>You wouldn't see change over night, but within a year (probably less)
>reports would come out of people finding and fixing numerous major bugs in
>all sorts of MS offerings, the first probably being the MS kernel. Bugs
>that MS staff either wouldn't acknowledge were there or probably didn't
>KNOW were there.
>
>And who the hell needs managers to code anyway? Pfah!
>
>Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
>Festival
>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>International Man of Intrigue and Danger
>http://www.vintage.org
>
Oh yeah... That would work out. Hundreds of freelance developers working
independently with no coordinated (managed) efforts.
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org said:
>>What would you suggest is the foremost reason for
>>"seeing" them?
>Well in my case, I find them pleasing to look at. I
>like seeing, and being able to touch, systems that I
>have heard about or know about, butI do not own.
That sounds very much like an individual seeking out
autographs in person from celebrities. I don't sense
anything particularly educational about that type of
experience with computers.
>>Would you suppose that there are other causes even
>>more significant than encouraging computers as a hobby
>>through museum displays?
>Of course, but that doesn't mean that there's anything
>wrong with it.
Neither did I say there was. I asked whether you might
suggest "other causes even more significant" than a personal
hobby.
>>>The Computer Museum History Center located at
>>>Moffett Airfield.
>>Is there a URL for it?
>http://www.computerhistory.org/
Thank you!
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
Hello Everyone,
I am not really sure what kinds or types of computers are represented
here. I have an Apple //e, an IBM Model 80 with Reply Powerboard, a
Unisys 486 server, an IBM XT, my main Pentium based system (socket7) and
various other PCs that need work. I sort of assume that many people
here have much larger computers and older computers than myself.... how
true is that?
I am looking to thin my collection..... and and to it :-) I may be
getting a PDP11/53 ..... probably my first "real" computer by some
standards :-)
I am looking to get rid of a Texas Instruments Professional Computer (TI
PC) immediately if anyone is interested. It is in great shape, but
unfortunately needs a proprietary keyboard, and I don't know what
exactly for a monitor. It also used a custom version of Microsoft DOS,
that I don't have.... it won't boot from a regular DOS boot disk. It
has two 360K full height floppy drives, and no HD.
It will cost only the price of shipping, plus maybe a little extra, if I
have to buy more bubble wrap, or a box, or whatever.
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
The last couple weeks have been a little slim but I got the following
items:
A Mac IIvi (needs work damaged in shipping) been looking for one of
these for a long time.
A Mac Plus with lots of extras donated by a nice older lady. Has a
trackball called Quad LYNX by Honeywell, a pretty odd looking item. A
fan unit called 'cool-it' also odd looking. And several other items,
books, software and mics came with it.
A Mac TAM, I know not 10 years yet but I'm looking for a couple items to
make it a complete unit. Does anyone have a original CD case and TV
Antenna that came with it ? I'm also looking for the original boxes
that the TAM and it's parts came in, this seller had tossed them long
ago.
Mac Performa 476 needs some work.
A U.K. Sinclair Microvision battery charger.
A Commodore model 1802 monitor.
Apple IIe joystick.
Several unique mousepads and coffee cups.
Radio Electronics MAR 1986 issue with a really good article on personal
robots and robotics. They compare 20 different robots, all the HERO
models, Maxx Steele, XR, Scorpion, and others. I also picked up 9 other
issues at 25 cents each.
Something called a HEARSAY 100 no other information written on the item.
Anyone know something about it ?.
Lots of Sega 16-Bit cartridges at 60 cents each.
Some IBM AIX 4.3 cd's for $2.80 each.
Hero 2000 disk manual.
AMDEK Color-I monitor works great.
A digital DECmate model VT278-AH and the rolling ROX02 8" drive unit,
cables and manuals.
I will stop as the list is too long and alot the items do not meet the
10 year rule.
Keep on computing
John Keys
Yes, bad practice to follow-up your own posts, but I should have mentioned
that Craig Dewick keeps an archive of Sun boot ROMs at
http://lios.apana.org.au/~cdewick/data/bootroms.html
which has saved my skin at least once. And on the subject of permissions,
I know that several companies have consented to letting the BBC site
provide images of software that hasn't been available for retail sale or as
official spares for years, and only one or two have ever objected. One of
the Sun sites that holds images had a note saying the owner had never got
permission, but if anyone from Sun objected he'd remove them (a site for
Motorola stuff had a similar notice) but the notice has gone so presumably
no-one ever did.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
FYI
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 16:55:21 -0600
From: James Thornton <james(a)unifiedmind.com>
To: doug(a)blinkenlights.com
Subject: Blinkenlights Posters
Your organization might find interesting this 24x36 inch blinkenlights
poster:
http://jamesthornton.com/blinkenlights.html
James Thornton
__________________________________________________________
MIT Web Curriculum Free Online (NexusWatch, October 2000)
--> http://www.jamesthornton.com/nexuswatch/20001018.html
On Mar 9, 11:40, Iggy Drougge wrote:
> Since I've got myself a pretty little EPROM burner, and seem to have a
lot of
> ROMs and ROM sockets around, I thought that it should be worthwhile to
create
> a central repository for all those ROMs which are so difficult to get
> nowadays. Is this a good idea, or has somebody already done it?
I agree, it's a very good idea, so good in fact, that it's been done :-)
http://www.armory.com/~rstevew/Public/Roms/
Which reminds me that I promised Steve to send my collection. There's also
a site for Acorn/BBC Micro/Archimedes ROMs at
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/bbc/rom/
and there's one for Commodore ROMs though I've misplaced the URL, and some
Exidy Sorcerer images at
http://www.trailingedge.com/exidy/
I started collecting ROM images about 15 years ago, when additional
"sideways ROM" software for BBC Micros was in vogue. For those who don't
know, that machine had sockets for four ROMs, typically filing systems
(disk, net, teletext, etc), languages (BASIC, Pascal, Forth, ...), or
utilities/applications (terminal emulators by the dozen, word processors,
spreadsheets, ...) which shared the same address space and were mapped in
and out by the O.S. Actually, the O.S. supported 16 sideways ROMs but you
needed extra hardware to fit that many. Anyway, at that time I repaired
lots of BBC machines, and a common(ish) problem was that people swapped
ROMs around when they had more ROMs than sockets, and inevitably broke a
pin or plugged one in backewards from time to time. Since in most cases
the only official way to replace one was to pay the full price for the
software, I (and others) made a habit of copying any ROMs we came across,
in order to be able to blow replacement EPROMs for a more cost-effective
repair later. I must have megabytes of the stuff here.
I kept this up when I started collecting other machines, and I have quite a
number of DEC ROM images (a very few of which are at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/) and some Exidy Sorcerer ones,
along with Apple, PET, Sirius, etc images. Even a couple from car engine
management systems! Sadly I didn't copy my original Exidy WP or DevPac
ROMs (anybody able to give me a copy?) and I've not always had the right
equipment to read some TTL PROMs, so my collection of images isn't complete
even with respect to the machines I own.
I also think it's worthwhile keeping images (or JEDEC files) for PALs where
possible, but I don't have a PAL programmer of my own so I've not got round
to doing that.
If anyone needs a ROM image to make a repair, and they think I might have
it, I'm happy to provide it.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I figured this would be of interest to people here, especially with a good
rundown of where to go and what to get. Timothy Stark has released his
TS10 Emulator which emulates a DEC KS-10 and will at least run TOPS-10
V7.03.
Emulator (in CVS):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ts10/
Software:
http://pdp-10.trailing-edge.com/
Here is some info from Timothy Stark on the tapes:
> Well, you need a listing of packages to install TOPS-10 v7.03 system on
> my TS10 emulator.
> BB-X138B-BB KS Bootable TOPS-10 v7.03 tape
> BB-X140B-SB TOPS-10 v7.03 Monitor sources
> BB-X128B-SB TOPS-10 v7.03 w/sources #1
> BB-FP63A-SB TOPS-10 v7.03 w/sources #2
> BB-FP64A-SB TOPS-10 v7.03 Tools w/sources
> BB-X130B-SB CUSP w/sources
> They are in .TAP files that you can get them from Tim's archive. I thank
> to Tim Shoppa for makeing .tap files on your archives.
> To boot TOPS-10 operating system. You need KS10 Bootable tape first
> (BB-X138B-BB) and type 'boot mta0:' to load and run BOOTM program.
> Then, type '/tm02' to execute it. It will load and run Monitor.
> Following instructions that Monitor ask you for. First time, use
> 'DESTROY' to initialize emulated RP06 disk file. When you answer
> 'Y' to start system up, you should see a dot prompt.
> I will write installation how to install other tapes into system.
TOPS-10 Operators Guide:
http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/
So far everyones experience is showing that you need an x86 box running
Linux to run this (and not every version of Linux). Work is going on to
get this running on other OS's right now.
Right now there is no installation guide for installing TOPS-10 v7.0x.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Please reply to original sender.
Reply-to: BVallone(a)APTEGRITY.com
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 16:11:51 -0500
From: "Vallone, Brett" <BVallone(a)APTEGRITY.com>
Subject: commodore 64 donation
Hi. I have a Commodore 64 set-up (ps, manuals, monitor, 1541 drive, Epson
printer, programming manual) in fine working condition that I have no use
for, and it would be sacrilegious to just throw it away. I am trying
desperately to avoid that.
Thanks.
Brett Vallone
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
>And why is everyone so afraid of giving the newbie a Mac?
The problem with the Mac is the perceived lack of support for them,
whether in places to purchase software/hardware or to which to take one if
it breaks for repair. What does the newbie see in television and print ads?
Intel, Gateway, Dell. Regardless of the merits of alternatives to these,
the first thing a newbie is going to do is ask for that Pentium 4 processor
that they see all the advertisements for. Apple has some cool ads being
aired, but they aren't being shown enough. The newbie won't think much
about a Mac because they haven't seen the ads, haven't seen them in the
stores, haven't seen the magazines from which to get information. In thier
mind, they won't consider themn because they see them as not being
accessible enough. It certainly hasn't helped that Apple lost it's foothold
in the education market. Apple needs to get thier ads out in peoples faces
for a start and then work on getting them sold in places other than CompUSA
and a handful of hardcore Apple dealers. It's basically the same problem
that the Amiga had most of it's exisitence.
Jeff
>My sister sees the cheap price, nice looks and uses one at school. So
>she's trading in her beat-up P75 for an iMac DV.
>
>The death of Apple is greatly exaggerated.
Suits me fine since my main machines, both at home and work, are Mac's.
For home users, they are basically the only alternative to the Intel/Windows
group and it'd be a dark day if that last option was to disappear.
Regardless of the industry, alternatives and options are a good thing.
Jeff
This is somewhere in the Phoenix/Tucson/Flagstaff area. :-)
- John
-----------------
Here is a fairly complete list of the old computer stuff that we have which is available to the highest bid.
We are a non-profit 501 (c)(3) educational institution, we have
just obtained a old elementary school which was being used by
the school district to store old things from every school, so
there is a large variety of things. We don’t know their condition
exactly, or whether they work. Sold in “as is” condition and you
pay the shipping (or come get them). We really need a roof -
would trade the whole lot to a roofer for a roof, or piece it
out to whom ever would love it.
**If you are in the USA your contribution would be tax-deductible!
If you have questions or comments call us at: (520) 432-4200
or e-mail fnweird(a)earthlink.net .
Thankx! Carmen & Bob Bryant
APPLE :
Apple IIc - (no Monitors; a white box with key board) [seven units]
Apple 51/4 external Floppy drives Model “Disk II” [eight units]
Apple (small) keybords [five]
Apple Unidisk [one]
Apple Numeric Key Pad IIe [one]
CompuAdd Computer [one]
Apple Monitor III [five]
Apple II Plus (no monitor) [one]
Apple Monitors [four]
Apple Graphics tablets large 16" x 16" Model A2M0029 [three]
COMMODORE
Comm. PET Model 4016 [one]
Comm. Single Floppy (5 1/4) Drive Model 1541 [two]
Comm. 4023 Printers [eleven]
Comm. 4022 Printer [two]
Comm. (5 1/4) floppy Extern. Drive Model 2031LP [five]
Comm. Super PET SP9000 (with monitor attached) [seven]
Comm PET Model 4032 (with monitor) [five]
Comm. CBM Model 8032 [two]
Comm. CBM Dual Floppy Model 8050 [two]
Comm. Dual Drive Floppy [one]
Comm. Single Drive Floppy (5 1/4) Model 2031 [one]
Comm. 64 Keyboard [four]
Comm. Cassette Plug-in “Datasette” [three]
Comm. Cassette “C2N” [one]
Comm. Tractor Printer Model 4022 [one[
Other :
Panasonic Printers KX-P1080i And KX - P1091 [one of each]
IBM Transcriber Model 172 [four]
Ventel Model 1200-1 [three]
Sanyo Memo Scriber (with cassette built in) [four]
Monitors:
IBM Mon. Model 8513001 [one]
Leading Edge Mon. Model DR-1240 [three]
also Leading Edge Keyboard [one]
CTX Color Monitor 14" Model CVP5468A [one]
Amdek Video-300 Mon. [one]
Citizen Mon. [one]
Zenith Data Systems Mon. Model ZVM 121 [one]
other keyboards:
Zenith Data Systems [four]
Wyse Key. [one]
unknown brands [three]
RADIO SHACK
TRS-80 Model III 48 K RAM (Monitor built in, with cassettee hook up in back) [seven]
TRS-80 Model 4 Microcomputer 64 K (monitor built in and cassette plug in) [seven]
** some of these have built in smoky glass filter attached to front
TRS-80 64K Keyboard [ten]
“ ” “ Mini Disk Drive [one]
TRS-80 DMP 200 Printer [one]
“ ” Video Display (1979) [one]
“ ” DWP-210 Daisy Wheel Printer [one]
Tandy 1000sx (Dual floppy, no mon.) [six]
“ ” Not working/parts gone [two]
Tandy 64 K Color Monitor [one]
Tandy Dot Matrix Printer DMP 430 [one]
Tandy Monitor VM-4 [one]
Tandy 190 Keyboard [one]
Other:
Heyer Model 93 Thermal Processor [one]
“Espirit” Computer by Hazeltine (PET look-alike) [one]
Viasyn Dual 5 1/4 Disk Drive [one]
BMC - 800 Model 20 (with monitor on stand) [two]
Epson computer Model Equality I+ (has single floppy ) with keyboard [one]
Viasyn Computer from Hayward CA. CompuPro System 8/16 Serial#068899 [one]
Racal-Milgo / OMXIMODE 96 [one]
IBM Type 4869 (made in Japan) 5 1/4 Floppy Drive [one]
Data Frame 20/Super Mac Technology (120v,60 Hz) box
with switch, male three prong plug; and two ports [one]
Power supply [one]
Texas Instruments Business System 300 Monitor [one]
3M Thermo Fax “The Secretary” Copier/Transper. Maker [two]
American Seating Masterboard for audio controls on large table w/two tapes/reels [one]
NCR Model 399 Console [one]
Zenthen & Aagaard (Copenhagen Denmark) Abdick 588 Stencil Maker
IBM Model 4226-320 Printer [one]
IBM 4226 Printer Ribbons [one]
ALSO-
Old DITTO and Mimeograph Machines and parts including paste ink pads [ten]
Type writers - Royal [newer X one; very old X five]
IBM Personal Wheelwriter2 [two]
IBM Quietwriter III Printer 5202 [one]
BMC electric [two]
IBM Selectric III [two]
Maxwell Pro/Indust. Videocassette U-Matic Still Frame Reproduction [twelve]
Texas Instruments Computer (large & Heavy ) Serial # 0550001424 [one]
Wollensak triple tape cassette duplicator Model 2772 [one]
Sony U-matic Model VO-2600 [one]
Tandy 1000 Personal Computer Keyboard [seven]
BOOKS
IBM Personal Computer Hardware Reference Library 3.0 BASIC
(Hard bound ringed binder in fiberboard case, wrapped, like new [twelve]
IBM Personal Computer Guide To Operations with floppy [twelve]
Tandy 1000sx Manual excellent condition [one]
Apple IIc “A Touch of Applesoft Basic” [five]
Apple “Getting Started With Your Apple II GS [fifteen]
Apple Color RGB Monitor Owners Manual (IIgs) [eight]
Apple 3.5 Drive Owner Guide [three]
Apple II GS Owner Reference [eight]
Appel Image Writer II Owner Manual [one]
Apple II GS System Drive Users Guide [one]
Apple II GS Owner Manual(in wrapper)
>>Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as anyone else, but
fair dues
>>to them for trying to bring computers to the masses. In my opinion
they're
>>going about it in totally the wrong way though; don't throw
together a lot
>>of buggy, bloated software the looks nice and on the surface is
easy to use
>>- instead build a robust, logical product and provide good
documentation on
>>how to use it. Expect your users to have to actually *learn*
something in
>>order to harness its potential.
>
>Why does everyone spread this blatant lie? Microsoft have never
done anything
>to make computers easier! They were among the last to provide a
functioning
>GUI!
> What have MS ever done to make computers easier? Mimic Apple et
al?
When you put it like that, yes, I suppose. They just have better marketing
tactics (note I'm not saying I *like* those tactics!)
>Following a general trend has never been my definition of actively
working or
>contributing towards a goal.
Ahh, it's an embraced and extended following though ;-)
Thing is, for the average person who is new to computers (and maybe a little
wary of them) and doesn't want to actually learn anything about the tools
they're using, give them a bad system - like Windows - and a good one, like
Linux say, and they're going to get along easier with the windows box and
achieve their goal (whatever it may be) sooner. They won't necessarily have
the best solution (likely won't in fact) but they will have something that
satisfies them to the extent of their knowledge - which for most people is
good enough it seems.
Microsoft didn't have the vision or the initiative, no, but sadly they're
the company who is dominant in the current market. I really do hope that
changes (not least because I really don't get along with the idea of one
faceless entity controlling everything - don't even get me started on the UK
and Europe! :-P
cheers
Jules
From: Chad Fernandez <fernande(a)internet1.net>
>
>They probably don't use disks. I know that older jets, like the F4
>Phantom... not sure about newer ones, used core memory.
The A6 intruders during the Veitnam era were serial based on
a fixed disk. It was part of the nav and targeting system and
not fly by wire.
Allison
Can someone E-mail me a Teledisk copy of the Diagnotics/Setup disk for
the IBM XT/286? The regular AT version will probably also work. I need it
ASAP.
Thanks,
Joe
I have a nearly new Pied Piper - may be in original box.
1.2Mbyte FDD.
It has been a long time since I have seen it in the warehouse (we
retired from the computer business after over 20 years - started in
1977)
Anyone willing to make me an offer on this one?
timdeaton(a)yahoo.com
Ewww, SCSI drives on a BI machine? Only stuff I use SCSI in is MicroVAXen
and lil bitty Alpha's... DSSI or SI is all I'd want for a BI machine...
Will J
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Cars and planes are computers
My cousin informs me that 60% of all non mechanical repairs on cars are
computer related. The car comes in and some gadget will not work, they try
swapping parts until it works or if unable to solve it swap the car's
computer. They don't have the expensive equipment that will simulate each
device and then test the circuit. The manufacturer's test the returned
parts and 40% turn out to be OK. Maybe that's why there are no more
"service stations" any more. I seem to remember that some legislator wanted
anybody who claimed to be a "service station" to offer service.
I know McDonnell-Douglas was testing the same thing for fighter planes.
Most of the time they swap boards. They have developed test benches that
test the boards. I remember that computers were swapped in the planes and
then off you go. How would you survive a disk crash? It's interesting that
were haven't yet heard of any computer virus problems with cars and planes.
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
From: Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com>
>> The two largest open source projects, Linux and Mozilla, both total
maybe
>>3-4 million lines of code. It's estimated that there are anywhere from
5 to
>>50 million lines of code in Windows.
>
>The way to fix windows ISN"T to play with the existing code, its to
"maybe"
>document the user interface and program API, then start from the best
>kernal model you can find for expected hardware and build on that. Wait
a
>minute, thats linux, never mind.
Having used of Caldara openlinux 2.3 I can sy they did a good job
getting closer to W9x in most ways bad.
W9x no matter what version and that includes WinME all suffer from
the same two basic problems in my book. The kernal is not well protected
>from buggy apps and the file system is not protected from buggy apps
crashing the kernal. The two things that NT and most of the unix clones
seem to have fairly correct.
Allison
>I know McDonnell-Douglas was testing the same thing for fighter planes.
>Most of the time they swap boards. They have developed test benches that
>test the boards. I remember that computers were swapped in the planes and
>then off you go. How would you survive a disk crash? It's interesting
>that were haven't yet heard of any computer virus problems with cars and
>planes.
It's a matter of economics. It's a LOT cheaper to swap the boards in the
field than to troubleshoot them. Just send the boards to DEPO where they are
better equiped (skills and tools) to do component level repair.
Steve
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
I had a fun fleamarket run last weekend and for $17 total... First picked
up an unbuilt and complete Sinclair Black Watch Kit...
It was difficult retaining the drool while fishing out the $2... It's a
pretty little kit
http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/d/o/dogas/DW2.jpghttp://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/d/o/dogas/DW1.jpg (entire kit)
here's someone's jpg of the nonkit version that I found on the net
http://members.spree.com/mrcalc/photos/sinclair.jpg
There's a Sinclair ic (kx8508 Sinclair) that's got a datecode of '75 but I
dont remember ever seeing the watch advertised on this side-o-the-pond... I
guess kit's safe as long as my other LED holds out. ;)
Then I found a Video Toaster 4000 3.0/40 Amiga 2000 with a GVP scsi/hd, and
a few DPS (Digital Processing Systems) boards in it. It boots fine into
workbench and into toaster but I haven't hooked up any video sources to it
yet. It's wonderful to finally have Workbench on a harddisk.
I haven't found much on the DPS cards yet though... I useta use a DPS PAR
board in a pc with 3dstudio but I'm guessing these are tbc video
capture/player boards. Does anyone have info on the:
1. DPS, 743-860, PTF Rev 2
2. DPS-560, 743-800 WFV Rev 3
Thanks
- Mike
>Most of the time, all that's wrong with these is the lithium battery.
The
>package is actually a standard DIP IC package with some more epoxy on
top
>containing the batteries and the crystal (if appropriate).
>
>I've not tried it myself, but I am told you can cut away the top part of
>the device using (e.g.) a Dremel tool, remove the old batteries and put
a
>couple of cheap lithium cells in.
I've done it on dallas chips. I walk them to the machine shop and sand
off the
plastic slowly till I hit metal (battery). You can use a magnet to
locate the
battery.
Allison
> > Oh yeah... That would work out. Hundreds of freelance developers working
>independently with no coordinated (managed) efforts.
>
>Yeah, you're right. What was I thinking?
>
>Hey, Steve, ever heard of Linux?
>
>Duh.
>
>Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Hey Sellam, even heard of any Linux billionaires?
Duh.
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
On 2001-03-07 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said:
>Technology improved (?) and processors could clock faster.
>Therefore many of the tricks were no longer necessary, and fell out
>of use.
The 'new technology' allowed for faster speed *and* faster profits at
the expense of finer quality programming. The hallmark of fine
programming should be stability, efficiency and speed -- IN THAT ORDER.
The "tricks" should have been regarded as tried and true *techniques*
to be applied carefully to future programming practices. Unfortunately,
greed has prevailed up until now, and present computer technology is
in an inspirational, qualitative slump.
