper 4 lines, it may respond to noise on those lines and not turn on when it should. The bus signals are active low, so if there's no signal they should float high and read as zeros -- but life and bus systems are not always so predictable. OTOH, if you have a 22-bit processor, it's easy to upgrade the backplane by soldering four pieces of wire-wrap wire to bus the extra 4 address bits (and upgrade the BDV11 if necessaary). -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Language and English

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Chris <mythtech(a)Mac.com> > Ugh.. try reading William Faulkner (I am pretty sure that is who it > was)... he has 3 page run on sentences... worst reading my poor dyslexic > brain ever had to deal with. Faulkner was an amateur. Try picking up "The Ticket That Exploded," "The Soft Machine," "The Job" or a number of other books by William S. Burroughs, and you'll find run-on sentences as long as 10 pages. (Yes, he's related to the Burroughs calculator and computer firms -- his grandfather invented the hydraulic piston which made the adding machine possible.) Glen 0/0

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Unix v6 and 11/23 - Success!

by spedraja＠ono.com

Congratulations for your advance. I have one PDP/11-23 PLUS with 128 Kwords of memory. I don't tried to boot it because I need to take my own RL02 from Germany where it's actually. But I use to startup this V6 distribution under Bob Supnik's SIMH v2.8-5. I've detected the panic problem in multiuser mode some months ago in my private hackings. I should agree to know all your advances and hacks in this aspect, please. Thanks and Greetings Sergio -----Mensaje original----- De: Kevin McQuiggin <mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca> Para: info-pdp11(a)village.org <info-pdp11(a)village.org> Fecha: domingo, 06 de enero de 2002 10:30 Asunto: Unix v6 and 11/23 - Success! >Hi All: > >Thanks for the assistance today. Thoughts about the DEC firmware wanting >a NOP in early bytes of sector 0 must have been correct. I was able to >get to ODT via the HALT button, and entered a 4 instruction bootstrap >(basically, read current sector into memory starting at 0 and wait), >halted the machine, entered "0G" via ODT, and watched with glee as Unix >came up. > >Some confusion ensued when I couldn't get it to work a second time, but >then I realized that due to the simplicity of the bootstrap, the heads >would have to be over sector 0 for this to work. Unloading and reloading >the pack reset the heads to sector zero, and the boot process is now >easily repeatable. A better bootstrap would help in the longer run. > >Single user mode comes up fine, I get a panic while trying to get it to >come up in multi-user, but it's great progress for the day. > >Thanks to all on the list who replied with suggestions. > >Kevin > > > >-- >Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD >mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca >---------- >To unsubscribe (or subscribe) from (to) this list, send a message to >info-pdp11-request(a)village.org, with the first line of the message >body being "unsubscribe" or "subscribe", respectively (without the quotes).

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Language and English

by mhstein＠usa.net

Well, I've only been on this list since October, but I think I've gotten a pretty good feel for the style and flavour in that short time, and all in all it's a great resource, informative (although, like you, I spend a lot of time scrolling through the DEC stuff :), and often a lot of fun to read. Actually Sellam is one of my favourite posters; his comments are usually quite appropriate and I really appreciate his often acerbic, no BS style; he apparently values his time (and mine, as the reader), whereas a number of people on this list apparently have a great deal more time available than I do (and that's not a criticism; in fact I envy them). No problem with the 'A' word either, especially when used self-deprecatingly or as a warning to me that if I say something foolish I might not be treated with gentle understanding and kindness; I am surprised though, that people as intelligent as everyone on this list seems to be would not find a more sophisticated way to show their contempt for someone else's opinions than to just call them names (and seriously mean it as far as I can tell). Just my C$.02 worth; as a newbie here I've got no business judging anybody. But as a newbie, I do want to add something FWIW: The original replies to Joee made the point that his way of expressing himself might backfire, in that someone who might have something useful (to Joee) to contribute might either just skip over his posts or judge that he wasn't 'worthy' of their help. Then the replies to those replies suggested that if we alienate Joee we might lose out on something _he_ might have to contribute. Well, speaking for myself, although I too was mildly annoyed by Joee's style and _apparent_ attitude, I wasted more time on and was more annoyed by the subsequent squabbling, although the _serious_ discussions of language were interesting for the most part. Joee himself must be rolling on the floor laughing over what he stirred up; reminds me of the story of the person who was incorrectly diagnosed as retarded for 2 years ("And they called ME retarded!") I do love the irony that while there's lengthy discussion over whether it's appropriate to type without caps, there's little interest in whether it's appropriate to call someone an asshole - style over content, sign of the times... My point (at last!) is this: When I first started looking around for a place to find takers for the 30 year accumulation of hardware, software and documentation I am getting rid of, this list stood out among the many others as an intelligent and fairly (but not too) serious and intelligent place; if I'd run across it a few days ago, I would have passed it by as just another list where people spend more time yakking and flaming each other than discussing computers and helping each other, because the people who have relevant things to contribute either remain quiet and invisible, or their posts are buried among the other stuff. Maybe, just maybe, there are other people who could make substantial contributions to this list and vintage computer collecting in general who'd feel the same way, despair of finding a suitable place to post, and move on or just toss out their stuff and whatever resources or expertise they may have. I like your idea of separate lists, in fact I am on a list that does just that; one list for the actual purpose of the list, and another for OT threads, rambling, ranting and raving. Works very well for me; I have a choice whether to just quickly read the important stuff in case there's something urgent to reply to, or grab a cuppa and 'socialize' for a while. Oops, this rant's getting longer than even Richard's recent ones; just wanted to say that while we're certainly going to yak among old friends and ramble OT occasionally, maybe we should try to stand out among all the other lists and stop short of the point where someone new with something to contribute will pass us by and write us off as just another bunch of assholes... mike Incidentally, Lawrence, I haven't gotten any replies to my off-list messages to you about the books & NetCommander; are you getting them or is there a problem? -----------------------Original Message------------------------- From: "Lawrence Walker" <lgwalker(a)mts.net> Subject: Re: Language and English As a fellow Canjen. Welcome to the classiccomp mailing list. Hey if you want nit-picking and flames look back in the archives a couple of years ago. At that time Sellam was known as Sam and his sig included the disclaimer "occasional asshole" which I seem to have, in my own mind, at least, inherited. Cmon Sellam tell me to F.O.. If this happens I promise to nevemore trangress the OT rule. Unless neccessary. Lawrence

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by mhstein＠usa.net

I've got a T3100e, so this may be irrelevant, but FWIW: Just had to replace the Li battery in mine; cost $15 the last time, $25 today. Since there was just enough room in there for 2 alkaline AAs in a holder, I thought I'd give that a try; seems to be working fine so far, despite being only 3V instead of 3.6V. Re the HD: when mine failed a few years back, I heard lots of info that it was an ST-512 drive with a special connector. Apparently not; installed a standard 80Mb (MB? mb? mB? :) IDE drive, Disk Manager to get around the fixed drive type, and Bob's your uncle. Good luck with the cleanup. mike

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Compenents Source?

by mhstein＠usa.net

As mentioned elsewhere, I'd recommend a cheap pair of computer speakers as well; trouble is, all the ones I've seen split the batteries between the two speakers, so it's tough to just use one. But if you're still looking & don't want to rebuild a portable radio (hard to find one with a speaker these days), I've got one or two of those RS powered speakers somewhere that you could have for next to nothing, depending on shipping cost. mike -----------------Original Message--------------- From: Kent Borg <kentborg(a)borg.org> Subject: Compenents Source? In olden days I would go to Radio Shack, but that doesn't work anymore, so I though I would ask here. Anyone know where I could find a small, cheap, low power, amplified, battery powered speaker? Back when I would have bought a "telephone amplifier", but in 2002 I can't immedaitely find such a thing. Thanks,

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>The effects 1) Mat backgrounds 2) CG effects 3)anamatronic are so >good you can't see any flaws when they switch shots between formats. >In the version narrated by the special effects people you get all the >details. Cool... I will have to check it out. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

PS/2 Memory

by ajwotherspoon＠shaw.ca

Two sticks of memory pulled from a dead IBM PS2/57: One piece, with 9 chips per side, is from IBM and is labelled: UY IBM091 8M 70NS P P/N 71F7011 FRU 64F3606 Two of the chips are covered with paper labels; the other 16 chips are all marked (very faintly): IBM 0169216 53 70 Q 312145800 The other piece, with 12 chips per side, is marked: Front: PIICEON SR8192PS Back: GTS12 94V0 16 (8 on each side) of the chips are Micron Technology 4C4001JDJ-7. 8 (4 on each side) of the chips are Motorola MCM511000AJ70. Pictures of both pieces, front and back, are at http://members.shaw.ca/ajwotherspoon/ps2. Each of the two images is 0.5mb. Unable to test. Therefore AS IS. Yours for US$10 (or offer) for the pair plus the shipping cost (Canada Post or courier service) (and insurance if desired) from Victoria, BC, Canada. Alex

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Crescent wrenches (was: Nomenclature (was: NEXT Color Printerfind

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com> > > > Heh. Mexican speed wrench... > > > > Funny, I've always heard it referred to as a *Kentucky* speed > > wrench ;>) > > I like that even better! But down yonder, they have > to be carefull with them, after all, they *really* > hurt when they're dropped on bare feet... Same thing in KY ;>) Glen 0/0

