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

by mor＠crl.com

Gone are three 486 clones that have been languishing in my garage for nearly a year. They were traded for: an Apple Lisa 2, an Osborne Executive, and a Northstar Horizon. The Lisa and Osborne have boot disks and other software, and so far seem to work well. I also got a Profile hard drive with the Lisa, but I haven't tried to hook it up yet... I haven't messed with the Horizon at all, but it looks to be in good shape, with CPU, ram, disk and i/o cards installed, along with a couple of diskettes in the drives that might boot it, not sure yet. I'll holler for help if this gives me trouble whenever I get to it, though I do have huge collection of manuals for it that I had picked up in anticipation of this day ;) Additionally, the guy I got all this stuff from tossed in about a dozen cartridges for the TI-99 and Coco3 that I didn't already have. Happy happy joy joy. -- mor(a)crl.com http://www.crl.com/~mor/

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Bulk erased SyQuest carts WAS: Re: DING DING!

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 10:04 PM 3/18/98 -0800, you wrote: >The SyJet is very nice, but runs VERY Hot. Mine is warm, but definitely not what I'd call hot. >guess would be the Publishing industry still uses them quite a bit since >it's usually in Mac catalogs and stores I see the carts for sale. Of About 10 years ago, I too invested heavily in 44mb Syquest carts. The reason I did, is because one of my clients at the time (a major graphics arts firm (logos for the Olympics, Microslut, etc.)) was buying them the way most high-tech companies buy diskettes: buy a couple of cases of them and put them on the shelf for employees to come and grab a handful. And they *used* them. All day long, and often all night too. The syquests were also very popular with the Atari ST crowd too. Somewhere around here (in *that* pile, I think) is an Atari branded cartridge. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Heinz Nixdorf

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"James Redin" <jredin(a)earthlink.net> wrote: > I've found that the ANITA from Sumlock Comptometer of England (1963) is > usually regarded as the first electronic calculator [1]. However, recently > I found an article about Heinz Nixdorf of Germany in the LEXICON's History > of Computing (CD-ROM) which indicates that he built several models of > electronic calculators back in 1954 (Models ES12 and ES24). At the risk of suggesting the obvious, have you contacted the Heinz Nixdorf Museumforum? They have a web site at http://www.hnf.de/ and one of the pages contains a list of contact addresses. However, you will either need to read German or have good luck with the translator at http://www.altavista.digital.com/ (which is of limited use on HNF's site because some of the text is embedded in images). -Frank McConnell

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Irreverence to irrelevance

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

At 04:14 AM 3/21/98 -0600, you wrote: >On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, Benjamin M Coakley wrote: > >> Speaking of which, there's an HP41C at a thrift store near me. Anyone >> want it? Is it at all interesting? > >It's only the best calculator ever made. Grab it quick, you won't regret >it. It's programmable, can be expanded with RAM and ROM cartridges, and >there's a whole bunch of cool little peripherals you can hook up to it. >And I think it even does arithmetic. Only Reverse Polish Arithmetic! :-) Joe

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

all 80286 ps2 models ran at 10mhz. wait states differed. david In a message dated 98-03-21 13:42:20 EST, you write: << <Let me think... The 286 chip was available in 10MHz and 12MHz IIRC, mayb <another speed too. I can't remember which speed the 50/50Z was. The installed chips are 10mhz but that does not mean it ran that fast. <Don't you love the way the case comes apart, and that little tool <underneath the speaker to help take the rest of it apart? Defintley my They do come apart nice. But everything is oddball compared to the rest of my systems (s100, CPM and DEC based). Allison >>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Personal Communications/3270

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 98-03-21 12:45:44 EST, you write: << Someone was throwing away a box of five shrinkwrapped ones like this. I grabbed one and opened it, the rest I gently obsucred but they might be gone. As I understand, this is an emulator for a 3270 terminal. Is it of any use to me without a System/370? Also, there was a box with four or five shrinkwrapped apckages of IBM DOS 3.30. Assuming anything is still there, does anyone want any of this? >> i might have something similar. i was given 5 shrinkwrap copies of ibm pc 3270 emulation program version 1.22 i opened one to see what it's like and the rest are upopened. not much use though. i wouldnt mind a never opened package of dos3.3 to add to my collection of never-used ibm software. david

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 98-03-21 12:30:13 EST, you write: << Personally, I dislike PS/2s because they are almost impossible to upgrade due to the weird specs. But, there was a time when I would do almost anything for one. By the way, I found two weird systems at my school. One is the "Writing System" which looks like a PS/2, and we have a bunch of "Eduquest" systems, which are now all in the supply room. >> ps2 models arent really that hard to upgrade. the difficulty only comes when someone attempts to upgrade it way beyond its capabilites. certain 95xx models have used dx4/100 cpu also. eduquest systems are/were one piece mac-like systems designed for school use. proprietary design, but so easy to work on. some even had dos in rom. david

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Wanted: Apple ][ Card Info

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 98-03-21 11:33:13 EST, you write: << OK... could it allow for me to write in C? (Or any other languages in particular) What are the chances of finding another 64K RAM upgrade to boost it to the max 128KB? Thanks again, >> there were certain 128k ram cards for the ][+ and similar but i dont think programs could use the extra memory. early versions of appleworks could be patched to use it and dos 3.3 could use the mem as a virtual disk. the pocket rocket's memory cannot be upgraded.

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Calculators was Re: Delay lines

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

At 01:21 AM 3/21/98 -0600, you wrote: > >I know people collect calculators, but I just can't imagine how it can >bring the same kind of satisfaction as computer collecting. You can't >really hack a calculator. They don't lend themselves very well to >restoration efforts. They can't do many tricks. And few of them have any >sort of personality Have you ever tried a HP 41? How does up to 961 external devices of nearly every descrptions grab you? That's just one of the capabilities of the HP-41 using the HP-IL interface. I currently have a 41 running a HP logic analyzer! (OK, I'll admit that HP tries pretty hard in this >area). They did a good job too :-) > >Has anybody ventured a definition of computer that allows us to weed out >mere calculators? How about: > >* must be programmable >* must be general purpose >* must have alphanumeric input capabilites >* must have alphanumeric display capabilites The HP-41, 71, 75 and all the newer ones fit this description. > >Unfortunately, this would mean that an Altair isn't a computer until you >add a terminal, but it keeps those pesky HP-65's out of the group. > >-- Doug Joe

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

[Regional - Bay Area] Computer History Talk

by sethm＠loomcom.com

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 4485 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19980321/864148d2/at…

28 years, 2 months

2
2
0 0

Delay lines

by jredin＠earthlink.net

I'm new to the list and missed the original posting about the Friden delay line. Can somebody forward to me the messages that have been crossed in regards to the Friden calculator or tell me where can I search for old postings? Thanks! James Redin ---------- > From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> > Subject: Re: Delay lines > Date: Friday, March 20, 1998 11:27 PM > > > <Exactly. In the particular case of the Friden it was called a supersonic > <delay line, although I've never been sure why. > > acoustic delay lines, they propagate bits translated to mechanical > impulses at the speed of sound in a solid. The resulting delay is > long enough to use ans a shift register to store bits. > > Allison >

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

C= 1084

by maynard＠jmg.com

Hmmm, The Goodwill pickings were bad. I only found one C128 and two 1571 drives, plus a 1084 composite monitor. The store manager wanted $25 for _each_ item ($100 total?? BAH!). The C128 had several broken keys, the Disk drives looked in pretty bad shape, so the only thing of interest was the monitor. I took it. I also got some cables: a TTL RGB cablefor the 128, A standard "monitor" cable and what looks to be a drive cable (hey, they were willing to bundle it in for me). So, the question is: can I use the 'split' composite cable for a C64 with an Atari 800? By 'split' I refer to split chroma and intensity signals... I know that the 1084 monitor can handle this, and I know that the Atari outputs this format just like a C=64, but I _don't_ know if the pinouts are the same between the two. Can anyone help? Thanks! J. Maynard Gelinas

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Harvard Graphics 2.01

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Sorry to go on and on about PC stuff, but I do need help. I got a copy of Harvard Graphics 2.01 for DOS. I'm not sure if it was my fault or not, but I damaged Program Disk 1. Scandisk reports that cluster 0 is damaged and the disk cannot be fixed. I can view the directory of the disk (5.25"), but the files are inaccessible. Could someone either tell me how to fix this disk or send me another one? (diskimages would do_) ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Let me think... The 286 chip was available in 10MHz and 12MHz IIRC, mayb <another speed too. I can't remember which speed the 50/50Z was. The installed chips are 10mhz but that does not mean it ran that fast. <Don't you love the way the case comes apart, and that little tool <underneath the speaker to help take the rest of it apart? Defintley my They do come apart nice. But everything is oddball compared to the rest of my systems (s100, CPM and DEC based). Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Heinz Nixdorf

by jredin＠earthlink.net

Hello Frank, > maybe the definitions of computer/calculator are not exact; the Mk8 is > stated as "first electronic desktop calculator" in > "Bueromaschinen-Kompass", an annual handbook giving an overview on the > market. > I guess, what quilifies the Anita is the fact that it used Nixie-tubes for > displaying the results. A book, written 1960, titled "Electronic > number-calculators" describes the display of results as the largest > problem, the author had no idea of a practical solution (but describes > every other technology used these days: core-Memory, delay-lines, tubes, > even diodes and transistors). > Regards, > Frank Boehm Yesterday I subscribed to a new list (Discussion re-collecting of classic computers) hoping to get more info on the Nixdorf machines. The first messages that came across were an ongoing discussion on the boundaries between calculators and computers. It was very interesting for me. One of the entries stated: "Granted, these points are primarily moot, for the definition of a computer as to be used on this list would need to be defined by Mr. Bill Whitson, the (still) owner of this list. >* must be programmable >* must be general purpose >* must have alphanumeric input capabilities >* must have alphanumeric display capabilities." Of course many current calculators would be considered computers under these terms, however, we need to consider the context or frame of reference for this definition. The list is oriented to "Classic computers" and therefore the boundaries are relevant to the early computer/calculator technology. On the other hand, the fact that the ANITA would qualify for the first electronic calculator because it was the first one with Nixie-tubes display is not very clear either. Remember that the first pocket calculator, the "Cal-Tech" from TI and its off-spring the Canon "Pocketronic" used a thermal printer to display the results. I would say that the terms above stated leads to a clear cut between Computers/Calculators. Now the real question should be: Does anybody know if the ES 12 and ES 24 electronic calculators developed by Nixdorf in 1953, were programmable and/or had alphanumeric input/display capabilities? Regards, James Redin http://www.dotpoint.com/xnumber

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<The Family One, PS/1, PS/2, etc. Ref disks are available at: Each one has a refdisk with it. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

please ID this card! [correct URL this time]

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

Pictures are worth 1000 words - my earlier text post didn't elicit any responses... maybe one of you can ID this board (or more particularly, the type of system) from the pictures. Two pics available; large and small. The connector shows the single "pin" on this side, and multiple separate pins on the reverse. http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/weird/boardbig.jpg [250K] http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/weird/boardsmall.jpg [95K] Betcha can't! A Apologies for the earlier post with the incorrect URL - don't you wish, sometimes, that you could send a chase-up email to kill your earlier one?!!