>The sort of education I was thinking about was now 'how computers
>really work'. Much of how a processor works, at least in general
>terms, is the same for a PDP11 or a PC. The difference is that the
>former is documented and understandable.
The folks responsible for what has happened with computer "under-
development" -- and those with the requisite resources capable of
turning around the poor quality of computer/software development --
are certainly well aware of what could be done with better computer
education and design. Their first and immediate concern for now
is business survival. This is where the focus of their energy lies.
They tell the public who might complain that they're just getting
what they've been demanding: more, sooner and faster; do so or die.
Should we give a drug addict more drugs to solve his problem? No!
The drugs should be banished, despite the painful withdrawal symptoms,
and the addict's life must be restructured.
The same fate lies before the computer industry. Until the 'addiction'
of speed is cured, more insanity and industrial degradation will
continue.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
I picked up a Mac SE30 that someone was chucking. It has no keyboard or
mouse, but powers up and goes into MacOS. I'd like to find a keyboard and
mouse for this.
Also, when it booted, it seems to have some sort of password protection on
it. A small dialogue box came up that said "Please enter password for
Macinto". I don't know if the utility was called "Macinto", but it looks
like perhaps the title bar wasn't big enough to fully display "Macintosh".
At the very least, I'd like to be able to run OpenBSD on it...
I just inherited a new toy. An HP 735 192MB ram (2) 1GB drives and 20 in
monitor. I was all ready to play, but an important component is missing.
Does anyone know where I can get a keyboard for this beast without giving up
my first born. I really like him. Or a cheap PS/2 to HP-HIL adapter would
be even better.
Arnie
This is a test of third-party mail relay, generated by the
"rlytest" <URL: http://www.unicom.com/sw/#rlytest> utility.
Target host = www.dot.ca.gov
Test performed by <dann(a)tris002.dot.ca.gov>
A well-configured mail server should NOT relay third-party email.
Otherwise, the server is subject to attack and hijack by Internet
vandals and spammers.
For information on how to secure a mail server against third-party
relay, visit <URL: http://maps.vix.com/tsi/>.
>
> > And who the hell needs managers to code anyway? Pfah!
>
> You've never had to maintain code, have you?
>
> -spc (Let me tell you about hacker code ... it ain't pretty ... )
>
OK since MS is not likely to hand over their code. let's look at another
possibility that's not all that remote. Let's assume the LINUX overcomes
it's greatest weakness (consumer acceptance) and gets the lions share in the
OS market. In that situation who are the winners and who are the loosers?
Who would win and why?
Who would loose and why?
Would you be one of the winners or one of the loosers?
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>
> > And who the hell needs managers to code anyway? Pfah!
>
> You've never had to maintain code, have you?
>
> -spc (Let me tell you about hacker code ... it ain't pretty ... )
>
OK since MS is not likely to hand over their code. let's look at another
possibility that's not all that remote. Let's assume the LINUX overcomes
it's greatest weakness (consumer acceptance) and gets the lions share in the
OS market. In that situation who are the winners and who are the loosers?
Who would win and why?
Who would loose and why?
Would you be one of the winners or one of the loosers?
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
On 2001-03-04 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Jeffrey S. Sharp> said:
Hi, Jeffrey --
If you are new to the list, that makes two of us. ;-)
>I don't know everyone's perspective on this issue, and it would be
>good to hear some alternate viewpoints. Basically, I am against
>people giving classic computers in working condition to museums.
>Instead, I believe that they should donate or sell their machines
>to enthusiasts who will play with them and learn things.
Let me add my opinion to your comments.
Perhaps there's a proper place for museums and a place for learning.
Museums should ideally have the at least a few of the best preserved
specimens of chosen categories, especially the rarer categories, in
both working and nonworking condition: working order for preservation;
nonworking for learning. Of course, any of us should be allowed to
have private collections for learning or whatever else -- but not the
liberty to deliberately destroy history that could be beneficial to
mankind.
We should remember, too, that there's another category of classic
computer usage, and that's the use of many older systems for
charitable purposes, of which there is certainly an abundance.
Instead of mindlessly destroying "obsolete" machines, in many cases,
older machines still have plenty of serviceable life left in them
for those who may not be able to easily afford anything "modern",
even if only for the purpose of learning.
With respect to learning from classic machines, I believe that it's
vital for us to consider what has lasted and what is still useful
with "old technology". My own handful of classic computers consists
of my first computer, a Sharp PC 4502 portable, an IBM PC/XT, an
IBM PC/AT, an IBM PS/1, and a Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100,
most of which I consider to be keystone system designs leading to
the present day mass production of Personal Computers. In examining
the "lessons" of old computers, I think it's important to distinguish
between what's necessary and what's not, what's wasteful and what's not.
I consider -- even as you do -- that it's particularly important to
preserve many computers for learning purposes, and not just for
glass cases. The same is true for old software. My hope is that,
if old hardware and software is preserved with the proper respect
and care it deserves, more of the same could one day be duplicated
-- at least with the most important principles that they've taught us.
So far, I think the surface of this important process has only just
begun to be scratched.
Yes, my old machines are all in working condition, and, for the most
part, in original condition. I use them, learn from them, and cherish
them dearly.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
>This is like buying a fridge, taking it home, and having the light globe
>continually blow, calling the manufacturer, and being told that "This is a
>common problem, we charge $25 for solutions, can I have your credit card
>number please?"
OK.. While the frige model is simplistic we can still draw some meaningful
analogies.
First let's look at the reasons that you might buy a particular model of
refrigerator. You probably bought it based on feature set, maintainability,
usability, performance, product familiarity, name brand recognition, because
it's company policy, just to name a few... There's certainly other reasons
but, you get the idea.
So dazzled by all the hype, you buy the WIN model and haul that sucker home.
Now this particular fridge is real popular with vendors and they bombard you
with all kinda things that you can add to make it bigger, better, faster,
larger capacity, more ice, and so on. As a matter of fact, there are
thousands of vendors and hundreds of thousands of different components for
your fridge and you can install them yourself in billions of different
combinations. There are very few restrictions to what you can install. You
don't need any special training, no certification, no tools, in most cases
you don't even need experience. Hey... You can install 4 different ice
makers from 4 different competitors and have them all work at the same time.
In fact there are 1700 different light bulbs that you can get for this
model.
So one day you go to the fridge to get a cold beer and notice the bulb is
not working... Damn defective refrigerator!
Who you gonna call?
What resonse would you expect under those conditions?
If I made the refrigerator, I'd tell you to put it back the way it was when
you got it and see if that fixes the problem. Which is exactly what most PC
manufactures do.
You want me to troubleshoot your fridge under these circumstances... Credit
card please :-)
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>('The DIR command
>on this computer doesn't print a directory, it's Delete I-nodes
>Recursively and will wipe the entire filesystem' would tell me NOT to
>type DIR under any circumstances!)
Are there any commands like that? That is, are there any exceedingly
mundane commands on some systems that have exceedingly jeopardous results
on other systems?
I used to define a lot of commands in DCL in my startup file that I commonly
used and named them with weird names. I have accidentally typed the same
command on a PC and ended up with unexpected results. After 5-10 years of
using the command on the VAX I could barely remember the actual DCL. I also
used nested command procedures.
$GETMRI
$DMPMRI
$COMPRESSMRI
$DECOMPRESSMRI
$CLEAN
My clean command deleted all files in the directory and removed any
subdirectories. I once typed clean when I was in one of my source code
directories. Lots of fast CTRL-C and slamming of keys trying to abort it.
We were all logged in with lots of privileges which can be a problem.
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
Joe,
That would be great. Just email me and let me know the details.
Arnie
arnoldlinder(a)yahoo.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe [mailto:rigdonj@intellistar.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 11:03 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: HP-HIL keyboard
Arnie,
I don't thing there is such a thing as a PS-2 to HP-HIL adapter. But
I'll send you a keyboard and mouse for the cost of postage.
Joe
At 08:47 AM 3/7/01 -0500, you wrote:
>I just inherited a new toy. An HP 735 192MB ram (2) 1GB drives and 20 in
>monitor. I was all ready to play, but an important component is missing.
>Does anyone know where I can get a keyboard for this beast without giving
up
>my first born. I really like him. Or a cheap PS/2 to HP-HIL adapter would
>be even better.
>
>Arnie
>
has anyone got a spare lk401? The spacebar on mine is acting up, the return
spring doesn't work properly, and I'll get random spaces in the middle of
typing. Very annoying.
In a message dated 3/7/01 9:16:44 PM Central Standard Time,
rigdonj(a)intellistar.net writes:
<< Gene,
I'm not sure that I know what a L40SX is. Is that the laptop that IBM
used to make? If so I know where there's one at and I think it has docs
with it. If that's the same machine then I may be able to try out this one
and/or see what the docs say. >>
it's basically a pre-thinkpad thinkpad. It's tan with a monochrome display
and floppy drive on the right side. model type 8543 i think.
DB Young Team OS/2
antique computer collection, hot rod pinto, and more at:
http://www.nothingtodo.org
In a message dated 3/8/01 8:44:50 AM Central Standard Time,
rigdonj(a)intellistar.net writes:
<< After I got the XT/286 CMOS setup I tried to read the hard drive but it
turns out that the drive is bad. RATS! I was hoping to find software for
the STAG EPROM programmers still on it. That's the only reason that I
picked the machine up. Well, I'll save the floppy drives out of it and
pitch the rest of it. >>
are you sure the hard drive is bad? I've a 3270pc that posts a 1701 error but
if I let the machine idle for a short time until the hard drive warms up, it
then works fine. Or if you have a copy of spinrite, let that run on it.
That's saved a drive for me before.
Old computers, and strange other sights at:
www.nothingtodo.org
OK, my 2 cents on this one...
> As someone else here stated, perhaps people who lack the intellect
to
> be able use some random flavor of UNIX, VMS, etc. shouldn't be
using
> computers. That said, I believe that most computers users are not
> incapable of using *NIX, etc.; they're not lacking intellegence,
> they're just naieve when it comes to computers, and they would
> probably like *NIX, etc. once they began using it.
Absolutely. The problem is that today's culture is such that people expect
to just dive right in and be able to do something without actually knowing
anything about what it is they're doing. You don't get into a car, having
never driven in your life before, and head straight out onto the motorway.
Same as you wouldn't expect to be able to run a power station without
reading a few manuals first!
Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as anyone else, but fair dues
to them for trying to bring computers to the masses. In my opinion they're
going about it in totally the wrong way though; don't throw together a lot
of buggy, bloated software the looks nice and on the surface is easy to use
- instead build a robust, logical product and provide good documentation on
how to use it. Expect your users to have to actually *learn* something in
order to harness its potential.
>> substance every time. If it weren't for them, Detroit would have
>> been a wasteland decades ago. They're what the US economy
survives
>> on.
>
> Well designed cars, now turned "classic," are, like classic
computers,
> vanishing.
>
> Regarding Detroit: After renting a 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis for
> nearly two months, I will say that it's not as nice a car as my
1972
> Mercury Montego MX Broughm - despite many nice modern features
like
> dome lights that dim as they go out, however, it's still a much
nicer
> car than any of the little Japanese cars and most other imports
that
> I've seen.
Yep. My Triumph turns 30 next year, and it's so much nicer than any modern
car. A car is there to get you from A to B in a reasonable amount of time
and comfort - and I'll add that it should look nice, but it would still do
its job even if it didn't. You don't need lights that fade rather than just
go out, electrically adjustable mirrors, heated windscreen washer jets and
all the other garbage that people pile into new vehicles these days.
I'd also argue that you don't need airbags and side impact bars and all the
rest of it - I mean, human beings are not immortal (and never will be) and
if they're going to chuck themselves around the country at high speed then
what do they expect!?
It's the same with the fridge example that someone else came up with. A
fridge is there to keep cool food; that's its job and it doesn't need to do
anything else.