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>> > Watching Jurassic Park 3, A 10,000 HP 43 foot long robot dinosaur >> > does a lot of damage just by walking not to mention its bite. >> > Who needs weapons :) Movie studios don't generally make any "puppets" that are THAT big. If it is entirely anamatronic, then it is probably done on scale. Something of that size would be limited to basic movements, and probably not for a movie prop. They would just build dinosaur "parts" (sets and props are never made to more than what the camera sees anyway). >Watch the movie Jurassic park #3, the T-rex had his head chewed >off by the new 'king' of the dinosaurs. The special effects >people put in some REALLY big beasts. But by #3 were these still anamatronic, or entirely CG? (even #1 was a good chunk CG, but I haven't seen #2 or #3, so I can't give my opinions on the "look" of it). I would think by the 3rd, the only scenes that still had "real" dinosaurs would be close ups of the actors interacting directly with the beast. However, these kinds of things ARE built for outside of the movie industry. Ever been to Disney's Animal Kingdom? They have a "Dinosaur Adventure" ride (or some name to that effect). That has a few "full size" dinosaurs in it, and they do some basic movements. (Although, if you ever get to walk the track, I would think you will find they are not truly life size, but rather use forced perspective to make them look bigger than they really are). They are probably fairly fragile as far as the skin is concerned... but I wouldn't want to get caught up in their skeleton while it is operating... I'm sure it could take a limb off with ease. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

the idea is to have the robot take care of itself. just refer to the master os for references and instructions. master os will be used like a server. server of info, directions, traffic directions , scripts, etc. like a co-ordinator. to direct everything that is going on. for example like a forman on a building site. the forman gives everyone their job and they go to it. if there are any questions you refer back to him. or when you are finished your job, you refer to him and he gives you another one. and the forman monitors everything in progress. if he sees something that isnt going correctly, he may step in and give other instructions. joee

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Some pointers needed on a 11/70

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 15:40, The Wanderer wrote: > > There are various things done by the power-up bootstrap diagnostic > True, I have re-read the M9312, and at address 777644 is the diagnostics > rom start > address. When I load this address and then set 012 in the switch reg, > for some > moments it is blinking leds, and then lets the pause light on. There is > no sensible > address/error code shown at the console which should indicate a diag > failure. Are you sure about that address? According to my M9312 manual (microfiche), the correct start address for 11/70 diagnostics (23-616F1 PROM) is 765744. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Language and English

by mhstein＠usa.net

Well, I DO want to nitpick; never thought I'd come to Dick's defense, but nothing wrong with *E*.*E*. Cummings AFAIK: http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm Any statistics available on what percentage of text on this list actually concerns computers? Often amusing and occasionally interesting though; particularly ironic that almost all replies criticizing spelling, etc. also contained at least one typo or spelling/grammar error... (not to mention Doc's 'e.e' criticism) C'mon, guys (since the gals are obviously more mature), isn't this getting a little nasty for a friendly group like this? Free speech, diversity of opinions, yes, but do we need words like a**hole? mike (In .ca despite usa.net address :) -----------------Original Message--------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 11:05:43 -0600 (CST) From: Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> Subject: Re: Language and English On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote: <snip> > If you insist on writing in a style reminiscent of E. E. Cummings poetry, > you may find that your messages are read by readers of this forum with about > the same frequency as E.E. Cummings' work, which might be a shame, in case > you really do have something significant to contribute. or in case I'm the > only one who doesn't read much Cummings. Nah, I like ee cummings. And not to nitpick, but your rendering of his name is incorrect. <snip> I submit further that none of the mortals on the classiccmp list have evolved to that literary level. *** Umm... a somewhat sweeping generalization... mike *** <snip> Doc

23 years, 11 months

6
5
0 0

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>If you have problems reading some things, try to keep that in mind when you >write. Others may have problems as well. Make it easy for them to see what >you mean in what you write by taking a little extra care. It's important. >Learn to do it well. I just think some people need to realize that sometimes, what you get is the best a person can do. I'm not defending a lack of use of punctuation or capitalization, or anything like that (re: the emails this thread is about... I agree they should have had better care taken when being written)... but with generally poor writing, particularly when you find the same person doing it over and over... you just have to accept that that MIGHT be the best they are capable of. And you might want to ease up a bit on them... since the bitching may very well be taken as a direct insult to their intelligence level... and is apt not to fix the problem, but rather cause a nasty conflict. I mean, how would some of you feel, if you asked about some unknown classic computer part, and were told "you must be some kind of dumb ass to not know what that is... anyone who has half a brain in their head would know this". But then, if your writing sucks because you are lazy... well, you should just be taken out and shot... or at least deserve to be insulted for it. Just my thoughts. And no, I myself have not been insulted by ANYTHING that has ever been said on this list, much less the recent discussions... including all the bashing I took over the crescent wrench incident... but then, I am think skinned (or was that think headed), and it takes far more than a bunch of emails to offend me (kick me in the nuts... I might be offended... call me a dumb ass... I am likely to agree with you) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Some pointers needed on a 11/70

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 15:40, The Wanderer wrote: > Pete Turnbull wrote: > > On Jan 2, 21:08, <quapla(a)xs4all.nl> wrote: > > > > > I'm sure there must be people on the list who know more about 11/70s than I > > do, but since no-one else has replied yet... > > > Until know, you're the only one..... Oh dear, I've only seen one once. > > Is the memory powered up and connected? At the right address (you must > Yes, it is running, and all the leds are on, except one red led (battery > power > available?). > There is 128KW of memory (in 2 64Kw boards) > > > have some memory in the lowest 28KW to start up)? Is the cache working? > How do I know if the cache is working? Good question. I'm not sure, I think it's tested by the diagnostics on the bootstrap card. I think it's possible to disable it but I don't know how. It may be in one of the processor handbooks, which I can look up tomorrow. That's where I checked the value for the LSR and USR. > > There are various things done by the power-up bootstrap diagnostic > True, I have re-read the M9312, and at address 777644 is the diagnostics > rom start > address. When I load this address and then set 012 in the switch reg, > for some > moments it is blinking leds, and then lets the pause light on. There is > no sensible > address/error code shown at the console which should indicate a diag > failure. That sounds encouraging. At least it seems to be running the diagnostic code. I think, though, that the address it halts at is what tells you what (if anything) failed the test. If you can tell where it halted, it may be able to look that up. Do you have the manual for the M9312? There are several ROMs that might be on it, with different device bootstraps, and I think there are at least two diagnostics PROM options: one for 11/70 and one for other Unibus machines. I could be wrong about that, of course; I might be confusing it with the multiplicity of variants of the M9301. I just happen to have an M9301-YC >from an 11/70. > On the M8132 is a switchblock (1 of 3) which is - according to the doc- > the > lsw, I have set it to 1M, I suspect that should be set to the actual memory size. Anyone else know anything about 11/70's? -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Movie making and distributed robotics

by Golemancd＠aol.com

an os to run the apps as fast as they can run. no far calls. maybe no swapping. a dual mode os where i can single task to squeeze as much performance out as i can and also switch to mutitasking when needed. i robotics os would be to run hundreds of robots. like a theme park run entirelly by bots where the robots repair the other bots. the system would do diagnostics on all the bot like a bios does on a pc to see if all the hardware is working. also the give vision to the bot. also many other functions. joee

23 years, 11 months

4
6
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 tothwolf(a)concentric.net wrote: >> BTW, I worked with a guy who accidentally recharged an AA sized >> Lithium battery. It left shrapnel in the wall and he is still slighty >> deaf in one ear. >Do I dare ask *how* one accidentally recharges a lithium battery? By powering a battery powered PCB from a bench supply and forgetting to remove the battery jumper. Careless. Chris

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Lithium/Lithium-ion batteries

by CLeyson＠aol.com

In a message dated 05/01/02 bshannon(a)tiac.net (Bob Shannon) writes: >Lithium Ion (secondary) batteries are rechargable >Lithium (primary) batteries are not rechargable. >Recharging lithium ion batteries in laptops is a very complex operation, and >a somewhat dangerous one as well. A conventional 18650 Lilion battery cell >has a substancial explosive yield, if mistreated! Bob is quite right, the exploding battery referred to in an earlier post was a standard (primary) cell. Personally I tend to avoid Lithium batteries at all costs, firstly, for the reasons given above and secondly, they're probably the least environmentally friendly. I'm just glad that PC manufacturers use EERAM these days. BTW, the Toshiba laptop has been thoroughly cleaned and reassembled :-( Chris

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

PDP-11 memory question

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 13:35, Ethan Dicks wrote: > --- Tom Leffingwell <tom(a)sba.miami.edu> wrote: > > > > I have a PDP 11/23 (M8186 CPU with floating point and MMU options) > > in a 4 slot BA11-MA box that at some point in its life was an 11/03. It > > had an M8044-DF 32k memory module, which I'm trying to replace with a > > 128k M8059-KJ. The system works fine with the 32k module, but won't do > > anything with the 128k module. > > Have you checked the jumpers on the M8059? Where in memory does it think > it is supposed to live? Even the M8044 has address jumpers. Two other things occur to me. The first is that memories like the MSV11-D (M8044) and MSV11-L (M8059) have jumpers to enable or disable memory that corresponds to the I/O page. This gets a little complicated... Most DEC memories decode the BBS7 signal to sense access to the I/O page and disable memory access accordingly. The MSV11-D has a jumper 1-2 to enable memory in the lower 2KW of the I/O page for systems that don't use the whole I/O space; jumper 2-3 (the factory setting) to disable memory in the whole top 4KW. The MSV11-L has a similar arangement, using jumpers 28-29 to enable the memory in the bottom half of the I/O page, and 27-28 to disable it. > > I'm not familiar with PDP-11's, but it seems like my backplane is only > > 18-bit, while the new memory module is 22-bit. > > Yes, I would expect that your backplane is 18-bit. It wouldn't matter, > anyway - 18 bits is 256Kbytes (2^18 = 262,144) or 128Kwords. The 128K > card will fill your memory space, but it should work on an 18-bit > blackplane. You can also stuff 4 M8044 cards in there - 32Kwords each > for a total of 128Kwords. And that's the second thing. The MSV11-L doesn't use BBS7 for everything it decodes, so you have to set it according to whether it's in a 22-bit system or an 18-bit system. If there's a jumper from R-T, it's set for a 2MW system. Remove it for 128KW systems. It's also a parity memory, unlike the MSV11-D, and furthermore it has it's own on-board parity control and reporting register. I don't think that would stop it working if not set up, though. If you want to check the parity jumper settings, the factory default is 9-10 out, 10-11 in, 18-19 out and 19-20 in (to enable parity); 1-2 in and 2-3 out (to enable register reporting); 6-7 in and 7-8 out (necessary to disable wrong-parity writing which is used for testing); F-H in and J-H out (to enable the CSR for parity setting/reporting rather than other methods). There are also jumpers to enable/disable half the board. Normal settings are 32-33 out and 33-34 in for a fully-populated board (reverse for half-populated) and 15-16 in and 16-17 out (the reverse disables the lower bank, used if part of the bank fails). Most of the remaining jumpers set the starting address. For a starting address of zero, you want pins P,N,M,L disconnected, and pins V,W,X,Y,Z disconnected (the addressing is done in two parts). To change the address to something other than zero, you would connect one or more of these pins to pin K (ground). > > I've also read that the M8186 board is only 22-bit compatible after > > revision C. I can't find any mark on the board showing what revision it > > is. Is there another way to tell? > > Is it on the maroon handle? I don't think it's anything in the solder > mask/copper; there might be an ink stamp with the revision or perhaps a > sticker. If you can't tell in anyway, shape or form, perhaps you have > a rev A. Quick check is to hold the board with handles at the top/contacts at the bottom, and look for a metal jumper (W18) about an inch below the handles, about halfway between them, and above a diode jumpered with a red wire. If it's there, it's a Rev.A. > > Also, is possible to modify the 18-bit bus and make it 22-bit, or > > maybe by swapping out the backplane? > > You can run the extra backplane wires. I have done it. Having done so, > you may have to find a way to terminate them. Newer boxes are already Q22 > and have bus termination built-in. Older backplanes depended on a > termination card - the BDV-11 is one that is termination plus bootstrap > ROMs. I've done it too. A standard BDV11 doesn't terminate the upper 4 address lines, but there's an ECO (ECO 005?) to fix that. It consists of adding 4 short wires from the contact fingers to termination resistors that are otherwise unused. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

HP2000 available for login yet?

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Steve, Did you use the HP2000 in school? I used to work at a board of education in northern NJ and we used to provide timeshare services to many schools in the area.

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

HP2000 available for login yet?

by mgortych＠ntplx.com

Saw some posts back in August that Jay got his 2000 up and running, just wondering if it was available to for a guest to login and reminisce. Thanks! Mike

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Megabyte vs Mebibyte (was Re: Language and English)

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

! From: Sellam Ismail [mailto:foo@siconic.com] ...... ! They should coin a new term for a fake Megabyte (i.e. ! something other than 1024 ^ 2). Call it a "Maybebyte". ! ! That wasn't funny. ! ! Sellam Ismail I thought it was. Or am I that weird? --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

Crescent wrenches (was: Nomenclature (was: NEXT Color Printer find

by mhstein＠usa.net

Whoa, can't let that one by: we know what a snowmobile is up here (c'mon, fellow Canucks, back me up on this one!); mind you, if you asked ME what a snowmobile is, I would indeed look at ya kind of funny (oops, funnily, for the language police), since apparently YOU don't know what it is or you wouldn't be asking... But a snow sled??? Who calls it that? Sounds like the SkiDoo trailer. Anyway, one of us invented the thing, so we can call it what we like! So there! :) -----------------Original Message------------------ From: Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> [snippage] [more snippage (pronounced snippahdge up here, not snippedge :)] And as it's winter, and we *finally* have snow here, talk to some Western Ontario Canadians and ask them what a "snowmobile" or "snow sled" is - they'll most likely look at you funny, at least for a few seconds until it sinks in. They go "skidooing" in the wintertime.

23 years, 11 months

9
12
0 0

FreeVMS

by msell＠ontimesupport.com

Replies throughout..... >I have not-too-much experince with VMS, so bear with me, but wouldn't it >be possible to do one of the following options: > >1) Stick an 'emulation' user-mode shell on top of some free *nix > >2) Take a stock free *nix kernel, and modify it to work more like VMS. That was the idea. I thought of taking FreeBSD, and add device drivers for peripherals and filesystems, as well as implementing the "shell". I do have various VAXen to test this on. >Of course, the problem is deciding what ONE kernel to use (prolly BSD or >Linux 2.??), and how to trim down the kernel to a small set of drivers for >testing it. I was thinking about using FreeBSD, simply for the availability of many platform ports, including VAX. - Matt Matthew Sell Programmer On Time Support, Inc. www.ontimesupport.com (281) 296-6066 Join the Metrology Software discussion group METLIST! http://www.ontimesupport.com/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad "Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler Many thanks for this tagline to a fellow RGVAC'er...

23 years, 11 months

4
4
0 0

Heath/Zenith stuff

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

------Original Message------ From: Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com> --- Bill Gunshannon <bill(a)cs.scranton.edu> wrote: > Your thinking of the Heath H11 which was in fact an LSI-11/02. But it had It shipped as an LSI-11/03 CPU and heath made memory and IO. My H-11 came with a KDF-11 CPU (11/23), but I don't know if it was shipped that way or if my boss (who bought it new) upgraded it himself. Yep, never shipped with 11/23 (KDF-11A). It was discontinued by then if anything. I have a couple of the Heath serial cards (one unsoldered!), the H-27 disk controller, the 8" floppies and a pile of misc DEC cards (memory, BDV-11 boot card, etc). The heath seriial card was a fairly flexible card copared to the usual DEC DL-11. to debug the H-27 (he never used it). Except for the monsterous holes he blew in the side to mount additional fans, and the holes in the front he added for external console baud rate switches, it resembles its original form once again. The fans and switches were a common mod and handy too. Allison __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

Drummers and SGI computers

by macrecycle＠earthlink.net

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute there! What's all this biz about dissin' drummers? I'd have you know, like Buddy Rich said, "I am the band, mister." I figure 40 years of being a Slingerland drummer (www.slingerland.com) and Paiste cymbal player (www.paiste.com) driving swing and jazz (and an occasional rock group, when I'm not critical about the music *8^) earn me that right. And, for your information, drummers don't lose time; they reinterpret the chart, for crying out loud. Sheesh! Now, let's get back to computers. Still looking for SGI Indy at a good price; anybody got any ideas? R. P. Bell My friends call me "RB" ================= Mac Recycle Project Recycled Macintosh Computers and Services for Educational or Non-Profit Enterprises Email macrecycle(a)earthlink.net Internet URL www.networkwise.net (currently under development)

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Secondly, anyone with an IQ at or about 75 can >get through the present education system with straight A's if he shows up for >class and does the assigned work. ROFL... sad but true. >What you're saying to the readers of the list is, "You should read what I >have >to say, though I'm not willing to make sure it's clearly or properly >presented." I find it hard to imagine that you could offer content that >would >justify the effort, Chris. Ok... Richard, Dick, whatever you like to call yourself. You sit here claiming to be this great writer and reader... yet it seems you have NO F-ING memory. If you care to go back over the various posts on this thread, you will see that I am NOT the person that was using poor writing skills. Rather, all I said was, to the language die hards, don't forget the possibility that what you got *might* have been the best the person was capable of. I never said the one this was all about (I won't mention names... I'll leave that up to an exercise to your god like reading skills), was writing to the best of HIS ability (he might be, but he seems to have indicated that he writes the way he does by choice... fine by me). But somewhere, you seemed to have translated this into ME be the offender of writing poor emails... despite the fact, that I have tried to point out to you numerous times, that this thread HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ME. (did you get that, or should I print it in another format, one your perfect writing skills would use, so maybe your reading skills can pick it up as well) So... maybe your reading comprehension is bad, maybe you suffer from serious memory deficiencies... I have no idea... but until you can figure out that we are talking CONCEPTUAL here, and NOT ACTUAL... I will cease to discuss the matter with you. Have a nice day :-) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

DEC bus driver/receiver chips (really VT78 docs)

by Antonio.Carlini＠riverstonenet.com

> pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com wrote: > > I have a VT78. Is that the one you're thinking of? No. That's three now :-) I was thinking of the one the CCS have: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/CCS/ Antonio

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Ultrix 4.4 and VaxStation 3100

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

! -----Original Message----- ! From: Clint Wolff (VAX collector) [mailto:vaxman@earthlink.net] ! ! ! The last I heard, NetBSD didn't support any sort of graphics console. ! Not even as a text only console... ! ! Clint ! ! On Wed, 2 Jan 2002, David Woyciesjes wrote: ! ! > ! From: Jochen Kunz [mailto:jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de] ! > ! ! > ! ! > ! > (assuming X11 worked on ! > ! > the Vaxstation 3100 under Ultrix -- I assume it would.) ! > ! AFAIK the SPX graphics was not supported, only the mono and GPX ! > ! framebuffers. ! > ! > So there is some chance of NetBSD/Xwindows running on my ! > b&w 3100m38? ! > ! > --- David A Woyciesjes So, the monitor and keyboard hooked directly to the back of the VAXStation 3100 M38 is not a text only console? What kind of console is it then? --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

HP2000 available for login yet?

by steven_j_robertson＠hotmail.com

While we're on the HP 2000 subject: Drug home two more HP1000s (first cousin to the 2000) last wekend. Both systems were mounted in racks and seemed to be fairly complete. The first system was a HP3095 test system. The 3095 series are used in conjunction with a bed-of-nails for the automated testing of boards and assemblys. The system included a HP7914 HD/TAPE combo, 768K of RAM, multiple HPIB interfaces, 8 port TTY card, I/O expansion chassis, misc other I/O cards (unknown). I was hoping that the RTE system was still installed on the disk but, looks like it won't be recoverable. The disk sounded like a coffee grinder when I applied power... Bummer :-( For some reason, the CPU was missing the ROM. I managed to steal the ROM >from another box and now the CPU runs OK. The second system was a vibration analyzer. It included a basic computer, D/A and A/D interfaces, a 8" floppy drive, X/Y display, and system controller. There were no disks with this drive either which leaves me without an OS. If anyone knows where to find DOCs for a "HP5478C system interface" or "HP5477C system controller", I'd appreciate the info. From what I can tell, the system interface is a multiple channel DAC and the controller provides some external switching capability. I'd really like to know more about these. That box has a bad power supply. There's a red indicator on the front of the PS that just stays lit when power is applied. I think this is a fault indicator. There are no voltages on the backplane of that box. I stole the ROM from this box to get the other one going. I know where there is a 1000 crate that's mostly stripped. The panel, and all the cards have been removed but, the PS may be intact. If so, I should be able to liberate the PS. >From what I understand, the ROMS on the 1000 are not easy to dup. They have ID labels over the markings so, I can't even tell what kind of devices they are. Has anyone had experience dupping the ROMs from a 1000? I have tried to download the HP BASIC tapes from Jeff's site but cannot get them to work. The format doesn't look quite right and they fail the checksum test. Has anyone had any luck downloading those tapes and installing on a 1000? So... At this point, I have two working HP1000s, lots of I/O cards, a spare create for parts, and a bunch of other goodies. BTW: I know where there are some more systems. Probably go back this week and get more. See ya, SteveRob >From: "Mike Gortych" <mgortych(a)ntplx.com> >Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org >To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> >Subject: HP2000 available for login yet? >Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 19:55:34 -0500 > >Saw some posts back in August that Jay got his 2000 up and running, just >wondering if it was available to for a guest to login and reminisce. > >Thanks! >Mike _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Fwd: those who asked. golemancd pc collection