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Personal Communications/3270

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Someone was throwing away a box of five shrinkwrapped ones like this. I grabbed one and opened it, the rest I gently obsucred but they might be gone. As I understand, this is an emulator for a 3270 terminal. Is it of any use to me without a System/370? Also, there was a box with four or five shrinkwrapped apckages of IBM DOS 3.30. Assuming anything is still there, does anyone want any of this? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

Personally, I dislike PS/2s because they are almost impossible to upgrade due to the weird specs. But, there was a time when I would do almost anything for one. By the way, I found two weird systems at my school. One is the "Writing System" which looks like a PS/2, and we have a bunch of "Eduquest" systems, which are now all in the supply room. >they can serve as spares for the rest of my systems. That and I'm not >really into collecting PCs. > >Allison > > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by allisonp＠world.std.com

I was just aquired two PS/2 model 50s. Normally I don't collect older PC system but they are interesting.

28 years, 2 months

9
9
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Depends. My 50Z has an ESDI drive(and IIRC they shipped with that, too), <but any PS/2 drive with that connetor should work. What it is is that IB <added an HD controller to the HD's main board, so that connector is an MC <interface. No the drive only has one board. That plugs into the board in the mca bus. looks like the drive has minimal electronics on it and the board in the mca is the edsi or mfm controller. <no FD/HD/RAM. I'm thinking of using one as a terminal or something, putti <in an ethernet card with a boot ROM or something wierd like that. The oth One has a ni card, single BNC so I suspect eithernet. Allison

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Delay lines

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<>* must be programmable This would exclude many millions of MCUs based on chips like 8048, 8051, z80, I960, 80186/8, and several dozen more in embedded applications like engine control, navigation, aircraft flyby wire systems or even some calcs. This would include PDP-8s, pdp-11s and whatever else burried in CNCs, MRIs and transportation control systems. <>* must be general purpose In the above cases the computer or microcomputer is running a dedicated application from ROM or loaded from other media on power up. So they are not general purpose in that case. Would this eliminate the PDP-8s used by BART as computers? <>* must have alphanumeric input capabilites See above cases again consider the possible range of inputs. The input could be barcode reader, thermal or position sensors or off a network from other computers. <>* must have alphanumeric display capabilites Consider the above and the possible outputs. The result may be generating engine spark timing, alarm output, opening a cuircit breaker, notifying another computer. Calculators as differentiated from mechanical adders, differentiated from fixed program computers. The difference can be the application more so than implementation. I tend to look to see if there is control or branching on condition to see if we are talking calc, programmable calc or more general computer. BUT by doing that do we have to look at the user interface level or the internal implmentation level? Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Wanted: Apple ][ Card Info

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

OK... could it allow for me to write in C? (Or any other languages in particular) What are the chances of finding another 64K RAM upgrade to boost it to the max 128KB? Thanks again, Tim D. Hotze >pocket rocket is applied engineering's equivalent to apple's language card. >it's very small, and doesnt require a cable to the motherboard like earlier >models did. > >david

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Just wondering

by CharlesII＠nwonline.net

I remember reading a Byte article that told how to build a computer that used a variant of the Z80 by Hatichi (I think that's how you spell it). The computer was about the size of a lunch box. Apparently I have misplaced that particular issue an was wondering if any one had it and was willing to tell me where I could find the printed circuit board and the boot disks or at least send me the art work and the parts list for this particular beast.

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by lisard＠zetnet.co.uk

On 1998-03-20 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk :I was just aquired two PS/2 model 50s. Normally I don't collect :older PC system but they are interesting. hmm. that resolves one question - if you've asked this, allison, then we must be safe to ask something along the same lines... a few weeks ago now, we picked up an ncr 286 machine with colour monitor and wonderful keyboard. model number is not obvious, but the case is flat, about 2" high (the height of a half-height disk drive) and about the size of a small paving slab; internally, the machine is very odd, with a backplane architecture, two daughterboards mounted on two boards in that backplane, and *no* expansion capacity (no free slots). sayeth the computer that it is a "class 3278 model 0129" machine. our question: it says on boot-up that it is "running at low speed", which is 6MHz - how do we get it to run a high speed? there is a switch on the lower main board that does apparently nothing, and a jumper next to it. we can't get further into the machine as we don't have the screwdriver... (it looks like a philips' head, but the slots are too small. what do we need?) or is it software switched? -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

please ID this card!

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

Pictures are worth 1000 words - my earlier text post didn't elicit any responses... maybe one of you can ID this board (or more particularly, the type of system) from the pictures. Two pics available; large and small. The connector shows the single "pin" on this side, and multiple separate pins on the reverse. http://www.comcen.com.au/~weird/boardbig.jpg [250K] http://www.comcen.com.au/~weird/boardsmall.jpg [95K] Betcha can't! A

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Bill a TRS-80 fan? (Was More List Operation Stuff)

by lisard＠zetnet.co.uk

On 1998-03-19 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk :Question: :Is Bill using a TRS-80 here? I think I see 64 cols per line :formatting, hmmmmmmmmmm........... or alternatively, he could have a block editor running under forth and be posting from there... ;> -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Irreverence to irrelevance

by COAKLEY＠AC.GRIN.EDU

> > But the calculator collectors have their own lists, don't they? > > True... I'm not thinking of spamming this list with pocket calculator > questions or anything like that. I'd just not object to the odd thread on > them, particularly if they were historically significant (the HP9100...), > technically interesting, or whatever. Speaking of which, there's an HP41C at a thrift store near me. Anyone want it? Is it at all interesting? (Sorry, Allison. I thought my last message was going to the list, and not to you privately.) -- Ben Coakley http://www.math.grin.edu/~coakley coakley(a)ac.grin.edu Station Manager, KDIC 88.5 FM CBEL: Xavier OH Wow, this is global. -Mtn Goats

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Amiga A1060 SideCar

by ds_spenc＠alcor.concordia.ca

I finally got around to archiving what ROMs I could find in my old SideCar, and I have a few questions. I know the comp.sys.amiga.hardware would probably be a better place to ask, but I'm going to ask here anyway. :) [The SideCar, for those that don't know, is basically an XT clone that attaches to the side of an Amiga 1000, whos display normally appears in a window or on a separate 'screen' on the Amiga display.] I didn't completely disassemble the SideCar, I only took the cover off and poked around a little. I got my SideCar 'third-hand' and never had the manual for it. I never played with the dip switches or jumpers in it. Does anyone know what all the dip switches are for? There's a bank of eight of them, and another of four. Currently the 8 are: OFF, ON, ON, OFF, ON, OFF, OFF, ON. The set of 4 are all OFF. I checked through memory with DEBUG and located the BIOS code as well as the stuff the Amiga sends to the PC side via the dual-port RAM. I don't know how big the BIOS is supposed to be. It looks like it's in two chunks, of about 4K and 8K. The first section of this code lies at F4000 and goes to about F4Cxx, followed by a bunch of FF's, then at F6000 is a solid 8K chunk of code, including copyright messages from Commodore Electronics Ltd. and Phoenix Software Associates Ltd. Would all of this be in a 16K chunk in the EPROM at location U22 on the motherboard? It's a 48-pin EPROM with a sticker on it that reads "380619-02" and "Hydra BIOS 2.05". Under the daughterboard and the hard drive (I replaced the floppy drive with an ST-296N in 1991 or so) where I couldn't really see very well, were at least two other 48-pin chips, at U39 and U40. The only number I could see was "8621" on the one at position U40. I know that's not a lot of information, but does anyone know what those are? I'm just interested in how the SideCar performs its magic. I looked into the RAM area from E0000-F3FFF which is the shared RAM, and I was surprised to see some stuff in there from the Amiga side that I don't think should have been there. After the PC.boot file stuff that was loaded into the PC side by the Amiga at startup, there was the "info" program from the Amiga shell. Executing something else on the Amiga side cleared that area out, and executing "info" again (from ARP 1.3, not the real AmigaDOS) put the info code back in there. Also, some filenames from directories on the Amiga side showed up in there. What's going on? The SideCar controls the hard drive for the Amiga. Does the Amiga get the data from the HD through this memory area? I've never been able to get AREAD/AWRITE to function. They always GURU. I got the files from a BridgeBoard distribution... do I need special ones for the SideCar? Now, the main reason I actually opened the SideCar up: I installed a Seagate SL-02 SCSI controller when I installed the hard drive. It conflicted with the floppy controller in the SideCar, and in order to have floppies and hard drive running at the same time, I had to disable the floppy controller on the SCSI card. I did this by putting masking tape over each pin on the card in turn, booting up the Amiga and the PC side, and recording the results. I eventually decided, from these results, to tape over 7 of the pins on the SCSI controller card, and this has worked perfectly since. I don't know how the pins are numbered, but below is an ASCII graphic representation. :) The 5th, 6th, 10th, 18th, 19th, 22nd, and 26th pins are taped over, on the left hand side of the card, reading from front to back. xx x xx x x | ===============================| |o I hadn't recorded this anywhere, and I was a bit worried that the tape would be drying out and falling off and making my SideCar go crazy, but everything was OK. And now it's recorded somewhere. :) Oh, one other thing. The first part of the boot message is as follows: Commodore Hydra BIOS Rev. 2.05 - Test Release - Copyright (C) 1985 by Commodore Electronics Ltd. Copyright (C) 1984,1985 by Phoenix Software Associates Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The serial number is under 1000. I'm wondering how common the A1060 SideCar is, and if anyone has one that doesn't boot up with the "Test Release" message. The motherboard says: FAB 380517-01 Rev.4 ASSY NO. 380604-01 Rev.7 ?1986 COMMODORE SIDECAR MAINBOARD Are there earlier or later revisions out there? Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Now: Once again, whattheheckisa computer? (Was: Re: Delay lines)

by zmerch＠northernway.net

;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Doug Yowza typed: >On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, Roger Merchberger wrote: > >> The absolute definition of a computer as I remember >> it goes thusly: >> >> "An instrument which can perform arithmatic and logical functions without >> the aid of a human." > >That's too ambiguous to me. All computers require the aid of a human at >some point. What's the diff if I pay Bill Gates to program mine or if I >work the slides on my slide rule? The difference is: there's no enter key on a slide rule. You can enter a program into a computer, and once it begins executing it may not require human interference until it has completed. If said program includes both arithmatic and logical functions between the pressing of the enter key and the output, it would fit the definition of a computer. >As for me, whenever I see little chicklet keys on a calculator, that's >enough for me to say it's not a computer :-) Ah, then you have an anti-Tandy bent, eh? For the chicklet keys on my CoCo1's preclude it from your definition??? ;-) (And, to continue along this nasty bend in the road, the membrane-only keyboards of the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Tandy's MC-10 make them akin to a microwave oven? ;-) I guess I see a lot more computers than you do! Just my $0.02USD ($0.026CDN), "Merch" -- Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed, Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Freedom!