I suppose given peoples' desire for the latest-and-greatest thing which is
more feature-packed than ever before - and better than what their next door
neighbour has - one of two things will happen:
a) people will gradually see sense and start to buy products according to
how functional they are.*
b) people will continue to buy according to unnecessary features and
marketing hype.
I don't think case a) is too likely, at least not for many years - but maybe
as far as the computer inductry is concerned we're seeing the start of that
with the recent downturn in .com investment? And if case b) holds out then
there's nothing we can do to change things anyway - just let it take its
course and stop worrying about it! :-)
* I'm not saying we should all buy things which look like big, dull, grey
boxes :) But a product can be functional as well as reliable,
cost-effective, pleasing on the eye etc. - current trend seems to be to
ignore function over all the other things. I believe that's only a recent
thing (last hundred years or so) that's come about with increase in global
communication and wider markets - presumably because if company X can make a
product that looks nicer than company Y's offering - regardless of how well
it performs - they will typically make more money and therefore survive.
Hopefully it'll come round full circle eventually and people will start
taking some pride in the things that they produce again.
Anyway, enough off-topicness for one day... and it was probably way more
than a 2 cents opinion. And I probably made no sense either. :-)
cheers
Jules
On March 7, Billy D'Augustine wrote:
> If it wasn't Microsoft, it would be someone else, and we'd be bashing on
> them right now.
*Some people* would be bashing on them right now. But I think most of
us would bash only if the Someone Else in question had the
commonly-criticized attributes of microsoft:
- truly *bad* (though commonly used) products
- wholly, blatantly dishonest marketing
- near-criminal business practices
-Dave McGuire
Billy, where are you? I have a spare LK401 but live in the Netherlands.
Wim
----------
> From: Billy D'Augustine <azog(a)azog.org>
> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: off topic: lk401
> Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 3:30 PM
>
> has anyone got a spare lk401? The spacebar on mine is acting up, the
return
> spring doesn't work properly, and I'll get random spaces in the middle of
> typing. Very annoying.
>
>
From: Peter Joules <peter(a)joules.org>
>These mail viruses are one good reason for reading mail using pine on my
>Linux box, by telnet from the Windoze machine ;-)
That works but it's still PC. Run Vaxmail on a 3100 or maybe a solid 730
then you can even disect the virus as it cant even run there... ;)
Allison
Well, I've said that I haven't gotten myself into this hobby to make a profit,
but it is time for a small contradiction.
I have found a person in my area that has 7 VAXen he's going to scrap if he
can't move them out. Now, I'm not particularly interested in VAXen, but I am
currently trying to raise money to put together a PDP-11 system or two. I need
to know if these machines' value (in terms of power to acquire the PDP-11 parts
that I want, either by money or direct trade) is greater than the cost of the
trip to get them.
The VAXen:
VAX 6000-310
VAX 6000-410
VAX 6000-420 (2 of them)
VAX 6000-510 (2 of them)
VAX 7000-610 (cpu cards removed)
Cost of trip: $500
The owner claims they were used by NASA, then stored in a climate-controlled
room, then given to him. He says they look brand new.
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)ou.edu
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft advertisement
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
>> -Disable VBS scripting, that stops a raft of buggies right there.
>> - disable open after preview for 5sec .
>> - disable auto display of pictures
>> - enable empty deleted folder on close (delete really does then).
>> Thats just a few of the simpler things that really do help.
> - and default to TEXT for e-mail
>
>If those were the DEFAULTS, what percentage of the problems would be
>solved, and how much of the anti-MICROS~1 hostility would be eliminated?
Some. Then again the real garbage like AOL and all those really inane
web pages that usse activeX and comX controls.
Allison
Never mind, the guy called me and said he had already gotten rid of the VAXen.
Grrr!
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)ou.edu
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft advertisement
"Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer" - Adolf Hitler
> > Why fault Microsoft for making products that are popular and common?
>Their products' popularity and commonness is largely *not* a result of the
>product's quality.
Well... I happen to be a quality engineer and I strongly disagree with your
assertion that MS does not produce quality software. So in order to get this
discussion on an intellectual tract, I'd be curious as to your definition of
software quality, and the specific attributes that define it?
>(2) Their products are designed for idiots. Computers are tools for smart
>people. Should we let evolution gradually filter out stupid people from
>the species, or should we allow them to be our least common denominator,
>thereby limiting the power of the species as a whole?
So... I'm an idiot because I use MS products?
I also take exception to your assertion that computers are for "smart"
people. Let's see... Not so many years ago, the consensus was that freedom
was only for white people, that voting was only for men, and [fill in the
blank with your favorite excluded activity / group].
There was also a time where you had to be a mechanic in order to drive
because the cars were unrelyable and difficult to maintain. Should we
exclude every one from driving that can't rebuild an engine or tear down a
transmission. Let's see... Like the rest of us, you probably watch TV on
occassion. Is there anyone on this list (Tony excluded) that could build one
>from scratch? Does that mean no-one else should be allowed to watch TV?
Let's see... If you can't cook, you shouldn't be allowed to eat... If you
can't sew, you shouldn't be allowed to wear clothes... If you can't swim,
you shuldn't be allowed to bathe...
>(3) Their software engineers have given far too much design control to
>their marketing droids.
Bull Shit... Without marketing, WINDOWS would have a f***ing command line
interface and only the eliteist "smart" people (like yourself) would be
entitled to use it. Marketing is just as important to software engineering
as developers are.
Steve Robertson
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
From: Jeffrey S. Sharp <jss(a)ou.edu>
> > > Why fault Microsoft for making products that are popular and
> > > common?
> >
>(0) They are too big.
Common fault of many PC based programs these days.
>(1) They are too slow.
See (0). Add that their complexity has made them larger and therefor
harder to optimize (should they even bother).
>(2) They are too buggy.
I find that they are often less buggy than their competitors running on
the same platform.
>(3) They are too ustable.
See (2), add complexity complicates testing for all possible cases.
There is always a pathological case that was untested.
>(4) They don't use open standards.
Agreed, they are to busy trying to make their's unique.
>(5) They claim to use open standards, but instead use 'embraced and
extended'
(read: raped) ones that are 'strategically documented'.
Redundant, see (4).
>(7) They assume you are an idiot.
It industry wide now, I'm not certain it started with them.
>(8) They have inadequate documentation.
See (7).
>(9) WTF is up with their versioning? JEEZ!
Common problem. I suspect they have competing factions, winner
gets all.
> > (2) Their products are designed for idiots.
>
My $0.02... They {Apple and others included} made computers easier to
use without the need for a CS degree. Yes, that means some or even
many things are dumb to the point of sillyness remember the initial goal.
> So... I'm an idiot because I use MS products?
No. It's a commodoity product that has advantages, limiations and flaws
use it with understanding and care.
> > Computers are tools for smart people. Should we let evolution
> > gradually filter out stupid people from the species, or should
> > we allow them to be our least common denominator, thereby
> > limiting the power of the species as a whole?
They can be. They are also appliances, in many ways no different from
the Microwave or car.
> Let's see... Like the rest of us, you probably watch TV on
> occassion. Is there anyone on this list (Tony excluded) that could
> build one from scratch?
Yes, and specious too. Once upon a time (about 50 years ago) you could
spend a lot of money (months pay) and buy a TV or you could buy it as
a kit (pre heithkit!). In a time log ago I built the Altair because
buying
a commercial product was manytimes more costly. I did that because
I could and had a desire. Not everyone could, though they wanted and
needed to tool I built, hence Apple and TRS80.
Same story for the early drivers, pilots and other on the leading edge
or a useful technology.
>presence of marketroids --
They exist get used to it. Sometimes... they may present a problem
that an engineer can really feel challenged to meet. Other times they
try to satisfy a preceived need. Marketing without direction is no
different
than engineering without direction in that both cases expend resources
to no significant gain. In the end they are or should be part of a team.
I have no love for Micros~1. However I do use their product and within
it's (DOS, W3.1, W9x, WinNT, W2k) limits it works ok for business. It's
adaquate. Intelligently applied it does do real work with acceptable
relibility with users that do not care how or why it works when their
job is accounting, selling or managing stock. To many computers are
just another tool.
Allison
>
>The following came to us at work, and I wanted to pass on the info:
>
>STRICOM has received official notification of a new virus in the wild called
>the Naked Wife Virus.
>
>This virus is sent by email message with the subject of the "Naked Wife"
or
>"FW: Naked Wife" with text of "My wife never looked like that! ;) ".
>There is an infected attachment named "nakedwife.exe". When opened, this
>virus resends itself to other recipients in address book. This virus also
>affects all .dll, .exe, .com, and .bitmaps files. Do not open this
email
>or the attachment if received.
>
>Information has not yet been received as to whether Norton or McAfee will
>detect and clean this virus.
>
>Microsoft Outlook email systems are the primary target of this virus and we
>do not believe Lotus Notes is affected, but as a precautionary measure, we
>are asking that if you receive an email at work or at home meeting the above
>criteria, please delete them immediately.
>
On March 7, Chad Fernandez wrote:
> I wish I had a big Vax.
Feel like renting a truck and driving to Maryland? I'm almost in
the mood to send my 8700 on to a better home.
-Dave McGuire
There are a number of different variants but, that sounds a lot like my /36.
Basically, the entire system is one box (box ass tower) with integral HDs,
I/O, tape drive (optional), and 8" floppy drive. I think most of the HDs are
in the 60-90MB range.
All external devices including the console are connected through a twinax
cable. IIRC, mine has several (4) coax connectors on the rear panel. I don't
recall the terminal type but, I think they are common IBM twinax terminals.
I see the terminals on Ebay fairly often. As I recall, they go pretty cheap.
Since the HDs are internal and the systems are not likely to be under
maintenance, it's not too difficult to find a 36 with the OS still
installed. The one I collected came with all the original install disks so
passwords weren't an issue. The lack of an available OS has certainly
dissuaded me from bothering with any 400 stuff.
I messed around with the box when I first got it but, it really didn't seem
all that interesting so, I stuck it in the garage.
I'm sure a number of other collectors s on this list also have a /36?
Steve Robertson
>From: Chad Fernandez <fernande(a)internet1.net>
>Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>Subject: IBM System 36
>Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 22:15:17 -0500
>
>Last time I went to the surplus electronic shop that I visit. I saw
>what was labeled as being a System 36. It was basically a really over
>grown full tower, with a few other peripherals. Did I see the whole
>unit, or just a small part? Would this be something I could do
>something with? Does any freeware exist? How about the OS.... is it
>around, and attainable? What kind of processing horsepower does it
>have?
>
>I didn't really look at it, while I was there. I knew they are the
>ancestor to the AS400, and the AS400 is sort of a white elephant for the
>hobbyist.
>
>Chad Fernandez
>Michigan, USA
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
>> .... My Einstein came with the 80 column add-on ....
> I've never seen one, but I've always suspected it was a 6845 + 2K RAM +
> character generator + TTL glue logic in the obvious configuration. How
> close am I?
Not close, exact. The 'MODEL TK02 80 COLUMN MONOCHROME CARD' has:
UM 6845 8440 , TMM2016BP-10 , TMS2764JL-45 , a 10Mhz oscillator (may
be 16 or 18 - can't quite read it and havn't put a 'scope on it yet)
and fifteen 74LSxxx chips.
> How much hardware-related info do you have? I can find (easily) things
> like connector pinouts, etc.
Absolutely none but I'm not looking further than getting an OS at the moment
- if it then doesn't work however, I'll remember your kind offer.
John Honniball asked about the disks in the Einstein - having now taken them
out of the steel box sleeve which every 3.0" drive seems to come in I can
report that they are different to the Amstrad PCW8256/8512 drives -
whereas the Amstrad are the 'infamous slack belt' drives, the drives in my
Einstein are Teac direct drive (hurray!).
Doug.
Last time I went to the surplus electronic shop that I visit. I saw
what was labeled as being a System 36. It was basically a really over
grown full tower, with a few other peripherals. Did I see the whole
unit, or just a small part? Would this be something I could do
something with? Does any freeware exist? How about the OS.... is it
around, and attainable? What kind of processing horsepower does it
have?
I didn't really look at it, while I was there. I knew they are the
ancestor to the AS400, and the AS400 is sort of a white elephant for the
hobbyist.
Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA
In a message dated 3/7/01 1:52:14 PM Central Standard Time,
mapr0003(a)stud.uni-sb.de writes:
<< Hi, I am interested in old computers especially in i286 (PC/AT)class
computers. I am looking for a multitasking OS which uses the capabilities
of this CPU like memory protection, 16MB address space, etc.
I only found Xenix/286 which take advantage of this 286 features or are
there other ones as well?
Is it still possible to find copies for this version of Xenix?
Thanks in advance >>
not sure of xenix, but why not try OS/2? Version 1.3 can still be found and
will run on as little as 2 meg I believe.
david, OS/2 user
In a message dated 3/7/01 1:07:48 PM Central Standard Time,
gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com writes:
<< I received my AC Adaptor for my L40SX and the screen does not come on.
Can anybody tell me what the lights and switches mean on the console.
I have some symbols showing in some of the little windows.
With power on from left to right they show:
dark
dark
right arrow
underlined % sign
vertical bar
up arrow
up arrow
box which could be a screen symbol
dark
With power off the right arrow shows a battery and all of the others are dark
On the right of the screen there are two slide bars one labeled with a
shining sun the other like a half moon.
Neither seems to do anything >>
does your hard drive spin up? any flicker from the LCD? does the floppy seek?
what if the battery is removed? Since you have a mono LCD those slider bars
just adjust the brightness and contrast. I forgot what the switches do as my
L40 is put away. One thing you might want to check is to make sure the
computer hasnt been in any environmental extremes. It will not turn on if
temperature or humidity is excessive. Once it acclimates to room temp it
would function normally.
see one of hundreds of computers, or a hot rod pinto at:
www.nothingtodo.org
On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said:
>> have our personal preferences. But let's also determine (at least
>> for ourselves) a general principle or two that points to the value
>> of classic computers -- more specifically -- their purpose and our
>> realistic expectations of them beyond mere entertainment value.
>First and foremost : Education.
Excellent. Now that we have a general principle with which to begin,
how could we expand on it? One thing that comes to my own mind are
the lessons we can learn from how our earlier computer and software
engineers worked so cleverly with such meager resources, which forced
them to create more efficient code and creative shortcuts to avoid
wastefulness...
>Secondly : Preserving some of the forgotten areas of computing.
>Either as examples of what not to do in the future, or as examples
>of things that should be tried again (either because the technology
>to implement them was not really available years ago and is now, or
>because, although there was a suitable replacement, the older
>method with newer technology is even better).
Wonderful! In this matter, we see eye to eye. I'm all for the idea
of constructing new computers built upon the tried and true principles
of "frugal" designs. Our classic computers could serve as the
inspiration for such possible endeavors.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
Like any other engineering project, the first logical step is to compile a
complete system requirement. Once you really understand what the project
expectations are, it's pretty easy to decide on an architecture to support
those expectations.
To arbitrarily decide what's important to the customer, will certainly lead
to failure. For instance: You state that one of the reasons that you would
recommend VMS is that there are no known viruses. If viruses are really not
a concern for the customer, that should NOT be a factor in the decision
making process. After all, they may already have a very secure LAN and
experienced administrators. To make architectural decisions based on areas
that you perceive as important is a path to disaster. Don't assume that you
know what the customer wants and just as importantly, don't assume that the
customer knows what they want!
On the other hand, if "usability" is one of the primary factors, they may be
stuck with NT. As much as we may detest the OS for it's poor reliability,
far more people are comfortable with the WIN interface than any other OS. In
some environments, it may actually be more acceptible to reboot the system
every day or have unexpected failures than to retrain the people that will
use the system. Actually, NT used only for data presentation is not all that
bad. Once again, that's a business decision that should be addressed in the
requirements.
My guess: NT for the presentation layer, LINUX or a derivitive with strong
device support in the backend.
Just my $.02
Steve Robertson
>One of the Radiologist's I work with asked me the following question.
>
>Which computer would you buy if you were only going to do file transfers
>and
>archiving? I answered a VAX/Alpha running VMS since there were no known
>viruses and that system security was good. My answer was predicated on the
>fact that he needed storage for medical images and that he needed to
>maintain complete medical confidentiality. He is totally frustrated with
>the lack of reliability on Windows NT and is favoring SUN based systems.
>The trend in radiology is to move toward Windows NT platforms because the
>companies can't get support staff that can handle anything else. Our
>biggest problem, since we are a children's hospital is that we must
>maintain
>the data for 25 years. Actually 7 years once the child turns 18. In
>practice we plan never to get rid of any data.
>
>Examples of systems in Radiology
>
>CT scanner using SGI computer
>CT workstation using SUN running Solaris
>Vitrea 3D workstation using Windows NT on HP Kayak computer
>Laser film printer network running MS-DOS
>Laser film printer network running LINUX
>MRI scanner using SUN
>Film digitizer running on PC using Windows NT
>Nuclear medicine system with Windows NT, Mac G4, and Linux on PC
>VME systems embedded in film printers
>
>I have 8" floppies from old CT scanners, QIC tapes, DAT tapes, MO disks, 5
>1/4 floppies, 3 1/2 floppies, 9 track tapes
>
>I was offered from a major US company a radiology image management system
>the other day that had the following systems.
>Windows NT display stations
>Apple Macintosh image archive server
>Sun webserver and image server
>I don't think anybody could support and troubleshoot such a system. Their
>answer is that they support the system today and will provide an upgrade
>path when they change every 3-4 years.
>
>woe-is-me
>Mike
>mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
>
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
One of the Radiologist's I work with asked me the following question.
Which computer would you buy if you were only going to do file transfers and
archiving? I answered a VAX/Alpha running VMS since there were no known
viruses and that system security was good. My answer was predicated on the
fact that he needed storage for medical images and that he needed to
maintain complete medical confidentiality. He is totally frustrated with
the lack of reliability on Windows NT and is favoring SUN based systems.
The trend in radiology is to move toward Windows NT platforms because the
companies can't get support staff that can handle anything else. Our
biggest problem, since we are a children's hospital is that we must maintain
the data for 25 years. Actually 7 years once the child turns 18. In
practice we plan never to get rid of any data.
Examples of systems in Radiology
CT scanner using SGI computer
CT workstation using SUN running Solaris
Vitrea 3D workstation using Windows NT on HP Kayak computer
Laser film printer network running MS-DOS
Laser film printer network running LINUX
MRI scanner using SUN
Film digitizer running on PC using Windows NT
Nuclear medicine system with Windows NT, Mac G4, and Linux on PC
VME systems embedded in film printers
I have 8" floppies from old CT scanners, QIC tapes, DAT tapes, MO disks, 5
1/4 floppies, 3 1/2 floppies, 9 track tapes
I was offered from a major US company a radiology image management system
the other day that had the following systems.
Windows NT display stations
Apple Macintosh image archive server
Sun webserver and image server
I don't think anybody could support and troubleshoot such a system. Their
answer is that they support the system today and will provide an upgrade
path when they change every 3-4 years.
woe-is-me
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
Mark K. said:
>Cleaning the disk surface is easy (remember, with disk side A up, the surface
>for side A is underneath), so you may as well try that before attempting to
>open the drive. If you don't want to buy a purpose-designed disk cleaning kit
>you can use a lint-free cloth. Breathe on the disk and carefully wipe
>radially, rotate the disk slightly and repeat. Preferably wear some plastic
>gloves to prevent skin oils from touching the disk.
I once in an optics lab *suggested* (lucky me) breathing on a
component to moisten it before wiping. The instructor *yelled* at me (only
time) to make sure I didn't carry through. (CO2 + water in your breath =
dilute carbonic acid? He didn't amplify on what all is in breath, but he
made sure I used IPA or de-ionized water or something after that.)
Not knowing the proper solvent, I'd tentatively suggest iso-propyl
alcohol, but would avoid breathing on optics (or media) if at all possible.
It may be MO disks are sufficiently rugged it makes no difference, but that
formative experience has convinced me it's not a good habit to be in.
- Mark T.
What in the world made you think this group is a C and SQL support resource?
Many of us work with both but this is not the place.
Allison
------Original Message------
From: J4430(a)aol.com
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Sent: March 7, 2001 8:39:30 AM GMT
Subject: makefile/embedded sql
Hello i'm trying to write a embedded Sql program in C but i don't know how to
compile,link and run it. I know you have to write a makefile but i have never
done that
before and i've looked in books in the store and there is nothing that i've
seen to show you or describe how to create the makefile, and run the sql
embedded program.
Can you help or point me in the right direction to get some help.
Thanks,
Craig
Is there someone on the list who would be willing to send me an MMJ serial
cable in an effort to get a Vax and a couple Decstations working? For some
reason I can't find any local or even semi-local resources for MMJ cables or
connectors.. Thanks!
-Linc Fessenden.
(BTW, I live in Eastern PA)
On Mar 7, 10:32, Geoff Roberts wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)conman.org>
> > It was thus said that the Great FBA once stated:
> > >
> > > >Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and
> is
> > > >where the basic units came from.
> > >
> > > 1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side.
> >
> > At 4 degrees Celcius at sea level, don't forget.
Since we're getting all accurate again, ..
The kilogram was defined in a way intended to represent the mass of one
cubic decimetre of water at its maximum density, and to this end a suitable
platinum-iridium cylinder was constructed to be "the standard". But it was
later found to be slightly inaccurate, so the definition of the standard
was redifined to be the mass of the cylinder. Thus 1 litre doesn't *quite*
fit into a cube 10cm a side, being 28 ppm too large :-)
In 1964 the litre was redefined for practical purposes to equal a cubic
decimetre, but not for work of high precision.
An imperial gallon is defined in terms of a mass of water (weighing 10
pounds at a density of 0.988859 grams per cc, ie at 20C, in air at a
certain density, against weight of a certain density, all stated in metric
units!).
> > -spc (Atmospheric presure is measured in millibars, right?)
>
> Correct. The ISA (International Standard Atmosphere) is 1013.2
> hectopascals (equiv - millibars) @ 20C (hmm or is it 15? been a while
> since I did Met.)
15C.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Hello i'm trying to write a embedded Sql program in C but i don't know how to
compile,link and run it. I know you have to write a makefile but i have never
done that
before and i've looked in books in the store and there is nothing that i've
seen to show you or describe how to create the makefile, and run the sql
embedded program.
Can you help or point me in the right direction to get some help.
Thanks,
Craig
On 2001-03-04 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org said:
>The Museums clearly serve several useful purposes, such
>that I think the "us vs. them" label is inappropriate.
Oh well. At least it got some attention. ;-) The "vs."
might just as well be thought of as "private collectors"
in *contrast* to "museum collections".
>1. They are higher profile that individual enthusiats
>and therefore a magnet for systems that might otherwise
>end up in the dumpster or with scrappers.
What do you mean by "higher profile"? There are some private
collectors, no doubt, with noble and intelligent motives
rivaling that of some museum staffs.
>2. They tend to be open to the general public making
>the machines accessible to anyone who wants to see
>them.
What would you suggest is the foremost reason for "seeing"
them?
>3. They educate the public about the value of
>preserving old computers, and introduce new people to
>the hobby. (I know some may not think this is
>necessarily a good thing.)
Would you suppose that there are other causes even more
significant than encouraging computers as a hobby through
museum displays?
>4. The curators tend to be schooled in preservation,
>and while they may not operate their machines, they
>usually keep them safe, dry, etc.
Private collectors can do the same, if they wish, although
I doubt that many private collectors would enjoy "dead"
machines as well as "live" ones.
>5. They can usually accommodate the very large
>machines that many collectors don't have the room for.
Yes, I have seen such a museum, which has ambitious plans
for doing just that.
>6. Museums can sometimes undertake restoration
>projects that require the coordination of people and
>resources that individuals would unlikely be able to
>accomplish on their own, such as those undertaken by
>The Computer Museum History Center located at Moffett
>Airfield.
Is there a URL for it?
>7. Museums don't sell on eBay (or sell at all for that
>matter); a number of "us" do.
Personally, I prefer to see what I'm buying first -- especially
when it's something like an old computer that I'd want to
examine closely for condition, etc..
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
>Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and is
>where the basic units came from.
1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side.
For a person whom has used the metric for 2/3 of my life I still find it
very clear and precise.
I hate to have to remember all those weird numbers 5280 feet in a mile, 16
ounces to a can oh wait that's beer here...
It took me a while to get used to the units on this side of the pond and I
still strugglt when I need a pint and all I have to measure is a cup.
And I found the most people here don't even know all those psychoweirdo
stuff.
Hey the Nasdaq just dropped the fractional notation. That's another funky
stuff I had to deal with adding 3/32 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch does not
look like fun to me when I could be adding mm or cm.
Look what happened when one bonehead uses Imperial measurements instead of
the standard metric system for the mars smasher ^H^H^H^H^H^H lander.
I don't think the US will ever make it to the metric system. It is always
presented as a difficult system in schools. some kids always ooh aah when I
mention the metric stuff to them.
Wake up people of the United states it's 2001 and we don't need to know the
lenght of the thumb or foot or whatever appendage from some long dead ruler
of an old island.
Francois
I'm making a list of the processors and computers
that in one way or another tried to directly execute
a high-level programming language. Here's what I have
so far.
Algol60 - Burroughs 5500
Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq
Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others
Ada - Intel 432
Java - picoJava
Modula M-Code - Lilith
Additions and corrections are greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers, Scott
************************* Mobile-Mind, Inc *************************
Scott Guthery sguthery(a)mobile-mind.com
Voice:+1 617 926 6888 Mobile:+1 617 230 1346 FAX:+1 617 926 1611
******************** http://www.mobile-mind.com ********************
Hello, all:
I have an odd question. A chap from the Netherlands contacted me last week
based on an old posting to the list that he found through an Internet search
(from the list archives). He's restoring an LPS11 and would like to have
copies of the paper tapes I have for his project. Several years ago, I
picked-up several blue-boxes of PDP11 paper tapes, mostly diagnostic tapes.
Since I can't make tape images, I was going to ship them to him and let him
use them and then return them to me. I'm a bit concerned about the
trans-Atlantic trip, plus any stupid stuff, like export restrictions.
Any opinions? I would love to keep these things on this side of the
Atlantic if I could and just deliver to him image files and scans of the
tape ID label.
Rich
Collector of Classic Computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulator Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/*****************************************/
On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said:
>However, both private collectors and museums often have space
>limitations. I can't save everything I would like (although IMHO I
>certainly try). And as somebody said yesterday, %computer_museum no
>longer accepts donations of 'common' machines, for all they could
>be used as spare parts, or to allow others to learn about them, or
>whatever. I would asseme the reason they no longer accept such
>donations is lack of space.
Agreed.
>> I'm not an authority on distinctions, just a visitor offering my
>> concern to preserve what's best for learning purposes.
>OK, in your opinion, what machines are important to preserve for
>learning purposes (or for any other purpose you'd care to suggest).
>I am seriously interested....
If we could say that classic computers have a valuable *object lesson*
for future generations, I wouldn't be quick to label this or that
machine as the best example. There are several categories of machines
for various services, personal, desktop, portable, scientific, etc.,
and to elevate this or that one above the other might needlessly bait
others into unproductive discussion of personal preferences. Let's
have our personal preferences. But let's also determine (at least
for ourselves) a general principle or two that points to the value
of classic computers -- more specifically -- their purpose and our
realistic expectations of them beyond mere entertainment value.
>Of course, both groups might get a machine that is original and
>which still works. In which case both enthusiasts and musuems will
>preserve it in much the same state.
I completely agree.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
On Mar 5, 18:51, Tony Duell wrote:
> > If you think all that's bad, I still haven't figured out the
measurements
> > for cooking...like how many tablespoons in a cup, and how many cups in
a
> > quart and all that nonsense. Who came up with this crap anyway?
>
> I knew the HP49G was useful for something :-). It has all those units in
> the unit management system..
>
> According to that machine :
>
> 1 cup = 16 tablespoons
>
> 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
Except that, traditionally, there are two teaspoons in a dessertspoon and
two dessertspoons in a tablespoon. It doesn't add up :-)
> 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces
>
> 1 quart = 4 cups
>
> 1 cup = 236.5882365 ml
And those are U.S. measures, I think. A cup is half a pint; an imperial
pint is 20 fluid ounces, not 16. An imperial quart = 2 imperial pints =
1.136523 litres (1136 ml); 4 U.S. cups = 946 ml.
A tablespoon is supposedly 15ml (mine aren't but that's another story :-))
So 16 tbsp (1 U.S. cup) would be 240ml. Close enough for cookery, I
suppose.
And of course that only applies to liquid measure. When you're measuring
dry materials, you're supposed to use a rounded (not heaped! that's
different) spoonful -- an allowance for the hypothetical meniscus, of
course.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 Jeff Hellige wrote:
> I actually found a couple of Sony EDM-1DA1 MO disks with
>512-byte sectors and are formatted out to approximately 281meg/side.
>Connected to 3 different Mac's, they will all read the disks fine but
>they all error out when I attempt to reformat the disks, either using
>the Pinnacle-supplied software or using FWB HDtoolbox. This version
>of HDtoolbox states that it supports this drive too. The drive acts
>like thier's a SCSI-bus problem at times but changing terminators and
>such have had no effect on it.
Hmm. What error messages does the software give when you try to format the
disks? Can you successfully write data to the already-formatted disks?
Try disabling blind reads and writes and enabling write verification, if
possible (the Pinnacle software has per-partition options for that). Also, if
you want to try formatting using Hard Disk Toolbox (say), don't power up the
Mac with a Pinnacle-formatted disk in the drive. Insert the disk after
booting; that way, the FWB driver will be used to access the disk, not
whatever driver happens to be on the disk at the moment.
Using a SCSI utility/diagnostic program, see how many sectors are in the
primary and secondary defect lists. If there are many more in the secondary,
that suggests that the drive lens and/or disk surface may be dirty.
Cleaning the disk surface is easy (remember, with disk side A up, the surface
for side A is underneath), so you may as well try that before attempting to
open the drive. If you don't want to buy a purpose-designed disk cleaning kit
you can use a lint-free cloth. Breathe on the disk and carefully wipe
radially, rotate the disk slightly and repeat. Preferably wear some plastic
gloves to prevent skin oils from touching the disk.
For what it's worth, the Pinnacle Micro Mac driver is one of the few Mac SCSI
packages that works on my Amiga with the ShapeShifter Mac emulator (even with
ShapeShifter's I-can't-believe-the-bugs-in-that SCSI emulation).
-- Mark
Has anyone ever heard of a CPM computer made by National Industries Inc
of Montgomery Alabama? I found one recently. It looks similar to a Morrow
MD-2 and has two 5 1/4" floppy drives. It also has a Z-80A CPU. There were
a couple of floppy disks in the drives. I tried to read them using 22disk
but no luck. I haven't checked it beyond that.
Joe
On 2001-03-05 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said:
>>Museums should ideally have the at least a few of the best
>>preserved specimens of chosen categories, especially the rarer
>>categories...
>Is it more important to preserve rare machines or 'important'
>machines? ...
>I can make arguements for either, BTW.
Let's just say I'd be pleased to see nothing significant go to waste.
I'm not an authority on distinctions, just a visitor offering my
concern to preserve what's best for learning purposes.
>>both working and nonworking condition: working order for
>>preservation; nonworking for learning. Of course, any of us
>>should be allowed to...
>Have you got that the right way round?
Alright. Both working and nonworking systems have their use. That's
what I'd suggest. My apologies for not "writing straightly".
>>have private collections for learning or whatever else -- but not
>>the liberty to deliberately destroy history that could be
>>beneficial to mankind.
>Are you suggesting that scrap dealers should be turned into
>criminals ? (I don't agree with this).
No. My use of *deliberately* implies *knowingly*, which I would
say certain individuals might do to hide the value of "old
technology" in order to turn attention to some selfish, lucrative
scheme. This is not on the same level as "scrap dealers", as you
might suggest.
I would like to emphasize that I value classic computer history
more for its lessons than the methods of its material preservation.
Of course, the former depends on the latter -- but you can surely
appreciate my elevation of principle above all else.
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered
The B5500 doesn't run Algol 60, technically speaking. It runs Burroughs
Extended Algol, which is based on Algol 60. For example, BEA (cuz I don't
wanna type out the whole name), doesn't include all of the characters used
in Algol 60, it has a different replacement operator, uses a different
symbol for exponents, and powers of ten in numbers are written out
differently. Another major difference is that Algol 60 doesn't have reserved
words, and BEA does. There are some other details too.. If anyone is
wondering, I'm getting this from my "ALGOL Programming ...A Basic Approach"
which was written by 2 guys from Burroughs and one from Marathon Oil, who
was big into the B5000.
Will J
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
"Lee Courtney" <leec(a)slip.net> wrote:
> "Computers in the 1980s" by Turn (1974) also has a brief, but interesting,
> take on HLL hardware.
There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery
track down:
"Advances in Computer Architecture" by Glenford J. Myers.
There are at least two editions of this book (both published by Wiley):
(1st) 1978, ISBN 0-471-83475-4
(2nd) 1982, ISBN 0-471-07878-6
IIRC, between editions he had moved from IBM to Intel and the 2nd
edition has an additional chapter on the IAPX 432.
"High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu.
Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8.
> Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one in on display at
> the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.).
One, or part of one?
I'm pretty sure that both of the above books include some discussion
of the SYMBOL machine. Predictably, I don't have either at hand to
look; they're both in storage and storage is a mess right now.
-Frank McConnell
From: Mark Tapley <mtapley(a)swri.edu>
> There's another category of machines like the "Basic stamp" that
>have an HLL in firmware "on chip" (either in ROM on the CPU chip, or in
>another chip on the same IC). From an architectural point of view, I
think
>this is a lot different from what you are talking about, but you may
want
>to make a list for that category as well, for completeness. I'll bet
you'll
>find some processors that are right on the edge between categories, too.
Add to that... machines where the cpus had internal rom with...
National NSC8073 with tinybasic on internal rom
Intel 8052 (8051 serios with 8k basic).
8051 with Forth in internal rom
An assortment of small handhelds with a chip containing basic
Then there were the machines with internal rom or microcode that ran some
hll...
Didn't Wang have a small micro with basic on rom?
Allison
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Frank McConnell fmc(a)reanimators.org
> Date: 05 Mar 2001 23:17:34 -0800
> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: HLL Computers
>
> There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery
> track down:
>
> "High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu.
> Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8.
Another good one. I'll check for references to SYMBOL in this book when I
get home tonight.
> > Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one
> in on display at
> > the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.).
>
> One, or part of one?
I believe TCMHC only has the CPU. Its the box on display between the PDP10
and the Meiko supercomputer. BTW, David Ditzel of Transmeta worked on SYMBOL
(at Iowa?) and recently rediscovered the machine on display during a recent
visit.
When I was in college in the 75-79 timeframe HLL architectures were the
subject of considerable interest and research (and I believe this was the
case for the previous 20 years). I was originally drawn to working at HP by
the work they had done providing microcode support for an incremental APL
compiler on the HP3000 (which was the subject of a lawsuit HP lost before
withdrawing the product, but that's another thread). I thought it was a
fascinating field, but the tidal wave of RISC architectures in the early-80s
I think pretty much killed off HLL architectures (which I believe was the
right thing).
Lee Courtney
Engineering Manager Phone: (408) 328-9238
MontaVista Software, Inc. Fax: (408) 328-9204
1237 East Arques Avenue Web: www.hardhatlinux.com
Sunnyvale, CA 94085 Email: lcourtney(a)mvista.com
Check out the embedded Linux experts at http://www.hardhatlinux.com
From: Iggy Drougge <optimus(a)canit.se>
>anglophony, since they are archaic beyond reason. I wonder why there
hasn't
>been a revolution in America, isn't the people tired of using all that
inch
>and oz stuff?
;) Yep.
- I own a toyota... metric tools.
- I did many years ago work on british morotcycles decimal inches.
- I have a full tool crib, fractional inches, however, drills are number,
letter,
fractional inch and decimal inch. The verniers and micrometers are in
thousandths of an inch.
- However, my us standard snow blower uses the US common 14mm spark plug.
- I fly a plane and use knots not MPH or KPH. My altimiter is in inches
but
weather is in millibars.
- I cook, grams, oz, drams, pinches, "abit of" and so on.
An all I wanted to do was drill an eigth inch hole for a number six screw
to mount
the capacitor (condensor) in my 10m reciever.
I ponder this over a cup of Coffee. ;)
Allison
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Frank McConnell fmc(a)reanimators.org
> Date: 05 Mar 2001 23:17:34 -0800
> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: HLL Computers
>
> There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery
> track down:
>
> "High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu.
> Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8.
Yup, another good one. WHen I get home I'll look to see if it discusses the
SYMBOL machine. BTW, David Ditzel of Transmeta worked on SYMBOL (at Iowa)
and recently rediscovered the machine when he saw the one on display at
MOffett.
When I was in college in the mid-70s HLL architectures were an area of
considerable interest and research. I was originally attracted to work at HP
because of work they had done creating an incremental APL compiler with
microcode support on the HP3000. The RISC tidal wave seems to have
extinguished most efforts in this area.
> > Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one
> in on display at
> > the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.).
>
> One, or part of one?
>
I believe only the CPU is in the collection.
The artificially inflated valuation of a donation to a museum is exactly how
many paintings ended up in museums. The IRS cracked down of paintings
created to be donations for tax fraud purposes. The same scheme has been
tried with, property, cars, clothing, furniture, horses, and boats. The
main issue is FMV, fair market value. You can't claim it's worth $100,000
if nobody will pay that. It's especially difficult without comparable sales
of the item to value your item.
There have been cases of dealers trading items among themselves to establish
an artificial market value. No money changed hands just paperwork.
Mike
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
Scott,
>I'm making a list of the processors and computers
>that in one way or another tried to directly execute
>a high-level programming language. Here's what I have
>so far. ...
There's another category of machines like the "Basic stamp" that
have an HLL in firmware "on chip" (either in ROM on the CPU chip, or in
another chip on the same IC). From an architectural point of view, I think
this is a lot different from what you are talking about, but you may want
to make a list for that category as well, for completeness. I'll bet you'll
find some processors that are right on the edge between categories, too.
- Mark
Hmm...the person at the contact number said this messages is
*months* old, and those terminals are long gone.
-Dave McGuire
On December 13, Bill Dawson wrote:
> HP 2392A Terminals free for pickup or cost of shipping, pickup
> preferred.
>
> 7 are located in Philadelphia, PA and 7 are in Tampa, FL. All are still
> operational and include the original boxes.
>
> Please contact Lisa Flores at Abtech Systems by phone or email to make
> arrangements:
>
> (800)474-7397 (Carlsbad, CA) or lisax.flores(a)xabtechsys.com (remove the
> x's)
>
> Arrangements should be made ASAP. There may be much more HP equipment
> available in the future for free if this goes well. Abtech has HP and
> Sun equipment, along with other things such as Netservers, PC's and
> peripherals, etc. that are not worth shipping back to Carlsbad and may
> become available to listmembers in the future.
>
>
> Bill
On Mar 5, 22:17, Tony Duell wrote:
> Pete wrote:
> > Tony wrote:
> > > 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons
> >
> > Except that, traditionally, there are two teaspoons in a dessertspoon
and
> > two dessertspoons in a tablespoon. It doesn't add up :-)
>
> I believe the 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon is right in America. We have
> slightly different spoons over here.
Well, that was a bit tongue-in-cheek :-) "Officially" (whose office, I
don't know) a teaspoon here is 5ml and a tablespoon is 15ml, so it's now
1:3 here too. Like Dick, though, I know mine don't work out that way :-)
> When you consider that most recipies include such reproducable standards
> as '1 egg' or 'a pinch of salt', you come to realise that measuring
> _anything_ accurately is probably a total waste of time :-)
And if you do, it probably won't come out right anyway -- your flour will
be a different grade, or your eggs a different size, than those of the
person who wrote the recipe. Or they do it by eye too, and just wrote down
what they *thought* they used :-)
I started to learn to cook when I was quite young, and I still remember the
occasion when I read a recipe that called for a teaspoon of vanilla
essence. "Mum! Is that a level or a heaped teaspoon?" She had to think
about it for a moment...
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Mar 5, 17:22, Will Jennings wrote:
> Uhh, why are they being called "American" units? It's the English system
of
> measurement, even if America is (or is close to being) its last user..
'cos many of the units (especially liquids) are different sizes from the
English ones :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Anyone have any idea what's going on? I sent these two emails to the list
on December 13, but they just appeared on March 5th. Am I reading these
headers correctly if I state that these emails have been at mlynk.com since
the December 13th, and were just yesterday sent to the list? I've copied the
headers and subject lines here:
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Subject: RE: CRT Problems was:(no subject)
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:36:08 -0500
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From: "Bill Dawson" <whdawson(a)mlynk.com>
To: "Classiccmp@Classiccmp. Org" <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Subject: HP 2392A Terminals free for pickup or cost of shipping
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 14:30:01 -0500
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Status:
Uhh, I think I'll pass on Australia, thanks!!! But now I'm more justified in
clobbering every spider I see in the house/garage/basement; some of them I
literally have no clue what they are.. and the other night I went to take my
bath and there was a spider in my bathroom that was quite odd, particularly
after applying my accounting textbook to it. I kill all other insects I find
indoors too, apart from crickets, so don't think I hate spiders.. I really
don't, I just have lots of valuable things are that are vulnerable to insect
damage, not to mention that I'm often barefoot, and have bad luck to boot.
For example, when I brought home my Commodore 128 from my uncle's house, I
also brought home 4 brown recluses... I practically tossed the things across
the room. The worst I've experienced, however, has to be the Sinclair ZX81 I
got, which, when opened, was full of *live* cockroaches! BARF! That went
straight to the dumpster, after the Denver cockroach massacre... My worst
non-computer experience was a 1965 Pontiac Catalina 2+2 I helped my friend
restore.. mice had inhabited it for 15+ years.. Whole car reeked of mouse
piss.. (Yes I was wearing a mask, ugh). They had eaten the inside of the
interior, so after taking out the seats, there was mouse shizzat and car
interior shreds 5 inches deep, and since the trunk latch was busted and
drilling it out failed, guess who got to crawl through the hole in the frame
thats behind the backseat into the truck? Me of course! I don't think I've
ever been so glad to leave a place.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
FYI, all Varian V70 series machines are microcoded... that's the main
difference between them and the Varian 620's... That and they have more
registers, and I think my dad said semiconductor memory too, but that could
be incorrect.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
I know a couple weeks back there was a thread where everybody took a turn
describing what horrors a particular shipper had committed to something
they sent. I didn't pay much attention to it then, but perhaps I should
have. At any rate, my question is somewhat different.
I've been collecting computers for only two years, but at the top of my
wish list has been to get a Wang 2200, one of the older models. It is the
machine I learned to program on, and it left a strong impression. My
coding style still suffers because of it. :-)
Well, I finally found somebody who will ship me one for the cost of
shipping. It is in Portland, OR, and I'm in San Jose, CA. The estimated
weight is 200-300 pounds including accessories and docs. [ The early
2200's had a power supply box, a suitcase-sized box that contained the TTL
CPU, then a separate keyboard/monitor. The setup I'm hoping to get also
has three external tape drives and a modified selectric as a printing device. ]
Because the guy who has it is essentially giving it away, I want to make it
as easy for him as possible, and at the same time I want to get it packed
really well because I don't want anything to happen to it. I guess I'm
afraid that he'd just put it in a cardboard box stuffed with newspapers.
A scan through the yellow pages under "Packaging Materials" and "Packaging
Services" showed quite a few people who package things for a price, but
I've never used one. Does anybody have any tips on how to choose
one? Should I insist on a wood crate, or foam-fill, or something else?
As another data point, I tried the rate estimator on FedEx and it wouldn't
accept a box that weighed 300 lbs. I tried 100 lbs and it said $50, which
seems quite reasonable to me. So as another data point, I'd have to split
the lot into two or three crates in order to send it.
Thanks for any experience you can share.
-----
Jim Battle == frustum(a)pacbell.net
John, it's obvious to me that either panix.com's mail system is configured
weird, or there's something strange about my firewall. It keeps treating
panix connection attempts as an SMTP attack, for some strange reason.
Please contact me at my backup address: wd6eos (a-t) hamsnet.net
Thanks.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies
http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 (Extra class as of June-2K)
"I'll get a life when someone demonstrates to me that it would be
superior to what I have now..." (Gym Z. Quirk, aka Taki Kogoma).
Uhh, why are they being called "American" units? It's the English system of
measurement, even if America is (or is close to being) its last user..
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Hi,
Replying to a couple of messages here...
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 Jerome Fine wrote:
>> I took a look at the Pinnacle drive today and it is a
>> Pinnacle Micro Sierra Optical Hard Drive with a 1.3gig capacity on
>> 5-1/4" removable media. Supposedly it is a double-sided cartridge
>> capable of holding 650Mb per side. It appears to be a standard SCSI
>> drive, but unfortunately I do not have any of the disks for it.
>
> As far as I know (or at least this is what I have always been told), the
> MO drives which can use the larger capacity (NOT larger in physical
> dimensions) media are also backward compatible with the lower
> capacity media for both read and write at least downward one step.
Yes, the only exception I know of being the Pinnacle Micro Vertex 2.6GB drive.
Here's a summary of drive compatibility. 1x means 600 & 650MB, 2x means
1.2/1.3GB, 4x means 2.3/2.6GB, 8x means 4.1/4.8/5.2GB and 14x means 8.6/9.1GB.
Maxoptix
--------
Basically any Maxoptix drive can read and write to all previous generations of
media, plus Maxoptix-specific 1GB disks (possibly read-only) and maybe
1.7/2.0GB disks.
Sony
----
2x drives (SMO-F521, SMO-F531) can read and write 1x and 2x media.
All 4x, 8x and 14x drives can read all previous capacities.
Most 4x drives (SMO-F541, SMO-F544) can write to 2x and 4x media. They cannot
write to 1x. However, there is a model which *can* write to 1x media, the
SMO-F541/SD.
Most 8x drives (SMO-F551) can write to 4x and 8x media. There are models which
can write to 2x (SMO-F551/DD) and 1x & 2x (SMO-F551/SD).
The 14x drive (SMO-F561) can write to 4x, 8x, and 14x media.
Pinnacle Micro
--------------
The 2x Sierra drive can read and write to 1x and 2x media.
The 4x Vertex drive can only read and write to 4x media. The reason for this
is that Vertex drives were Apex drives which did not meet the spec for 4.6GB
operation.
The 4.6GB Apex drive can read and write 4.2/4.6GB and 4x media. It is not
compatible with 1x or 2x media.
> There are now 5 GByte media and these drives can still read the
> 650 MByte original media for 5 1/4" drives, but are not able to
> write to the original media.
(One version of the Sony 5.2GB drive can write to all older media, as can all
Maxoptix 5.2GB drives.)
Sony recently introduced 9.1GB drives and media, see http://www.sony-cp.com/
There are actually full technical and SCSI spec manuals for the new SMO-F561
drive on the Sony web site, which makes a very welcome change.
The SMO-F561 supports an "emulation mode", whereby 9.1GB disks (whose physical
sector size is 4K) appear to have 512-byte or 1024-byte sectors. So even
computers that require 512-byte sectors can use the higher capacity disks. Of
course write performance will be relatively poor when using emulated sectors.
> NOTE: The marketing hype produced by the drive manufactures
> always stated (from what I can remember) that an MO drive had
> a capacity equal the the capacity of the media rather than what the
> drive could read on just one side of the media before it was flipped.
Yes, though as far as marketing disks (as opposed to drives) is concerned that
is usual. It's similar to audio cassettes (C60, C90). At least it's better
than the stupid "assuming 2x compression" capacity figures quoted for tape
drives.
On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 Jeff Hellige wrote:
> Has me thinking about trying to put the Pinnacle to good use, if it is
> functional. It would be easy enough to use it with my Mac's, but I wonder
> how hard it would be to get it working with the NeXT.
The drive should appear as a direct access removable device on the SCSI bus.
There may be a jumper to make it appear non-removable, if the NeXT does not
like removable media.
The NeXT native filesystem probably needs 512-byte sectors, so try using it
with a 600MB or 1.2GB disk first. Using, say, tar to write directly to
the drive may work with 650MB or 1.3GB disks.
If removable media support is poor or non-existent on the NeXT, boot up with a
disk in the drive. Then treat it like a hard disk, use the normal
partitioning and formatting tools. Maybe you will be able to eject the disk
after unmounting any partitions, then remount the partitions after inserting
another disk.
> I'm not sure about the ZIP disks, but somewhat related and
> on-topic is a drive I used to have for the Atari ST. It was made by
> Supra and was basically a 10meg 5-1/4" floppy. The head tracking was
Interesting.
Talking of wierd floppies... I saw an ad from 1983 for a drive which used a
magazine of six 1.2MB 5.25" floppies. Does anyone know which company made
that?
-- Mark
Does anyone have or know where I can find an info sheet on a Emulex UC14
Unibus SCSI controller? I was lucky enough to acquire one of these guys
in a 11/750 that I just received. It has three rows of dips and a couple
of jumper blocks to set. I'm sure it emulates a MSCP device but I need
to know how to set the address.
Thanks,
Brian.
>> The howls of protest when anything new is metricated can probably be
heard
>> clear across the pond! Mind you, prosecuting a greengrocer for
displaying
>> his weights in pounds (as happend recently) was a bit over the top....
>> I've been metric since I was at school (late 50's - early '60s) so I
can
>> cope with either. My old 386 tower weighs about 1 1/2 stone....
>
>I have no problems with either. There are plenty of approximate
>conversions for everyday use, like :
>
>1 foot ~= 30cm (and FWIW, ~= 1 light-nanosecond ;-)), so "I've estimated
>I need just over 9 feet of cable, so if I buy 3 metres it'll be enough)
;)
Me, I could care less. I have mostly inch/pound instruments but metric
are equally handy. Electronics is if anything biased to metric. I'm
rather
used to 10 meter band rather than the 10.9yard. Conversions are less
the problem for the metric world. It still bugs me to convert
Foot/pounds
to Inch/oz.
>Over here, second-hand imperial measuring tools, like micrometers, are
>often a lot cheaper than metric ones. I have no problem using either,
and
>would rather save money (or spend the same money and get a better tool).
Good tools transcend the units they measure.
Allison
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
>>
>> I'm making a list of the processors and computers
>> that in one way or another tried to directly execute
>> a high-level programming language. Here's what I have
>> so far.
>>
>> Algol60 - Burroughs 5500
CISIC machine, ALGOL compiles to efficiently.
>> Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq
WD runs P-code in hardware (microcode, yet another layer) but Pcode
is not Pascal.
>> Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others
>> Ada - Intel 432
Fancy CISIC machine optimized for OOP.
>
>Are you sure? It may well have been designed/optimised to run ada
I'm with you Tony.
None of those machine ran HLL code directly. As Tony pointed out
they were designed to run the optimized COMPILED code not the
language directly.
Lisp And Forth primitives however are suitable for direct implmentation
but, the human readable versions would still be compiled.
Allison
On Mar 5, 16:20, Scott Guthery wrote:
> I'm making a list of the processors and computers
> that in one way or another tried to directly execute
> a high-level programming language. Here's what I have
> so far.
>
> Algol60 - Burroughs 5500
> Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq
> Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others
> Ada - Intel 432
> Java - picoJava
> Modula M-Code - Lilith
A transputer executes Occam more-or-less directly.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Hi,
I am currently working on a planetary robotic rover which I am going to use some of my transputers as the embedded controller. However, B008s and the rest of the bunch are just too big. Is there any standalone size-4 transputer motherboards that can be booted via EEPROM with external connectors for power? I dont need any bus interfaces (ISA, PCI, VME, SBus, etc). Does such a thing exist or does anyone have schematics on how to build something like this? It should be very simple me thinks...
Ram
> >
> > Well, with a few caveats, it should be your marginal
>tax rate (your
> > 'bracket') times the valuation of the donation. For
>example, your $1000
> > donation should bring you a $280 tax deduction if you
>are in the 28%
> > bracket.
> > - don
The "value" of a item donated to a museum is not mecessarily the market
value. In many cases the numbers are vastly inflated in order to entice
additional donations.
Let's assume you are in a high tax bracket and looking for a little relief.
You find a bargain on a very rare computer and pay $10,000 for it. You haul
it down to the local technology museum, who is anxious to have the donation,
and agree to give them the item. In exchange you ask them to provide a
receipt for $100,000 for the machine. Since it's not costing them anything
and the addition to the museum will entice additional visitors, they gladly
agree to provide the receipt.
You claim a $100,000 donation on your tax return and pay taxes on that much
less of your income. That would probably be in the 30% - 40% range. Or a
savings of $30,000 to $40,000!!!
So... for your $10,000 investment you:
1.) Look like a real upstanding citizen for supporting the local museum.
2.) Get your name on a plaque in the museum (free advertising).
3.) Save $30,000 to $40,000 on your taxes.
The museum gets a nice addition to it's collection at no cost.
Next time you go to a museum, look around. Most of the really valuable
things were not donated because someone felt particularily generous. They
were donated because the owners got huge tax breaks by donating them. The
whole thing is a SCAM!
_________________________________________________________________
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Hi all,
was there much Northstar kit in the UK at any point?
I seem to remember seeing a Northstar Horizon in the computer junk shop, widnes, many years ago (ten years ago at least). I wouldn't mind something like that now, or an Advantage, but would it be a wild goose chase?
Regards,
Stu
Re: non profit orgs:
starting a non profit org is certainly much more than $35 as listed below.
>From reasearch I was doing, you have to draft up a statement of purpose or
something like that, then there's a $500 fee payable to the govt as well as
much more paperwork. doesnt seem too cost effective at first viewing.
In a message dated 3/4/01 6:53:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, at258(a)osfn.org
writes:
<< Uhhh...
do you really have to ask...
Why can't you execute the paper work for a non-profit yourself? In RI,
it's $35.
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum
Shady Lea, Rhode Island
>>
From: Jeffrey S. Sharp <jss(a)ou.edu>
> coerced into doing. I want to get as close as I can to the
> *experience* of computing in these machines' era. If these
> machines go to a museum, they're just pretty art, and they will
> educate _no_one_. They will sit behind glass walls, no one
> ever will touch them again, and no one will ever turn them on or
> keep them in working order. They are effectively lost. That's
> little better then scrapping them, and you _KNOW_ how you feel
> about that!
It's combative. I'd also say it's not absolutly true, though, it
could be.
Things to consider:
Is it truly rare or uncommon.
Does an institution actually want it.
Who removes, moves and/or ships it for either case?
A) museum may or may not...
B) You can make points by also providing that service.
Often the "impressive deduction" is not real and the cost to remove and
move the system is up to the owner. If there is a goal, I'd say make it
easiest for the system owner to give or sell to you.
The impressive deduction point is that most machines are simply used
computers in the eyes of the IRS and of limited value and in all serious
consideration most are common enough to not be "collectable" even if
useable.
I got a truckload of small VAXen once because the owner could not
accept cash nor ship and was off in the corner of Vermont. Cost to me
was a day of my time to load it and the 400miles of travel.
Allison
I don't know everyone's perspective on this issue, and it would be good to hear
some alternate viewpoints. Basically, I am against people giving classic
computers in working condition to museums. Instead, I believe that they should
donate or sell their machines to enthusiasts who will play with them and learn
things.
A while back, I ran across a person that had some hardware I wanted. He was
torn between selling it to me and giving it to a museum. I didn't have a lot
of money available to give him, and donation to a museum (a nonprofit) would
get him an impressive tax deduction. I did some research about what it takes
to start a nonprofit organization, but it looked too expensive (lawyers) and
time-consuming to be a viable option for me. I sent the following argument to
him:
> While I would love to establish a collection of these machines,
> I'm definitely not a 'collector' as the term has come to mean
> today; I'm not in it to get something rare, to make money, or
> to have some pretty decorations in my house. While it would
> certainly be nice to have a pretty system, my priority is to
> get something that I can learn with. I want to *run* these
> machines. I want to *explore* these machines. I want to *hack*
> on these machines, to see what unexpected things they can be
> coerced into doing. I want to get as close as I can to the
> *experience* of computing in these machines' era. If these
> machines go to a museum, they're just pretty art, and they will
> educate _no_one_. They will sit behind glass walls, no one
> ever will touch them again, and no one will ever turn them on or
> keep them in working order. They are effectively lost. That's
> little better then scrapping them, and you _KNOW_ how you feel
> about that!
What do you think about this?
(BTW, if anyone wants to use the quoted paragraph, they are free to)
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)ou.edu
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Hello, folks --
My first computer, a portable Sharp PC 4502, needs a substitute
battery, now that its original Yuasa battery is no longer
manufactured. Other batteries exist almost identical in power
specifications, but not in dimensions. The Yuasa battery had
the following specifications: NP4.2-6H 6V, 4.2Ah -- dimensions:
1 7/8" x 2" x 4 5/8"; sealed lead-acid. The AC adaptor (which
still works fine, luckily) has the following specifications:
IN: 120V AC 60Hz 23 W; OUT: 10V DC 1.2A.
(The computer has two 720k floppy drives, no hard drive, a
back-lighted 640x200 LCD screen, V20 CPU clocked at 7.11 MHz,
and the only peripheral I've used with it is my Okidata ML 182
Turbo 9-pin printer that I still share with three other
computers on a data switch. I bought this computer in 1989
through DAMARK when it was already close to being obsolete;
it was manufactured around 1987.)
I still have the original dead battery, and it's stamped with
8710281 on its side; the second (nearly identical) Yuasa battery
is stamped with 9410211, and I'm barely able to keep it charged
for any meaningful length of time anymore.
Does anyone know of a suitable substitute battery that would
satisfy the above specifications?
This has been a very interesting machine from an important era
in pioneer portable computers that I think would be worthwhile
preserving in working condition. Although I can run the machine
with its AC adaptor, it would be a pain to keep that constantly
plugged in to avoid the setup screen that pops up when turned
on without a battery (and always have to reset everything). And
it would be odd, too, to have an oversized battery connected to
it from outside of its case, and inconvenient (to say the least).
Thank you for any suggestions!
Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a
***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100
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