by Golemancd＠aol.com

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Chris, nobody would beat you up for trying to improve himself. Having a few >weaknesses is one thing. Defending them is another. Blaming someone else >for you having them is worse yet. I'm not trying to defend lazy writing skills. I'm not directly trying to blame others either (although, I think a chunk of initial poor writing skills of any kind can be pinned back to improper or poor education. You can't fault the student, if the teachers failed to teach the right thing). >I'll repeat: Make it easy for them to see what you mean in what you write by >taking a little extra care. It's important. Learn to do it well. I agree 100%... but do you mean to say that EVERYONE that uses email has an IQ over 120, and can be expected to master writing skills? Granted, chances are if you are on THIS list, you might be above average, but I am talking more in general (as I am sure some of the correction offenders do this in more places than here) >It's never too late to improve, but YOU have to do it, else it won't happen. No, it isn't too late, but there comes a time when improvement will stop, because a person can do no better. Or, improvement will stop, because the person logically chooses to attempt to do no better, because they have achieved a level that is "good enough", and their time can be better spent on other things. (ie: read Strunk and White, or better your job skills) I am not trying to defend myself, or say that any of this is about me. I want to make that clear... other than poor spelling, I am unaware of any serious language infractions I have ever committed on this list... and when writing anything other than email, I personally rely heavily on spell and grammar checkers... specifically to avoid having my writing make me seem like an ass... I want the honor of making me an ass to be totally on WHAT I write, not HOW I write. I just want some of the hard core language nazi's to realize that sometimes, they should just let it go. If you can't understand what was written, delete it, ignore it, whatever. Friendly constructive criticism is fine... but do it in jest, don't be a dick about it (this isn't saying YOU are a dick about it, no pun intended Richard, just in general, PEOPLE should not make federal crimes out of it... well, at least not until it has spun so badly off topic that it has become interesting and fun in it own right, like this thread). So if you can't understand it because it is so poorly written, you might be better off just ignoring it or deleting it. And if you are the person that wrote that way, and no one responds, maybe you should consider following more traditional writing styles, and check your grammar and spelling. And for those that can't do that (English, or the language of the group, is not their first language, and their skills in general are poor), they should mention that up front. I just don't think highly of people that quote an email specifically to point out writing errors in it. It has never convinced me of anything except that the quote corrector is an arrogant self righteous a-hole. However, if they were to be friendly about it, and do the correction in a tongue in cheek manner, then the original author would get the idea they should be more careful (and probably learn a few things), and the corrector would come off as being more friendly. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Identify this hard drive?

by vcf＠vintage.org

These pictures suck but can anyone possibly identify this hard drive? http://www.siconic.com/crap/bdisk2_f.jpg http://www.siconic.com/crap/bdisk2_s.jpg 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, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Sequent Symmetry S2000-450

by spedraja＠ono.com

Hello everybody. It's possible I could obtain one Sequent Symmetry S2000-450 in a relatively short place. A similar system can be viewed in this eBay address: http://cgi.ebay.de/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1311505028&ed=1009557… The system comes complete, with software, hardware and documentation. It need three pallets to be transported. There is another opportunity to get one Sequent Symmetry S5000 that uses 4 Pentium processors and 1 Gb of memory, but this is in private negotiation. Do Somebody has information about these systems ? They appears to use Four processors 486, a Numa architecture to share memory, and one version of Unix named Dynix. Is there some porting of the Gnu utilities to it ? Thanks and Greetings. Sergio

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

FreeVMS

by pjschilling＠gcstech.net

My, that means my Vax 6000 isn't? Phil Merle K. Peirce wrote: > If it doesn't have wheels, it isn't really a computer. oh good!!! my celeron linux server *has* wheels :^)

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

On Sat, 5 Jan 2002 tothwolf(a)concentric.net wrote: >> Standard twisted pair ribbon cable terminated with a 26 way 0.1in >> pitch IDC transition connector which is soldered to the board. I will >> probably cut the cable and remove the connector (one pin at a time) >> and replace with a standard IDC plug and socket. >Why not just desolder the connector? Braid works well for some of those >plated through boards, just watch the heat or it can lift the pads. I managed to dismantle the plasma display and all of the cables can be disconnected at the display end. It would have been a lot easier to fit PSU and mother board connectors as well. Just have to clean up the mother board now. Chris

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

PS/2 Model 70

by dittman＠dittman.net

I found a couple of 2MB PS/2 SIMMs that I had stashed away and put them in my PS/2 Model 70, so I now have 8MB of RAM. I haven't cracked the password on the Xenix386 installation, but thought from the discussion that OS/2 would be a better operating system to play with anyway. I have OS/2 2.1. Would that be a good choice? If so, is there a way to make floppies from the installation CD? I haven't messed with OS/2 for a long time. -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

23 years, 11 months

7
8
0 0

NEXT Color Printer find

by DAW＠yalepress3.unipress.yale.edu

! From: Tothwolf [mailto:tothwolf@concentric.net] ! ! ! On Sun, 30 Dec 2001, Robert Schaefer wrote: ! ! > I would imagine it was to talk to the printer. IIRC early Macs used ! > SCSI printers, too. Pretty neat. I wonder how hard a SCSI <-> ! > parallel interface would be to build. ! ! I seem to remember seeing a few companies offer these kinds ! of bridges, ! but I doubt they would work for anything other then a printer. I have here on my desk, an UNused Hewlett Packard 88395 SCSI/Parallel Interface. With it's power supply. :-) Need any more info? Like what's inside? ! I have a SCSI <-> ethernet bridge around here somewhere. I ! think it was ! made for older Macs that lacked nubus or another means of ! expansion. It ! reports itself as a disk device, but I haven't done much with it yet. That's a neat thing. Do you remember who the manufacturer is? --- David A Woyciesjes --- C & IS Support Specialist --- Yale University Press --- mailto:david.woyciesjes@yale.edu --- (203) 432-0953 --- ICQ # - 905818

23 years, 11 months

4
6
0 0

PET music (Was: hmm, don't remember what the thread was originally :)

by mhstein＠usa.net

Not sure what you're looking for here, hardware or software? Seems to me any S/W not using CB2 would require _some_ kind of special hardware, however trivial. At least 2 come to mind, the Petunia, and the MTU 4 voice/16 harmonics systems for both PETs and KIM/SYM/AIMs; is one of these what you're thinking of? The cheap & dirty method was just a resistor ladder across the parallel interface as a D/A converter; might still have one of these & some S/W, but don't hold your breath, haven't looked at the CBM pile in ages. Hmmm... just ran across an old ad for an accounting package for a KIM/SYM; wouldn't you have enjoyed being the data entry operator for that? Think I'd prefer even a Windows package... -------------Original Message---------------- From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502(a)yahoo.com> <snip> ObClassic: Does anyone have any software for making music on the PET with *other* than CB2 sound? I had a buddy with a clip-on user port music card - it was an 8-bit D-to-A like a Disney Sound Source. The PET shoved bytes out the user port and they appoximated music. I can't remember what it was called.

23 years, 11 months

3
2
0 0

Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment

by acme_ent＠bellsouth.net

> From: Gene Buckle <geneb(a)deltasoft.com> > How about: "Stupid people suck."? > > > Everyone in this world may not have had the level of > > opportunity ( in education, employment, etc. ) that > > many of you have had. Before coming down on him so hard, > > I would at least be willing to consider "his story"? > > > Level of "opportunity" my butt. He got whatever opportunity he made for > himself. Anything else is entitlement-minded whining. He's a lazy > communicator and is getting slapped around for it. Deal. Gene -- you are right on. Slobs choose to be slobs all on their own, and then they have to deal with being slobs. It's a tough life ;>) Glen 0/0

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

7/01/97 ClassicCmp FAQ - Part 3

by marvin＠rain.org

============================================================================= ClassicCmp - The Classic Computers Discussion List Part 3 in the ClassicCmp FAQ Trilogy Technical FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) v1.6.1 Last Update: 7/01/97 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ is written with the primary purpose of making readily available answers to the more common questions appearing on ClassicCmp. It is Maintained by Bill Whitson <bill(a)booster.u.washington.edu>. The infor- mation in this document has been gathered from a variety of sources but, in general, the members of ClassicCmp should be credited for all contain- ed herein. I have, of course, endeavored to be as accurate as is possible and often failed ;). This FAQ is Part 3 of the ClassicCmp FAQ Trilogy. The information presented deals with regularly asked questions which are technical in nature. If you have questions, comments, or corrections (always welcome) please contact me at the address above. A current copy of this FAQ is available on the web at http://weber.u. washington.edu/~bcw/ccl.html or via anonymous FTP at 140.142.225.27 in the directory /pub/classiccmp/faqs as classiccmp.faq. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates: New Sections: 5.1 Updated Sections: 1.2, 2.4, 4.1, 5.1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. General ------------------ 1.1 I just picked up a new machine. What should I do? 1.2 What's the best way to clean these dingy tan boxes? 2. Media -------- 2.1 What's a hard sector disk? What's a soft sector disk? 2.2 What's SS/SD, DS/DD, DS/QD, DS/HD, etc. 2.3 Can these formats be interchanged? 2.4 What disk sizes are there? 2.5 How do I take care of old media? 3. Component Failure Issues --------------------------- 3.1 Do EPROM's go bad? 3.2 How about ROM's, other chips? 3.3 How about capacitors? 3.4 Anything else? 3.5 So how do I backup all this stuff like you suggest? 4. Software ----------- 4.1 Where can I get a system disk for platform X? 4.2 What's the best way to back up my software? 5. Specific Problems/Solutions ------------------------------ 5.1 Is it possible to bypass an RF modulator to achieve composite output? ============================================================================= 1.1 I just picked up a new machine. What should I do? Don't power it up yet! All of the following should probably be done before that power switch gets flipped. Open the case - clean and visually inspect components. You're looking for traces of smoke, water, corrosion, loose screws, blown caps and resistors, cold (broken) solder joints, bent pins, etc. It may be a good idea to remove and re-seat all socketed components and connectors. If anything burned or overheated it will probably pay to replace it before powering up the unit. You can avoid a number of problems just by taking a peek inside. If you have the tools (and the machine is sufficiently rare) pull and dump backups of all EPROMs, ROMs, and PALs. If you have really cool tools (like a logic analyzer) it has been suggested that you use them to record critical information from those oh-so-hard-to-find custom chips. Specific information on how to do this is beyond the scope of a FAQ, but you probably know what you need to if you own the appropriate tools. Disconnect the power supply from the rest of the computer and start it up on a "dummy load". A six volt headlight bulb has been recommended as a convenient load. These should be available from any decent Volkswagen shop. Running the power supply without a load could result in damage to it. You may want to check the voltage output before you do this as it could be no where near the 5V average in micros. Even if you don't want to connect a load it's still probably a good idea to power it up separately from the computer for the first time. If you have a really rare beast it may be worth powering up some of the key capacitors out of circuit just to get them warmed up. Now you can power it up. Assuming it works, take a blank disk, format it, write some data to it, and read it back before using your precious software with it, as a bad disk drive could really ruin your day. 1.2 What's the best way to clean these dingy tan boxes? Cases: It seems best to start gently with such old equipment. Try soaking in a little water and dish soap and then scrubbing. This takes care of most jobs. For removing stickers try mineral oil or Goo-Gone (available at most hardware stores - in the US at least). If those don't work, acetone can be good but, if overused, can do more harm. For removing marker, almost any solvent is good (alcohol, naptha, etc) but will definitely discolor or dissolve plastic if not carefully applied. Lava soap is also good for removing marker but can smooth off textured plastic. For removing sun or tobacco discoloring a product called Purple Stuff available from auto parts stores (again, in the US at least) seems to do the job almost effortlessly. Recommended commercial products: Purple Stuff from Kragen [for discoloration] Brasso [ink/marker] (can discolor plastic) Antistatic Foam Cleaner from Electrolube [for discoloration/markings] Citra-Solv [for discoloration] (can dissolve plastic if undiluted) Cameo Copper Cleaner [ink/marker] Naptha [for stickers/goop/spooge] (very flammable) 3M GP Adhesive Remover [for stickers/goop/spooge] CRC 226 / CRC 556 [for stickers/goop/spooge] Fulcron [for discoloration] Blue Shower / BS II [for stickers/goop/spooge] Connectors: For edge connectors a plain pink eraser seems good for removing corrosion. Apparently other colors of eraser indicate a different texture - which may be damaging. Make sure to wipe the connectors with a clean cloth after erasing on them. There are a large number chemicals on the market that "magically" remove corrosion from components but as I don't know how safe they are, I'm not anxious to promote any of them. For pin style connectors a toothbrush and some softscrub or other mildly abrasive cleaner do wonders. Recommended commercial products: Electrolube contact cleaning sprays. Keyboards: I find a cycle through the dishwasher does a really nice job on keyboards. Just be sure they're completely dry before you put any power to them. If there is reason not to use a dishwasher (some key labels can come off) it is usually possible to remove each keycap and clean conventionally. [][][][][][][][][][] 2.1 What's a hard sectored disk? What's a soft sectored disk? We'll start with soft-sector since they're simpler to explain. On a soft-sector floppy disk the information that marks where a sector begins and ends is written to the disk by the computer (part of the formatting process). This means that various computers can use the same floppy disk types because the format of the disk is control- led by the operating system. Hard sector disks use a system of perforations in the media to mark the beginnings and ends of sectors. This means that computers which used hard sectored disks required the exact disk type they specified rather than a generic soft-sector floppy. A number of differently sectored disks were available - at least 10, 13, and 16 sector formats. 8 inch and 5.25 inch disks commonly used hard sectoring. 3.5 inch disks never came hard-sectored and, in fact, it would not be possible. 2.2 What's SS/SD, DS/DD, DS/QD, DS/HD, etc. These all refer to the number of useable sides on a disk and it's density (how "efficiently" the magnetic bits are pushed together). SS/SD is a Single Sided - Single Density disk, the earliest available type I believe. The storage afforded by a single density disk was very small compared to today's standards. Single Sided disks were popular because they were cheaper than DS and could be easily modified with a hole punch into double sided disks. SD was followed by Double Density which, amazingly, doubled the amount of storage space. Double Density was followed by the extremely short-lived Quad Density which doubled a DD disk. QD was short lived because High Density was right on it's heels and nearly doubled disk capacity again. DS/HD was as sophisticated as 5.25" disks became. 3.5" disks have progressed as far as DS/EHD double-sided / extra-high density. 2.3 Can these formats be interchanged? Well, that may depend on what computer you are using, but in general the following substitutions may be made: Desired Format Substitute --------------------------------------------------- Single Density Double Density Double Density none reliably Quad Density DD, HD (sometimes work, not advisable!) High Density none Other substitutions may be made, but due to physical differences in how the disks are made they are generally unreliable. It can almost be guaranteed that data written to a proper density disk of poor quality will last longer than data written to a good quality disk of the wrong density. In the case of quad density no substitution should be considered reliable. DD and HD disks both can be forced to work. One may work better than the other given the peculiarities of various drives. 2.4 What disk sizes are there? Disk Types? Physically? Standard Disks Unique/Proprietary Disks --------------------------------------------------------- 8" (Floppy) 5" (MiniFloppy) 5.25" (MiniFloppy) 3.25" (MicroFloppy) 3.5" (MicroFloppy) 3" (MicroFloppy) 2.5" 2" In addition to odd sizes - there is at least one type of disk which was physically different. "Twiggy" disks for the Apple Lisa 1 were regular 5.25" disks with the exception that they had two read/write windows. One was oriented "north" of the center hole, the other "south". 2.5 How do I take care of old media? Step one is Back It Up! After that, make sure it's kept in a clean, dry, temperature-controlled environment (I keep mine in a broken freezer). With disks it seems important to keep them standing on end rather than lying flat - the same goes for cassette tapes. I like to exercise disks and tapes at least once every six months although I have no real evidence that this has any positive effect. I have modified an old C64 floppy drive to simply spin when a disk is inserted and send large stacks of disks through it on a regular basis just to make sure they're not starting to stick up internally. An exciting and somewhat recent development is that availability of classic computer emulators that can make disk images of old media on PC's and Macs. This seems to be a very good way to backup disks since they will eventually go bad no matter how well we take care of them. The official line seems to be that floppy disks have a shelf-life of approximately 10 years. With proper care many are lasting a lot longer. [][][][][][][][][][] 3.1 Do EPROM's go bad? Definitely. They apparently are considered to reliably contain data for (on the outside edge) 15 years. This amount can be considerably reduced if, for example, the sticker over the window has dried out and fallen off. Luckily EPROMs were not used too extensively but they're out there. An EPROM writer/reader is a relatively cheap investment and an easy fix. Even if an EPROM has "forgotten" it's data it is still fine for being "re-educated". 3.2 How about ROMs and other chips? Things wear out. It's likely that even components which have not been fried by catastrophic failure will simply start to die someday. ROMs can be dumped to a file and re-written if they die. Other custom chips which are all too common in micros will be far more difficult to replace. The best advice is to stockpile these chips when you can - but someday even unused chips will probably start to turn up bad. In this case the best defense is to stockpile information in the hope of being able to modify an existing component to meet your needs. 3.3 How about capacitors? This seems to be another large concern, but rather than being an unreplaceable component a capacitor will take your unreplaceable components with it when it goes. It's a good idea to check out all the caps in a system if you haven't fired it up in a while. Caps go bad with time (even tantalum caps, apparently - although they are more reliable) and should be replaced if they are suspect. It's unlikely that it will be impossible to find a replacement capacitor as they are much more standard electronic components. 3.4 Anything else? Documentation: If there's anything which is entirely unreplaceable its the docs for uncommon equipment. Once they're gone, they're gone. I regularly pick up docs I find for equipment I don't have just because I may someday. Paper will, of course. go bad over time but it will be obvious and they will be easily duplicated. Hard Disks: ST-251s, ST-502s, MFM, RLL... old hard disks are going to go bad. Then they'll be gone. Theoretically, I suppose it's possible to crack a hard drive and replace a dead bearing, realign, relaminate, etc... but I've never heard of anyone doing these things in their base- ment. Perhaps in another 5 or 10 years many of us will be experts at this. 3.5 So, how do I back up all this stuff like you suggest? This answer will undoubtedly get longer as I learn more. The best ways seem to be to dump the particular ROM (or whatever) using the approp- riate equipment to a floppy disk (which most of this equipment allows). >From there you can transfer the data to either a CD-ROM - convenient but not long term reliable storage or to mylar tape which may be inconvenient - but the official word on how long it lasts is "Damn near forever." Punch tape units are available and apparently not difficult to use with a PC (PC - the great multi-purpose classic computer peripheral). Optical tape readers are recommended. Recommended products: Tape Writers: Facit 4070, Teletype BRPE. Tape Readers: Trend 700 [][][][][][][][][][] 4.1 Where do I get a system disk for platform X? Since this is a tough one, let me break it down a little: Apple II: System disks for the Apple II are available from Apple at ftp.apple.com. Apple III system disks aren't available although probably will be soon on the ClassicCmp site. Apple Lisa disks aren't availble and probably will not be due to the extreme measure of copy protection used on them. Older Mac system software is availble on the Apple site. CP/M Systems: Ak! These can be a pain. The best source (although I've never actually talked to him) seems to be Don Maslin who runs the Dina-SIG system disk archive. He charges a small fee for the service - which I imagine is well worth the cost! He can be contacted on the internet at <donm(a)cts.com>. Other systems - let me know. 4.2 What's the best way to back up my software? One of the most promising ways that has come up is to use a PC with a soundcard as a really expensive cassette recorder for data storage. Fundamentally there's not much difference between a real recorder and and a PC equipped with sound. By storing your software in your favorite PC sound file format you can then back up to CD or tape or whatever PC medium you like. Most micros came equipped with the ability to store programs to tape and I would imagine that it would be easy to modify computers without this capability to use one. In addition, the rapid rise in the popularity of emulators has given rise to a number of disk image formats for old machines. In many cases it is possible to read/write disk images for classic computers with modern PCs. [][][][][][][][][][] 5.1 Is it possible to bypass an RF modulator to achieve composite output? Possibly - depending on what you're working on. In the simplest case it is possible to simply run off of the inputs to the modulator right to your monitor. Some setups will apparently require a video amplifier. It has also been suggested that it may help to turn of the termination switch at the monitor. ============================================================================= CREDITS CREDITS CREDITS CREDITS CREDITS ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks go out to the following people for much of this information: (some credited by e-mail handle) Adam Bergstrom Kai Kaltenbach Alexios Chouchoulas Keith Whitehead Captain Napalm Ricardo Romagnoli Chris Starling J. Maynard Gelinas Dave Jenner Douglas Zander George Lin Greg Mast Jay Vaughn Jeff Hellige Jim Strickland Jim Willing Larry Anderson Martin Evans Paul Coad Roger Merchberger Ron Mitchell Sam Ismail Tony (A.R. Duell) William Donzelli ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ==============================================================================

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

7/01/97 ClassicCmp FAQ - Part 2

by marvin＠rain.org

============================================================================= ClassicCmp - The Classic Computers Discussion List Part 2 in the ClassicCmp FAQ Trilogy List Specific FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) v1.6.2 Last Update: 7/01/97 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This FAQ is written with the primary purpose of making readily available answers to the more common questions appearing on ClassicCmp. It is Maintained by Bill Whitson <bill(a)booster.u.washington.edu>. The infor- mation in this document has been gathered from a variety of sources but, in general, the members of ClassicCmp should be credited for all contain- ed herein. I have, of course, endeavored to be as accurate as is possible and often failed ;). This FAQ is Part 2 of the ClassicCmp FAQ Trilogy. The information presented deals with regular day-to-day issues on the list. If you have questions, comments, or corrections (always welcome) please contact me at the address above. A current copy of this FAQ is available on the web at http://weber.u. washington.edu/~bcw/ccl.html or via anonymous FTP at 140.142.225.27 in the directory /pub/classiccmp/faqs as classiccmp.faq. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Updates: New Sections: 1.5, 1.7, 2.9, 2.10 Updated Sections: 1.1, 2.3, 2.4, 3.1 Removed: 5.4, 6.1-on ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. About the List ----------------- 1.1 What is ClassicCmp? 1.2 Why is ClassicCmp? 1.3 What's a Classic Computer? 1.4 Who runs this thing? 1.5 How come I can never reach this so-called list operator? 1.6 Don't you know you're duplicating what others have done? 1.7 How much mail should I expect to get on this list? 2. Protocol and Etiquette ------------------------- 2.1 What can I talk about? 2.2 Can I talk about PCs? 2.3 Can I talk about Mini/MainFrames? 2.4 Can I post advertisements? 2.5 Can I ask people to give me their computers? 2.6 Can I ask for help fixing item x? 2.7 Where should I look before posting a dumb question? 2.8 Can I type obscenities about Microsoft in ALL CAPS?!? 2.9 Can I post trophy lists? 2.10 Can I use obscene languagein my posts? 3. Misc List Information ------------------------ 3.1 How many subscribers are there? 3.2 How many subscribers use machine x? 3.3 Is this list archived? 4. ClassicCmp Resources on the Net ---------------------------------- 4.1 Does ClassicCmp have a Web Site? 4.2 How come the Web Site is so ugly? 4.3 Does ClassicCmp have an FTP Site? Collecting ---------- 5.1 Where can I find Classic Computers? 5.2 How much is machine x worth? 5.3 Will thousands of innocent machines be scrapped if I don't save them? 5.4 I don't understand anything. Help! ============================================================================= 1.1 What is ClassicCmp? It's a mailing list for the discussion of classic computers. Topics center on collection, restoration, and operation. It is also an appropriate place for stories and reminiscences of classic computers. Lofty discussions dealing with the philosophical and/or metaphysical aspects of computers are often better handled in private e-mail. 1.2 Why is ClassicCmp? Uh, why not? There are lots of people who love these old machines and it seems like a fun idea to get together and talk about them. 1.3 What is a Classic Computer? _Any computer_ that has not been manufactured for 10 years is a classic. This definition is one I made up and it's entirely arbitrary. It seems to work OK, so I've kept it. 1.4 Who runs this thing? That would be me, Bill Whitson - email bcw(a)u.washington.edu. 1.5 How come I can never reach this so-called list operator? Sorry. It does often take me several days (sometimes weeks!) to respond to e-mail. I am often away for days at a time and when I'm not I'm still probably busy doing real work. I receive more than double the amount of mail that goes to the list in the form of spam, bounced messages, odd user requests, general bitching, etc. and I still have to filter out the messages I actually have to respond to, to remain employed ;). I will get back to you eventually. 1.6 Do you know you're just duplicating work other people have done. I get a "reinventing the wheel" e-mail at least once a week. If you show me another group of computer collectors that claims a membership as large as this one I'll show you a group that must be very hard to find. Obviously there are other groups of collectors and I'm cheering them on - I don't see a problem with duplicating and reduplicating lore that's quickly disappearing anyway. 1.7 How much mail should I expect to get on this list? The daily load varies widely from about 10 messages to over 100. Average seems to be about 44 messages a day. There are times where the message load peaks for as much as a week. [][][][][][][][][] 2.1 What can I talk about? Anything related to classic computers as defined above. There are many people on this list that really know what they're talking about, so you might want to check facts before you start shooting off messages. It's also a good idea to actually read the FAQs and check the archives a little before posting. 2.2 Can I talk about PCs? Yes. PCs which haven't been manufactured for 10 years. Even then, be aware that in many cases you would get a better response posting to PC newsgroups. 2.3 Can I talk about Minis/MainFrames/WorkStations/Gigantic Talking Boxes with Flashing Lights & Coundown Timers/Robots from Alien Civilizations? There has apparently been some misconception that this is a list for micros/home computers only. You'll note I said "misconception". 2.4 Can I post advertisements? Sure. As long as they're related to _classic_ computers. And, of course, use your brain - don't spam. Also, please state up-front whether or not you are willing to ship the items you sell outside your country as there are members of this list in a number of different countries. 2.5 Can I ask people to sell/give me their computers? Sure. But you're not likely to get a very nice response. Mine, for example, would be: Get your own f***ing computer! There are several people on usenet who will vouch for this. When someone posts about one of their machines without offering to sell it - it's really a pretty good bet that they're not secretly trolling for offers. See section 5 for info on how to find yourself a computer. 2.6 Can I ask for help fixing item x. Yes. Be aware that it may be difficult to help you fix things if you don't have much knowledge of how computers work or of how to use basic electronics tools (VOM/DMM, soldering iron, EPROM burner, etc). I'm no whiz with this stuff and the little knowledge I have has come from asking questions and then buying books to find out what "Simple... Just check the voltage on the caps in the PS to make sure one of them isn't flaking out!" exactly means. 2.7 Where can I look before posting a dumb question? It might be a good idea to take a look at what's available in the Archive section of the ClassicCmp web site (see below). 2.8 Can I type obscenities about Microsoft in ALL CAPS!?! (Or, in general, be unreasonable with reagard to advocacy posts?) Check your anti-MS baggage at the door, please. For that matter, drop any posts that serve only to perpetuate the holy wars. 2.9 Can I post trophy lists? Ahem. Er... I'm not going to go to the extent of banning this practise but it is considered bad manners. Don't whine to me because I used to be guilty of this and curbed myself ;). Post lists of newly acquired goods if you actually need info on them, not just to show off. 2.10 Can I use obscene language in my posts? Yes. Although I'm sure many people would prefer you did not. A number of people have complained about this. I'm not going to outlaw swearing - now that I've informed you that it bothers people you can make your choice. [][][][][][][][][][] 3.1 How many subscribers are there? Around 180 and changing daily. 3.2 How many subscribers use machine x? Check the web site (see below). The Classic Computer Encyclopedia shows the number of machines registered by subscribers. 3.3 Is this list archived? Yes. The archives are available on the FTP site (see below) in the directory /pub/classiccmp/archive. The file name format indicates the month/year of the archive. Keep in mind that they are quite large. [][][][][][][][][][] 4.1 Does ClassicCmp have a web site? Yep. http://weber.u.washington.edu/bcw/ccl.html 4.2 How come the web site is so ugly? How come a PET is so ugly? Who cares as long as it works? 4.3 Does ClassicCmp have an FTP site? Yes. Anonymous FTP at 140.142.225.27. Look in /pub/classiccmp. There's not much there that's not available on the web site. I'm starting to load old drivers and system disks on occasion. There is an incoming directory which subscribers may use for ClassicCmp-related file transfers if needed. [][][][][][][][][][] 5.1 Where can I find classic computers? The best places seem to be thrift stores and swap meets. These are closely followed by pawn shops and mom and pop computer stores. The holy grails are electronics scrap yards - but they tend to be wary of individual pick-and-choosers. Oh yeah - garage sales! 5.2 How much is machine x worth? Precisely as much as you'll pay for it. Oh, you're selling it? Then, precisely as much as I'll pay for it. Seriously, no one prices these any more. I have an old Computer Blue Book that lists many classic computers but the prices are just ridiculous. Some machines (Apple Lisa's, old old Mini's, and unreleased prototypes) are starting down the road toward their original selling prices but it's unlikely that most will ever be worth more than the cost of their components. 5.3 Will 1000's of innocent machines be scrapped if I don't save them? Yes. This is the impetus behind every collector's tireless and selfless effort. Each machine we fail to save has it's gold parts mercilessly hacked off and sold (just like rhino horns - and look at the rhinos). The remainder is then sent to China to be made into bicycle spokes (you probably think I'm joking). Save a computer! Act now! Remind your SO of the rhino and cuter, fuzzier animals. It might work. In all seriousness - there are a large (and growing) number of so called "computer and electronics 'recyclers'" who take usable computers and recycle them into "reusable scrap". Small amounts of gold, silver, and platinum are extracted and the remainder of the material is generally just marketed to less wasteful countries. 5.4 I don't understand anything. Help! Don't worry - you're not the only one. Reading this list, old magazines, books and whatever else you can get your hands on is the first step. Once you reach a critical mass of knowledge thigs get a lot easier. I'm working on putting together a list of books and tools that a beginner should get his hands on. If you have suggestions, let me know. =============================================================================

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 tothwolf(a)concentric.net wrote: >I've never seen a lithium battery leak from old age. I have some sitting >around that were made in the mid '80s. I'll make a note to avoid this >particular brand if I can help it. Does the motor still turn? It may just >need to be cleaned up. It think the battery must have gassed as well. There is evidence of bad corrosion to zinc plated parts two to three inches from the battery. Aluminium and copper parts seem to be OK. The head stepper motor still works but is badly corroded on the outside. I will have to remove it to clean it properly and then re-align with a known good floppy. >> Before I get around to cleaning the boards I will need to figure out how to >> disconnect the display. The connecting cables are hardwired to the main >> board :-( >Are they soldered? Do they use flat plastic or standard ribbon cable? Standard twisted pair ribbon cable terminated with a 26 way 0.1in pitch IDC transition connector which is soldered to the board. I will probably cut the cable and remove the connector (one pin at a time) and replace with a standard IDC plug and socket. I can't understand why they didn't do this in the first place, there is enough room to fit both a plug and socket. Also, the display power cable has no connector fitted. BTW, I worked with a guy who accidentally recharged an AA sized Lithium battery. It left shrapnel in the wall and he is still slighty deaf in one ear. Chris It lef

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Trailing-edge compute farm seeks gainful employment

by Golemancd＠aol.com

sometimes i forget that computer folks r technical people. i come from the arts where the only thing that is needed is understanding. i am on stage sometimes and all the musicians do is just nod or look at each other and everyone understands them. will try and and be more precise. i guess here that is needed. joee

23 years, 11 months

13
15
0 0

Toshiba T3200SX Question

by CLeyson＠aol.com

On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 tothwolf(a)concentric.net wrote: >> Thanks for the advice. Found the battery, or rather what's left of it. >> Whatever it is that leaks or gasses out of Lithium batteries has eaten >> into most of the steelwork. I will have to replace the floppy drive >> and clean up metalwork. :-( >Are you sure it's a Lithium battery? I think most of these used NiCads, >and recharged them when they were powered. It's definitely Lithium (Eternacell B9632T 3.6V). I think the machine must have been on it's side when the battery leaked. There is a lot a corrosion damage to the FDD mounting hardware and the FDD head stepper motor. Anything zinc plated seems to have been badly corroded. The main board appears to be OK. Two crystal cans are badly corroded (zinc plated) and some of the solder joints in the area are a little "dull". Everything functions normally apart from the erratic FDD. FDD and HDD have non standard 26-way and 40-way connectors respectively. I've found a source for replacement FDD, ecdmagnetics.co.uk. >A number of the boards I repaired after the Houston floods had damage from >the Lithium coin cells around the holders. It was an dark orange-red color >and didn't seem to be highly alkaline or acidic. A thorough cleaning with >baking soda and a plastic brush seemed to get rid of this stuff. Before I get around to cleaning the boards I will need to figure out how to disconnect the display. The connecting cables are hardwired to the main board :-( Thanks for the advice Chris Leyson

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Strange and Possibly Wonderful Cable

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>The 2 things I can't really identify are a Panasonic Easa-Phone, >KX-T1225 which seems to be a speed-dialer of some sort. Grey box with 4 columns of buttons (something like 10 or 15 rows), and two RJ jacks at the top (RJ45 and RJ11?). If that is what you have, then it sounds like these old PBX speed dialers I had (probably not, but just in case, here goes)... IIRC mine said Panasonic Easa-Phone on them too. The ones I had, I think could only be plugged into the old Bell PBX they were used with. They didn't work on POTS lines. They had a 50 pin "Blue Ribbon" (WOOHOO... now that I know the name, I can use it correctly) to 5 RJ12 adaptor that was plugged into the 25 pair telco cable. It used an RJ12 to RJ45 adaptor cable to plug into the Telco adaptor. And then the RJ11 jack on the dialer was used to hook up to a speaker/mic box (a la Charlie's Angels desktop speaker phone box) I might still have one kicking around, but I don't think I have any manuals (don't recall ever having manuals). -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Lazer 128 Apple IIe Clone

by mythtech＠Mac.com

I know there are some Apple ][ clone people on this list, so I thought I would forward this on. I would love the Lazer 128, but can't afford to ship it, and Michigan is too far for me to drive to pick it up... maybe one you would want it: >Subject: [swap] Anyone insterested in Apple IIgs or Lazer 128. >Date: 1/4/02 7:57 PM >Received: 1/4/02 9:42 PM >From: Scott Simons, mrvchung(a)iserv.net >To: LEM Swap List, lem-swap(a)mail.maclaunch.com > >Just like the subject says. Anyone insterested in Apple IIgs or Lazer >128. I'm not all I have because they are in storage, but I will try to >get to them this weekend. I will then have a list of hardware that would >come with them. Local to 49418 or 49345 would be great. > >Scott >GR, MI Reply to him, not me, I don't know anything more than the above listing. -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Way OT: Frost Heaves (was RE: Crescent wrenches (was: Nomenclatur e (was: NEXT Color Printer find

by mhstein＠usa.net

Oooooohhh.. Groan... GOOD ONE; LOL! Makes all the OT crap worth while. -------------Original Message------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2002 10:31:54 -0700 From: "Feldman, Robert" <Robert_Feldman(a)jdedwards.com> Since ee cummings had been disparaged here, one could interpret the term as critical of a certain New England poet ;)

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Language and English

by vze2mnvr＠verizon.net

Dick, > Note that this item is NOT published on the mailing list, > since few people will be interested in its content. Note that this item IS published on the mailing list, because quite frankly, Charlotte, I don't give a damn. > see below, plz. Does this portray a laziness on your part that makes the reader have to hunt through a long message to see what you have to say? I had noticed this many times in the past, but previously refrained from mentioning it. I felt that, up to now, I would tolerate your style. > If your message is not germane to that topic, if it contains > no relevant information, or if it reflects no thought, it > should not be there. Can I also hold you to this, or do you succumb to a double standard? I recall so many messages from you, so many of which were off topic, that I thought only someone who had nothing better to do with their time, could have so much time to devote to a "mailing list". Is that better? > If you had attended all your classes, performed all the assigned > reading and writing, and taken the feedback from your teachers > seriously, you'd be able to express yourself precisely and > accurately using the tools the system provided. The fact that you > don't shows that you didn't. I attended enough classes to graduate in the top 1% out of a graduating class of over 700, taking the hardest level of classes available in the advanced placement program, all the while working nearly full time while I was in school. You obviously have me confused with someone else. > If I were you, I'd not start on blaming the educational system > for your own inability to communicate in the prevailing language > in our culture. > Those are things clearly absent from your "stream-of-consciousness" writing style, ... I'd sit down with you anytime and compare literary abilities and writing styles. I might not be world class, but you'll never out perform me when I'm on a project that, to me, is of greater importance than a "mailing list" message. > Did you ever study FORTRAN FORTRAN IV at Old Dominion University when I was 16, back in 1973. I was released from some of my Chemistry classes to simultaneously take that programming class. > not to mention oddly composed, incomprehensibly formatted, and > poorly spelled items, written in poor grammar and with incom- > prehensibly incorrect syntax. Again, you obviously must have me confused with Joee who posted the message that began this thread. > It's not a place for idle chatter, nor is it a place to prattle > on about senseless things, though that happens from time to time. Yes, you do this quite often. > English is a Germanic language, That was my mistake. I have now learned something new, or a misconception of mine has now been corrected. I thank you, it will not be forgotten. http://softrat.home.mindspring.com/germanic.html Now I will have to ponder why there are so many similarities between French and Italian words and their English counterparts, while to me the German language seems so much different. Ian Richard Erlacher wrote: > > Note that this item is NOT published on the mailing list, since few people > will be interested in its content. That is how personalized replies > normally are handled in this environment. > > see below, plz. > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ian Koller" <vze2mnvr(a)verizon.net> > To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>; "Richard Erlacher" <edick(a)idcomm.com> > Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 10:06 AM > Subject: Re: Language and English > > > > Hello Dick, > > > > I get the impression, which may not be correct, that you > > may be retired, because of the greater amount of time that > > you are able to devote to reading and responding to newsgroup > > messages. > > > Contrary to what you apparently believe, this is not a newsgroup. This is a > mailing list, and one that's privately maintained, funded, and hosted. I'd > suggest you find out what a newsgroup is and then proceed. I'd also > suggest you consider why this list exists. It's a medium for communicating > information and thoughts germane to a specific topic. If your message is > not germane to that topic, if it contains no relevant information, or if it > reflects no thought, it should not be there. > > > > If this is so, that would mean you encountered an educational > > system at a previous date in time that may have been more formal > > than that which I encountered. > > > Nope ... I have two kids in expensive, out-of-state colleges thouseands of > miles away, and that doesn't allow me to sit on my duff and read nonsense, > not to mention oddly composed, incomprehensibly formatted, and poorly > spelled items, written in poor grammar and with incomprehensibly incorrect > syntax. > > If I were you, I'd not start on blaming the educational system for your own > inability to communicate in the prevailing language in our culture. If you > had attended all your classes, performed all the assigned reading and > writing, and taken the feedback from your teachers seriously, you'd be able > to express yourself precisely and accurately using the tools the system > provided. The fact that you don't shows that you didn't. > > I was actively engaged in assisting as well as monitoring the education of > my children as they went through the public education system. From that > experience I learned that one can still get the level of education necessary > to express onesself appropriately and accurately in terms of the common > mathematics and science and with reference to the same historical and > literary background that has traditionally been taught. It is a different > process than it was when I went through it, which I did in grades 6 through > 12, and onward, probably all well before you were born. > > > > Question. Did you ever study Latin? Was Latin offered in your > > school system? It was not offered in mine, but since I recently > > have been in contact with people in France, Italy, Germany, and > > Spain, I believe having studied the root language of all the > > "romance" languages would have proven helpful now. I'll bet that > > when Latin no longer became a requirement in many educational > > programs, there was more than one that must have felt that > > that was a sign of deteriorating standards. > > > No, I didn't study Latin, since people don't use it any longer. I was > studying English, which, as everyone knows, is NOT a romance language. > > Did you ever study FORTRAN (before FTN77) or COBOL? At least those are > still used ... occasionally. > > Latin was taught in order to teach the concept of structure and rigor. > Those are things clearly absent from your "stream-of-consciousness" writing > style, which suggests that, if you did study Latin, you didn't attend all > the classes or perform all the assigned work. > > English is a Germanic language, like, German, which also is not a romance > language, and is my "second" language, German having been the first. That > may explain why my adherence to precise grammar, syntax, and orthography > leans somewhat to the pedantic. > > I'd suggest that you take the extra moment or two to think about what you > need to say in the ClassicCmp mailing list environment BEFORE you say it, in > which case you won't have to defend it afterwards, which really isn't > necessary anyway. I'd also suggest you take time to consider the effect of > what you do to format, punctuate, and capitalize your writing on other > people's ability to read what you transmit. The mailing list isn't a "Chat" > room. It's not a place for idle chatter, nor is it a place to prattle on > about senseless things, though that happens from time to time. > > Oddly formatted messages become nearly unreadable on displays formatted > differently from yours, and there's little you can do about it, since you've > no control over the display system some folks use. Many of the users of > "the list" are in other countries, which means they're using a language with > which they're not familiar. > > The use of colloqialisms, particularly the use of esoteric abbreviations, > can render your messages unintelligible. The reason most of us use > "standard" English is that (1) because it's familiar to us, we can quickly > and easily read it, extracting the content with reasonable reliability, and > (2) because people not so familiar with popular idioms will not have to > spend time deciphering them. It's difficult enough sifting through the > computerese jargon. > > > I take time form my busy day to tell you all this because you may have > something of value to contribute. Learning, first and foremost, requires > exposure to information that one doesn't already have. If there's little of > that, and if your messages are difficult to read, your messages will > ultimately end up in the "kill file" rather than on the list of things > people read. That will, of course be transparent to you, since the listbot > will still distribute the things you transmit. It will just become a waste > of bandwidth, however. > > > > Richard Erlacher wrote: > > > > > > Gee ... judging from the net unwillingness to use normal "adult" > > > punctuation, captitalization, etc, it does look as though you're doing > it > > > just to be "cute." I can't think of a single reason, otherwise, why one > > > would one do that? > > > > > > When I was in the 8th grade, one of the courses we were required to take > was > > > in typing. I've never gotten particularly good at it, but I did learn > that > > > a period at the end of a sentence is followed by two spaces, for > example. > > > In about the first grade, I learned that the first letter in a sentence > is > > > customarily capitalized. Why? I don't know, but it appears to be the > > > custom. As a consequence, the absence of these basic features makes > one's > > > writing harder to read. The odd-length lines of text don't help > > > readability, either. It's also customary to insert a blank line between > > > paragraphs. That, surely, is to enhance readability. If you want > people to > > > read your stuff, you've got to make it easy for them. > > > > > > If you insist on writing in a style reminiscent of E. E. Cummings > poetry, > > > you may find that your messages are read by readers of this forum with > about > > > the same frequency as E.E. Cummings' work, which might be a shame, in > case > > > you really do have something significant to contribute. or in case I'm > the > > > only one who doesn't read much Cummings. > > > > > > Dick > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: <Golemancd(a)aol.com> > > > To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> > > > Sent: Friday, January 04, 2002 6:13 AM > > > Subject: Re: Language and English > > > > > > > this may help > > > > i am 38 years old, so there is nothing about my typing style > > > > where i am trying to be cute. > > > > i collect any computer i can get my hands on. > > > > i am developing an operating system and a multimedia program > > > > to create movies. > > > > i use a newer computer to produce records. > > > > i am also working out, as i was talking about > > > > in the original thread that got off track, a distributed > > > > os to control robots and also a custom computer > > > > to do the same. > > > > > > > > i guess thats it. > > > > joee > > > > > > > > > > > >

23 years, 11 months

6
5
0 0

RFD: SPAM

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Jan 4, 17:43, Doc wrote: > On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Tothwolf wrote: > > > Well, about the only thing I've found that seems to deter spammers is > > being aggressive with them. Phone calls and faxes to companies they do > > business with and work for seem to work wonders. > > Well, it looks like the relationship between subscribing to this list > and the wave of spam was simply coincidental. I do use agressive means > to discourage repeat performances, but I'll admit the latest wave of > character-based asian crap has me stumped. I don't know for sure that it's the list, but I only use this email address for private mail and this list. I never use it in other obvious places that would attract spam, such as Usenet, yet I seem to get a little flurry of extra spam every so often, corresponding to shortly after I post something here. I'm convinced there's some relationship. Quite how to reconcile that with the fact that other people who post here never seem to have a problem, I don't know. I've learned to live with it. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Language and English

by mythtech＠Mac.com

>Unfortunately, todays student doesn't have the tools he needs to cope with a >foreign language if he hasn't been taught basic sentence structure(subject, >verb, predicate nominative, predicate adjective, etc.) , spelling, and >grammar. What the hell is THIS based on? Certainly not reality. Any sentence structure and grammar I learned in English class was actually COUNTER PRODUCTIVE to me when trying to learn French that uses a totally different sentence structure. I was constantly confused when attempting to form a sentence in French, as I tried to speak it in English structure. I would have to conclude, that LACK of basic sentence structure knowledge in English will actually HELP a student learn other languages (including English in the long run, as their brain becomes programmed to a more open thought process towards language). I base this on my own difficulties in learning a foreign language... and on the absolute EASE with which my brother's 3 kids have learned Spanish and English by growing up in a bilingual house hold... as well as my cousin who was speaking fluent Italian and English by 3 (well, as fluent as a 3 yr old speaks any language), since he too grew up in a bilingual household. Add to it that the most common foreign language errors made by people that have basic fluency in multiple languages, is incorrect sentence structure... because they easily mix up what order things should be in for a given language. Nope... in reality, I think the LESS you know of a given language when attempting to learn additional ones, the better chance you have of learning the 2nd (or more) language. And for that reason, I feel foreign languages should be started at the grade school level, and NOT wait until high school (yes, I think learning multiple languages is very important... and should be required schooling, at least in the USA. With a stronger concentration on English since it is the "accepted" language of the USA... in other countries, YMMV, and the "base" language would obviously be the accepted language of the area) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

23 years, 11 months

4
3
0 0

DECstation hardware guide

by LFessen106＠aol.com

In a message dated Fri, 4 Jan 2002 8:09:43 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw(a)mesanet.com> writes: > On Fri, 4 Jan 2002 Colorfulfag(a)aol.com wrote: > > > In a message dated Fri, 4 Jan 2002 7:42:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > > > > > On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > > > > > > Anyone got a handful o' ram for it? > > > > > > > > > > Doc > > > > > > > several handfulls, maybe even shovelfulls... > > > > > > > > > > > > 3100's take 12 simms max for 24 M total > > > > > > So what'cha want for it? I got a lot more toys than cash.... Some > > > RS/6000 MCA stuff, some Sparc sbus doohickeys and a mouse or 3, with > > > optical pads, lotsa late-ISA/early-PCI PC stuff. I got 4Mb parity > > > SIMMs, 72-pin, out the wazoo. Or a PowerBook 145B, sans battery, but > > > with charger brick. Or.... > > > > > > Doc > > > > I would love to get some ram for these as well.. I happen to have a > > *few* spare 3100'ds with no ram in them. > > > > -Linc. > > > > > > > How many do you need? > > shipping should be minimal > > Peter Wallace 12, 24, how many do you have / what's the cost / what are you willing to part with :-)

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

Language and English

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Hans Franke [mailto:Hans.Franke@mch20.sbs.de] > Thank you very much. So it seams there is a 'school' forcing this in > the US .... and I always wondered why some people add two spaces after > a period. There's even a very old 'text beautyfier' for DOS which > inserted this (for my eyes) stupid spaces. Well, I guess CC is no > only the hardwarae :=) I think that it's supposed to help the eye differentiate between space between words and space between sentences. 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, 11 months

3
2
0 0

DECstation hardware guide

by Colorfulfag＠aol.com

In a message dated Fri, 4 Jan 2002 7:42:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> writes: > On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Peter C. Wallace wrote: > > > > Anyone got a handful o' ram for it? > > > > > > Doc > > > several handfulls, maybe even shovelfulls... > > > > > > 3100's take 12 simms max for 24 M total > > So what'cha want for it? I got a lot more toys than cash.... Some > RS/6000 MCA stuff, some Sparc sbus doohickeys and a mouse or 3, with > optical pads, lotsa late-ISA/early-PCI PC stuff. I got 4Mb parity > SIMMs, 72-pin, out the wazoo. Or a PowerBook 145B, sans battery, but > with charger brick. Or.... > > Doc I would love to get some ram for these as well.. I happen to have a *few* spare 3100'ds with no ram in them. -Linc.

23 years, 11 months

2
1
0 0

Last call for MFM drives, floppies and misc

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

still have some goodies left. pay shipping and maybe enough for lunch at taco bell, and it can be yours! 1.2 and 360k 5.25 floppy drives. untested though. 6 processor cards for IBM PS/2 series that use em (8590,9590,9595,etc) functional 3 ST-251 hard drives. LLF complete 2 ST-225 hard drives. LLF complete 2 seagate type 2 3.5 MFM drives. 7 conner CP1080E 1G drives with funky connector. came from SUN array. Micropolis ESDI 70m Seagate ST-125 drive. LLF complete ?? MFM drive 5 heads 985 cyl 26 sec miniscribe 3650 MFM drive IBM 70M ESDI IBM XT 10 meg FH 5.25 drive Small IDE drives 80-120m come and get it. Getting married, so have to simplify some, but not a lot! -- Antique Computer Virtual Museum www.nothingtodo.org

23 years, 11 months

1
0
0 0

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb