--- Mike Ford <mikeford(a)socal.rr.com> wrote:
> turn into detectable improvements in the game. I also pitched Infocom
> about porting RtZ to the Amiga, but it never happened. I got the
> underlying engine
> ...........
>
> Are you SURE, I am fairly certain I bid on a few cases of Infocom Amiga
> versions (might have been the lost treasures series, but I thought it was
> more).
It was Lost Treasures - I have the Amiga version as well as the PC version.
LGoP2 and RtZ used an entirely different language and underlying platform.
Zork Zero was the last thing out for the Amiga because it used the old
scheme with graphic extensions.
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
Hey folks,
Another question for DEC people out there. I've got a DEC
Correspondent (Model LA12-DB) printing terminal. It's like a little
cousin to the DECwriters of the world, very cute and lightweight,
relatively speaking. Built like a little tank, though. And ribbons
are still available, joy!
But I've got no earthly clue how to configure the thing for baud
rate, flow control, stop bits, anything. It seems to be set up
REALLY FUNKY right now, like 4800bps 7N1 or some such nonesense. All
I want is 9600 8N1, is that so wrong? It looks like configuration
is done by hitting some sequence of keys, but I've been unable to
make it work so far, and I'm going through an alarming quantity of
fanfold paper in the process. I mean, they couldn't have just made
it a TOGGLE or some DIP SWITCHES or anything, NOOO...
Does anyone know how to make it go?
-Seth
--
"As a general rule, the man in the habit of murdering | Seth Morabito
bookbinders, though he performs a distinct service | sethm(a)loomcom.com
to society, only wastes his own time and takes no |
personal advantage." -- Kenneth Grahame (1898) | Perth ==> *
Hello, all:
Sorry for the intrusion, but I'm looking for either the following
book, accompanying diskette, or both: "The Art of C" by Herbert Schildt. If
anyone has a spare copy or wants to lighten their bookshelf a bit, please
let me know off-list. Thanks!
Rich
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
The IBM MagCard and MagCard II used the selectric in an interesting way. The
MagCard II was a large (and HEAVY) box connected to a Selectric II with a
very thick cable. The user would type a document on the typewriter. Then,
they would insert a small magnetic card into the large box, and press a
button on the typewriter. The document would then be saved on the card. To
recall a document, the user would insert the card, and press a key on the
typewriter. The typewriter would then type the document out on paper. There
are lots of connectors inside the "large box" labeled things like OPTION and
PERIPHERAL. Using a MagCard or MagCard II would probably be the easiest way
to interface a Selectric to a computer. I have a book that has a picture of
a unit very much like my MagCard II, except that it uses Magnetic Tapes
instead of Cards. It's really fun to watch the MagCard II type out documents
>from the cards. It's a lot faster than I thought a Selectric could be.
-----Original Message-----
From: technoid(a)cheta.net <technoid(a)cheta.net>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, May 11, 2000 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: KIM Manual / Selectric
>Back in the olden days of microcomputers a printer of any type cost a
>bundle. One solution hobbyists use was interfacing old teletype equipment
>to your Kim, Atari, Apple, Aim, etc. This gave you a printer but not all
>the special characters a 'real' printer could produce. They were not good
>for correspondence.... They also ate a lot of current and were obnoxiously
>loud.
>
>I.B.M. Selectric typewriters were dirt common in offices and still cost a
>bundle at $300.00 to $600.00 used. Still, a selectric had changeable
>typefaces (by changing the ball) and great quality. They were not very
>fast but Were very rugged and reliable. Even a new Selectric was a bargain
>compared to a Diablo or other daisy-wheel printers.
>
>The thing is that the Selectric is not a computer printer. Its a
>typewriter. There were a number of home-grown computer interfaces for
>them to make a printer but I think the most interesting one was a board
>with a bank of solenoids mounted on it which faced the keyboard of the
>typewriter. When a solenoid was actuated it struck the key below it on
>the typewriter's keyboard.... This was a simple interface which just
>bolted on top of the existing keyboard without any mods to I.B.M.'s gear
>which would void your warranty.
>
>The Selectric option was beyond my financial means at the time. I ended
>up settling for a Western Electric teletype for a couple of years until I
>got a Brother EP22 thermal typewriter with an RS232 jack on it. Quality
>was good if not excellent, it was GOBS quieter than the teletype which
>made my folks happy, and could print on regular paper if you used a
>thermal transfer ribbon instead of thermal paper. Neither the WE teletype
>nor the EP22 would allow me to print my Hitchhiker's Guide or Zork
>sessions as these games were 'boot' games with thier own dos. Since the
>Atari 8-bit did not have a resident Serial printer handler, I could not
>print from an Infocom game. The EP22 was excellent for code printouts and
>most other things.
>
>
>--
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>Jeffrey S. Worley
>Complete Computer Services
>30 Greenwood Rd.
>Asheville, NC 28803
>828-274-5781 0900-1800 weekdays
>Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
>Technoid(a)Cheta.net
>-----------------------------------------------------------
>
Hi Ernest,
At 07:17 PM 5/11/00 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>[mailto:owner-classiccmp@classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Joe
>Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2000 12:18 PM
>To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>Subject: Re: Couple of cool HP 110/150 finds
>
>
>>
>>At 10:47 PM 5/2/00 -0700, Earnest said something about:
>
>>>Today, I was given a bunch of interesting vintage items.
>
>>> HP 88396 SCSI to parrallel interface.
>
> Did you ever find out more about this?
>
> I just picked up one of one yesterday with the cables. The other end of
>the cable that fits the DB-25 connector has a male Centronics style
>connector on it. The SCSI port has a feed-through type terminator on it.
>Attached to that is a cable that has a micro-SCSI connector on the other
>end of it. FWIW the box says "same functionality as 88395".
>
> Joe
>
>No, I haven't found anything out about it at all. I haven't really been
>looking though, as I'm working on some other things with my Apple IIe. To
>tell you the truth, I've been putting off working with my HP 150/110/110+
>stuff because I want to be able to devote some serious focus time to them.
>My 150 needs to be re-setup I think, and that'll be a bit complicated for me
>since I haven't set one up from scratch before.
They're not hard to setup once you get through all the menus and get to
the setup menu. Replace the two N-cells in the holder that clips into the
back of the 150 before you start. They're used to power the CMOS memory and
they're usually dead so the CMOS won't hold it's settings.
I have more manuals for it
>than I know what to do with, so I shouldn't have to hammer you with to many
>questions.
>
>By the way, I found a new disk for the 150 Touchscreen:
>
>Advance Link Master#3 (45431-13003) A.01.01 2435
>Upload A.01.02
>Monitor 3000 A.02.04
>
>Are you familiar with this bit of software? I'm assuming that it's comm
>software for linking a 110/110+ to the 150 but I'm not sure.
It's used to make the 150 emulate a terminal and is used to talk to the
HP mainframes. I have the manual here, but the program isn't real usefull IMO.
>
>I also picked up a 110+ with some manuals but no software. I'm not sure if
>there even was software for the 110 series, since they're ROM based systems.
Actually there is a fair amount of software for the 110. I even have
some game programs from Infocom that were modified to run on the 110. I dug
out all my 110 software and it filled two good size boxs. I'm still going
to make copies for your archives when I get a chance.
Joe
>
>Ernest
>
>
Does anyone know how to bypass security on an IBM System/36 5363? I have had one for over a year now, and have not been able to use it because I don't know the User ID or Password.
Thanks,
Owen Robertson
>
>At 10:47 PM 5/2/00 -0700, Earnest said something about:
>>Today, I was given a bunch of interesting vintage items.
>> HP 88396 SCSI to parrallel interface.
Did you ever find out more about this?
I just picked up one of one yesterday with the cables. The other end of
the cable that fits the DB-25 connector has a male Centronics style
connector on it. The SCSI port has a feed-through type terminator on it.
Attached to that is a cable that has a micro-SCSI connector on the other
end of it. FWIW the box says "same functionality as 88395".
Joe
I note (historically) that in the Introduction to the First Book
of Kim, by the previously-mentioned Mr. Butterfield, he thanks
an individual for the use of a Selectric-attached word processor.
More details elude me; I am at work and away from my bookshelves.
Cheers
John
--- Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> wrote:
> Zane wrote:
> > BTW, that's a DECmate II or Rainbow style case. I'm not sure what the
> > DECmate I used for a case...
>
> Ethan wrote:
> > A VT100. Floppies were RX02 and external. There was also apparently
> > an RL02 interface, but I've never personally witnessed one.
>
> Interesting. I've seen a VT78, which IIRC is a 6100 microprocessor-based
> system mounted in a VT52-style terminal, but I didn't know there was one
> in a VT100. I guess I wasn't sure exactly what a DECmate I was, since
> I've only managed to find the DECmate II and III. One more item for
> my "wanted" list. Anyone care to trade a DECmate I for a II?
No, but I'd consider a trade of a DECmate III for a VT78. :-) (I only have
one DECmate I, one DECmate II and two DECmateIIIs, no VT78s)
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
Eric:
I have such an 11/03, that was removed from a large VAX
last year at my local wrecking yard. It came with an RX01,
though (single drive), that has no case-- all of the
electronix are mounted to a steel platform (I can email
a pix if yer interested).
I don't need it, now that I have a 11/23+ and an 11/73
(not to mention the uVAX II in my garage). It's heavy,
but small enough ship easily (that's why I got it in
the first place).
If you specify what cards are supposed to come with,
I can make sure they're all there. . . .
Jeff
On 11 May 2000 21:57:32 -0000 Eric Smith <eric(a)brouhaha.com> writes:
> If it's otherwise going to be scrapped, I'd like to get the cards
> and backplanes from the top half of the unit, and the PDP-11/03
> and RX02 disk drive. An acquaintance has an 11/780 which is missing
> the PDP-11/03. However, all of the 11/780s and 11/785s I've seen
> turn up in surplus places have already had the 11/03 removed. Maybe
> someone thinks they're valuable, though I can't imagine why.
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
--- healyzh(a)aracnet.com wrote:
> From: healyzh(a)aracnet.com
> Subject: Re: Free Pro350 available (FOB Sunnyvale)
> Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 14:09:36 -0700 (PDT)
>
> > I've got a Pro350 (PDP 11 in a DECMate type case) with a ST25x hard
>
> BTW, that's a DECmate II or Rainbow style case. I'm not sure what the
> DECmate I used for a case...
A VT100. Floppies were RX02 and external. There was also apparently
an RL02 interface, but I've never personally witnessed one.
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
I've got a Pro350 (PDP 11 in a DECMate type case) with a ST25x hard
drive and an RX50 dual floppy sitting around doing nothing 'cept gettin'
in the way. Its available for free, no questions asked, no restrictions,
except that:
1) It is in Sunnyvale California (94086) and I'm not
paying to pack/mail it.
2) I don't know if it works or not.
I did power it up and the disk seeks around a bit but I've got a mono
monitor (from an unrelated acquisition) that is also questionable and it
didn't say anything at all. You can have the monitor and an LK201
keyboard with it as well. I've got no docs and no way to either
ascertain if it is working, should have a color monitor etc, or not.
--Chuck
Hey joe,
Sorry I haven't had time to write but, as always, there's a bunch of shit
happening around here. Like everyone else in technology, we are trying to
make some money from the ".COM" hysteria. I think we're finally getting
close and with any luck, I'll soon have time to do some other things (rumor
is that we've already been bought).
I can see from your recent posts, that you and Mike have found some really
neat stuff. I wouldn't mind getting in on the bonanza but, recently I
haven't been able to focus on anything but work :-( I haven't even turned on
a computer at home in the last 6 weeks.
As far as collecting, I haven't seen anything interesting since we went to
Avitar. Sure wish I could find an outlet like that a lot closer to home.
Actually, I'm probably better off being 250 miles away. I've already got too
much crap around here and the temptation might be too great if it was right
down the road.
A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to Ft. Pierce for business so, I took a
"short cut" past APOLLO in Melbourne. I didn't realize the Tom is only there
a half day and almost got locked out of the place. Fortunately, Pete (I
think that's his name) came by and agreed to let me in. I spent two hours
looking around and couldn't find anything worth hauling home. Either my
vision is getting worse or I'm getting more selective about the junk I
collect. Actually, it's probably a combination of both :-)
Went to a local auction last week and was shocked at the prices those idiots
were paying. Sorry but, I refuse to pay retail prices at a freakin auction!
As it tunrs out, it was mostly PC related stuff that I wouldn't want anyway.
There was one large AS/400 that looked pretty complete. It had a
reel-to-reel tape drive and all sorts of neat accessories. Since it was
pretty big (probably 1000 lbs), had to be removed that day (no exceptions),
I didn't have a place to put it, and don't know anything about them, I
didn't bid. It sold for $5... I don't know if the other guy moved it on not.
It might have wound up in the dumpster dumpster behind the place. I'll have
to check on the way home.
I did buy a rather large "band printer" for the parts. There's a couple of
really LARGE steppers motors in it that could be used in a robotics or
automation project. There's also a bunch of 7400 series chips that might be
useful someday. The stand is in really good condition so, I can use that for
another fairly large printer that I have. I only payed $5 for it so, I
couldn't get hurt too bad ;-)
I'm gonna try to come up to Orlando around the end of June. If you have or
know of any minis (HP or DEC) that are complete and working, we might be
able to make a deal. At this point, I just don't have the time or patience
to piece together an incomplete system.
Anyway, hope all is well with you and yours...
See ya,
Steve Robertson <steverob(a)hotoffice.com>
If anyone is interested contact the person
below...
-------------------
From: "Fairley, Chris" <Chris.Fairley@kla-
tencor.com>
Subject: Free to good home: Centronics 101
printer
I have the original personal printer, weighing
about 60 pounds, upper-case
only, complete with paper tape reader. State of
the art in the late 70's?
Free to a good home. It worked last time I
tried, has a few cosmetic
defects, very dusty. Want it? FOB San Jose CA.
-Chris
Chris Fairley
Director of Engineering
KLA-Tencor WIN Division
tel: 408 875-5330
fax: 408 571-2915
pager: 888 709-2310
email: chris.fairley(a)kla-tencor.com
--------------------------------
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
I'm wondering of anyone knows whatthe value of an RK05 would be? I'm thinking
of buying a rack full of stuff in order to get the parts i want, and then
sell of the rest. As i'll be getting a pair of RK05's for free with the
PDP-11/45 system I'm getting for free, if I was to get 2 more RK05's I
cant see needing that many...
Also, is it next to impossible to get the rx8e needed to hook the Rk05's
to a PDP8/e?
-Lawrence LeMay
I was reading a post on Slashdot about Microsoft pissing about a
huge thread on there about its "embracing and engulfing" the Kerberos
standard in its Windows 2000 product (see
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/05/02/158204 ).
The thread had links to a legal analysis of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (http://www.whitmorelaw.com/Copyright/dmca-analysis.html ).
Here's a link to the actual legislation
(http://www.hrrc.org/2281enrolled.pdf ). Although the first article is
written from the perspective of service provider liability, I can't help but
wonder what it means for us (as providers of the "content") in light of the
recent goings on with Napster and MP3.
For example, although I acknowledge the copyrights of the various
owners of the printed materials on my Web site (the AIM documents, for
example, since Rockwell is still around), I do not have explicit permission
>from Rockwell to make those materials available. I'm sure that many of us in
our preservation efforts have a mixture of documents from defunct companies
and from live ones (but for which the products have been long discontinued).
How do we protect ourselves? My plan, frankly, is to continue with
my efforts until someone tells me to stop.
Thoughts?
Rich
Hi,
This isn't specifically classic, but maybe someone can help.
I have a SCSI optical drive mounted in an external case, made in 1992. There
are no labels on the case at all. I was sent this from the United States
(where mains voltage is 110VAC); I'm in the UK (where mains is 240VAC).
Whilst I can use this unit in conjunction with a step-down transformer, is
there any "rule of thumb" method for determining whether a switchmode PSU is
auto-ranging? Rather than just connecting the unit up to 240V and risking
damaging the PSU, I'd like some idea of whether it is designed to run from
240V.
The fuse on the power supply PCB is 2A 250V, if that's any indication. There
is no obvious wire link that could be moved to select between 110V and 220V
operation.
A label on the PSU reads
MODEL NO. SP35W2P-141
There is also a logo which looks something like this:
|
| __
| /
\__|___
|
\__
That is, the letters L and E joined together. Any idea which manufacturer this
is?
-- Mark
Does anyone want a Maxoptix disk? I found one that's still in the box and
sealed in plastic. The box says "Tahiti Formatted Erasable Optical
Cartridge 1 Gigabyte Maxoptix by Verbatim". Make a reasonable offer.
Joe
At 08:38 AM 5/11/00 -0500, I wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
> I was helping to sort a load of surplus test equipment yesterday and
found a couyple of DEC computers. Since I'm not a DEC head I don't know
anything about them so can someone tell me more about them and if they're
worth rescueing. The first is a DEC Por 350, there are two of them. The
other is is a Micro PDP 11/73. Both are roughly the size of a large tower
case for a PC. There's also a VAX 11/785 there but it's huge!
>
A lot of people responded to my posting and asked "what's the deal" on
the 11/73 and 350, so I thought I'd explain the whole situation here.
These machines just came out of Martin Marietta. For the ones of you that
don't recognize the name, they are the largest defense contractor in the
US. They were taken out of the MM plant yesterday morning with a huge load
of surplus test equipment. I helped unload, sort and test the stuff
yesterday afternoon (and half the night!) I don't know anything about DEC
stuff but I thought these looked worthwhile so I grabbed the 11/73 and one
of the 350s and separated them from the usual load of PC crap.
They still belong to the test equipment dealer but he knows nothing
about them or where or how to sell them so he's letting me see what I can
do with them. They are for sale so if you want one, make a reasonable
offer. If the owner doesn't get what he feels is a fair offer then he or I
will put them on E-bay. I took the 11/73 and one of the 350s home with me
to try and find out more about them, so if you have any specific questions
let me know and I'll try to answer them. I haven't tested them but they
look like they're in fine condition. I'll try to hook them up this weekend
and find out more about them.
Fine print: These are located in the Orlando Florida area. If you buy
one, you can pick it up and pay for in person (hint: cash = no tax.) If you
need it shipped then there is a $20 packing fee for a custom foam in place
shipping box. All of their large test equipment gets shipped that way and
even UPS hasn't lost or damaged a piece yet. It will be shipped by your
choice of shippers and actual shipping charges will apply.
Joe
Hey all,
I've got a question for DECheads out there who are familiar with
the VAXstation 3100 (and DECstation 3100, for that matter) series
of DEC systems.
These little beasts don't use mounting brackets like the rest of
the desktop computer universe. They instead rely on the little
screw holes located on the bottom of standard 3.5" form factor
harddrives, and these really INSIDIOUS LITTLE RUBBERIZED GASKETS
that you wedge into various mount-holes on a metal plate inside
the VAXstation's case. The drive sits on these gaskets, you see,
and gets insulated from the scary conductive metal plate, while
still getting a little airflow under the electronics.
I'm ALWAYS missing at _least_ one gasket whenever I want to mount
a drive. Often, I'm missing all four of them at once, making life
terribly difficult. I've resorted to using non-conductive washers
and screws with _really_ big heads to kind of work around it,
but it's a sub-optimal solution.
Does anyone know where to get these little guys? Did DEC have
a part number for them? Or are they a common part available at
your local Fry's Electronics, and I just haven't found them yet?
I really need some, you see.
Thanks for any (and all) help!
-Seth
--
"As a general rule, the man in the habit of murdering | Seth Morabito
bookbinders, though he performs a distinct service | sethm(a)loomcom.com
to society, only wastes his own time and takes no |
personal advantage." -- Kenneth Grahame (1898) | Perth ==> *
--- Derek Peschel <dpeschel(a)eskimo.com> wrote:
> Fred Cisin wrote...
> > It is vitally important that you not exceed 14.8 characters per second on
> > Selectrics.
>
> .... or what? Does the Balls-O-Meter wear out? :)
As tank-like as the Selectrics are, you really _can_ wear them out. My mother
used to make her living typing court transcripts (in the evenings, from the
tapes the court reporters make during the day). One time, she took her
IBM Selectric II to a new shop for minor repair and adjustment. The shop
owner commented that he'd never seen wear on certain parts until then. When
the job was done, he asked her to try it out in the store. About a minute
into the machine-gun reverie, he commented that the two of them were going
to become fast friends. He was right. She took one of her two machines
to the shop at least once or twice per year. I don't know how fast she
typed, but it was well in excess of 100 wpm.
14.8 cps - it's not the law, just a good idea.
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
Well, it must have been a brain fart. I can't find the article at all. Not
in PE, EN, CirCellar, or N&V. I have no idea where I saw it.
I did come across a project for the BS1 in "Programming and Customizing the
Basic Stamp Computer" by Scott Edwards (p. 87) for a POV message machine. It
wouldn't be too hard to add a Dallas serial clock and change the code to
make a clock.
Rich
-----Original Message-----
There was a project just for this in Electronics Now or Popular Electronics
just recently. I'd say Feb. or March issue.
If I have time tonight, I'll dig-up the article. As I recall, it uses a PIC
and a group of LEDs on a pendulum to provide the date and time using the
same "persistence of vision" as mentioned below. I don't recall if the
swinging was user-invoked, motorized or magnetic.
Rich
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
-----Original Message-----
From: Marvin [mailto:marvin@rain.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 11:06 AM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Cool hack (was Busses vs no busses)
John Foust wrote:
>
> What's the name of those signs that are composed of nothing but
> a single vertical column of LEDs, where you can only see the
> image (or the digital clock display, etc.) as your eye scans
> across it, leaving the multiplexed image in your brain?
I can't recall either, but that brings to mind an interesting project a
friend of mine worked on quite a few years ago. The Art Museum here was
having some kind of show and an artist wanted to paint electronic pictures.
My friend designed the electronics (I built the circuit boards) to put a
line of LEDs on a pendulum and paint pictures electronically as the pendulum
swung through its arc. With the multi-colored and higher intensity LEDs
available today, it would be really cool to do the same thing but with color
pictures. Doesn't sound like too hard a project especially with the speed of
todays computers.
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
Can anybody in Europe help these people?
-----Original Message-----
From: misbrieuc(a)wanadoo.fr <misbrieuc(a)wanadoo.fr>
Newsgroups: aus.computers
Date: Wednesday, 10 May 2000 0:37
Subject: Digital PDP11
>Good afternoon,
>
>
>We use a Digital pdp 11, model 04 for the application of process
>piloting.
>
>People who have been working in the firm for a long time will remember
>that:
>
>We lack kit pieces in order to keep this material working.
>
>The research with the computer brokers brings no results.
>
>I'm therefore looking for one pdp 11 or some change pieces, in our
>companies' cupboards.
>
>Thank you for your help.
>
>
>
>
>PS: of course, the managed application is critical for the company and
>the replacement of the functions cared by the calculator would be too
>expensive.
>
From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org>
>John Wilson wrote:
>>
>> Anyone who pays significantly more than the scrap value, is not looking
>> hard enough.
>
>Absolutely! The other side of that coin though is some people are not
>interested in looking, and are therefore willing to pay someone else to do
>that. Why else would something like ebay be such a success?
Because you'll find items there that you won't find no matter how much
looking you do in your piss poor geographical vicinity.
;)
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
Here's a guy with a Compaq portable up for grabs. Please contact the
original sender.
Reply-to: N5TZR(a)TDF.NET
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 11 May 2000 00:16:27 -0500
From: Michael Cedeck <N5TZR(a)TDF.NET>
To: donate(a)vintage.org
Subject: courious if ya want it...
I have a old compac portable, (lugable). the early version of a laptop,
the one with the keyboard in the bottom , built in monitor, floppy drive.
Michael n5tzr(a)tdf.net
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF Europe: April 29th & 30th, Munich, Germany
VCF Los Angeles: Summer 2000 (*TENTATIVE*)
VCF East: Planning in Progress
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
"Free? Did somebody say 'Free'?", he said in his best Jambi voice.
This message is from a microscope enthusiast list. I have no idea
what this is, but it's got 8 inch drives, so it must be a computer, right?
- John
At 12:59 PM 5/10/00 -0400, Robert Wieland wrote:
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The Microscopy ListServer -- Sponsor: The Microscopy Society of America
>To Subscribe/Unsubscribe -- Send Email to ListServer(a)MSA.Microscopy.Com
>On-Line Help http://www.msa.microscopy.com/MicroscopyListserver/FAQ.html
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------.
>
>
> Free to anyone who will take it away, a Tracor-Northern 55xy (not sure
>which member of the 5500 family) console unit, with keyboard but without
>monitor. Has two 8" drives on the front. A few manuals & floppies of
>software go with it. This was once used at another site to run the WDS on
>a JEOL 840, but has been sitting here unconnected in a corner for several
>years. It is complete (has had nothing taken out of it), but condition is
>otherwise unknown.
> Located at the University of Delaware, in Newark, Delaware, about five
>miles off I95.
> Respond to wieland(a)me.udel.edu
>
>Robert Wieland wieland(a)me.udel.edu
>The very concept of human governance is a moral dilemma:
>If the people are good, it is a mistake to create authorities over them;
>If they are not good, it is a mistake to create authorities out of them.
>
>
>
>Where do you get Rogue for the VAX?
I do believe that some of the latest "standard" versions just
plain compile under VMS. You'll need a C compiler and a MMK-type
make utility. I also believe nethack is available, too.
A different branch off the Rogue evolutionary tree is Moria.
There are many versions of this floating around... most notably:
$ ftp ubvms.buffalo.edu/anon
MadGoat FTP client V2.6-1
%FTP-I-ATTEMPTING, Attempting to connect to host ubvms.buffalo.edu
<220 ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu MultiNet FTP Server Process V4.2(16) at Wed 10-May-200
0 10:25PM-EDT
%FTP-I-LOGIN, Attempting to login to user anonymous
<331 anonymous user ok. Send real ident as password.
<230-Guest User SHOPPA(a)TIMAXP.TRAILING-EDGE.COM logged into SYS$SYSDEVICE:[FTP]
at Wed 10-May-2000 10:25PM-EDT, job 1f46.
<230 Directory and access restrictions apply
FTP:ubvms.buffalo.edu> cd maslib
<250 Connected to SYS$SYSDEVICE:[FTP.MASLIB].
FTP:ubvms.buffalo.edu> cd games
<250 Connected to SYS$SYSDEVICE:[FTP.MASLIB.GAMES].
FTP:ubvms.buffalo.edu> dir *moria*
<200 Stru F ok.
<200 Port 61.7 at Host 63.73.218.130 accepted.
<150 List started.
SYS$SYSDEVICE:[FTP.MASLIB.GAMES]
IMORIA.DIR;1 7 18-NOV-1997 14:41 [TKSLEN] (RWED,RWED,R,R)
MORIA_443.DIR;1 5 18-NOV-1997 14:42 [TKSLEN] (RWED,RWED,R,R)
MORIA_480.DIR;1 5 18-NOV-1997 14:42 [TKSLEN] (RWED,RWED,R,R)
MORIA_500.DIR;1 6 18-NOV-1997 14:42 [TKSLEN] (RWED,RWED,R,R)
UMORIA.DIR;1 5 18-NOV-1997 14:43 [TKSLEN] (RWED,RWED,R,R)
>P.S. I installed Tru64 Unix on my Alpha 150, but it wouldn't run right
>because I dinked with the partitioning during the install. So, I installed
>VMS/Alpha 7.21 on it, but I forgot you can't use a 2G drive for VMS on the
>boot drive... so I installed a 1G drive instead, installed VMS/Alpha, and
>it *still* wouldn't boot... Am I stupid, or what?
Huh? Since when does an Alpha have the 1G boot drive limitation? This
limitation only applies to some of the older VS3100's, AFAIK.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Rumor has it that Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) may have mentioned these words:
>On Wed, 10 May 2000, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> I knew someone who had one of these gadgets back in the '70's. He wore out
>> a selectric in about two weeks.
>
>I know a HUMAN typist who wore one out in ONE.
>(she could AVERAGE 150 words per minute over 8 hour days! Not the
>world's fastest, but close. At the end of the day, she barely had any
>remembrance of what she had typed.)
>
>It is vitally important that you not exceed 14.8 characters per second on
>Selectrics.
>The cheap home Selectrics are way too flimsy and short-lived for ANYTHING.
>Always get the "heavy duty" models.
To bring this back on track... I could average 100-105 over a 5-6 hour
period back in my heyday, and did if for around a month transcribing a few
books into my Tandy 200... IMHO still the sweetest laptop keyboard ever.
BTW, it must have been "heavy duty" as it's still working just fine. (I
have a pretty light touch for typing...)
See ya,
"Merch"
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
>Assumeing you could get them connected what nobel project could this mass
>of diversified machines be commissioned to do? Obviously they are way too
>slow to do Seti@home (Wouldn't it be a kick if a really old machine found
>something significant?) but surely there could be some project that could
>be engineered to be useful?
One that naturally comes to mind is file conversion/transfer. I'ts the
primary
use here.
Another could be using the common node as the terminal to any of the
connected
clients.
>Does this even make sense?
Yes.
--- Frank McConnell <fmc(a)reanimators.org> wrote:
> Ron Hudson <rhudson(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > Does anyone still sell s100 based computers?
> > Aren't they used still for process controll and automation?
>
> Some years ago (1994 or 1995 I think) someone posted an article to
> alt.folklore.computers about a manufacturer of voting machines who was
> still building their own S-100-based design for use in that
> application. Sorry, I didn't save a copy of the article.
The Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus has a corner of their
new building set aside as a tribute to the old museum (c. 1964 - 1999). Part
of it is a kiosk with the original computer equipment performing the original
tasks for which they were programmed - a C-64 running a lemonaide stand
simulation (c. 1983) and an S-100 box running a crime survey (c. 1979).
In the old museum, these used to sit outside the "CIVIC" room, a DECSystem 2020
attached to the Compu$erve network providing computing services for non-profit
organizations (The DEC-20 was decomissioned and reclaimed by CI$ many, many
years ago).
-ethan
=====
Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to
vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com
The original webpage address is still going away. The
permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/
See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
Hi,
Just thought I would say that if someone does get the TK70 from Don, I have
the controller (Qbus) available.. Can't guarantee that it works and I don't
have the cable, but it's better than nothing!
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
One of the most amazing things I've witnessed in the computer evolution
is the growth, and death, of busses. Some, like Q-bus and S-100 are
pretty simple, others like SBus and the switching fabric that
constitutes the SparcServer 490 are much more complex.
When asked once why I prefer the Q-bus 11's and Vaxen my answer is
always because I can get lots of I/O to do neat things for those busses.
(I'm writing a program for the PDP-8 to control an LED sign using a
couple of 12bit parallel i/o cards. )
But the trend in PC's has gone to fewer and fewer "slots" and soon will
be no slots. I thought that the bus was dead until I realized that USB
has the same bandwidth as Q-bus and FireWire has much better bandwidth.
So presumably we'll see some interesting I/O devices that use these
busses in the future.
--Chuck
Hey now, I can personally vouch that you did indeed get the Interdata
7/32... ;p The real truth is that you can find anything, provided you look
hard enough... Hell, the way I got my 3 Interdata 7/32s (well now 2), 2
Perkin-Elmer 3203's, P-E 3205, and 3 P-E 3210's was by doing a search in
excite for "interdata 7/32 minicomputer" and lo! I came across an ad (barely
3 hours old) saying "We've got all this stuff for free, if you want it, its
yours, just pay shipping, else its scrapped." So I got it. End of story. No
Ebaying involved... though half the people who pay stupid prices for say
common 11/35's wouldn't know what a 7/32 was if it hit them on the head... I
got a Sperry-Univac COBOL training course at a used bookstore... and I got
the FEP software for a DECsystem-10/20 at a thrift store for $6. Hell I got
my Nova 1210 by posting a "I want old computers" message in the newsgroup
co.ads... my point is, if you want it, look harder! I'm not trying to brag,
I'm only giving examples... I haven't even been collecting computers for a
year yet. But for god's sake, try harder! If I wasn't a year late I would
have manuals/software/schematics for my Varian.. but he pitched them.. if I
was only one month sooner I would have the disk + tape drives for my
Honeywell AND all the manuals + software... So get out there and SAVE the
stuff!
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Ron Hudson <rhudson(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Does anyone still sell s100 based computers?
> Aren't they used still for process controll and automation?
Some years ago (1994 or 1995 I think) someone posted an article to
alt.folklore.computers about a manufacturer of voting machines who was
still building their own S-100-based design for use in that
application. Sorry, I didn't save a copy of the article.
-Frank McConnell
John Wilson wrote:
>I seriously think eBay is likely to trigger some kind of 12-step program
>for auction junkies. Really, it's a bit like gambling, people get really
>competitive sometimes and end up paying prices that have nothing to do with
>anyone's concept of what the item is worth, just because they feel that they
>need to win at any cost.
Sure, that's the "auction fever" that E-bay has been so good at tapping
into.
There is one very simple rule to follow at any auction: know what you're
willing to pay at the start, and never go over it. And it's actually easy,
with E-bay's Proxy Bidding, to do this on E-bay by simply bidding your
highest amount early on. No more worry about someone outbidding you by
'sniping' at the end!
Of course, whenever I mention this strategy I get flamed horribly by
"E-bay experts" at how awful it is. How they tried it once and got outbid
by $1 and lost. Or how it drives up prices for all buyers. I don't agree,
E-bay provides you with a powerful tool - proxy bidding - and you should
use it to its full advantage. Getting caught up in the frenzy is the
sure way to lose in the big picture (though you may "win" the auction),
because you end up paying more than you wanted to.
Tim.
When it comes to transferring data between mutually incompatible systems,
nothing can compare with putting a box full of solenoids on the keyboard!
At one time their primary market was as a way to convert a perfectly good
typewriter into a ridiculous printer. There were two main contenders: the
Rochester Dynatyper (which had a dual board for connecting to the bus of
Apple ][ and TRS-80 I/III), and the KGS-80 (which cabled to an ordinary
Centronics port)
I'm ready to part with my KGS-80. I got it used about 15 years ago, and
used it once for exercising sticking keys on a keyboard, and once for
transferring a 100 pages of manuscript from a TRS-80 into a Merganthaler
typesetting machine.
This is THE device that will transfer files to ANYTHING. IF you can stop
laughing.
Best offer.
Help prevent it ending up on e-bay!
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
In a message dated Mon, 8 May 2000 00:27:26 -0400 (EDT), Sean 'Captain
Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)armigeron.com> writes:
<< Again, to bring this back on topic, there have been plenty of operating
systems distributed in ROM---AmigaOS, QNX, OS-9 and the original MacOS were
all contained in ROM, were/are ROMmable and extensible. And all are older
than 10 years old. Even MS-DOS came in ROM format for some computers
(although I'm not sure if it ran out of ROM, or was copied to RAM before
running). >>
The Mac OS has never been fully contained in ROM. Starting with the Lisa in
1983 and the original Mac in 1984, Apple used a 64k ROM that contained GUI
program routines (the Macintosh ToolKit). These machines still had to boot a
floppy which made calls to the ROM.
Best,
David Greelish
Publisher
Classic Computing Press
www.classiccomputing.com
Dick:
EDWin has the ability to build components and symbols. It also has
the ability to embed a BMP file. So, I was hoping that someone had a
registration mark in a popular graphics format for me to embed without
having to go through the trouble of building a symbol.
I have a copyright legend in the component side copper and
"component side" text in the silk screen.
Rich
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:richard@idcomm.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 11:41 AM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Bitmaps - PCB registration
The packages I've used (2 versons of OrCAD and EAGLE) seem not only to
provide registration targets, but certainly provide sufficient utility to
build such a symbol if it didn't already exist. Have you considered making
your own registration target?
If you do build it, be certain it's different from one side of each layer to
the other. If you include a bit of text, i.e. a layer identifier in your
registration target, that will help quite a bit. You may also want such an
identifier separate from the target, so you can be certain all the layers
are present when you look at a registered set of layer overlays. It must be
obvious which is which, however, as it's easy to reverse a layer if you have
both reversed text and "right-way-around" text in the copper.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: Cini, Richard <RCini(a)congressfinancial.com>
To: 'ClassCompList' <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2000 9:16 AM
Subject: Bitmaps - PCB registration
> Hello, all:
>
> I'm continuing work on My6502 SBC, working towards producing a
> working PCB. I wanted to put registration marks on the artwork, but EDWin
> CAD does not appear to have built-in registration mark graphics.
>
> I did a search for electronics clipart, but the 11 sites had nothing
> useful.
>
> Does anyone have any useful registration bitmaps they can send me?
>
> Rich
>
> ==========================
> Richard A. Cini, Jr.
> Congress Financial Corporation
> 1133 Avenue of the Americas
> 30th Floor
> New York, NY 10036
> (212) 545-4402
> (212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
>
In a message dated 5/10/00 11:25:42 Central Daylight Time,
pat(a)transarc.ibm.com writes:
> > >
> > >Heath made a computer (the H-8) which is similar to the IMSAI but
> actually
> > >does use a program to control the computer along with the usual
hardware.
> > >The H-8 is a lot newer than the IMSAI, however.
> > >
> > >-- Derek
> >
> > Any idea where I can get info on how to run an h8? I saved one from the
> > garbage a while back, and it seems to function..at least it reacts to
> > it's front panel, but I have no doc for it whatsoever.
> I used to wander up to the local Heathkit store every weekend to play with
> the H8, H11a (LSI-11 based machine running a variant of RT-11), and the
> H89 - essentially a Z80 processor board and a 5.25" disk drive built into
> an H19 terminal - I'd actually really love to have one of those, if anyone
> has one they don't want ... :-)
>
> Anyway, I was such a frequent visitor to that store that the manager gave
> me a couple of advertising posters for the machines - one was a poster
> that said "H8 POWER", above an illustration of the bootstrap address, as
> it would appear on the H8 display in red 7-segment LEDs; I'm almost
> positive that the display read "040000 Pc" .... The poster is still
> hanging on my old bedroom wall at my mother's house, unfortunately I can't
> get to it to look just at the moment ....
>
> --Pat.
I have two complete operating H8 machines and complete documentation. One id
stock Heathkit with the gold pin MB. The other is a Trionix equipped unit
with dual fans, modified power supply and an operating 8086 CPU board. Runs
CP/M-86 from hard sector disks at a screaming 2 MHz. If someone needs a copy
of the operating instructions for the H8, I'll see if I can get it for them
for the cost of copies and postage. Can't be in a hurry though as I travel
almost 100% of the time and copies will be done at the local Office Max when
I have a spare hour or so.
The H8 used a 50 pin buss designed by Heathkit. The boot loader could be
initiated from the front panel and used a cassette tape or any of several
disk drives depending on the controllers installed. AAMF, programs could be
keyed into the front panel in Octal and executed from the panel without the
use of an external device. Kind of fun watching the display as the program
executed.
I also have two working H/Z-89's left after today. Planning on keeping them,
however. I just finished selling/giving away 8 complete H/Z-89's. (Sorry Pat)
I do still have a small supply of spare parts and boards for the H8 and H89
if someone is in a bind. Also have complete documentation on the
H/Z-88/89/90 series of computers.
Mike Stover, KB9VU
Florissant, MO
CCA# 404
CRA# 77
USAF MARS AFA3BO
Hello, all:
I'm continuing work on My6502 SBC, working towards producing a
working PCB. I wanted to put registration marks on the artwork, but EDWin
CAD does not appear to have built-in registration mark graphics.
I did a search for electronics clipart, but the 11 sites had nothing
useful.
Does anyone have any useful registration bitmaps they can send me?
Rich
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
>OK - I finally got my simulator going with Tiny
>Basic (what a nightmare). If put together a package
>with the source, sample programs, and docs:
>
>www.ndx.net/cosmac
>
Good job Kirk! I've been a little busy these last few days, but I've
started playing around it and will feedback shortly.
;)
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
It seems to me that now that there are eager 'markets' for old systems, any (most) purshases made are value protected by the fact that *someone* would probably buy 'it' off you for whatever you paid, if not more, whether the currency is soft or hard. I for one have felt alot more at ease buying, with limited resources, an old system that I wanted to play with, knowing that I can 'pass it on' after grokking it, and recoup any (sometimes lots of) money and effort sunk into a machine.
That equates to most machines being 'free' (ok, or investments too) while you play with them. The kink here is the cost of my 'permanent' possessions.'
Personally, I [too] wish there was a trading network strategy for this lists members (I have tonnes of stuff for trade.) But that seems to work only in the 'real world.' Joe in Orelando and I activelly 'swap' alot of gear....
Anyway, cheers...
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
-----Original Message-----
>
>Just like the original Amiga circa 1985, which loaded Kickstart off of
disk
>into write once protected RAM. Why?? Because the ROM code had not yet
been
>finalized when the computer was put on the market.
>
>Another fine example of how marketing guys try to BS electrons . . .
>
>Gary Hildebrand
>
And the A3000 when first released, which resurrected the Kickstart disk a
second time.
Actually, I thought that soft-kickable Amigas were great; the A1000 and
A3000 could both use a wider variety of OS versions with less fuss than
those where the Kickstart was entirely in ROM. And once you put the
softkick on a bootable HD, it didn't slow down the boot sequence that much.
Great if you occasionally needed to boot 1.3 to run an older game.
Even the Amigas with Kickstart in ROM could be soft-kicked if necessary. I
ran an A2000 with a 1.3 ROM that soft-kicked to a 2.0 ROM image, so I could
run OS 2.0 when it was first released.
Those were happy days!
Mark.
How come the CC archives at classiccmp.org are so sparse? What happened
to the main archives? Is there somewhere I can go to find the complete
thing? It would suck majorly if there is no longer a CC archive.
Hello Bill,
If the HP-86 has not already been spoken for, I would like to
speak up. It would be a fun addition to my collection. I have
always liked the older HP systems.
I'll be in the general area on Saturday 5/13 (driving back from
San Jose, CA to Portland, OR), and could arrange to pick this up
on the way.
Let me know if this is still up for grabs :-)
Thanks,
- Earl
--- Bill Yakowenko <yakowenk(a)cs.unc.edu> wrote:
> Hey all, I have a line on an HP-86 up for grabs in California,
> about 90
> miles north of Sacramento:
>
> ] HP-86 with manuals, monitor, two disc drives, memory
> modules, matrix
> ] manipulation hardware (never used), etc. I have not taken a
> complete
> ] inventory of what is there. Would be happy to GIVE it to
> anyone that
> ] has an interest.
>
> Let me know if you're interested, and I'll pass the word on.
>
> Cheers,
> Bill.
>
>
>
=====
Earl Evans
retro(a)retrobits.com
Enjoy Retrocomputing Today!
Join us at http://www.retrobits.com
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
--->The 11/74 was a little more than a prototype since a number of KB11-CM's
>were built and implemented internally in DEC. The parts were assigned
>real part numbers and were produced in limited quantities.
That was SOP for DEC. Anytimg something needed to be produced outside
of the lab and it was projected as production it would get the full
treatment.
>These 11/74's were pressed into 11/70 service when DEC couldn't meet the
>demand for Telco (i.e. AT&T) 11/70's due to the FCC specs in the mid
>'80's. They were allowed to sell refurb machines -- so the 11/74's from
That and it threatend to take some of the 11/780s thunder. One forgets
the 11/70 was the supermini of the day and not too shabby for some
time after.
>internal sites in Massachusetts and New Hampshire were s shipped to the
>field to replace Field Service and Software (and in our case the Mid
>Atlantic Region Sales) administrive machines in DEC so the 11/70's
>running RSTS/E (usually) could be refurbed and shipped to AT&T sites.
Not all though. The system known as Video was an 11/70 that was an 11/74
at another point in time.
>My biggest fear was backplane failure -- since there were a couple of
>11/74 board sets in the country -- but no one knew if there were any
>backplanes out there and the 11/70 backplanes got real creaky after 10
>years or so of field maintenance.
That and the multiport memory boxes.
Allison
>Bill said
>> ...a distant decendant of the DEC CI780 and HSC50
>> disk interface SDI cable.
That and the C64 serial bus, Epson PX-8 serial bus, Appletalk interconnect.
Even I did a simple two wire bus for interconnect back in the early 80s.
Firewire and USB are nothing new save for they are fast and cheap.
>CI780 =? Cluster Interconnect ??
Yep
>HSC50 =? Heirarchic Storage Controller ??
Yep yep.
>SDI =? No Freakin' Clue. ??? Help!
Strategic defense inititive... Storage domain interface... I forget.
They did have onthing in common serial buses that ran at very high speeds
as a simpler interconnect that could span significant distances. Even
eithenet
has been used that way.
To revisit a earlier point S100 ws not a simple bus, crude yes, not simple.
The cpu in the raw was on the bus so you had to do a lot of cycle decoding
and grabing the right lines. If it had been done right the odd pins would
have been all grounds and the bus would have ended up looking like multibus
or STD.
A simple bus would be SS50, much better in some ways and easier to interface
to.
Allison
>> >
>> > Err, and just what _production_ PDP11s are pre-11/20??
>> >
>>
>> Gordon Bell had 300 "PDP-11" minicomputers made that were *slightly*
>> different from the PDP-11/20. Most 11/20 boards are rev "A". I will list soo
>> the differences - most had to do with the UNIBUS.. but there was some
>> changes to the datapaths as well.
>Ah, so they're not really production machines...
>
>As a user/repairer (as opposed to a collector), my views on prototype
>machines and their value is perhaps a little different to others.
You also have to keep in mind who the owner is and how much he wants to
inflate the value of his equipment. I think it's been conclusively shown
that there are at least some members of this list who are very good salesmen
(perhaps PT Barnum style), and some others who aren't so good.
Q: What's the difference between a computer dealer and a car dealer?
A: The car dealer knows when he's lying.
Tim.
Chuck,
Of course, you can always point out that with the DEC stuff, the unibus,
omnibus, posibus, negibus, and qbus all use the same connectors... realllly
different electrical signals but still the same connectors... quite handy..
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Hey all, I have a line on an HP-86 up for grabs in California, about 90
miles north of Sacramento:
] HP-86 with manuals, monitor, two disc drives, memory modules, matrix
] manipulation hardware (never used), etc. I have not taken a complete
] inventory of what is there. Would be happy to GIVE it to anyone that
] has an interest.
Let me know if you're interested, and I'll pass the word on.
Cheers,
Bill.
Oops, I should have made it clear that I was speaking only about WIREWRAP
boards! I did not mean to imply in any way whatsoever that you could put
unibus boards in say a negibus backplane, unless you like the smell of burnt
circuitry.. that was also the reason for my note about their electrical
signals being totally different, i.e. that unibus boards might have the same
connectors as qbus boards, but they are electrically different... Dear lord
I hope nobody cooked anything by mistake!!!
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
There was a project just for this in Electronics Now or Popular Electronics
just recently. I'd say Feb. or March issue.
If I have time tonight, I'll dig-up the article. As I recall, it uses a PIC
and a group of LEDs on a pendulum to provide the date and time using the
same "persistence of vision" as mentioned below. I don't recall if the
swinging was user-invoked, motorized or magnetic.
Rich
==========================
Richard A. Cini, Jr.
Congress Financial Corporation
1133 Avenue of the Americas
30th Floor
New York, NY 10036
(212) 545-4402
(212) 840-6259 (facsimile)
-----Original Message-----
From: Marvin [mailto:marvin@rain.org]
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 11:06 AM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Cool hack (was Busses vs no busses)
John Foust wrote:
>
> What's the name of those signs that are composed of nothing but
> a single vertical column of LEDs, where you can only see the
> image (or the digital clock display, etc.) as your eye scans
> across it, leaving the multiplexed image in your brain?
I can't recall either, but that brings to mind an interesting project a
friend of mine worked on quite a few years ago. The Art Museum here was
having some kind of show and an artist wanted to paint electronic pictures.
My friend designed the electronics (I built the circuit boards) to put a
line of LEDs on a pendulum and paint pictures electronically as the pendulum
swung through its arc. With the multi-colored and higher intensity LEDs
available today, it would be really cool to do the same thing but with color
pictures. Doesn't sound like too hard a project especially with the speed of
todays computers.
And, finally, a couple of cheapies.
RT-11 Pocket Guide, still in the shrink wrap, for Ver. 5.0. Since
I don't use RT-11, this is not very useful to me. First person to offer
$5.00 (Shipping included!) gets it.
I also have a data cable as used on the HP 262x series
terminals. It's a DCE species, HP part #5061-4216. Has the 50-pin
Amphenol 'Micro-Ribbon' connector on one end, and a female
DB25 on the other.
Same price: $5.00 (Includes shipping).
In the event of multiple responses, priority goes to the E-mail
with the earlier time/date stamp.
Thanks much!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner/Head Honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies (www.bluefeathertech.com)
kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
"SCSI Users, Unite! Beware the IDEs of March!"
Ok, here's another Haggle item at:
http://www.haggle.com/cgi/getitem.cgi?id=202308864
It's a copy of "Introduction to Programming" (DEC) that seems
to have been written around the PDP-8. The bottom of the front
cover reads "PDP-8 Handbook Series" (wazzat a clue or what?) ;-)
Starting bid is two bucks plus mailing. Help me find this one a
good home. Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner/Head Honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies (www.bluefeathertech.com)
kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
"SCSI Users, Unite! Beware the IDEs of March!"
I just posted a listing on Haggle's Antique Computers section
(I absolutely REFUSE to deal with E-pay) as follows:
http://www.haggle.com/cgi/getitem.cgi?id=202308845
It's for a stack of manuals/tapes on the HP9825 desktop
computer. Full description's at the site.
I thought about limiting the posting to the list, but I wanted to
give any of you who have a 9825, and might need the docs, a fair
crack at it.
Thanks much.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner/Head Honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies (www.bluefeathertech.com)
kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
"SCSI Users, Unite! Beware the IDEs of March!"
This is being offered by a third party.
All inquiries should be made to the e-mail
near the end of this message.
-----------------------------------------------
** FOR SALE: IMSAI 8080 **
Serial Number: 1009006
Boards installed:
IMSAI MPU-A 8080 CPU
CCS Model 2422 Multimode Floppy Controller
SC DIgital Model 32K Memory board
Two memory boards, maker unknown (see pic)
Tei IO 3P+3S Serial/parallel io card
S-100 Extender board
Northstar MDC-A4 Hard-sector Floppy Controller
Documentation:
"A couple of boxes" of hardware & sofware docs.
Software:
Stack of hard-sectored diskettes, that looks like
they have the OS, and some applications on them,
couldn't tell for sure.
Package also includes:
Pair of MPI floppy drives in a hand-made
copper cadrive cabinet (see pic).
OKI Microline 82 printer
Apple pen plotter
B/W Television Set, modified for use as a monitor.
------------------------------------------------------
I looked at this stuff the other nite; it looks like a
pretty nice example of the IMSAI with its original CPU
card. It's a bit dusty inside, but cosmetically fine
otherwise. No broken paddle switches, and it comes
with the original steel top (made of boilerplate).
I've been told that there may be more items added to the
inventory, but this is what has surfaced so far. It was
working when this was put away, but hasn't been powered up
since. Actual electrical condition unknown.
Photos can bee seen at:
http://home.kscable.com/kh6jjn/imsai_front.jpghttp://home.kscable.com/kh6jjn/imsai_side.jpghttp://home.kscable.com/kh6jjn/disk_drives.jpghttp://home.kscable.com/kh6jjn/memory_board.jpg
-------------------------------------------------------
All offers/bids/whatever should be sent via e-mail
to: DENYS FREDRICKSON, at: denysgf(a)juno.com
Thank you for your attention.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programme. . .
>Getting W95C legally was difficult if you're not an OEM or buying it with
>hardware. I'm going to look at 98lite20. I've been pretty pleased with
>the performance on Win98.
Simple, buy 95b and hit their site for hte upgrades. Most of them are for
USB anyway.
>Actually, I'm wondering if the FreeBSD 1.1.5.1 would run on some of
>the new hardware. I've got a tape of it and I'm thinking about
>building it.
Likely it would but you'd have problems with hardware that is not
supported as it didn't exist then.
>> Which WPoffice? I have Caldara Openlinux 2.2 and 2.3 and WP8 is fine
>> under KDE. Just has a huge footprint on teh disk though.
>
>Word Perfect Office 2000... It's huge (the full load of the Professional
>version is around 340mb).
I heard it was a monster. I know people that like WP-8 as it does things
format wise that Word cant and it's very useful to lawyers for that.
>The VT180 was one of the best CP/M machines to use. Typeahead,
>good hardware, a great screen and the best keyboard. Just too expensive
>for most people.
Yep, it's a winner. I have several (plus gave away a bunch more over the
years).
It's a nice machine to hack as well. Mods I've done include 6mhz z80, two
sided,
3.5" 781k/720k floppy and a romdisk/ramdisk. plus a bubble memory
interface.
The AmproLB is another really great CP/M engine with SCSI even. There
were some later designs like the P112 (from OZ) with a 16mhz Z180 IDE
and all the other goodies.
Another favorite is the Micromint SB180 with the scsi/com card 9.6mhz
64180 (z180) 256k ram FDC that works with any 8/5.25/3.5 disk and a
SCSI interface for hard disk.
Kaypros are OK, the display software is slow but they run well especially
if they have turborom installed.
Allison
>But until the Vax is available at Intel prices and reliablity (the old
>VS3100's and uVaxII's are getting a bit long in the tooth for joe
>consumer -- and the disks are now creaky)...
What disks creaky? They run with newer stuff. But no any os that
has the VMS/Unix admin requirements is not consumer friendly anyway.
Unix or VMS or even NT the aim is the same for someone like me.
That is to get the user out of the core system where they have no business.
Now the problem is that w9x et al has become pervasive any new OS
one might introduce has to work and play well in that space, thats a PITA!
Linux is ok, I've got Caldara OpenV2.3 and it's not faster than W95 and
it uses just as much space, it aquired all the bloat win has. the advantage
is it's got security. The down side is now you have a user that can't use
word documents and excel spread sheets without conversion. Sharing
files is easy if you fire up samba and try to explain "mounting" so someone
that can nearly say CPU. Thats the problem with better.
Allison
Ok, what's left is:
Dataram Corp. P03 LSI-11 Parity Controller Product Specification
1 HP700/92 + HP700/94 User's Manual
Wang 2200 BASIC-2 Language Reference Manual (kinda beaten but complete)
VMS 4.4 Volumes 1B, 5A, 7B, 8B, 8D, and 10A, complete except for the I/O
reference, part I.
I know for sure that I have more stuff to get rid of, when I've found
another somewhat significant amount I'll let the list know. Also, I will
make lists of the advertising stuff from DEC, Emulex, etc. for those who
were interested. Also, just to clarify, I meant that either you could trade
me something *or* it was free... And money is not accepted, I meant trade
other computer-related items. ;p
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>I can't forgive A.T. for the anti-assembly-language advocacy in his comp
arch
He he teaches it, when was he the author of commercial code? ;)
>at once and then tries to draw conclusions. But if Minix is "free" now,
that
>must mean that at least he changed his mind about the bizarre licensing
rules
>he used to have. IIRC it was ~$100 for the book+code and you could install
>"a few" copies, whatever that means.
the licensing went from noncommercial personal use to a more open license
(details on line).
The book at about 60$, I got it and it's useful as was the cdrom( with
V2.0).
one of the other characters has a version that runs under dos and also
a version with real VM support. Theres IP support too. It's good where
small is desireable and swap (2.0) is not on the wish list.
Allison
Every few years I evaluate the holes in my workstation collection
(http://www.city-net/~wvh/collection.html, not up to date) and inevitably
find that I still have no LMI LISP machines. This list seems to be the
perfect place to ask (1) if anyone has one (or more) or docs, software, or
even just parts that they're willing to "part" with or (2) if anyone knows
where any systems, software, or docs are lurking. It's been a long time
since their "heyday" (Stallman honed his hacking skills on these boxes). I
have working samples of most/all of the other classic LispMs (PERQs, TI
Exploders, XEROX boxes, Symbolics) but alas, no LMIs. Can anyone help?
Thanks!
Bill
Robert <pbboy(a)mindspring.com> said:
> Does anyone know what computer Ford Motor Company used in the 1960's?
> I've read that Shelby used a computer to find the proper location for,
> among other things, the upper control arm on the '65 Mustang for his
> GT350 and used one to help design most, if not all, of his other
> creations' critical parts. I've searched IBM (must've been IBM!) and
> Ford and came up with nothing. Although IBM's timeline has the 608
It sounds like you're asking what computer Caroll Shelby used?
As I understand it Ford built the cars then they were modified
at Shelby's company, Shelby American, in L.A. You might try asking
the Los Angeles Shelby American Automobile Club,http://www.lasaac.org/
or ask at Carroll Shelby official web page,http://www.carrollshelby.com/
--Doug
====================================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com (work)
Sr. Software Eng. mranalog(a)home.com (home)
Press Start Inc. http://www.pressstart.com
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Analog Computer Museum and History Center
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
====================================================
Hi all,
In an effort to make room for other manuals, etc. I have the following
extras/stuff I don't want available for the taking. Trades would be nice but
don't feel obligated.. ;p
Clinch/Peters/Small/Summerfield "Tailoring RT-11"
Data General Corp. Nova Minicomputers Instruction Reference Card (x2)
Dataram Corp. P03 LSI-11 Parity Controller Product Specification
DEC Installing and Using the VT320
DEC playing cards, still in the plasic "Digital Know Networks!"
DEC PDP-11 Architecture Handbook, 1983-1984
DEC PDP-11 Microcomputer Interfaces Handbook 1983-1984
DEC PDP-11 Programming Card (the July 1975 one)
DEC Remote System Manager VMS User Reference Card
DEC Terminals + Printers Handbook, 1983-1984
DEC US Systems Price List Oct. 1, 1988
DEC US Systems Price List July 2, 1990
DEC VAX Technical Summary (the original that's not a handbook and not from
DECbooks, copyrighted 1982)
Gill, Arthur "Machine and Assembly Language Programming of the PDP-11"
Grisham, Ralph "Assembly Language Programming for the CDC 6000 Series"
Hewlett-Packard HP-16C Owner's Handbook
Hewlett-Packard HP700/92 + HP700/94 User's Manual (2 copies)
Hewlett-Packard HP7475A Graphics Plotter Interfacing + Programming Manual
Hewlett-Packard HP7475A Graphics Plotter Operation and Interconnection
Manual
IBM 8130 and 8140 Processors Operator's Guide
MDB MLSI-DLV11 Instruction Manual
Wang 2200 BASIC-2 Language Reference Manual (kinda beaten but complete)
VMS 4.4 Volumes 1B, 5A, 7B, 8B, 8D, and 10A, complete except for the I/O
reference, part I.
Also VMS 5.5 on TK50, with about 8 or 9 VMS manuals
And I dunno if anyone besides me has any interest in old sales materials,
but I have a bunch of extra DEC/Emulex/Wyse sales info if anyone is
interested let me know and I'll get more details.
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
>> > Even got parts from a lunar lander...
>> What? Name 'em!
>
> Part of the RADAR altimeter and a spare hatch.
Parts of the flight computer would be a catch! Even those of the
Shuttle.
While I'm not actively trying to get more there are some things
out there on my "Oh, don't pass that one up" list.
Minuteman missle computer. An old disk machine with serial
electronics and all transistor. It was my intro to real touch it
hardware some 28 years ago.
Cincinatti Millichron CM2xxxx series 16bit computer CA1973ish
(anyone but me ever see one?)
Allison
There's only one reason that MS has the market share they do, and it's quite
simple: IBM. It works like this; 1)IBM comes up with the PC. 2)Asks MS to
provide OS. 3)MS pays SCP to be able to port 86-DOS to the IBM PC, later
buys rights to DOS, yadda yadda yadda. 4)The PC is cloned, and all of the PC
clone makers come to MS and pay them to have the same OS as IBM. 5)Due to PC
being far more succesful than anyone imagined, the PC market becomes quickly
locked into MS software, since without it, you wouldn't have compatibility
with old programs, etc. This is, of course, totally over-simplified, and
could possibly be inaccurate about some of the minor points, but its the
general reason. And of course, OS/2 really isn't an MS compititor, since IBM
paid MS to write it and MS even sold it with their own name on it for a
while. Amusingly, even after MS stopped making OS/2, they still sold MS
LANManager, which requires OS/2. Heh.
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Is it truly necessary to fill the list with stuff like "Microsoft is awful",
etc etc etc.? I don't see how that is particularly related to classic
computers... Like the "Nuke Redmond" thread, which filled my mailbox with
probably 100+ messages which I had no desire at all to even look at. It is
really annoying to check your mail, have about 70-100 messages, and have
about 80 or so be pure garbage like that. Besides, not everyone dislikes
Microsoft's products. I for one, like their products a lot, I'm using Win
98SE right now, and our NT server has been running continuously for about 4
years now, no crashes at all. And I do have experience with other OS's, I
also run BeOS on my machine, I also run Solaris, Netware, VMS, RT-11, OS-32,
Infoshare, CP/M, MacOS, UnixWare, and HP-UX. I'd say VMS is my favorite,
BeOS is up there, same with UnixWare + Win 98, with Linux, Netware, and
MacOS being my all-time least favorites. I wouldn't even consider running a
Linux machine unless there was money in it for me ;p Anyway, I've now added
some of what I hate, going against the entire message I was saying, but
anyway, how about having the list a bit more on topic?
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
Classic Computer folks:
I guess I cannot leave lists without saying goodbye, just like
it would be improper to leave a party without thanking the host.
So here is my goodbye (for now at least, because I cannot
guarantee I won't be back :-).
Much as I still lust after a functional PDP-8 system, my life
is just too hectic right now (with two upcoming moves -- to
Dubuque, Iowa in June and then to Bismarck, North Dakota in
July -- and related unknown job searches...) to actively seek
such a system. At the same time, I am envious of you folks for
both having such classic systems (whether it be luck or by crook :-).
But somehow my mind is too cluttered to keep straight all the
permutations and modifications needed to keep the hardware and
software booting and running. (I'm having a hard enough time
keeping my older radios and my amateur radio equipment going at
the moment...) Yet I have learned a bunch from you guys in the
short time (half year or so) that I have followed this list.
And much as I have opinions as well about Microsoft, viruses,
prefered OS, etc., somehow it is not the same discussing them
over a mailing list. I'd match rather do it face-to-face,
while preferably seated in a pleasant pub with a good pint
o' ale or red lager in hand <grin>.
So, see you around the next bend....take care.
Cheers/73. Kevin Anderson
(ham radio folks: listen for me on 10-40 meters -- KB9IUA/mobile,
soon to be K9IUA I hope through the FCC buy-a-call program -- both
CW and SSB. I'll be handing out ND counties for the county hunters.)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Kevin L. Anderson Ph.D., Geography Department, Augustana College
Rock Island, Illinois 61201-2296, USA phone: (309) 794-7325
e-mail: kla(a)helios.augustana.edu -or- gganderson(a)augustana.edu
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent
the administration of Augustana College.
>I don't believe you have had a four year uptime with NT unless your NT box
>is not connected to a network. At least admit you reboot the machine from
>time to time. The best Uptime I have had on an NT machine is NT4 Terminal
>Server which stayed up for six months without a reboot. I feel NT is a
>qualified server OS but my particular circumstance is an NT machine with
Well I have to live with three NT3.51 servers and reboots do occur but they
are from power failures that exceed the UPS or when the fan on the cpu
got noisey and needed replacing. Within it's limits it's ok.
>little network activity. On other larger NT server networks I work on I
>have to reboot the server as often as once per week to maintain decent
>availability. I think it has to do with hash tables NT creates to deal
One thing you have to watch for is "memory leaks" from things like ODBC
drivers and the like that don't work right. We did have one drier that
would
take the server to it knees about every three days if we let it. the fix
for
that (kluge in my opine) was to stop that process every night and restart
it.
>with high-demand network activity. My guess is NT does not deallocate the
>ram allocated to these processes which eventually degrades network
>performance to the degree that the admin must 'deallocate' this ram by
>manually rebooting the server at intervals defined by the level of use the
>server receives.
Driver with memory leak is the problem.
>I could imagine a 9x system being stable despite it's poor foundation if
>that foundation were made of diamond. This would not be an estheticly
>pleaseing operating system but it could be made stable if it's core were
>very strong. My main objection to 9x is that application installs replace
>core components with non-tested ones ( at least in that given
>configuration ). In other words, each Windows machine is unique in it's
>core configuration. This is a dangerous design approach and invites
>nearly infinite opportunities for incompatabilities and general
>instability.
Yep, lots of poor apps tend to really muck up the systems as they load
old .dlls and other bad things. there are a million SPs for fixing core
stuff
that get trashed when you install something with copies of old DLLs.
The above behavour is not limited to MS OSs but more common due to
it's widespread use.
>I don't blame you. Linux is not ready for Prime Time on the desktop. It
>lacks the level of user-pretties and network configurability I would look
It's got some things I like but I could not use it at work on the desktop
as the average user there would not fare well (some have difficulty
with win9x that is not OS fault!).
>for in a desktop environment. My personal choice would be OS/2 for just
>about everything desktop related. I wish IBM had the guts to market it.
It's still not adaquate in my book. Any OS where the common user is the
unix equivilent of superuser (root) by default or lack of protections is a
problem in my book. The classic case is the other days when a user
decided to copy a colder to the desktop... save for it was C:\WINDOWS.
It did a lot of damage to that system.
As sysadmin I'd rather see something like VMS where the user has
their sandbox where they can trash and slash but the rest of the box is
off limits. Right now the common OSs that can do that (more or less)
are Unix and clones based on the unix model, WinNT and VMS. I'm sure
there are others but, Win9x and MacOS, DOS and OS2/warp do not
meet this criteria.
Allison
>That is backwards. The law, and common sense, requires
>that you already have to have significant market share
>to have monopoly power. Monopoly power is the ability
>to control prices and exclude competition by virtue of
>monopoly power. To me, the question is, how did MS
>achieve that power in the first place. There is no
>doubt that once they had the power they abused it --
It started with the licensing of DOS at the vendor level to the
extent that if the hardware could run dos it had to be licensed.
Some of us may remember the early machines the the
"jumper" to disable dos. the is was to inhibit the CP/M
follow ons, Netware and the unix varients.
This first lockin of the vendors was exploited for the windows
software that followed. It would also get the DOJ to issue
an aggreement back some years for MS to stop this
monopolistic activity.
Thats how the got the power. The money came from the
applications and MS was known for them and never cheap.
Allison
Has anyone had a progress report on happenings at the VCF Europe?
Regards
Charlie Fox
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net
Check out "The Old Walkerville Virtual Museum" at
http://www.skyboom.com/foxvideo and
Camcorder Kindergarten at http://www.chasfoxvideo.com
I just returned home from my voyage to Munich for the VCF 1.0e and I
am happy to report that it went rather well, in fact as well as expected.
A little over 100 people came through over the course of the weekend.
There were some great exhibits, including a complete VAX 11/850 setup
and running, an Atari 1450XLD (only a few of these exist), some rare
East German microcomputers, and even an Inca Quipu!
We somehow managed to execute the Nerd Trivia Challenge despite
numerous technical challenges. Our own Philip Belben took 2nd place.
Congratulations, Phil!
After the event was over, Hans, Philip and myself went on a three day
whirlwind tour around Germany. Three days couped up in a car with a
wacky Bavarian is more torture than anyone should ever be subjected to,
but Philip and I managed to make it through the ordeal without too many
psychological scars (I enter long term counseling tomorrow). Of course
you may get slightly differing opinions from Philip but pay him no mind ;)
Somehow we didn't find time to visit the Deutches Museum in Munich to
see the Siemens 2002 (worlds first transistorized computer) but we did
make it to the Technik Museum in Berlin and saw many fine Zuse
machines, including a replica of the Z1 and a Z23, along with some other
special purpose machines. It was a fantastic exhibit. I got digital photos
of the machines and will be posting them to the VCF website shortly (I'll
announce when they are up).
We then made it over to the Heinz Nixdorf Museum in Paderborn and I
must say I am impressed! What an excellent place. They had excellent
exhibits starting with humankind's earliest attempts at writing and
counting and worked up through various stages of technological
innovation to the computers. There were all sorts of excellent machines
on exhibit but we weren't allowed to take any photos :( The place was
crawling with spooks ready to give you a sound drubbing if even the
thought of taking a picture crossed your mind. Always the rebel I did
manage to snap a picture of one of the exhibits anyway. Nyah.
Anyway, highly recommended.
We bought some good books, including an autobiography of Konrad
Zuse which I had the pleasure of reading on the long flight back. What
an amazing story! We also scored some prints of Zuse's, one of which
was even signed by him when he visited the museum before he passed
away.
I spent the last two days in Oxford, England, where I delivered two talks
on computer collecting. I was able to meet our own John Honiball there
as well as pick up several good books from a used book store. I didn't
have time to search for any old computers but I did make contact with a
Physics professor there at Oxford who has in his own collection several
of the DEC machines the university has discarded over the years,
including a PDP-8 (i.e. "straight 8"). He said he knows of some DEC
machines (an 11/23 was specifically mentioned) that are to be discarded
soon so if anyone has any interested in making contact with him (I'm
sure he'll be a continued source of good stuff) then contact me privately
and I'll pass on his contact information.
I also managed to find some neat-o stuff in Munich at a flea market we
went to before the VCF. I got an Atari 520ST+ (only because I don't have
a '+' model), a Sharp PC-1500 with expansion chassis and case, and a
Siemens teletext terminal that was used in Germany throughout the 80s
(similar to the French Minitel or the English Prestel systems).
Now that VCF 1.0e is a part of history, I will start ramping up production
for VCF 4.0. My interest in producing an East Coast USA event is also
growing, and I will be contacting those who have offered assistance in the
coming weeks to determine if a summertime event would be feasible. As
well, if there is anyone in the New England region who would like to
assist then please contact me privately.
Thanks to everyone who helped with VCF 1.0e, and of course extra-
special thanks go to Hans Franke for making it a reality. I also thank
him for teaching me some particularly juicy German. As my reportoire of
languages grows I will soon be able to insult and offend people the world
over!
Pictures of VCF 1.0e will be posted to the VCF website soon. Stay
tuned for details.
We'll see you all at the next VCF!
Sellam International Man of Intrigue and Danger
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
VCF Europe: April 29th & 30th, Munich, Germany
VCF Los Angeles: Summer 2000 (*TENTATIVE*)
VCF East: Planning in Progress
See http://www.vintage.org for details!
Well, marginally related to classic computing, I put my in-progress
directory of dialup shell providers on the Net at
http://www.armory.com/~spectre/shell/
I'm still acquiring providers. Let me know who you use, if any. I'm
hoping to use this as a resource for people with other computers
who still want to use them for at least terminal access.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu
-- Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=3DOFF to your CONFIG.SYS. ----------------------
Jim Strickland <jim(a)calico.litterbox.com> wrote:
> Ok, I'm a dolt. I get 4 mailing lists, 3 are about BeOS and this one. If
> my comments about Gobe Productive, etc, don't make any sense, it's because
> they're BeOS specific - it's been a busy day and I mixed up what group I was
> writing to. Sorry.
Oh, you get M*cr*s*ft advocacy and chatter about this week's
VBScr*pt/W*rd macro "virus" on your other mailing lists too, so you
can't tell the difference between them anymore either? You have my
sympathies.
-Frank McConnell
Umm, just a guess, but I would imagine in the late 50's/early 60's they
probably had a Philco 2000 of some sort, since Philco was/is a division of
Ford... And yes, they were later a Multics shop, up into about the mid to
late 80's or so, I think.
Will J
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)mcmanis.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Sunday, May 07, 2000 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: I wrote 'Nuke Redmond'
>Has anyone mentioned WordPerfect. You know the Word processor that had
>over 90% of the market until Microsoft changed their OS licensing terms
>such that their OEMs had to bundle either Office (or later Works) with
>every copy of Windows they sold.
>
>--Chuck
Sorry, but WordPerfect contributed a lot to their own demise. First, they
abandoned many of the non-Windows platforms that made them attractive in the
first place (e.g. DOS, Amiga, NeXT). The ability to exchange documents
between different platforms was a huge win for WordPerfect, and they threw
it away. Second, when they belatedly jumped on the Windows bandwagon, they
produced a buggy, unstable, all but unusable version - WP for Windows 6.0.
The time it took them to fix all of the problems with WP 6.0 enabled MS-Word
to catch up on features, when WP had been demonstrably better up until then.
The corporate merry-go-round that saw WordPerfect go from an independant
company, to Novell, to Corel probably didn't help either.
Mark.
>majordomo(a)classiccmp.org wrote:
> Welcome to the classiccmp mailing list!
Jerome Fine replies:
Hi all, just wanted to confirm to myself that I am back on the list.
Hi, folks,
Got some good ones here. Recent acquisition activity has
netted me a nice Motorola MVME945B chassis stuffed full of
cards. Any docs or data I can get on said chassis would be most
welcome. Jumper diagrams are what I need the most.
In addition, I have some boards here that I don't recognize,
including:
MVME372A (three of 'em).
MVME333-2 (one)
I seem to recall, from my field service days at Motorola, that
the big 'M' published a field engineer's guide that showed specs
and jumper assignments for the entire MVME line. Perhaps I can
snare one of these?
Thanks in advance.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner/Head Honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies (www.bluefeathertech.com)
kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
"SCSI Users, Unite! Beware the IDEs of March!"
>win9x, Unices, Vaxens, Linux is more of nerd's dormain and clueful
>users who know better to call for help first if some kind of problems
>becomes out of their depth understanding how to deal with it.
This left me mystified. VAX/vms running DECwindows is a good
interface without give away the farm for the user. It's user proof.
The system admin part is definately not for he average user but
then neither is linux, unix or NT.
Its possible to build a OS that has the needed protections that
seem to be missing from Win9x.
Allison
Does anyone know what computer Ford Motor Company used in the 1960's?
I've read that Shelby used a computer to find the proper location for,
among other things, the upper control arm on the '65 Mustang for his
GT350 and used one to help design most, if not all, of his other
creations' critical parts. I've searched IBM (must've been IBM!) and
Ford and came up with nothing. Although IBM's timeline has the 608
('57, calculator),1401 ('59), Stretch ('61), SABRE ('62) and the System/360
('64),
they don't give detailed descriptions. I don't know what the others
are, but I've read a bit on the 360. I'm willing to bet it was the 360,
but I'm not sure how often a company would buy a computer considering
the price of the computers then. But considering the severe race
competition between the Big Three (and the world), in that era, I'd
imagine they'd pay almost anything to gain any edge over the competition
(Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday). Anyone know for sure? Did Ford use any
other computers before then? What about other car manufacturers?
Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> wrote:
> >HP Series 100 Communicator Volumes 7-12 (very cool)
>
> Now those are unusual. I have two volumes but I've never been able to
> find any more of them. Where did you find them?
HP used to ship the current "Series 100 Communicator" in the box with
your new Series 100 (i.e. 120, presumably 125, and 150) computer, or
more likely in the box with its keyboard. I don't remember seeing
them with 110s or Portable Pluses, but that could just be my defective
memory.
If you liked it and wanted more you had to buy a subscription. Given
that it was mostly filled with new-product announcements for stuff
that we either wouldn't use or could ask our sales rep about, and
usage tips that weren't especially non-obvious, we didn't bother.
-Frank McConnell
This has been one of those dream weekends, all week I did not pick a thing and then starting Friday night it was wild. I was at a callers house to pick up some items and got there at 6:30pm and left at 11pm with many items still left there. My van was full even in the front seat. I got alot of early colorcomputer stuff; manuals, tons of software, 3 systems. I got NeXt software and manuals brand new unopened boxes, same for Mac software and manuals. This guy had many items that he had been collecting over the years. Saturday I went to a police auction and got several notebooks, complete systems, parts, manuals it was great. I will be putting out a better list as I go through the items. I hope everyone had a good computer hunting weekend. John
On Sun, May 07, 2000 at 07:50:01AM -0500, Lawrence LeMay wrote:
> Someone mentioned that the cable for connecting a RK05 to a PDP 8/E
> is different than the one for a PDP 11/45. Is this correct, and if
> so does anyone know the DEC name and part numbers for the cable
> that is used with a PDP 8/E?
I *think* the paddle card is M993, but could be wrong. The entire assembly
including the ribbon cables (which connect to the paddle board using soldered
IDC endings rather than the usual Berg connectors) has another #, 54-class
I think?????
IIRC the reason it's different (besides the fact that the RK8E plugs into
regular Omnibus slots and wouldn't be able to dedicate a backplane slot to
the Unibus style cable that the RK11D uses) is that the RK8E uses the old
individual drive select lines (for four drives max), not the new encoded
drive selects (for eight drives). Could be remembering wrong though.
Anyway this only matters between the controller and the first drive, after
that you can connect the other drives using Unibus cables.
John Wilson
D Bit
Someone mentioned that the cable for connecting a RK05 to a PDP 8/E
is different than the one for a PDP 11/45. Is this correct, and if
so does anyone know the DEC name and part numbers for the cable
that is used with a PDP 8/E?
-Lawrence LeMay
This might be of some interest to European Classiccmpers...
respond directly to the original poster, and it looks like you will
have to arrange shipping, but hey, it's free...
Maybe someone in the Tennessee area can cache it..?
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 10:32:11 -0500
From: Tom Norris <badger(a)telalink.net>
To: greenkeys(a)qth.net
Cc: boatanchors(a)theporch.com, BASWAPLIST(a)foothill.net
Subject: FREE! Siemens TTY and converter
FREE FREE FREE
Siemens T100 ( ASR ) teleprinter, several rolls of punch tape
Siemens FSE-1306 converter with full spares kit including
spare tubes and CRT. Both items refurbished 1987, both look
like new. There may be some literature, most likely just an
ops manual on one or both.
Currently mounted in my ex-Bundeswehr radio truck, and
I need the stuff out of the way to redo the truck for Field Day
use.
Photo at http://www.telalink.net/~badger/tty_dec.jpg
After a week, they go to the trash, I hate to trash the stuff
but am absolutely running out of room and the gear needs
220VAC 50Hz, which I don't have. ( no BA guys, the tubes
and good parts stay with me, I have not got totally bonkers )
Is in Manchester, TN are, near Nashville. No shipping, sorry.
Tom Norris KA4RKT
Ok, i finally found the guy at his office (we work for the same department
here at the university ;) and had a chat. Looks liek he might try to get
me the pdp8/e cpu (without any boards) and the boards if he can find the
box that they are in.
This leaves 2 RK05's and a Dectape unit.. is anyone willing to pay a
reasonable amount, AND pick this stuff up in minneapolis, AND do it
pretty quickly? I know Dectape units are worth about $1000, so this
is a worthwile thing to get if you have teh space for it (the curse
of working for the university, is that they dont pay me enough to
be able to afford the space for all thsi stuff)...
If you want this, speak up and i'll go see what i can arrange with
him. i want the cpu, and boards if they are found (my 8/e has no
interface boards, and front panel is damaged, and power cable is
cut, as you might recall...)
-Lawrence LeMay
>I got an 11/83 in a rack mountable box (5 1/4"), and I would like
>to know how many of the slots are type A/B and type C/D, as I have
>a spare 11/83 cpu and a spare 1Mb mem. board, and they are
>of the types AB & C/D.
>
>The backplane is identified as H9278-A and has 8 slots.
First clue: for just about anything Q-bus, you can find the answer
in the Micronotes. They're online at
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/
just click on "Micronotes".
What you're looking for is specifically in Micronte #5, _Q22 Compatible
Options_. It tells you
Micro/PDP-11 H9278 4 X 3 Q22/CD and 4 X 5 Q22/Q22 Backplane
In other words, just the standard BA23 backplane, the first 3 slots
are AB/CD slots, the remaining 5 are AB/AB in a serpentine pattern.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
Hi all,
With no small amount of regret, I am liquidating most of my collection in
order to focus my attention on a personal matter which is going to require
100% of my time and energy. Thank you all for the sense of community and
spirit of comradery here for the past few years. I'm hope to still hang
around here and there (VCF, I'll be there!) but will not be actively
collecting. Believe me, this decision was not made lightly.
My classic computing page will remain as it is, and the list archives will
remain there, as will the documentation that I've already scanned. As far
as current transactions, I will complete them as soon as possible (Sorry
Rich, others). Especially the couple of people that I still owe shipping
to, I'm trying to get my ass in gear here...
Ok, on to the good stuff. I will ship small items and books, anything more
than a few pounds will only be available to someone who wants to pick it
up in Glendora, CA or pay to have mailboxes etc pack and ship it.
Books (cost is 1.5 x shipping amount):
---------------------------------------------------------
Apple II Applesoft Basic Programmers Reference Manual
The BASIC Handbook, David Lien
Technical Aspects of Data Communication, Digital Press
Inside the IBM PC, Peter Norton
Problem Solving Principles for Basic Programmers, William Lewis
Fundamentals of Structured COBOL (School Textbook)
COBOL Wizard (School Textbook)
PASCAL, Academic Press (School Textbook)
The PASCAL Handbook, Sybex
Pascal User Manual and Report, School Text
The Debugger's Handbook - Turbo Pascal, McKelvey
PASCAL, Findlay and Watt (School Text)
UCSD Pascal, (School Text)
Elementary Pascal (School Text)
Oh! Pascal! (School Text)
Turbo Pascal version 3.0 Reference Manual, Borland
Introduction to Turbo Pascal, Sybex
Turbo Toolbox Reference Manual, Borland
DON'T! Or How To Care For Your Computer...
Writing in the Computer Age, Fluegelman
Soul of CP/M, Waite
CP/M Assembly Language Programming, Barbier
CP/M and the Personal Computer, Dwyer
CP/M Word Processing
68000 Assembly Language Programming, Leventhal
Programming in Assembly Language: Macro-11, Sowell
Electronic Data Processing, Irwin (1961!)
MP and Periph. Handbook, vII - Peripheral, Intel Corp.
MC68020 32-bit MP User's Manual
A couple of PDP Handbooks that I can't find right now...(1981-ish)
Some Micro PDP Docs (look at www.retrobytes.org - I think they're all
there)
Computer Systems (Free to good homes, pick-up only):
---------------------------------------------------------
6' Rack - VERY Sturdy
Incomplete PDP 11/20 - 3 cabinets (Possibly spoken for)
Plessey 11/23+ compat (MicroII) - rack-mount w/2 RX01's, external twin
RX02 rack unit, Power Control unit (rackmount)
HP3000/37 (Micro3000XE) w/2 drives (3 units total, size of double file
cabinet each), 9-track 1/2inch tape drive, dot-matrix printer/cabinet, Y2K
MPE FOS tapes. A bunch of 9-track tapes with it.
Kaypro IV
Broken Atari 800 w/2 broken 810 drives (I know, garbage). Atari 1027
printer with gummy wheel. CX-80 keypad. Maybe an 835 modem.
Cadnetix Server, Sperry 286 terminal for it, ethernet cable, monitor,
kbd/mouse, Cipher 9-track drive, tons of docs (PLEASE SAVE THIS ONE! I'll
hold it for years if I have to, but I don't want to.) Michael Grigoni has
priority on this, if he wants any of it...
Mac LCII, no HD, kbd/mouse,ram. W/Mono monitor.
Other stuff (asking price indicated, make any offer:)
---------------------------------------------------------
*The reason I have a few dollars as an asking price is that I either paid
real money for the item, or it's something that I'd like to see go to
someone who really wants/needs it.)
SWP ATR8000 - CP/M computer or serial/parallel interface w/print buffer
for Atari Computers - asking $50
Dilog SQ706A QBUS SCSI Card - $25
Emulex TC03 QBUS Pertec Controller - $10
DSD MFM QBUS Card - 1.5 x shipping
DEC DEQNA Ethernet Card w/cable and manual - $10
DEC M8043 Serial Card - 1.5 x shipping
DEC 11/73 CPU w/FPU - $10
DEC RQDX3 w/manual - $10
RT-11 v5.4B on RX50 floppy, complete distro - $10
OK, that's it for round one. After I sort out this mess, I'm sure lots
more stuff will come trickling down...
Cheers,
Aaron
Tonight I added the mini-assembler and memory block saves&loads to the 1802
simulator. The 95/98/nt console binary and source-code are at:
http://users.leading.net/~dogas/classiccmp/cosmac/vcosmac.htm
>Allison
>
>Good runs under W95/nt then, have that running.
>M!... Ah UT4. have manual.
heh.. early influences...
>Wheres Bin/CPP for it?
Up there.
Let me know if it doesn't do what you think it should.
Thanks
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
>
>Last emulator for 1802 I'd played with was z80 based, even on a 4mhz z80
>it was faster than 1802. I wonder where I put that.
>
>
Guys:
I'm faced with a dilemma, and I'm polling for opinions.
Some time ago, I swore I would never again publicly
broadcast (via this ML) ads for computers that could be
considered "Investment Grade".
Those of you who have been around long enough know what
I'm talking about; a machines that tend to fetch
an obscene amount of money, despite the general opinion
that they really aren't worth that much.
The general objection is that such sales unreasonably
inflates the co$t of our hobby, so we can't afford it
anymore.
The dilemma is this: A friend of mine has such an
"Investment Grade" machine; and he wants to sell it to
the highest bidder <cringe>. Now I'm faced with two
bad choices: Put it up on e-bay, or post it to this
forum. I dislike e-bay for what it did to our hobby.
I'm not comfortable posting it here, because I have a
deep respect for the collectors/hobbyists here (of all
stripes), and their opinions on the effects
commercialization has had on our hobby (not to mention
my own conscience).
My friend *specifically* requested I post the ad here,
as he was quite pleased with the result, previously. I
will only do this if you guys feel this is the appropriate
thing for me to do: I post the description, interested
parties submit bids, *OFF LIST*.
What say you all?
Thanks.
Jeff
________________________________________________________________
YOU'RE PAYING TOO MUCH FOR THE INTERNET!
Juno now offers FREE Internet Access!
Try it today - there's no risk! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
You mean like the following...
VMS standard greeting:
Welcome to VAX/VMS on node Piper
Morphed to:
Piper, no trespassing. Abusers will be persecuted!
>BTW -- if FreeVMS ever comes out in intel this box will run it.
I keep waiting.
In the meantime I have a VS2000 and 3100s thats smaller than most PCs.
>bpechter(a)monmouth.com | Microsoft: Where do you want to go today?
> | Linux: Where do you want to go
tomorrow?
> | BSD: Are you guys coming, or what?
Add VMS: Waiting!
Allison
>Don't laugh... I still appreciate my AMD 5x86-133 running msdos 6.22 and
>WfWg 3.11..... Defiinitely and IE-free zone!!!! :-})
>
>Stan
Thats a fast system.
When you consider that by just running IE4.01 instead of 5.0 you've reduced
you footprint and exposure it's something. Also if your apps don't need it
Pulling VBA300.dll helps as thats needed to execute VB scripts.
You could also pull IE and use Netscape, that works well.
Then again you could run dos6.22 and Newdeal software (www.newdeal.com)
and get all the stuff without the disk footprint.
Allison
Hello group,
Here's something we all knew already, but we need to educate the brainwashed
masses about Microslop . . . Last sentence says it all.
*** FORWARDED MESSAGE ***
Original author: trp0
Written on: 05-May-00
*** Beginning of forwarded message ***
Last night, Ted explored the "I Love You" crisis with three "computer
virus experts". I'm a little fuzzy on who everyone was for sure, but I
know one was a computer crime prosecutor, another was Thrilling(sp?) from
Symantec(who totally reminds of this one stand-up comic guy...looks and
acts just like the stnad-up....maybe secret alter ego), and I don't
remember the other guy's functions at all. All three were going on and on
about how users needed to protect themselves with better and more
anti-virus software as well as putting up home firewalls!
It struck me as odd that they were trying to "educate" people about how to
be safe without ever mentioning the fact that nearly all of the nasty
email viruses are confined to Microsoft products. I would have liked to
have seen a discussion about why MS doesn't consider these things as big
hole in their OS. Seems to my like a large majority of even the standard
viruses live in the MS realm. Wouldn't it strike you as a little alarming
if the product you are turning out is the target of so many easily
constructed destructive programs because of the way your product is
designed and implemented?
Anyway. It was just strange that they were emphasizing that basically all
the world's email systems were brought down because of this thing without
even noting things such as alternatives that wouldn't have these
problems....instead trying to scare the public into consuming more
unecessary software to patch up a leaky operating system with third party
products instead of encouraging people to get a brain and exercise their
free-market will to force product improvement.
*shrug*
T
---
This message brought to you by: trp0(a)falcon.cc.ukans.edu
..and the voices in his head.
[Bucket of Truth] "Don't you think I know that!?!" - UCB
WebAccess: http://www.magicalbox.com/~trp0
------------------------ end transmission ....
*** End of forwarded message ***
On May 6, 0:24, Tony Duell wrote:
> On Fri May 5, 23:16, Pete Turnbull wrote:
> > > Has anyone here managed to mend a printhead like this?
> >
> > No, but could you use silver-loaded conductive paint?
> Yes, I'd thought of that (and I keep a bottle in my tool box).
>
> Problem is, there's a distinct crack to bridge where the 2 parts have
> been stuck together,so the paint may well not last too well.
Depends on what stress it might be subject, I suppose.
> Worse than that, the printhead is 1/4" wide, and there are 8 tracks in
> that width. I don't fancy trying to paint that lot without shorting at
> least 2 of them together... Soldering on that pitch I could manage,
> though, if only the solder would 'take'.
Ah. Given the thickness of the paint, painting tracks would be difficult,
even with a good-quality fine brush. The only other suggestion I can think
of, is to paint a wide strip, covering all 8 tracks, and then use a scalpel
blade (and some patience) to gently scratch gaps between them.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York