by ds_spenc＠alcor.concordia.ca

Ahhh, finally I had a day that was free enough of other obligations that I could sit down and tinker with some of my old toys. The machines I played with today: Amiga 1000 with SideCar, Tandy 1000EX, Atari 800XL, Kaypro II and 2, TeleVideo TPC-I, 'A.M.A. LCD Portable' (286 luggable with LCD screen). I also had time to inspect a few pieces of junk I don't know anything about, that had been collecting dust on shelves. Anyway, it's great to have time to relax and tinker and post. I'll put specific comments and queries in appropriately titled messages. Doug Spence ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Delay lines

by engine＠chac.org

At 01:21 3/21/98 -0600, Doug wrote: >Has anybody ventured a definition of computer that allows us to weed out >mere calculators? How about: > >* must be programmable >* must be general purpose >* must have alphanumeric input capabilites >* must have alphanumeric display capabilites You can even throw in "must have stored-program memory" and, bingo, an HP9100 is a computer. __________________________________________ Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org http://www.chac.org/index.html Computer History Association of California

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Now: Once again, whattheheckisa computer? (Was: Re: Delay lines)

by zmerch＠northernway.net

;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Doug Yowza typed: >On Sat, 21 Mar 1998, Roger Merchberger wrote: > >> The absolute definition of a computer as I remember >> it goes thusly: >> >> "An instrument which can perform arithmatic and logical functions without >> the aid of a human." > >That's too ambiguous to me. All computers require the aid of a human at >some point. What's the diff if I pay Bill Gates to program mine or if I >work the slides on my slide rule? The difference is: there's no enter key on a slide rule. You can enter a program into a computer, and once it begins executing it may not require human interference until it has completed. If said program includes both arithmetic and logical functions between the pressing of the enter key and the output, it would fit the definition of a computer. >As for me, whenever I see little chicklet keys on a calculator, that's >enough for me to say it's not a computer :-) Ah, then you have an anti-Tandy bent, he? For the chicklet keys on my CoCo1's preclude it from your definition??? ;-) (And, to continue along this nasty bend in the road, the membrane-only keyboards of the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Tandy's MC-10 make them akin to a microwave oven? ;-) I guess I see a lot more computers than you do! Just my $0.02USD ($0.026CDN), "Merch" -- Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed, Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Delay lines

by jredin＠earthlink.net

Dear friends, I love computers indeed, but behind calculators are almost 400 years of history, so there is a lot of very interesting material to learn and research. Regards, James Redin http://www.dotpoint.com/xnumber The X-Number World of Calculators ---------- > From: Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> > Subject: Re: Delay lines > Date: Friday, March 20, 1998 11:21 PM > > On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Kip Crosby wrote: > > > >> But the calculator collectors have their own lists, don't they? > > > > > >True... I'd just not object to the odd thread on [calculators] > > >particularly if they were historically significant (the HP9100...), > > >technically interesting, or whatever. > > > > Hear, hear! Especially since many so-called calculators were built by > > manufacturers not, for whatever reason, prepared to admit they were > > building computers -- with IBM and HP springing to mind at once. > > I know people collect calculators, but I just can't imagine how it can > bring the same kind of satisfaction as computer collecting. You can't > really hack a calculator. They don't lend themselves very well to > restoration efforts. They can't do many tricks. And few of them have any > sort of personality (OK, I'll admit that HP tries pretty hard in this > area). > > Has anybody ventured a definition of computer that allows us to weed out > mere calculators? How about: > > * must be programmable > * must be general purpose > * must have alphanumeric input capabilites > * must have alphanumeric display capabilites > > Unfortunately, this would mean that an Altair isn't a computer until you > add a terminal, but it keeps those pesky HP-65's out of the group. > > -- Doug >

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Now: Once again, whattheheckisa computer? (Was: Re: Delay lines)

by zmerch＠northernway.net

;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Doug Yowza typed: >I know people collect calculators, but I just can't imagine how it can >bring the same kind of satisfaction as computer collecting. You can't >really hack a calculator. They don't lend themselves very well to >restoration efforts. They can't do many tricks. And few of them have any >sort of personality (OK, I'll admit that HP tries pretty hard in this >area). Uh, and what about that "grey area" of programmable calcs? Not only do they have personality... 1) my trusty Casio programmable calc of 12 years ago that started me thru college, may it R.I.P. is wholly program code compatible with my new(er) 9700 (icon-based screen, 32K RAM)... 2) The TI-59 had not only magnetic card storage, but also a ROM-card library, (at least) one of which was a ROM of games... including an interesting football simulation. but in most (if not all) definitions of a computer, they fit. >Has anybody ventured a definition of computer that allows us to weed out >mere calculators? How about: Why? As you seem to be less interested in calcs, it seems many on this list may be as interested, and if they do fit the definition of a computer, why can't they be included? The absolute definition of a computer as I remember it goes thusly: "An instrument which can perform arithmatic and logical functions without the aid of a human." Which to me would: exclude sliderules (tho the thread on here I found *very* interesting and enjoyed), include mechanical / analog computers, (to me) exclude basic / 4-function calcs (some folks think carrying & single-memory storage encompass logical functions... I disagree) include programmable calcs... (heavens, my Casio calc has more memory than my Tandy 200... Goodness!) Granted, these points are primarily moot, for the definition of a computer as to be used on this list would need to be defined by Mr. Bill Whitson, the (still) owner of this list. >* must be programmable >* must be general purpose >* must have alphanumeric input capabilites >* must have alphanumeric display capabilites My New Casio fits all these descriptions (but is not 10 years old), my old Casio fits all and is old too, and (with a slight stretch for input) so does my TI-59. >Unfortunately, this would mean that an Altair isn't a computer until you >add a terminal, but it keeps those pesky HP-65's out of the group. By your definition, adding a terminal to an altair would not turn it into a computer... for the computer is only performing I/O on an RS-232. The terminal is doing the displaying. To fit your definition, you would need to add a dedicated keyboard & video board to said Altair... So, you've successfully excluded Altairs, but included Casio calculators... Or is this just an HP vendetta???? :-) Just my (awkward) views... Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed, Owner, MerchWare | nuclear warhead disarmament should zmerch(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50

by allisonp＠world.std.com

Because they are sufficiently off the path of my interests I may trade both of them off. They look pretty neat but, I have no spares and they can serve as spares for the rest of my systems. That and I'm not really into collecting PCs. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Delay lines

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Exactly. In the particular case of the Friden it was called a supersonic <delay line, although I've never been sure why. acoustic delay lines, they propagate bits translated to mechanical impulses at the speed of sound in a solid. The resulting delay is long enough to use ans a shift register to store bits. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

information

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

> Videotext never really caught on in the US except on cable TV as a > non-interactive display. I believe there are still a few videotext services > piggybacking on satellite channels. They transmit on one of the unused scan > lines at the top of the picture, similar to closed captioning for the deaf. > > To my knowledge the only truly successful videotext implementation > was the french minitel telephone directory. data piggy-backed on TV signals, using several lines in the blanking interval, is called viewdata. data presented in the same screen format as viewdata, but interactively, over a phone line, is called videotext. Collectively, videotex = videotext + viewdata. The original standards were for 25 lines of 40 columns, in 8 colours. Characters can have attributes like "flashing" or "hidden" (for quizzes), and there are rudimentary graphics using a 2x6 mosaic pattern in each character cell. There are several not-quite-compatible viewdata standards, some of which offer much higher resolution and colour range (the German Bilschirmtext system BTX does this). AFAIK, all the videotext systesm, at least in Europe, are the same, and the BBC and UK independent TV companies all use it for news, programme listings, etc, as do a lot of the european satellite TV channels. UK's PRESTEL, Germany's BTX, France's Minitel, all use slightly different forms. Lots of UK travel agents use a private PRESTEL-compatible system, and at least a couple of banks and building societies here use the same standard for home banking. A few UK bulletin boards used to use the same format, and I think one or two still do, for nostalgic reasons. You can get two or three host systems to run on machines like BBC Micros. There's a web page somewhere devoted to this old stuff, but I can't remember the URL (if anyone really wants it, I'll look). There are BTX and Minitel emulators for X-windows, and I have a PRESTEL terminal emulator package for X-windows (works well but still needs a bit of tidying up) which AFAIK is the only free PRESTEL-compatible one for unix systems. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Now I'm going to consider voltage wrt the machine ground i.e. the bottom <of the transformer winding, not the tap. Also on NS* there is an option to not make the metal chassis DC grond to the logic. So ground must be the backplane ground. I suspect Tony has a possible solution, miswiring of the secondary. <I don't know where you are in the UK (can I conclude from your machine <name that you are near Peterborough?), but if you think I can be of any <help, please e-mail me. I have some generic S100 docs (although nothing <N* specific - if you get anything, I'd be interested in seeing it), and a I have a full set of NS* docs but I happen to be on the wrong side of the pond. The PS schematic is pretty trivial. Tony had the design of the +/- 16v correct. If you open the power supply up to see the transformer leads 2,3 and 6 are conneted to ground and common. For the +/-16 leads 5 and 7 go to the bridge rectifier. For the +8 leads 1 and 4 go to the really big diodes mounted on the L-shaped bracket. The 8900uf cap should have -16 to -22v across it and the 11000uf cap +16 to 22v. The largest 180,000uf cap should have +8-10v. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Time/Date stamper

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

I remember hearing a trick about soaking a printer ribbon with WD-40 to revive it. YMMV of course. david In a message dated 98-03-20 20:03:00 EST, you write: << I recently picked up a time/date stamper from the trash. It is a box with a slot, and when a paper is inserted, the paper is stamped. The first year on the stamping drum is 1951, so I assume that's when it was made. It uses a cloth ribbon for ink. How do I reink it? Also, the stamping has impressed the numbers into the rubber platen. How do I get rid of that? >>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Heinz Nixdorf

by jredin＠earthlink.net

Dear friends, I'm recollecting information for an article I will write about the transition of electro-mechanical calculators to electronic calculators during the 60's. I've found that the ANITA from Sumlock Comptometer of England (1963) is usually regarded as the first electronic calculator [1]. However, recently I found an article about Heinz Nixdorf of Germany in the LEXICON's History of Computing (CD-ROM) which indicates that he built several models of electronic calculators back in 1954 (Models ES12 and ES24). I haven't been able to obtain more information on these calculators. I suppose this is because Nixdorf moved soon onto the computers technology (eventually joining with Siemens). As a reference, I posted a copy of the Nixdorf article in my web site at the following address: http://www.dotpoint.com/xnumber/chistory.htm Information about the Anita can be found at: http://www.dotpoint.com/xnumber SECTION: VINTAGE CALCULATORS --> ELECTRONIC --> ALBUM --> Anita Any information on this subject will be appreciated. Regards, James Redin ----------------------- [1] Bruce Flamm, "The World's First Electronic Calculator - Who Made It?" The International Calculator Collector - Fall 1996, Issue #14.

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Time/Date stamper

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

I recently picked up a time/date stamper from the trash. It is a box with a slot, and when a paper is inserted, the paper is stamped. The first year on the stamping drum is 1951, so I assume that's when it was made. It uses a cloth ribbon for ink. How do I reink it? Also, the stamping has impressed the numbers into the rubber platen. How do I get rid of that? ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Apple - PC

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<the trackstar was made years ago in the late 1980s. in fact, radio shack <to have it in the catalog for sale! you might want to check out ebay.com <they did have some of these cards for ~$20 about two months ago. it's a f <length isa card that you plug a standard disk ][ into. dont know about vi <though. supposedly they were quite compatible and one could run just abou <anything on that card. I have one of these. A Diamond Trackstar 128k, has two 65c02s and 128k of ram. It can use the standard 360k drives and the apple ones as well. What I don't have for it is the software. Looks really neat and useful. I don't know if it would work in anything later than an XTclass machine and without software it's hard to determine that. Allison

28 years, 2 months

4
3
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Now that's where an IMSAI front panel really paid off. You put <in the card, stored an FF in the first location, the panel <display show EF instead...bingo, the RAM on D4 is bad (or more <likely a bent pin or upside down in socket). Or run NSdos and use the ramtest program. Another solution is load a monitor into known memory and fill ram with 00 or ffh to detect stuck bits. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

OK, Time to make an attempt at ending this...

by jfoust＠threedee.com

"Daniel A. Seagraves" <DSEAGRAV(a)toad.xkl.com> wrote: >BTW, That's *NOT* a mail bomb. He asked for it. I've been ^Qing thru all >that crap all morning, and I'm sick of it. He wasted a lot of my time, so >I'll waste a few of his. Besides, it's only about... *clicky click* 39 meg. Daniel, mail bombs, real or implied, are a childish act. They accomplish nothing except annoyance and can cause loss of other important mail by any user on the involved systems. It's as effective as insulting your computer when your program has a bug. I thought the public posting of private messages was quite egregious, too, but Daniel didn't do that. - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<From: Simon Coombs <simon(a)nenevr.demon.co.uk> <Subject: Northstar S100 compatability <Does anyone have any idea what sort of RAM cards the Horizon likes to <play with? My system already has an (albeit flakey) RAM-16 card, and I <have the remains of an old Godbout Econoram-II card, sans about half its <chips. I have *no* idea whether this card was ever used with the N*. Ram16 or ram17, any 8k/16k/64k static ram cards all work and may of the dynmaic ram cards that have local (on card refresh). The NS* was pretty clean so most memory bords worked well. The econoram-11 and the ram16 both work. The ram16 should be easy to fix it's static and uses 2kx8 parts. <retired gracefully. I think that the PSU could do with some adjustment, <too; if anyone in the UK has schematics for any of these bits, and would Northstar* PSU requires adjustment???? The Horizon used three terminal FIXED REGULATORS. Unless you mean 120v/240v wiring of the mains transformer. Allison

28 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Videotext

by chemif＠mbox.queen.it

At 07:43 21/03/98 +1100, you wrote: >When I talked to the designer of the Mattel videotext system, I was confused >and mentiioned this piggybacking on TV signals in the blank area, and he was >kinda amused that I would confuse videotext with TELEtext. Videotext had >dedicated phone numbers your system would ring up. Teletext was piggybacked >on TV signals. Yes, they are two different services. Here in Italy the Videotext service is called "VIDEOTEL" and works using the Teletel/Prestel standard with speed 75/1200 baud. The Teletext service broadcasted from RAI is called "TELEVIDEO":the signal is inserted in the TV frames and can be seen with a decoder. The informations are divided in pages (capacity abt. 990 per TV channel) regarding many topics: from weather forecasts to news, tv programs schedule, and other info that can be recalled with the remote control. Some broadcasters uses it as an economic "one way" data transmission (Telesoftware). With a special pc-board connected directly with the TV antenna, is possible to download files transmitted as multiple pages (E.G. the price updates for the the pharmacies). Ciao ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ? Riccardo Romagnoli,collector of:CLASSIC COMPUTERS,TELETYPE UNITS,PHONE ? ? AND PHONECARDS I-47100 Forli'/Emilia-Romagna/Food Valley/ITALY ? ? Pager:DTMF PHONES=+39/16888(hear msg.and BEEP then 5130274*YOUR TEL.No.* ? ? where*=asterisk key | help visit http://www.tim.it/tldrin_eg/tlde03.html ? ? e-mail=chemif(a)mbox.queen.it ? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Videotext

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

> Videotext never really caught on in the US except on cable TV as a >non-interactive display. I believe there are still a few videotext services >piggybacking on satellite channels. They transmit on one of the unused scan >lines at the top of the picture, similar to closed captioning for the deaf. When I talked to the designer of the Mattel videotext system, I was confused and mentiioned this piggybacking on TV signals in the blank area, and he was kinda amused that I would confuse videotext with TELEtext. Videotext had dedicated phone numbers your system would ring up. Teletext was piggybacked on TV signals. He called videotext a precursor to the internet (and also stated that he doesn't use the 'net because you have to pay for things you want, and it's not got much useful on it anyway - I wonder how long since he's used it?!!) Cheers A

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

information

by adavie＠mad.scientist.com

OK, I'm lucky enough to have prototypes of a videotext system using the Mattel Aquarius computer. I have hardware, and more importantly software, manuals, and some videotext specs. I've got the things the guys used to design their hardware - that is, the low level detail. I also have some 25 year old printouts of videotext screens. Rather neat. Contact me if you want copies, basically at cost - or I will dig out particular information gratis. Cheers A -----Original Message----- From: Jack Peacock <peacock(a)simconv.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Saturday, March 21, 1998 5:20 AM Subject: Re: information Turlough O'Brien wrote: "videotext" but there is little to no information available on the net about "Videotext" or in the libraries.I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me some informatin on the subject. (This is from memory and unreliable) There was a proposed standard for North America called NAPLPS, for videotext presentation. I believe it was sponsored by Philips. If someone has a complete collection of BYTE magazines, I recall there was an issue devoted to videotext, circa 1981. The one clever feature of NAPLPS was that the graphics were based on floating point coordinates. Because screen sizes and resolutions would vary, positioning and sizing graphics was a problem. NAPLPS used a coordinate system where the width and height of the screen ranged from 0 to 1. For instance, to place a pixel in the center, you referenced coordinates (0.5, 0.5). Videotext never really caught on in the US except on cable TV as a non-interactive display. I believe there are still a few videotext services piggybacking on satellite channels. They transmit on one of the unused scan lines at the top of the picture, similar to closed captioning for the deaf. To my knowledge the only truly successful videotext implementation was the french minitel telephone directory. Hope this gives you a place to start. Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

PDP parts wanted (cross post)

by rhblake＠bbtel.com

This plea for PDP items was on the "Obsolete Computer Helpline" today and form the traffic lately I'm sure someone could contact this person to give him some pointers by direct email. >Steve Hogan <SHogan7080(a)aol.com> >Nottingham, UK - Friday, March 20, 1998 at 03:27:29 > > HELP > > I am looking for a source of spares for Digital PDP 11 computers. > > In particular, and Disk Controller and Disk Formatter cards -------------------------------------------------------------------- Russ Blakeman RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144 Phone: (502) 756-1749 / Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991 Email: rhblake(a)bbtel.com or rhblake(a)bigfoot.com Website: http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/ * Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers* --------------------------------------------------------------------

28 years, 2 months

2
2
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by peacock＠simconv.com

>Hmm; I'm glad to hear that the N* isn't *too* fussy about the memory >cards it plays with - it makes the job of finding spares a whole lot easier! > >Regards repairs to the existing boards, I may well end up admitting >defeat in the short term - if it's a duff 4027 chip, I'm stuffed - >there's 32 of 'em to choose from! > Now that's where an IMSAI front panel really paid off. You put in the card, stored an FF in the first location, the panel display show EF instead...bingo, the RAM on D4 is bad (or more likely a bent pin or upside down in socket). Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by peacock＠simconv.com

>Well, the mains transformer is wired OK; it happily takes the 240V in and >spits out something (?) like 8VAC, 16VAC and respectively. The 16VAC then >goes through what I assume is a bridge rectifier, and out comes approx. >+32VDC and -32VDC. The snag *is* that it's meant to be supplying 16, not >32v! The 8v rail, fortunately, is fine. Are you sure you measured from the right ground? I have never seen a bridge rectifier that would take 16VAC going in, then provide +/-32VDC coming out the DC side. Connect your ground lead to pin 50 on the S-100 bus (the rightmost side, pins 50 and 100 are signal/power ground). You should see +8VDC (roughly) on bus pin 1/51, +16VDC on pin 2 (or 52, I forget which, don't have a schematic in front of me), and -16Vdc on pin 52 (or pin 2). If you still show +/-32VDC, look at the transformer, something's wrong there (you would have a 120V xfrmr instead of a 240V one). Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Crisis Over, Back To Your Homes, Wanted: Apple ][ Card Info

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

The list is, more or less, on topic, and I've taken this oppertuinity to ask a question: My Apple ][ has a Language card called a "Pocket Rocket". Now, what does this do? Does it let me write in such languages as Pascal, C, or, on my ][+, Integer BASIC? Also, is RAM expansion avaible to increase RAM to 128K (As I've heard that it could go to...) Thanks, Tim D. Hotze

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Symbolics 3650..

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

> :[Symbolics 3650] A couple of resources I found online... The Online Symbolics Museum: http://www.brightware.com/~rwk/symbolics/ Symbolics Technical Summary: http://www.lavielle.com/~joswig/symbolic-computing.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Out of interest, what would a N* want with 256K anyway? Presumably, <whatever OS it is running is pretty hefty stuff! It ran NSdos which was pretty lightweight. and didn't care much about how much ram there was. It was possible to run multiuser NSdos. CP/M was commonly ported to it and 2.2 could be banked if you weren't faint of hear and CPM-3 was designed for banked operation. MPM was a multiuser cpm that also could use banked ram while running multiple users. Mine has 128k in it at current, running CP/M-2 banked. Allison

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Catweasel, etc.

by jfoust＠threedee.com

"Richard A. Cini" <rcini(a)email.msn.com> > Here's my idea. Why can't we contact those vendors that are still in >{corporate} existence and who at one time produced interesting and useful >hardware or software (examples would be MicroSolutions, or CentralPoint), >and try to purchase, for nominal $$$, the rights to produce and distribute >these goods in small quantities. Because as soon as they think there's a buck to be made, the price will become prohibitive. :-) There's some hope for classic computers from the Catweasel people. In their FAQ, they admit knowledge of eight-inch drives, and would be willing to add support for them and their disk formats if someone loaned them a drive and some disks. The problem? They're in Germany. Andrew De Quincey <adq(a)tardis.ed.ac.uk> recently posted some messages to various Usenet classic groups regarding a project where he's capturing the bit-level signals from a drive, and using a Java program to decode it to higher levels of representation. I've been improving my ANSI C tools for getting directories and bursting disk image files for UCSD Pascal and RT-11. Right now they work on logical-order disk images, but I want to improve them to read physical-sector-order images, as well as Anadisk's extra eight-byte sector-header format. Sadly, Anadisk doesn't work under a WinNT command shell, I have to boot back to DOS. - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Vic-20 heads-up

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net> wrote: >Sorry for the on-topic post, but, I just wanted to let folks know that >there is a guy (Ward(?) Shrake) who is archiving Vic-20 cartridges. >This sort of serious, practical preservation is definitely to be commended. What is he doing to address the question of copyright? Might not some of these titles be owned by someone? - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Cleaning up classic books

by Marty＠itgonline.com

First, you should appeal to these thrift shops to use a pencil. Some thrift shops I haunt will pencil in the price on the inside cover, then to thwart repricers, pencil it in again on a different page. I've never had any luck removing grease pencil and have ended up smearing it. I suggest you look up the Library of Congress on the web and email them for advice if they have nothing listed for book preservation. Marty Mintzell ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Cleaning up classic books Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet Date: 3/19/98 7:42 PM Many of the old computer books I get from thrift stores have the price of the book written in grease pencil on the inside cover of the book. I'd like to remove this safely. Can someone point me to the right place to find this sort of information? Thanks. Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details! ------ Message Header Follows ------ Received: from lists2.u.washington.edu by smtp.itgonline.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9i(b5) for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Mar19.194222.1767.33023; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 19:42:23 -0500 Received: from host (lists.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.13]) by lists2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with SMTP id QAA11739; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:35:56 -0800 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id QAA17044 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:35:50 -0800 Received: from shell.wco.com (root(a)shell.wco.com [199.4.94.16]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with ESMTP id QAA08101 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:35:49 -0800 Received: from shell (dastar@shell [199.4.94.16]) by shell.wco.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/WCO-18jul97) with SMTP id QAA28027 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:35:46 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <Pine.GSO.3.96.980319163413.10428C-100000@shell> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 16:35:40 -0800 (PST) Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Precedence: bulk From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Cleaning up classic books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: Classic Computer Discussion <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> X-Sender: dastar@shell X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Found few chips and one interesting chip.

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<One guy had list of stuff for sale or trades recently within last <week or so and was asking for those 8228 chips. <1 x AMD 8284A <1 x Fujitsu 8284A <3 x Nec 8284AD 8284 .NEQ 8228. The 8284/A is specific to 8088/v20 and 8228 is specific to 8080. <MC857P, dated '71 of 18th week. uRTL or DTL (utilogic) , real slow and real old. Generally simple gates or maybe a dual flipflop. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

information

by turloughobrien＠tinet.ie

I am a student in Trinity college Dublin,Ireland.I have been assigned a project on "videotext" but there is little to no information available on the net about "Videotext" or in the libraries.I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me some informatin on the subject. Yours sincerly Turlough O'Brien. turloughobrien(a)tinet.ie

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Vic-20 heads-up

by cgregory＠lrbcg.com

I second Uncle Roger's comments. Ward is a great guy and is doing the Vic-20 community a great service. I have also contributed to the archiving and CD project. BTW, the URL is http://members.aol.com/wshrake/index.htm Cliff Gregory cgregory(a)lrbcg.com -----Original Message----- From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> To: Cgregory <Cgregory> Date: Friday, March 20, 1998 1:55 AM Subject: Vic-20 heads-up > >Sorry for the on-topic post, but, I just wanted to let folks know that >there is a guy (Ward(?) Shrake) who is archiving Vic-20 cartridges. He has >a list posted on the web (and of course, I don't have URL here on the >train) and is actually taking images of the cartridge ROM's for a CD-ROM >(as well as scanning pictures of the labels and such.) > >If anyone is really interested, e-mail me and I'll dig up the URL where >he's got a list of all the cartridges that were available. (If you have >one that's not on the list, please let him know!) > >I'm proud to say that I did have one that wasn't on the list (Fun with >Music, by Epyx) and am sending it, along with another (apparently >incredibly rare) cart (Dot Gobbler) for him to take images of. > >This sort of serious, practical preservation is definitely to be commended. > >(I remember staying up late and playing one of the text adventures on a >Vic-20 with a friend of mine. His first introduction to computers. I was >happy to be able to offer him a new experience, since he had provided me >with so many.) > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- O- > >Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad >roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." >Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates >San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/ > >

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Vic-20 heads-up

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

Sorry for the on-topic post, but, I just wanted to let folks know that there is a guy (Ward(?) Shrake) who is archiving Vic-20 cartridges. He has a list posted on the web (and of course, I don't have URL here on the train) and is actually taking images of the cartridge ROM's for a CD-ROM (as well as scanning pictures of the labels and such.) If anyone is really interested, e-mail me and I'll dig up the URL where he's got a list of all the cartridges that were available. (If you have one that's not on the list, please let him know!) I'm proud to say that I did have one that wasn't on the list (Fun with Music, by Epyx) and am sending it, along with another (apparently incredibly rare) cart (Dot Gobbler) for him to take images of. This sort of serious, practical preservation is definitely to be commended. (I remember staying up late and playing one of the text adventures on a Vic-20 with a friend of mine. His first introduction to computers. I was happy to be able to offer him a new experience, since he had provided me with so many.) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

oddball find PS/2-50, NOT oddball PS/2. :))

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Guys, everyone should have this book by Scott Mueller, "Upgrading and <Repairing PCs". Tis' have good INFO on most PS/2, PS/1 and some late <IBM boxens including the PC, XT and AT in all types, convertible, <5155 portable. I have that book and it's leaving me guessing on some of this. <Not in this sense. Correctly stated, in IBM's words: for this 50 <series uses either MFM/RLL card that plugs into that MCA bus or the <IDE MCA hd and pass thru card called IDE (MCA IDE) on Interposer <Card. It must be the mfm/rll as the card in the MCA bus is fairly busy and the drive is sparse. <BTW, got a spare working 1.44 FDD for that 50 series? All I have is <this battle damaged naked 50Z board with CPU and rom with stand up <floppy adaper. Or better yet, any luck finding a spare PS/2 with <386 or better boxen? I have no desire to get into MCA bus or for that fact PS/2 or machines of that era. Older ISA I have but that's it other than the more current 386 and 486 box to run mail, linux and gcadd. I may trade off these ps/2s. Allison

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

information

by peacock＠simconv.com

Turlough O'Brien wrote: "videotext" but there is little to no information available on the net about "Videotext" or in the libraries.I would greatly appreciate it if you could send me some informatin on the subject. (This is from memory and unreliable) There was a proposed standard for North America called NAPLPS, for videotext presentation. I believe it was sponsored by Philips. If someone has a complete collection of BYTE magazines, I recall there was an issue devoted to videotext, circa 1981. The one clever feature of NAPLPS was that the graphics were based on floating point coordinates. Because screen sizes and resolutions would vary, positioning and sizing graphics was a problem. NAPLPS used a coordinate system where the width and height of the screen ranged from 0 to 1. For instance, to place a pixel in the center, you referenced coordinates (0.5, 0.5). Videotext never really caught on in the US except on cable TV as a non-interactive display. I believe there are still a few videotext services piggybacking on satellite channels. They transmit on one of the unused scan lines at the top of the picture, similar to closed captioning for the deaf. To my knowledge the only truly successful videotext implementation was the french minitel telephone directory. Hope this gives you a place to start. Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

New Adds to Museum

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Well all the last couple weeks have 50/50 as my sources stsrt to have less and less computer items. But I did some of the following Mac IIfx, Mac IIsi, Mac IIci (all for $15 each); all were loaded with software and worked fine no kb's or mice with them just the boxes. A couple of servers one Dell and the Compaq but not 10 years old yet for $10 each with no memory or hard drives. A NeXt black laser printer for $15, NEC MultiSpeed EL with power brick and manuals $20 at Goodwill. COMQuest PC for .80, IIc mono monitor and stand .80, Apple IIc free no power supply with it. Atari newstyle 2600 .80,Mac 512k model M0001E will not power on .80, IBM 6156-003 Portable Disk Drive unit,Pitney Bowes in AT style case with black 3.5 FD $10 not tested yet, and todays finds have not been listed yet in the computer so I can't tell you what all I got but my pickup was full. Yes I got 2 IBM 5494's anyone know something about them ?? Thanks and keep computing John

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by Marty＠itgonline.com

Simon, how timely of you. I just acquired a NorthStar Horizon yesterday which uses four 64KB memory boards (parity). Each board has four 9 chip rows of 16KB dram. I haven't got the documentation for this machine yet, the previous owner has it in storage with software as well (he claims) and said he might have it for me by next week. I'll let you know more details when I get the docs. Marty Mintzell marty(a)itgonline.com ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Northstar S100 compatability Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet Date: 3/19/98 3:50 PM Hi there, guys. I've been lurking on this list for a good long while now, and some of the recent talk of Northstar crates actually prompted me to dig one out that I had aquired a good few years ago and promptly forgotten about...! Does anyone have any idea what sort of RAM cards the Horizon likes to play with? My system already has an (albeit flakey) RAM-16 card, and I have the remains of an old Godbout Econoram-II card, sans about half its chips. I have *no* idea whether this card was ever used with the N*. The machine is not in great condition, bless it; it seems to have been robbed of a couple of voltage regulators at some point in the past, and the full-height 5.25 drives are, I fear, past their best, and shall be retired gracefully. I think that the PSU could do with some adjustment, too; if anyone in the UK has schematics for any of these bits, and would be willing to make copies in exchange for money or eternal gratitude, please let me know! Still, despite it's problems, I suppose I should at least be grateful that I have at least found a manufacturer of hard-sectored diskettes! [1] Thanks. Simon. -- Simon Coombs simon(a)nenevr.demon.co.uk Don't stand on ceremony; just bow low. CP/M - The once and future O/S! [1] Or, at least, they still were as of Jul 97. ------ Message Header Follows ------ Received: from lists3.u.washington.edu by smtp.itgonline.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9i(b5) for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Mar19.155025.1767.32971; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 15:50:25 -0500 Received: from host (lists.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.13]) by lists3.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with SMTP id MAA05533; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:33:18 -0800 Received: from mxu4.u.washington.edu (mxu4.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id MAA21170 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:32:48 -0800 Received: from post.mail.demon.net (post-10.mail.demon.net [193.195.0.154]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with SMTP id MAA12994 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:32:47 -0800 Received: from nenevr.demon.co.uk ([158.152.207.39]) by post.mail.demon.net id aa1021057; 19 Mar 98 20:01 GMT Received: (from simon@localhost) by nenevr.demon.co.uk (8.6.9/v3.2) id TAA13790; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 19:45:08 GMT Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9803191910.A13753-0100000(a)nenevr.demon.co.uk> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 19:45:08 +0000 Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Precedence: bulk From: Simon Coombs <simon(a)nenevr.demon.co.uk> To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Northstar S100 compatability MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

28 years, 2 months

3
2
0 0

Archive Corp FT60 Adapter Board Jumper Settings

by dar617＠idirect.com

I have 2 EAX6GPSC-499R cards and a FT-60 tape drive. I have just cleaned up the tape drive (the interior tape mechanism is marked Archive model #9050B) and have yet to try it as I need a tape. I also have the software to run the board and drive and they appear to work. Thanks for the info on the type of tape needed. I have three sets fo jumpers {kk(on), hh(off), ff(off), jj(off), q24(on), 45mb(on)} {3(on), 4(on), 5(on), 6(on), 7(on), 8(on), 9(off), 10(on)} {RR(off), IRQ 1thru3(3 on), DRQ 1thru3(1 on), DACK(?) 1thru3(1 on)} Doug Rea

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Arrrgh! Micro$h*t again....

by bwit＠pobox.com

---------- From: Max Eskin[SMTP:maxeskin@hotmail.com] Sent: Monday, March 16, 1998 9:40 AM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: Re: Arrrgh! Micro$h*t again... >What's wrong with COBOL? The OBOL part.

28 years, 2 months

4
4
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Well, the mains transformer is wired OK; it happily takes the 240V in and <spits out something (?) like 8VAC, 16VAC and respectively. The 16VAC then <goes through what I assume is a bridge rectifier, and out comes approx. <+32VDC and -32VDC. The snag *is* that it's meant to be supplying 16, not <32v! The 8v rail, fortunately, is fine. Fix that! That 32v is way to high and will snuff the regulators used for +/-12v. I would expact something closer to 22v DC. Also the caps used would be stressed if subjected to that for an extended time. It sounds like the power is wired wrong. <Methinks that the previous owner may have been a little naughty with the <wiring; but I'm not confidant enough with electronics to play with it <too much. This is one machine I don't want to risk blowing up! :) Sounds that way. Get help from someone on your side of the pond if your in over your head as that's a fine machine. With 64k of ram and software it's still pretty useful. At least mine still earns it's keep. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

whoa there...

by maynard＠jmg.com

Jeesh folks, I'm really sorry about this. It may take some time for your local DNS servers to update their cache. Until that time the Admin at my remote ISP (the guys maintaining my DNS records), have set up a sendmail virtusertable to forward mail from their local mail server (see www.sendmail.org if this is greek to you). OK, so if any bounce messages wound up on the mailing list it should stop now.... J. Maynard Gelinas

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

mail problems

by maynard＠jmg.com

Folks, I'm in an mx record tangle with my primary nameserver (which of course, I don't admin). If you can get your nameserver to kill the TTL on it's cache you'll get me, otherwise it's going to bounce until the TTL ends. I've unsub'd from classiccmp to prevent any bounces (I assume there were bounces <*cringe*>?). Will subscribe back once this is straightened out.... J. Maynard Gelinas

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

What I think to be a good idea...

by rcini＠email.msn.com

On the list, Don was talking about the MicroSolutions MatchPoint card, which, with its associated software, permitted reading and writing Apple disks on a standard PC drive, and another hardware item I can 't remember at this time. Here's my idea. Why can't we contact those vendors that are still in {corporate} existence and who at one time produced interesting and useful hardware or software (examples would be MicroSolutions, or CentralPoint), and try to purchase, for nominal $$$, the rights to produce and distribute these goods in small quantities. Although it would take some of the sport out of trying to locate a MatchPoint card, for example, it would enable us to produce these tools for ourselves, thus becoming self-sufficient in a way. Rich Cini/WUGNET <nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use) ClubWin! Charter Member (6) MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking ============================================

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Apology, Info, Etc...

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 02:55 PM 3/18/98 -0800, you wrote: >> I encourage you to organize as you desire, by whatever >> means you can agree on if you haven't already done so. [...] >Ok fine. Until I'm able to take over ClassicCmp completely, we can put a >few issues to a vote. I thought we already decided a couple months back [...] >It's a mailing list for the discussion of classic computers. Topics center >on collection, restoration, and operation. It is also an appropriate place >for stories and reminiscences of classic computers. Lofty discussions I actually stopped to notice how many e-mails I got yesterday. Over 300. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ignore all the off-topic BS (including the off-topic stuff about being off-topic and and the off-topic cat-fighting) and all the suggested changes and alternates and so on. I will continue reading whatever comes in from <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> and will (occassionally) post messages (maybe even including the occasional off-topic one) to <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> as if none of this had ever happened. Those that are unhappy are welcome to go off and start something new. Who knows, somewhere down the road, I might subscribe to your list/chatroom/website/whatever as well. Those that want to keep on whining, are welcome to do so. I'll delete your messages and somehow manage to go about my business without committing suicide. Those that want to talk about classic computers, great. I'll read your messages (even the bloody cax ones! 8^) and might even have something to contribute. So, if you liked it the way it was (and don't let Bill fool you, he's been doing a great job) just sit back, ignore it, and the nonsense will eventually blow over. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Hasbro buys ATARI

by jmg＠iac.net

This is old news. The ATARI newsgroups have been full of this for the last couple of weeks, so I'm sure most folks here know about it. However, Hasbro recently came out with an announcement stating that they are going to re-release old games such as Centipede just like they rereleased an updated 'Frogger.' A core ATARI constituancy still exists who would like Hasbro to update the ST hardware line. With clone European makers _still_ manufacturing ST compatible machines, and Gateway 2000's purchase of the Amiga line, one might think this could be a profitable move for Hasbro. Looks like they don't see it that way howver. What a shame. Both *BSD and Linux run on this hardware line and I _really_ want a decent alternative to PC hardware available which is also designed with <*cough*> games in mind (hey, I may be an adult but I still like videogames!) Maybe a letter writing campaign to Hasbro could help change their mind? Anyone else here fond of the old ATARI computer line and share my enthusiasm? J. Maynard Gelinas

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Old manuals free in Canada

by pjoules＠enterprise.net

Found on usenet - I assume that 40 years old makes them on topic ;-) (Sorry about the delay, message bounced twice because I couldn't type the address properly) On Tue, 17 Mar 1998 15:38:39 -0500, in comp.misc "John H. Lindsay" <lindsay-j(a)rmc.ca> wrote: >I'm in the process of trying to retire, and I have a collection >of computer manuals that go back to the I.B.M. 650 and 1620 >in the mid-late 1950's and run to, say, 10 years ago. This >stuff is History, and it shouldn't be thrown out. It needs a >good home - a computer archive, library, or museum, >Canadian preferred, but if one doesn't materialize, I'll consider >other possibilities. > >Ideas, suggestions or recommendations, anyone ? > >-- >John H. Lindsay lindsay-j(a)rmc.ca >Department of Mathematics and Computer Science >ROYAL MILITARY COLLEGE OF CANADA >P O BOX 17000 STN FORCES >KINGSTON ON K7K 7B4 CANADA > >Phone: (613) 541-6000--1--6419 >Fax: (613) 541-6584

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Pesky atari modem

by CharlesII＠nwonline.net

I have a problem with an Atari 1030 modem. While I can receive everything correct on the Atari modem I am not able to receive anything transmitted from it to another computer correctly. All I get from the Atari modem is binary garbage. Can anyone help me? BTW dose anyone have any spare Atari cables remember they have 13 pins. On another note I've noticed that flea markets are a pretty good place to find classic computers.

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Cleaning up classic books

by dastar＠wco.com

Many of the old computer books I get from thrift stores have the price of the book written in grease pencil on the inside cover of the book. I'd like to remove this safely. Can someone point me to the right place to find this sort of information? Thanks. Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

More: Irreverence to irrelevance

by dcoward＠pressstart.com

I have to admit that I'm flame virgin, but it looks like fun so I'll give it a shot. I can't believe so many on the ClassicCmp List don't subscribe to the digest! That was the first thing I did.(Change over to the digest) I can't be sorting through 40-50 messages to find the work related one that need to be answered right away. And frankly, collecting computers is a hobby for me, one of many, and this is not the only digest I subscribe to.(Even though it's the one that takes most of my mail reading time.) Yesterday's digest came in SIX parts. In the last year thats nearly the record. Page after page of the same e-mail quoted again and agin. BUT I'm not complaining, instead I suggest that MAYBE the ClassicCmp List should default to digest when subscribing. I think that a digest allows people the time to think out their responses. Many of you are the CP/M-List, this is a good example. You may have to wait 24 hours for a response, but usually it a very thoughtful one. And I think its because (as I remember) CP/M-L defaulted to digest and it just become a slower paced discussion. Also with a digest there is no reason to quote someone in entirety (You just read the other message). You do have to cut and paste, so you're more selective. It true than I'm sometimes 24 hours late on a computer for sale. But then again everybody want to auction off their computers anymore. Well that my humble opinion. ========================================= Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com Senior Software Engineer Press Start Inc. Sunnyvale,CA Curator Museum of Personal Computing Machinery http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum =========================================

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

IBM mainframe equipment (repost from another source)

by rhblake＠bbtel.com

There's a person on the Obsolete Computer Helpline at http://ncsc.dni.us/fun/user/tcc/cmuseum/helpline/helpline.htm that writes the following: --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anybody looking for some IBM mainframe equipment? Let me know what item you're looking for. --------------------------------------------------------------------- mailto:mkoch@mw.mediaone.net is his email contact address. No name other than "Mike" was posted. I thought that maybe someone in the list might be interested.... -------------------------------------------------------------------- Russ Blakeman RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144 Phone: (502) 756-1749 / Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991 Email: rhblake(a)bbtel.com or rhblake(a)bigfoot.com Website: http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/ * Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers* --------------------------------------------------------------------

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Hitachi 2.8" (was Preserving old floppies, fixed disks...)

by lisard＠zetnet.co.uk

On 1998-03-18 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk :> Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 23:56:43 GMT :> yep, they're quick disks. and they probably belong in the same :>bucket as sinclair's microdrive and phi mag's floopy tape (anyone :>else remember this one?) - nice tries that just couldn't keep up, :>either in cost, capacity or genericity. :Re: phi mag's floppy tape: Didn't this resemble that old :TRS-80 hack the 'stringy floppy'? I used to have one of those when :I was a kid (the TRS-80 Stringy Floppy before I could afford a real :5 1/4" drive), and still remember it fondly. It was a pretty cool :little unit. ditto the sinclair microdrives, which were about the size of an old 50p piece (oh, erm... about one and a half times a quarter?) and stored 100k in a ql. they were 2 track, 1/16" tapes - does anyone know the magnetic format in which they stored data? was one track datat and one track clock, or...? they were *sooo* cute :> it's just a shame they were also rather unreliable. most qls have disk drives and ours is soon to acquire one. -- Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about

by peacock＠simconv.com

Marty wrote: > very interested in learning about the history of the company itself. I > read everything I can find on early microcomputer companies and find > it fascinating reading. Northstar got its start, I think in late 1976, with one of the first affordable and reliable floppy disk systems for S-100s. It used the then brand new 5.25" floppy disk Shugart had just started making, matched to an S-100 controller board. Up to that time all the floppy systems were based on 8" floppies, which went for, oh, around $1000-$1500 for a drive (and weren't very reliable either). The NS drive was very cheap in comparison, I think around $500, but bets of all you just put it in the box and it worked, very rare for S-100 machines in that timeframe. The drive was single density, single sided, hard sectored with 10 sectors of 256 bytes each, total around 90KB. Paltry compared to the 243KB on an 8" drive, but infinitely better than a Tarbell cassette interface. The drive came with a crude operating system (CP/M didn't work right away because of hardware problems with the boot ROM on the NS controller) and Basic. Eventually Lifeboat got a version of CP/M working with the drive. After the floppy subsystem, NS came out with a unique S-100 floating point coprocessor board. This was actually a sort of bit slice state machine that did BCD arithmetic. A very clever design but somewhat difficult to use. It was fast for it's time. The only software that used it (to my knowledge) was the NS basic and I think one of the CBASIC or PASCAL compilers (Sorcim?). NS made enough from their floppy systems that they started making whole machines, the Horizon and later the Advantage. As with all the S-100 companies, PC's killed them off. Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

More List Operation Stuff

by bcw＠u.washington.edu

Well, pretty soon you're all going to get sick of hearing from me, so this will be the last listop stuff I post for a couple days. I read back through a couple weeks of archive and I'm still letting thst digest. For the time being, I've decided not to make any decisions ;) It seems a little common sense and courtesy would go a long way in bringing this list back on track. I'm not so sure that hard-core officiating would make any difference. It would probably just spawn arguments defending the honor and freedom of listmembers (heads up aspiring list operators - that's a lesson I learned the hard way). Even when I was actively moderating this list, all I looked at was whether or not subjects were about classic computers or not. If it goes a little off track, all right. If that continues for too long, a polite message to the parties involved usually retires the thread to private mail. If you think about what you're going to post to the list for a minute or two, you'll know whether or not it will be well received. Spend that time. This list is for recreation. You should be on it because you think classic computers are fun. All of you are people with a common recreational interest - there's no reason to get nasty with each other. If you don't like certain people or topics, just delete them and focus on what you like. If you can't find anything you like, maybe this is not the list for you. I'm getting off my soapbox now. Thanks to all who have sent me their input. Keep it coming. I will lecture you more next week ;) -------------------------------------------------------- Bill Whitson bcw(a)u.washington.edu Network Administrator (425) 352-5209 University of Washington - Bothell Help Desk: 2-5275

28 years, 2 months

2
2
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about

by Marty＠itgonline.com

Allison, thanks for the reply. I am hoping to get full docs from the previous owner (which should answer most technical questions) but am very interested in learning about the history of the company itself. I read everything I can find on early microcomputer companies and find it fascinating reading. Thanks again- Marty Mintzell ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Re[2]: On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet Date: 3/19/98 5:30 PM < Vintage computer: I just became the custodian of a NorthStar Horizon < sporting four (count 'em) massive 64KB ram boards. Giving breath to < those memory boards is a four port serial board, a floppy controller < driving a 5 1/4" full height floppy drive, and a ST-506 interface hard < drive controller driving a hdd which I don't as yet have identified. < Of course it is powered by a Z-80A workhorse. This baby also sports a < lovely brushed aluminum front panel and I believe is one of the later They are good workhorse s100 machines. < production model Horizons as it has a red led on the front panel (the < Horizons I've seen in the old Byte Magazines from the late 1970's < don't have an led pictured). They all did, only the proto didn't. < Does anybody have any details on the history of NorthStar? I would < appreciate any ideas on where I might reseach their history. I built mine in early 1978 and it's celebrating it's 20th year! What do you need to know. Northstar* is long gone. The hardware refuses to die. Allison ------ Message Header Follows ------ Received: from lists2.u.washington.edu by smtp.itgonline.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9i(b5) for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Mar19.173055.1767.32996; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:30:56 -0500 Received: from host (lists.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.13]) by lists2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with SMTP id OAA01985; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 14:24:48 -0800 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id OAA42646 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 14:23:19 -0800 Received: from europe.std.com (europe.std.com [199.172.62.20]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with ESMTP id OAA03305 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 14:23:16 -0800 Received: from world.std.com by europe.std.com (8.7.6/BZS-8-1.0) id RAA13386; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:23:15 -0500 (EST) Received: by world.std.com (TheWorld/Spike-2.0) id AA06520; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:23:14 -0500 Message-Id: <199803192223.AA06520(a)world.std.com> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 17:23:14 -0500 Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Precedence: bulk From: allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: Re[2]: On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computer X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

VAXStation Terminal Help Needed

by aaron＠lafleur.wfi-inc.com

Hi, Can one of the vaxheads help me with this one.... I have a 3100 who's monitor just died and I want to use a terminal emulator for it until I replace the monitor (should be here in a few days). I know that I have to change one of the dip switches inside but which??? And what's the pinout of the serial printer port (that *is* also the terminal output, right?) ??? I'd kill to get my hands on some original documentation/manuals for either my 3100's or 3200. BTW, the 3100 in question is a 38. Thanks, Aaron

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computer

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< Vintage computer: I just became the custodian of a NorthStar Horizon < sporting four (count 'em) massive 64KB ram boards. Giving breath to < those memory boards is a four port serial board, a floppy controller < driving a 5 1/4" full height floppy drive, and a ST-506 interface hard < drive controller driving a hdd which I don't as yet have identified. < Of course it is powered by a Z-80A workhorse. This baby also sports a < lovely brushed aluminum front panel and I believe is one of the later They are good workhorse s100 machines. < production model Horizons as it has a red led on the front panel (the < Horizons I've seen in the old Byte Magazines from the late 1970's < don't have an led pictured). They all did, only the proto didn't. < Does anybody have any details on the history of NorthStar? I would < appreciate any ideas on where I might reseach their history. I built mine in early 1978 and it's celebrating it's 20th year! What do you need to know. Northstar* is long gone. The hardware refuses to die. Allison

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computer

by Marty＠itgonline.com

Let's all take a minute to digest a new daily affirmation/mantra: Vintage computers.... Vintage computers.... Vintage computers.... Vintage computers.... Vintage computer: I just became the custodian of a NorthStar Horizon sporting four (count 'em) massive 64KB ram boards. Giving breath to those memory boards is a four port serial board, a floppy controller driving a 5 1/4" full height floppy drive, and a ST-506 interface hard drive controller driving a hdd which I don't as yet have identified. Of course it is powered by a Z-80A workhorse. This baby also sports a lovely brushed aluminum front panel and I believe is one of the later production model Horizons as it has a red led on the front panel (the Horizons I've seen in the old Byte Magazines from the late 1970's don't have an led pictured). Does anybody have any details on the history of NorthStar? I would appreciate any ideas on where I might reseach their history. Thanks- Marty ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computers Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet Date: 3/19/98 3:19 PM Here we go again......you'll never learn from past experience, will you? enrico Jack Peacock wrote: > > Enrico Tedeschi wrote: > >I feel that ANY rule in ANY organization is wrong. > > > >In the case of mailing lists or newsgroups if messages are off > topic than > >either the senders are not answered OR the recipients who do > not agree move > >away from that list or newsgroup. There no need to police and > policing: they > >should be self adjusting. History has proved time and time > again that > >centralized and fascist societies do not last long and do come > to and end > >(often abruptedly). > > Good heavens, another libertarian anarchist. It's people like > you who build computers in your garage instead of accepting that > only billion dollar corporations have the resources to build > computer products. Where would Bill Gates be today if he > believed in ideals like that? Why, he'd be worth billions of > dollars....hmm....wait a second, that didn't come out right. > Jack Peacock -- ======================================================== Enrico Tedeschi, 54 Easthill Drive, Brighton BN41 2FD, UK Tel/fax(+01273) 701650 (24 hours) and 0498 692465 (mobile) please visit my website at: <http://www.brighton-uk.com> ======================================================== ------ Message Header Follows ------ Received: from lists2.u.washington.edu by smtp.itgonline.com (PostalUnion/SMTP(tm) v2.1.9i(b5) for Windows NT(tm)) id AA-1998Mar19.151936.1767.32963; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 15:19:36 -0500 Received: from host (lists.u.washington.edu [140.142.56.13]) by lists2.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with SMTP id MAA19677; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:06:26 -0800 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id MAA33526 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:06:08 -0800 Received: from andromeda.ndirect.co.uk (andromeda.ndirect.co.uk [194.74.254.17]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with ESMTP id MAA08134 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 12:06:06 -0800 Received: from ndirect.co.uk (th-pm01-62.ndirect.co.uk [195.7.225.126]) by andromeda.ndirect.co.uk (8.8.5/8.6.6) with ESMTP id UAA07413 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Thu, 19 Mar 1998 20:06:01 GMT Message-Id: <35117ADB.AAF0B296(a)ndirect.co.uk> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 20:06:58 +0000 Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Precedence: bulk From: Enrico Tedeschi <e.tedeschi(a)ndirect.co.uk> To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Subject: Re: On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computers References: <00e101bd5369$84f3bec0$14ac31cf(a)jack.simconv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computers

by peacock＠simconv.com

Enrico Tedeschi wrote: >I feel that ANY rule in ANY organization is wrong. > >In the case of mailing lists or newsgroups if messages are off topic than >either the senders are not answered OR the recipients who do not agree move >away from that list or newsgroup. There no need to police and policing: they >should be self adjusting. History has proved time and time again that >centralized and fascist societies do not last long and do come to and end >(often abruptedly). Good heavens, another libertarian anarchist. It's people like you who build computers in your garage instead of accepting that only billion dollar corporations have the resources to build computer products. Where would Bill Gates be today if he believed in ideals like that? Why, he'd be worth billions of dollars....hmm....wait a second, that didn't come out right. Jack Peacock

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

On Flames and Mailing lists, and a bit about computers

by spc＠armigeron.com

I'm surprised that it took so little time for this list to get to this point. Another list I'm on took about two years for it to reach critical mass before it exploded into three additional mailing lists, all covering the same topic (with the result of many hurt feelings, a list that only lasted about six months before it imploded, with the original list still going strong). As I said to Sam in some private mail I sent to him: I'm not sure what can be done, but if the topic of a mailing list is held too tightly, eventually it'll die (like one of the mailing list I host now, although there are some other reasons for that as well) as there is little or nothing new being added. ... I don't want to seem overly pessimistic, and yes, perhaps the topics have drifted off a bit too much, but actions like yours (and I'm not trying to blame or pin anything on you, this is just my observations from about 5 years of being on several mailing lists (almost all of them high volume)) tend to do more harm over time than good, by splitting the community up, causing confusion, ill feelings and political overtones. And yet it continues (and Sam, in your reply to the above you appear sane and rational, yet your diatribes on the list show a completely different side, and one that isn't very flattering). Bill may "own" the current list, but that still doesn't prevent anyone >from starting up a new list dedicated to the same topic, only time and resources. And perhaps against my better judgment, I'm doing such a thing (Lord help me), and so let it be. If Sam feels that he can run a list better than Bill, or even I, then he is certainly free to start his own and see who signs up. Much like I am doing now. It's there. If no one subscribes and this list continues to flurish, so be it. If, on the other hand, my list takes off and this one dies, so be it. Currently, the only person subscribed is me. I'm not going to add people, it's up to you. To subscribe, send a message to classiccomp-request(a)lists.armigeron.com with a subject line of 'subscribe' (you might want to put this on the first line of the body as well). That's it. You'll then recieve a welcome message describing the rules and regulations of the list, as well as the unsubscribe rules. If you don't like the rules, we can talk, or you can walk. Simple, eh? -spc (We shall see ... )

28 years, 2 months

5
4
0 0

Irreverence to irrelevance

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Joe Thiemann <jthiemann(a)castleton.com> wrote: >A private news server is a Bad Thing for those of us sitting at >work with a firewall inbetween ourselves and the net. I do not think I >will have much success convincing the firewall admins to allow news >traffic to go through. You're behind a firewall that doesn't let you read news? Why do your admins let you read mail - why, you could read a *virus* by accident! :-) Russ Blakeman <rhblake(a)bbtel.com> >Good idea in a way but my days back as a SysOp on my own private Fidonet BBS >shows these closed areas/news servers to be VERY boring. I've been on Compuserve since the early 80s, and I tend to like their style of management. The forum managers tend to rule with a very light hand, in the style of a good bartender. (Another factor I believe helped raise the quality of patron was CIS's $/hour fees. :-) Sam wrote: >Ok fine. Until I'm able to take over ClassicCmp completely, we can put a >few issues to a vote. Huh? "Supporters of democracy deserve to get it, good and hard." Please, Sam, it's within your ken to set up and administer a mailing list, and you can even moderate it, which will probably take more than an hour a day, and people will complain when you don't do it fast enough. Sound like fun yet? Life being what it is, you'll probably revert to the "sit back and let the flames die on their own" approach to list management, which works pretty well, considering the alternatives. Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: > After all, I've been talking about Weller soldering >irons, HP LogicDarts (which are far too new to be called classics), >ASR33's (which, although old, are not computers), etc. I'm sorry. I had no idea that my questions about the ASR-33 would be considered off-topic by anyone. My 70s computer experiences were nearly defined by I/O through these beasts, and they were certainly a popular interface for DEC and S-100 era computers, so I thought they were supremely on-topic! - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Northstar S100 compatability

by simon＠nenevr.demon.co.uk

Hi there, guys. I've been lurking on this list for a good long while now, and some of the recent talk of Northstar crates actually prompted me to dig one out that I had aquired a good few years ago and promptly forgotten about...! Does anyone have any idea what sort of RAM cards the Horizon likes to play with? My system already has an (albeit flakey) RAM-16 card, and I have the remains of an old Godbout Econoram-II card, sans about half its chips. I have *no* idea whether this card was ever used with the N*. The machine is not in great condition, bless it; it seems to have been robbed of a couple of voltage regulators at some point in the past, and the full-height 5.25 drives are, I fear, past their best, and shall be retired gracefully. I think that the PSU could do with some adjustment, too; if anyone in the UK has schematics for any of these bits, and would be willing to make copies in exchange for money or eternal gratitude, please let me know! Still, despite it's problems, I suppose I should at least be grateful that I have at least found a manufacturer of hard-sectored diskettes! [1] Thanks. Simon. -- Simon Coombs simon(a)nenevr.demon.co.uk Don't stand on ceremony; just bow low. CP/M - The once and future O/S! [1] Or, at least, they still were as of Jul 97.

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Symbolics 3650.. and Toobs!

by prp＠hf.intel.com

> Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 10:41:49 -0700 > From: Jack Harper <jharper(a)bs2000.com> > To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu > Subject: Symbolics 3650.. > > Question - I very recently obtained a Symbolics 3650 lisp machine -- along > with six large boxes of associated 'stuff'. With luck, I hope to get this > beast back to life -- it apparently worked prior to being shipped to me (by > truck) but I obviously expect some problems. Does anyone on the List have > any experience or have any available spare parts or documentation -- or, > most important, actual experience with Symbolics lisp machines??? I also have a big Symbolics and supposedly some documentation, but I haven't opened any of the boxes so I don't know whats there. I don't have any experience with these machines and don't expect to be able to try mine any time soon, but other than that would be happy to share experiences. I also have contacts in a shop that ran them fairly recently, but they are a startup (of sorts) so don't have spare time to hold our hands. Corresponded with a fellow who has a complete listing of LISP 1.5, we talked about how to get it into machine readable form so it could run on a 7090 emulator. Definitely something I'd like to see happen. If you run across any LISP on 7-track tape I can read it. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Wed, 18 Mar 1998 14:12:28 -0500 (EST) > From: William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> > To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu > Subject: Toobs! > > I now have sitting on my desk six modules from an IBM 700 series > mainframe, destined for the Mill at RCS/RI. Of course, six modules does > not make a computer, but I think we should at least try them out, just to > see how badly they perform. If they are from a 704, 705 or 709 or ancillary equipment I may have module diagrams. Look for a 4-digit number rubber stamped on the metal on the tube side, also there may be a 6-digit part number. To get an idea of what machine they might be from list the tube types. For instance, the higher performance 704/709 modules used mostly 5965's in the processor. Also look at the parts on the sides, logic modules have resistors and lots of diodes and maybe a few inductors. Other modules will have few or no diodes. One common module from card equipment has a small double row of core memory in the middle near the connector. Paul Pierce http://www.teleport.com/~prp/collect/

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Confidential E-mail

by bcw＠u.washington.edu

If I send any of you messages, I would expect that they will be held in confidentiality. I will certainly give the list a chance to input before making any decisions. If I wished to communicate to everyone, I would post to the list. -------------------------------------------------------- Bill Whitson bcw(a)u.washington.edu Network Administrator (425) 352-5209 University of Washington - Bothell Help Desk: 2-5275

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Running Classiccmp

by bcw＠u.washington.edu

Yesterday I began talking to people about taking over list functions. The response has been amazing and overwhelming. Before making any decisions, I am going to go over the list archives and attempt to read the list for a week or two to get a feel for what's going on. If you have strong feelings about how the list should be run, or by whom it should be run, please e-mail me directly. -------------------------------------------------------- Bill Whitson bcw(a)u.washington.edu Network Administrator (425) 352-5209 University of Washington - Bothell Help Desk: 2-5275

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Robots again

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

:::cautiously leaving bomb shelter in order to post::: back in the 1980s, i came across a book that also had a design for a robot dog but i think this was a different book. it was built around a 8085A and 8155 support chips, totally wire wrapped and included schematics for building a programmer to program the robot dog itself. i never did get around tuit, but would have been fun to build. why didnt robots catch on as big as computers did? i remember robots were the thing back in the 1980s like the web is now but never really gained critical mass. there were a few models made, ( hero 1 and 2, rb5x, et al) but nothing really caught on. ::returning to bomb shelter, continuing to delete 97% of classiccmp messages for the moment::: In a message dated 98-03-18 21:28:38 EST, you write: << > >I have here a book from the Philips Technical Library called 'Practical > >Robot Circuits' published in 1960. The first half of this book contains > >the design for a robot 'dog' using essentially an analogue control > system > >(mostly amplifiers and comparators) to process the signals from various > >sensors (photocells, microphones, thermistors, etc). The outputs of the > What can this "dog" do? Does it have any kind of interesting > abilities? Not a lot. To keep it simple there's no 'learning by experience' (the book does mention this in passing) or large memory stores (using only valves and relays, that's not suprising). Looking quickly at the book I can find : 1) Detecting/following a light source (turning its 'head' towards it, moving towards it). 2) Detecting a sequence of 2 tones (its 'name') and coming towards the sound source 3) Detecting that it's walked into something and backing off. 4) Detecting a hot object ('food'), turning its 'head' towards it, licking it. 5) Using a sonar (accoustical radar) system to detect objects and avoid them OK, trivial compared to what can be done with even a PIC microcontroller. But I'd still like to make one one day.... >>

28 years, 2 months

2
1
0 0

Osborne OCC 1 Drive C:

by adept＠mcs.com

I just acquired a couple of Osborne 1's and one of the two of them has a Drive C: in it. I got some docs with the boxes but nothing describing this exciting little add-on. I've scoured the classic computer mailing list archives and I've found a previous question (from may of last year) on just this topic, unfortunately nobody really knew anything then. Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Cheers and thanks, Dan ps -- I'm currently in dire need of a CRT for a TRS-80 Model 12.

28 years, 2 months

3
4
0 0

DING DING! Back to your corners... WAS: Re: Irreverence to irrelevance

by lfb107＠psu.edu

At 04:12 AM 3/19/98 GMT, Bill Richman wrote: >How many do you need? I've got about 15 that aren't doing anything >important. I bought two of the SQ drives when they first came out, >sank a bundle into the cartridges, and then they flaked out on me. >One drive had some kind of head crash and started eating cartridges, >and the other one just ceased to function. Frankly, I was not >impressed. Perhaps their new products are better. Do you know of any >way to re-format a SQ disk that has been bulk-erased? I had this >bright idea several years ago that maybe just completely clearing the >disks by bulk-erasing would be a good thing. I'm thinking now that I >obliterated some factory tracks that the drive can't reproduce. >Ideas? To tell you the truth, I don't know the first thing about these drives. I just got one for free a whilke ago and was really just wondering if the damn thing worked or not. I'll let you know what i find out tho... Les

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Finding machines (was: Question for the Faq)

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 12:48 PM 3/17/98 -0600, you wrote: >be asked again - What are the top ten hotspots for finding old >equipment? In no particular order: Friends and Family (and the companies they work for) Thrift shops Garage Sales Dumpsters Surplus dealers Internet (this list, especially) hamfests/swapmeets/fleamarkets classified ads typewriter/office equipment repair businesses Okay, that's only nine. Sorry. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

28 years, 2 months

6
10
0 0

Symbolics 3650..

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Jack Harper <jharper(a)bs2000.com> wrote: >Question - I very recently obtained a Symbolics 3650 lisp machine -- along >with six large boxes of associated 'stuff'. > Does anyone on the List have >any experience or have any available spare parts or documentation -- or, >most important, actual experience with Symbolics lisp machines??? I know of them from the computer graphics market. (I'd love to get one, if you have two. :-) I think the 3D modeling / rendering software was sold off to various other companies (Triple-I / Autologic) and these days at least the concept of a Lisp-based modeler can be found at www.nichimen.com . The symbolics.com domain is still registered, and by reading between the lines of some messages I found, I think it's owned by some Symbolics enthusiasts or employees in Princeton Junction, NJ. There is/was apparently a related newsgroup or mailing list. Go to www.dejanews.com and search "info.slug" (with the quotes). I found a message that said that Symbolics had laid off its last three employees just this past January, and that the lawyers are fighting over the assets. Good start on your Lisp history page. I have one for UCSD Pascal. - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Bulk erased SyQuest carts WAS: Re: DING DING!

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I've got a spare SQ 555 as well as about a dozen carts that I'd be willing to let go... a trade for something nifty would be great! - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

Web page lists

by kyrrin＠jps.net

Hi, folks, Like most of the list subscribers, I'm a scrounge. To this end, I've placed on my web page listings of electronics and computer-related surplus stores and swap meets in Washington and (northern, Bay Area) California. Oregon (Portland and Vicinity) will be added as soon as I can swing a survey trip there. Hoping these listings may be of use to at least a couple of you, the URL is: http://www2.jps.net/~kyrrin Or... http://table.jps.net/~kyrrin Enjoy... -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272) (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net) "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

28 years, 2 months

1
0
0 0

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb