Thanks for the update that's what I was figured would be the answer. The
S-bus card was a surprise, now I have to go on the hunt. Thanks again John
At 10:20 PM 1/29/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> Sun SPAREprinter model QA-6, anyone know how to do a self
>> print test on this unit I can not find any buttons or anything;
>
>It will not do much unless you have it connected to a SPARCstation running
>NeWSprint. The SPARCstation also requires a special S-bus card to
>interface to the printer.
>
>In other words, you have either a worthless printer, or a good excuse to
>go get yourself a SPARCstation.
>
>William Donzelli
>william(a)ans.net
>
>
>
I have several questions on some computers I have that I'm stuck in the
mud on.
Point Four Data Systems Mark 3 minicomputer: This thing dates from
1985-ish. It's rack-mountable, and I have a CDC Lark 25+25MB removable
hard drive for it. The manuals I got with it are for a different model of
computer. I can get into the MANIP monitor but few of the commands do
anything (particularly the one to IPL off the drive- it either hangs or
goes back to the MANIP prompt immediately.) I don't know if the drive
or any of the cartridges contain anything at all. Does anyone know
*anything* about this thing? Any info would be helpful, as I'm out of
ideas.
Anadex DP-6500 RapidScribe printer: I'm told it works. All of the DIP
switches are set off (and there's 30+ of them). It doesn't do much at
all. Does anyone have the DIP switch settings for it? I've searched the
WWW and found ribbons for sale but that's it.
Commodore 64: I bought a boxful of C=64 stuff today at a nifty junk market
I've never noticed before. The 64 boots to one of the following screens
(at random): black, blue and black stripes, blue and red stripes, red
screen, red-white-blue-black stripes, white and black stripes, or
multi-colored graphical garbage. Does this sound like a common failure
mode, and if so, which chip?
Also, what's a fair price for a Coleco Adam system: 2 keyboards, memory
box with datacassette drives, external numeric keypad with knob (paddle?),
and printer.
One more: fair price for Apple //c+ system: CPU, monitor, two disk drives
(one Apple, one other).
Enough questions. Thanks for your help,
Richard Schauer
rws(a)ais.net
Hi,
Picked up a few more items today. A book named The AmigaDOS Manual by
The Bantam Amiga Library and a copy of the Operating Manual for Jet also
for the Amiga. Also two manuals for Commodore disk drives, one says 1541C
and the other says 1541. And a GEOS User's Mamual for the Commodore 64 or
128. Any need any of this stuff? E-mail me privately.
Also got a strange Commodore cable. It has what looks like a double
ended HP-IB connector one end and a card edge connector on the other. All
the connectors have 24 contacts. Both ends have a heavy braided ground
strap. It looks like it's about 2 foot long. Any one know what this is for?
Joe
How is it I always manage to get so far behind? Sorry for the late
response...
At 06:17 PM 1/27/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Found an interesting (at least to me) luggable/portable at the local thrift
>the other day. It's a Sharp PC-7100. Very compact and sharp (no pun)
>design. About half the size and weight of an old Compaq, with a detatchable
Best I can figure it, (based on my 3,) is the PC-7000 had two floppy
drives, the PC-7100 gave up a floppy for the hard drive.
These are actually more interesting than you might think at first glance.
Notice how the handle can slide towards the back so it's off-center?
Notice the little metal inserts along the top edge of the back? There's a
printer (I've only got one) that attaches to the back for portability. The
handle can either be centered on just the main unit or on the main unit and
the printer.
>it. BTW, the screen has a blue/purple sort of tint to it. Kind of
>attractive in a psychodelic sort of way ( oh please, no more drug-related
I'm afraid I've got no docs, and it's been a while since I've booted any of
mine so I can't even say if any have the same tint. I would be interested
in hearing anything you find out about it, though!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Sorry that I don't have all the information, but here goes:
I've got a freidn with an early Pentium 75, purchased July 1995. Needless
to say, it doesn't have Windows 95.
When trying to insall some "classic" Sierra games, like the VGA Quest
For Glory; the install progam has a list of sound cards that it supports.
It puts a check by sound cards supported by your system (IE Sound Blaster 16
would be a Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster Pro, and Adlib compatible), and his
would show up as "Sound Master." Now, it's my guess that Sound Master was a
"clone" of Sound Blaster, but early versions must have added more features.
Also, it wasn't "Sound Blaster Compatible" enough so that it used SB
drivers.
Sorry for the sketchy information,
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Cord Coslor <archive(a)navix.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, January 30, 1998 2:54 AM
Subject: Sound Master PC card, etc.
>1) Here's an item that I am curious to learn about. I will transpose a
written
>description of this item... I hope it actually falls into the classic
computing
>category. Anyway, it is called the Sound Master PC and it says it is "a
total
>music and sound card.... sound and speech run through a direct memory
access
>(DMA) driven 8-bit digitizer. Sound Master PC incorporates an extra
microchip
>witha three-voice capability, the latestd esign for multi-part music and
>special effects. Combined sounds go to the built-in stereo amplifier...."
> Here's what I'm really interested in... "Sound Master PC also has
digital
>joystick ports which accept the 'fun' types of Atari, Commodore, or other
>game-machine joysticks. ...."
> "The board fits into any available slot on your PC. Mini stereo-speaker
jack
>and dual joystick ports are accessibe through the rear mounting bracket.
The
>package includes external speakers, plug-in board, instructioons, and a
one-year
>warranty."
>
>Does anyone know who might have made this unit? What year? Are the joystick
>ports really any good? I run a digital joytsick (Atari) through my Printer
>port.... but this sounds completely different.
>
>Feel free to add some input. Oh, how much would 'you' pay for something
like
>this. I have the opportunity to get up to ten of these things and am
curious
>what they're worth. ANyone else want to get in on the deal with me?
>
>I also have access to these:
>
>2) Voice Master Digitizer for the IBM, Apple, and Commodore Computers.
>3) The Speech Thing-- allows recording sounds through the printer port.
>4) C-20 cassettes (10 minutes per side) -- 20 for $6.60. Unused cassettes
in
>unused plastic case-NEW!
>5) 1000 tractor-feed mailing labels for $3.95.
>6) New 5 1/4" disks 100 for $5.40 (Single-sided, single or double density)
>7) 100 Double Sided, Double Density 5.25" for $5.50 --
>8) also new 8" disketes for $1.00 a piece!
>
>Let me know on some of this stuff and we can work out a deal.
>
>Love to get more info on it all,
>
>CORD
>
>
>--
> _________________________________________
>| Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |
>| Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net |
>|-----------------------------------------|
>| PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421-0308 |
>| (402) 872- 3272 |
>|_________________________________________|
>
>
It's been awhile with the snow and cold I do not get to make all the
rounds. But here goes in the last few weeks I a PCjr and keyboard without
cable for free; Panasonic model RL-H7000W luggable for free some damage to
housing; another HP Thinkjet without power supply; Apple numeric keypad II;
3 Apple extended II keyboards for free; Mac SE/30 M5119 works great for
$15; Mac Classic M0420 works great $15; VisionScan scanner model n205 no
power supply for it-free; Information Storage Optical Disk drive for free;
3 IBM 3363 units for free; IBM 5144 monitor on a stand uses phono jack
hookup only free; several Mac plus kb's and mice for free; Alphacom 42
thermal printer very strange plug on this unit, anyone know how you power
this printer; Sun SPAREprinter model QA-6, anyone know how to do a self
print test on this unit I can not find any buttons or anything; AMSTRAD
640K PC keyboard in great shape free; Apple modem A9M0300 with power supply
free; Apple modem A9M0301 (2400b) missing power supply free; IBM Colorjet
printer 3852 model 2 free; GTCO Corp Digi-Pad5 controller blackbox free;
houston instrument pad model DT-11;Gulton Industries Recorder TR-711 TAC-59
free;2 Apple PC 5.25 drives A9M0110 can read PC 360k disk free;
ColorMonitor IIe free; IBM VGA 8513001 free works great; Apple Imagewriter
II A9M0310 free; IBM PS/2 50 with keys not tested yet free; Control Data
model 831 needs work free;Wang PC382 not tested yet $15; UNISYS Scanner
flatbed $10 not tested yet;Sun kb and mouse; NEC PC-8300 free not tested
yet someone built a power supply into the battery compartment; a Scanjet
controller card free and not tested;Commodore executive SX-64 portable
works great at Goodwill for $15;Commodore 64C in box with manuals for free;
Apple IIe 80col card for free (new in bag); AE timemaster card for apple
free; and a large number items not yet 10 years old but the prices were too
good to pass on and this way I will the units when they are 10 years old.
There are more items but I will stop for now. Keep Computing John
In a message dated 98-01-29 08:44:40 EST, you write:
<< > I looked in my never used copy of os2 version 1.3 standard edition and
found
> no mention of rexx so maybe it arrived in version 2.x but i'm not opening
my
> shrinkwrapped version to find out! minimum requirements for 1.3 are a 286,
> 2meg, and 12 meg of hdd space.
: Worth a try then. But am I right in thinking that the AT doesn't
: implement all the 286 modes properly? I'm sure the XT286 doesn't. >>
...an AT doesnt implement 286 models properly? i dont get it. AT=80286. now,
all 286 machines had a limitation about being able to switch from protected
mode to real mode and back to protected mode without major work and/or a
reboot. the 386 does this all smoothly under software control. it's also my
understanding the XT286 is just a regular old 5170 board in a 5160 case.
david
I just saw an interesting system It's a white steel box, about 5 x 8 in
and 12 inches deep. Top flips up. Its called an IBC or ICB, I forget,
and it's a Z80 based system with a floppy and Micropolis hard drive.
I also weighs about 20 pounds due mostly to its antiquated power supply.
Any info? It has a CPU card and separate controller card bussed
together laying stacked sideways over the drives and power suppy. All
the ports (many) are hardwired out the back.
I almost picked this up, and I should have. It's going for about 5
bucks.
I imagine the PS is shot, I didn't have a chance to check. Is it
possible to hook up a standard switching power supply (well that's
probably a dumb question).
Any clues, I might pick it up, if I don't go to Vegas 1st thing
tommorrow....
-Mike
<Not even approximately quiet -- I'd estimate that traffic's been
<higher than normal this last week or so, and had been wondering
<where you were in the flood.
Obviously missing something.
<If you want, I could package you a digest or two (might be best in
<digestible chunks for my ISP's sake, now that I think about it).
It's not what I missed but why I wasn't seeing it.
I did resub just in case.
Allison
Zane H. Healy wrote:
>
> >REXX on a PC?
[snip]
>
> The Amiga also has ARexx, not sure how long, but I've an Amiga OS 3.1
> manual on it.
>
AREXX was introduced as a third-party enhancement sometime during
Workbench 1.3 and quickly became a popular cross application protocol.
By Workbench 2.0 it was integrated into the operating system and became
a standard component. Most of the apps for the Amiga now have support
for AREXX control (one of the reasons it was such a dream for the
video/graphics whizzes as they could have several programs automatically
process images and digitized video without much effort)
Larry Anderson
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our BBS (Silicon Realms BBS 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
> I've got the Techrefs in front of me (PC, and PC/XT)
>
> The PC motherboard schematics show that all 5 expansion slots are wired
> in parallel. There's nothing odd about any of them.
H'm. I use third-party books. Suppose if I wrote the author they'd put out
an updated edition?
>
> The schematics for both versions of the XT motherboard (64K-256K and
<Snip>
> > FWIW, I've run a variety of cards in XT slot 8 and PC slot 5 with no
> > problems.
>
> On clones, sure. But I have a genuine IBM PC/XT on my desk and the
> built-from-a-kit 8255 card wouldn't work in slot 8 without a little extra
> logic (which I made from unused gates on the card).
Nope. Real true-blues. Maybe it gets more tolerant with time?
manney
At 01:41 28/01/98 -0800, Aaron wrote:
>Does anyone have a remedy for bad case yellowing? I have the suspicion
>that it's a permanent chemical change, but I thought it might be worth a
>shot.
As I' ve previously said, I found FULCRON from AREXONS (if you can find it
there) to be the best in dissolving yellowish from computer plastics
(unbeatable against nicotine)
All you have to take care is to spray the pure product in a uniform way
(=the whole surface omogeneously) and brush it gently, alllowing the whole
surface to be in contact with the product.Then rinse: FANTASTIC!
Careful!
Avoid to spray and let drops come down + rinse without brushing!: where the
product
drop down, it leaves the surface CLEAN, but the rest still dirty. If you
rinse and try to apply the product again (even brushing it accurately) the
"clean-shadows-on dirt" will remain!
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 ?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
This looks like a good place for drive and controller info...
David Given wrote:
>
> When dealing with old drives, I find the following site invaluable:
>
http://theref.c3d.rl.af.mil/
>
> It has controller and drive info for just about every drive under the sun
> (except the *really* wierd thing in my T3100). Very handy.
>
> David Given
> dg(a)freeyellow.com
At 03:25 PM 1/29/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Would that be the Southwestern Research Institute in
>San Antonio, Tx?
Yes.
Joe
>
>***** haleyk(a)okstate.edu ***** ***** ***** ends.
>
>
>
Two things: One, the person that said that appeared as the "from" on the
e-mail. ClassicCmp appears as the "to."
>"Why are manhole covers round?"
So that you can put them in any direction, without worrying about turning to
fit it in.
Tim D. Hotze
Kaypro 4 question....
I just picked up one of these bad boys from a thrift for $2.95 (my first
Kaypro) but I'm not
sure that it's feeling so good. I don't have a boot disk for it, and when I
power it on (it does power, that's a good sign) it says ," Please place
your diskette into drive A." The floppy never spins down, and putting a
CP/M booter in from another machine doesn't seem to generate any kind of
activity whatsoever. Is this normal behaviour, and I just need a boot disk?
BTW, does anyone know where I can get a boot disk for it?
Thanks,
Aaron
I'm trying to get NetBSD ona uVAX 2000. I was using
the wrong numbers in the disklabel. Now that I've figured that out,
the computer has antoher trick for me - I power it on, the RD53 spins up,
reaches top speed, and spins down before the CPU checkout finishes.
Did I kill a timing track or soemthing?
-------
Hello all,
Southwest Research Institute appears to be divesting itself of a
large lot of computer gear by closed bid. Here is the announcement:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: MBowen(a)swri.edu
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 98 17:07:23 CST
Reply-To: <MBowen(a)swri.edu>
Subject: fwd: surplus equipment for sale
Southwest Research Institute
Mark Bowen
Senior Buyer
Phone: 210-522-5005
Fax: 210-522-3964
Internet: mbowen(a)SwRI.edu
-------------
Original Text
Hi!
I just picked up an MZ-721, which is rather neat. Oddly, it loads Basic
>from tape, which seems fairly unusual for a cassette-based system.
Anyway, when I switched it on I got nothing but garbage on the screen,
and ning I do seems to change it at all. Shoud I consider this a dead
computer, take photos and treasure the manuals? Or is this the sort of
think which *may* be repaired, so I shoudl track down someone who fixes
these things and get them to look at it. Indeed, is it even worth the
effort?
I tried to find information on it, but almost everything seems to be in
Japanese. :)
Thanks heaps,
Adam.
I need the CMOS setup program for the Powermate SX/20; does anyone have
it?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Have you tried Herb Johnson (Dr. S-100) ? He hangs out at comp.os.cpm , but
you can reach him via email at hjohnson(a)pluto.njcc.com If he can't help
you, I don't know anyone who can.
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 11:06 PM
Subject: Z280 systems
>Some of you may remember one of the last issues of SuperMicro magazine
>had a Z280 S-100 boards on the cover and a nice article about the board
>and a system using the board, as I recall.
>
>Does anyone have an idea where I could find or look for a Z280 based
>system, either ZCPM, or???. And either single or multiple processors.
>
>My goal would be to have a fairly complete system, however I think that
>would be possible from most any S-100 components, if one had the CPU.
>
>Does anyone still manufature S-100 stuff or its replacement Bus, which I
>don't recall???
>
>Or Z280 Z380 VME systems.
>
>I guess I better stop there or I'll leave the realm of "classics"
>
>thans,
>
>Mike
>
What is "x286emu" on Linux?
I've seen it in directories, but I'll be damned if it does anything
yet. No references I've seen and no hits on Web search engines.
Does it exist by itself, or is it part of a library for another
program?? Or...????
Thanks,
-Mike Allison
> ;-) Clearing the snow from my glasses, I saw Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk
> typed:
>
> [nip about REXX]
>
> >REXX is/was
> >quite a nice language to use, but some features rendered it unsuitable
> >for serious programming - numbers, for example, are stored as strings of
> >digits in the character code of the machine you are using...
>
> Uh, Sir Philip?
>
> Maybe there are other reasons that your statement of unsuitability stands,
> but I can think of one programming language that's very handy (& powerful &
> serious) which stores it's digits as charcter codes: Perl. From experience
> I can tell you that one heckuva lot more stuff gets done with Perl on the
> WWW than Java -- and it's a lot easier to pgm. in.
Sorry, Roger, I didn't mean to start a language war. I've never used
Perl, but I'm told it's good.
REXX, like (I think) Perl, is a macro language. It is designed for
doing little tasks that don't need lots of computing power. I like REXX
- I really enjoyed using it at IBM. But it is an interpreted language -
if I was writing a major application I'd use a compiler - and numbers
stored as strings are fundamentally slow - I'd use one which stored
numbers in a way that is fast to use.
But I was being careless. I was actually thinking "number crunching"
when I said "serious programming". (NB I _have_ done number crunching
in REXX - the potentially infinite precision is very useful!)
Philip.
PS *** OFF TOPIC - Sam Ismail need read no further :-) ***
Manhole covers (and the apertures at the entrances of manholes :-) ) are
indeed round because they then won't fall down the hole if you drop
them. But other shapes share this property - triangular manholes are
quite common over here. Any "Curve of constant diameter" also has this
property. Examples of such curves may be found in the 7-sided coins in
use in the UK for 50p and 20p
P.
I originally said it, but your email dosnt work manny.
-----Original Message-----
From: PG Manney <manney(a)nwohio.nwohio.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 6:49 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II GS
>
>> I'll take it!
>
>Who said dat?
>
>manney(a)nwohio.com
>"Why are manhole covers round?"
>
I don't even know what Turbo Prolog is.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Allison <mallison(a)konnections.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, January 29, 1998 11:11 AM
Subject: Re: Development, round II
>Gee, I was hoping for a Turbo Prolog trade.....Whatcha got???
>
>.,.
> v
>
>-Mike
>
>
>
>Hotze wrote:
>
>> BTW, if no one else wants it, can I have the OS/2 2.1?
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Tim D. Hotze
>OS/2 Warp was 386, as I recall. 2.1, I can't remember, 1.2 was 286.
>You might need a 386 for the Program Manager, But I don't recall. I
>still have copies of 2.1 and 1.2, if you need to know....
Well, the phrase is OS/2 Warp IS, they're still selling it, *and* making a
new version, hopefully this one will be MS compatible, which gave IBM the
advantage over Windows 3.1
OS/2 Warp is a strange 32-bit OS, it RECOMMENDS a 386 or better, but
doesn't REQUIRE a 386 or better.
BTW, if no one else wants it, can I have the OS/2 2.1?
Thanks,
Tim D. Hotze
I looked in my never used copy of os2 version 1.3 standard edition and found
no mention of rexx so maybe it arrived in version 2.x but i'm not opening my
shrinkwrapped version to find out! minimum requirements for 1.3 are a 286,
2meg, and 12 meg of hdd space.
david
In a message dated 98-01-28 23:22:35 EST, you write:
<< OS/2 Warp was 386, as I recall. 2.1, I can't remember, 1.2 was 286.
You might need a 386 for the Program Manager, But I don't recall. I
still have copies of 2.1 and 1.2, if you need to know....
-Mike
Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote:
>
> > >REXX on a PC? >>
I got an E-mail from a fellow in New Zealand (don(a)daedalus.co.nz) who
needs info on the 20ma current loop hookup used in the old ASR-33 Teletype
machines. If anyone on here can help, please respond to him directly. Thanks!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin2(a)wizards.net)
http://www.wizards.net/technoid
"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..."
At 05:15 AM 1/29/98 +0300, you wrote:
>Two things: One, the person that said that appeared as the "from" on the
>e-mail. ClassicCmp appears as the "to."
>>"Why are manhole covers round?"
>So that you can put them in any direction, without worrying about turning to
>fit it in.
> Tim D. Hotze
>
>
Actually, it's the only shape that won't let them fall through the hole, no
matter which way you turn it....
Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> wrote:
> I've heard of those drives but I don't think this is for a drive. The
> only connector on it is a three pin plug that is accessable through a hole
> in the metal bracket. There is one 20 pin DIP socket that might be used
> for a connector but it looks like it's for an IC.
This is an Omninet interface. 1Mbit/s RS-422 twisted-pair bus
networking.
The interfaces for the Apple ][ (a card) and Corvus Concept (built-in)
have 6801s to actually do the work of moving packets between the
computer and the Omninet. I'm not sure if that's what is missing from
your 20 pin DIP socket or if it was intended to hold a BIOS extension
ROM to let the PC boot over Omninet.
-Frank McConnell
At 10:40 PM 1/28/98 EST, you wrote:
>I've got an 1129, but im keeping it. anyone know of a way of clearing the
>passwoid? when i choose various apps from the menus, it prompts for one and
>after i key in the wrong one, it brings me back tothe initial menu. i cannot
>get into anything.
Aw, c'mon! Wouldn't you rather have a password free GRiDCase 3? :) I'd say
disconnect the CMOS battery, but I don't think they have a CMOS setup. :)
The 1100 I had was running Dos 2.11, but the GRiDCASE 3 runs GRiD-OS or
MS-DOS 2.11, and no passwords on the GRiD-OS apps. This is one problem that
I see all the time, either passwords set on the GRiD-OS apps, password set
on setup, or just a password on startup. (You can tell these were gov't
contract machines.)
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
I have a Computone 4(?) port card. long 16 bit ISA bus with 4 RJ11
ports and 2 RJ45 ports. its a 1989 Computone with some proms marked
"AT6S"
Looks like it was manu'd in 7/92
Anyone have any ideas or specs?
THeres 2 Z0853006PSCs and an AM8530H, and a NEC D70216L-8 V50
Need info on real purpose and uses, jumpers and switches, thanks
Mike
I understand that these messages are a major bother, but I have a problem. What is the address to send the "unsubscribe" email to?
I tried using one of the search engines, and came up with this URL:
http://haliotis.bothell.washington.edu/classiccmp/join.html
However, this link appears to not be working... and for some time (I would not have simply gone to this site for one or two days, and reported it down... but it's been two weeks.)
Can anyone help me?
You're direct email response is VERY welcome... and appreciated.
- Ed (edhaack(a)ionet.net)
> >REXX on a PC? I think I have heard (very dimly) of this (there was
> >something called REXX-88 or some such name when I was at IBM) but I
> >haven't used REXX for years! What does it run on? Will it run on a
> >Compaq 386? An IBM AT?
> You can probably find REXX in a lot of places... There's even a shareware
> version on Macintosh. And if there's an old IBM programming language on a
> Mac, it's almost definitley on a lot of other platforms. Did REXX start on
> the IBM mini/mainframes or is it from somewhere else? Has anyone seen a
> copy of Cobol for Mac? MicroFocus used to make it, but it seems the Cobol
> crowd has abondoned Macintosh...
Thanks everyone for their help. I shall sometime consider PC-DOS with
REXX as an environment for my AT or possibly one of my Compaqs... Am I
right in thinking that OS/2 _won't_ run on an AT?
ORIGINS OF REXX
I met REXX in what I believe to be its native habitat - as the macro
language for VM/CMS running on an IBM 370 descendant mainframe. It
replaced a language called EXEC2, whose main distinguishing feature was
% signs everywhere (although I can't remember what they meant). This in
turn replaced a language called (you guessed it) EXEC. REXX is/was
quite a nice language to use, but some features rendered it unsuitable
for serious programming - numbers, for example, are stored as strings of
digits in the character code of the machine you are using...
Philip.
I've got an 1129, but im keeping it. anyone know of a way of clearing the
passwoid? when i choose various apps from the menus, it prompts for one and
after i key in the wrong one, it brings me back tothe initial menu. i cannot
get into anything.
david
In a message dated 98-01-28 22:16:08 EST, you write:
<< Anyone ever hear of a GRiD Server? Want info/specs/etc.
Also, if anyone out there has a GRiD Compass 11xx,
I will trade a GRiDCASE 3 for it. Oh, either that, or
will trade for an external floppy for the GRiD 1535exp.
>>
I'll take it too
-----Original Message-----
From: PG Manney <manney(a)nwohio.nwohio.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II GS
>
>> I'll take it!
>
>Who said dat?
>
>manney(a)nwohio.com
>"Why are manhole covers round?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Francois Auradon.
Visit the SANCTUARY at http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
Who among you collects mainframes? I couldn't resist asking in light of the
"what's the heaviest portable" thread, because the CPU of IBM System/3 Model
15 I have weighs 1800 lbs.
This list community has already dealt with the question of why collect
mainframes, so let's try to avoid a repeat performance and stick to
answering the lead question.
Many mainframe collectors aren't on the Internet (and frankly, they tell me,
they don't miss it). These people are retired and grew up with big iron so
its natural for them to be drawn to mainframes.
I have the Sys/3 and an IBM 360/22 (complete systems including keypunches
and boxes of unused 80-column cards).
Yours in good faith
Kevin
Anyone ever hear of a GRiD Server? Want info/specs/etc.
Also, if anyone out there has a GRiD Compass 11xx,
I will trade a GRiDCASE 3 for it. Oh, either that, or
will trade for an external floppy for the GRiD 1535exp.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
Peter Prymmer wrote:
> bloatware - but some of that is quite fun. e.g. PC-DOS can be optionally
> installed with Rexx and I chose that option. I also have a couple of
> different DPMI's available including the one for DJGPP.
REXX on a PC? I think I have heard (very dimly) of this (there was
something called REXX-88 or some such name when I was at IBM) but I
haven't used REXX for years! What does it run on? Will it run on a
Compaq 386? An IBM AT?
Philip.
> Who among you collects mainframes? I couldn't resist asking in light of the
> "what's the heaviest portable" thread, because the CPU of IBM System/3 Model
> 15 I have weighs 1800 lbs.
I expect the heaviest unit I have on wheels is the IBM 709 CPU, in
addition to its size and steel frame the whole back end is covered with
filament transformers to light the tubes. I can roll it around on a
level concrete floor OK, but its a good idea to avoid the cracks or at
least roll it crooked (so only one wheel sees a crack at a time, and not
straight on) and keep the speed up. But there are other contenders - the
709 power supply units, the motor-generator set for the 7094, the 407
accounting machine, etc. I don't know what any of these weigh off hand
and don't have the installation manuals handy. There exist larger units
(e.g. old CDC mainframes even apart are in large, very tall pieces; the
assembled 709 memory is a T about 4 times the floor space of the CPU)
but they tend not to have casters. I wonder what a more recent
water-cooled machine (e.g. 3090) weighs, the TCU's (thermal conduction
units) can't be very light.
On other subjects
- a common source of serious mildew smell is the absolute filter in a
disk drive. I would check that first.
- I'm reasonably certain you can still get blank punch cards. The last
bunch I bought maybe 10 years ago cost $75 for 10,000. I've been meaning
to get some more now that the collection has a dry home and will try to
remember to post info.
Paul
http://www.teleport.com/~prp/collect/
We were discussing Frogger a month or so ago. I've found a shareware (DOS)
version available. If anyone misses it as much as I, it's at
http://users.deltanet.com/users/phixus/kgames/rof.html
along with other classic arcade games. Registration is $10
manney(a)nwohio.com
>My understading is that this machine needs no reference disks, but
> >can I use a hard drive > 20MB? It never mentions it on IBM's site.
I successfully installed a 3 1/2" ST-506/412 drive (a Seagate, IIRC), which
worked OK. Has to be 3 1/2" because it fits in the floppy bay. You have to
find a controller card which has the power output because the floppies take
power off the drive cable.
I think you could bodge it to take a hardcard in one of the expansion
slots.
manney
The Model 25 takes the cake for the world's most stupidly designed PC --
and the hardest to work on.
> well, you could get your 5150 in several different flavours: one, two or
no
> floppy drives.
You could actually get four, supported by the motherboard switches. ($529
each, IIRC) There was some sort of expansion box, or you could get external
drives. I presume that's what the connector on the back of the FDD
controller was for.
manney
There's a lever/spring mechanism that shoves the floppy out when the disk
"carriage" is up and aligned with the slot in the case. When you put in a
disk, it extends the spring, the lever latches, and a microswitch activates
the motor that draws the carriage down. I expect that either the spring is
broke or the lever connected to it is bent. The previous owner probably
shoved in a floppy upside down or backwards and had to wrench it out using
brute force.
Dont laugh. I know someone who repairs machines for a living with GE (they
do repair for Circuit City and others), and he once found a slice of
american cheese in a floppy drive (guess it was a 5-1/4 inch unit). Coins
inside the drives and case are also common sources of PC/Mac repairs. Kids-
you gotta love 'em.
Anyway- the mechanism would go back down after failing to eject. The switch
contacts are still closed, and that's what it's designed to do - keep
running the motor.
You might be able to fix it with a pair of small needlenose pliers if the
spring is not broke. You will have to remove the drive to do this. Be
careful with that paper clip! You could hose up the head, or send a minute
electrical charge through your body that could affect your ability to
reproduce in the future. Unless you are really good with working on tiny
mechanical parts, save yourself the headache and replace the drive.
-----Original Message-----
From: SUPRDAVE <SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 11:16 PM
Subject: back ontopic: mac 400k drive.
>part of my new additions last week was a bunch of old mac stuff. i finally
got
>one of the 400k drives, but its having eject problems. the mechanism was
stuck
>so now im able to get a disk in, but when i call it to eject, the motor
turns,
>the disk lifts up to the slot, but wont pop out, then the mechanism goes
back
>down in position to read the disk. it does the same thing when i use a
paper
>clip; it will go up, the disk will stay in, then it goes back down into
read
>position. amazingly, the drive works fine otherwise. i dont quite
understand
>the mechanicals of it, anyone have ideas?
>
>david
>
Hi!
Recently I tried advertising for obsolete computers in a national
computer trading magazine, and it has paid off well. But I just got a
phone call today regarding an old Smelter near Mt Gambier in South
Australia. Apparantly they had a huge pile of old computer equipment,
and they went through and sold off the relativly new stuff. What they
have left is a whole lot of old stuff (around 15 years+) includig a huge
number of PCs and XTs, XT laptops, terminals, a mainframe, "a hard-drive
as big as a computer", terminals, and, presumably, a volume of non-dos
stuff. The guy I talked to has no idea what it all is, just that they
want to get rid of it really cheap. It's too much for me to handle on my
own, and it certainly is nowhere near where I live - would anyone else be
at all interested too?
Adam
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subj: Re: Re[3]: Development, round II
Roger Merchberger wrote:
!>REXX is/was
!>quite a nice language to use, but some features rendered it unsuitable
!>for serious programming - numbers, for example, are stored as strings of
!>digits in the character code of the machine you are using...
!
!Uh, Sir Philip?
!
!Maybe there are other reasons that your statement of unsuitability stands,
!but I can think of one programming language that's very handy (& powerful &
!serious) which stores it's digits as charcter codes: Perl. From experience
!I can tell you that one heckuva lot more stuff gets done with Perl on the
!WWW than Java -- and it's a lot easier to pgm. in.
!
!Guess what! This is still ontopic for this list... there's a version of
!Java for almost every 16-bit or higher machine available -- including a
!native version that runs on an Atari ST... (version 4.035 and I think you
!need a meg to run it -- I've done it!)
But Perl is 10 years old and Java is not. It is still quite easy to
distinguish a perl scalar that contains a numeric value from one that does
not. From the old FAQ you add 0 to see if the thing remains unchanged:
$ perl -e '$s = "a"; if ($s + 0 eq $s) {print "num"} else {print "string"}'
string
$ perl -e '$s = "1"; if ($s + 0 eq $s) {print "num"} else {print "string"}'
num
See also "perlfaq4: Data:Misc: How do I determine whether a scalar is a
number/whole/integer/float?" at
http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/doc/FAQs/FAQ/PerlFAQ.html
for a whole slew of regular expressions for numbers.
BTW Tcl runs on a bunch of platforms and treats many things like strings as
well (hence it requires the expr() call for numeric evaluation and has
trouble with data containing embedded nulls (whereas perl does not)).
Apologies to folks (such as myself :) who tire of language wars though.
If the original poster wanted to run Rexx I say let them.
Peter Prymmer
(Someone who just spent a great deal of time porting perl to MVS recently)
On average, were most external floppies that used a db25 connector, pretty
much standard, as in interchangable? I'm basically talking along the lines
of mid-80's laptops. I've got a GRiD 1535exp that has a db25 connector on
the back for an external floppy, the left bottom most pin on the connector
is plugged up. Any ideas? Anyone?
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
If you ask me, drugs are a BAD idea. I mean, if it's not you, then it's not
you. I would rather be ME and be sitting in a basement, rather than some
powder, effectively turning my body into a slave.
Also, drugs are getting to be the past. Ask a group of junior-high
schoolers about drugs. 9 out of 10 will say that they're a mistake. As for
tobacco and alcohol, that's border-lined, but many are anti-tobacco, but
alcohol.... that's kind of next-generation. We're getting there.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Max Eskin <maxeskin(a)hotmail.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 24, 1998 7:49 PM
Subject: Re: PDP-8/Es available
>>From classiccmp-owner(a)u.washington.edu Sat Jan 24 00:03:17 1998
>>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 XAA16594; Fri, 23 Jan 1998 23:48:10 -0800
>>Received: from mx4.u.washington.edu (mx4.u.washington.edu
>[140.142.33.5])
>> by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with
>ESMTP
>> id XAA20360 for <classiccmp(a)lists.u.washington.edu>; Fri, 23 Jan
>1998 23:48:04 -0800
>>Received: from news2.cnct.com (root(a)news2.cnct.com [165.254.118.91])
>> by mx4.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.09) with
>ESMTP
>> id XAA21553 for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Fri, 23 Jan 1998
>23:48:02 -0800
>>Received: from cnct.com (gram(a)terra.cnct.com [165.254.118.73])
>> by news2.cnct.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id DAA02059
>> for <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>; Sat, 24 Jan 1998 03:50:28 -0500
>>Message-Id: <34C99D0D.E0B76342(a)cnct.com>
>>Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 02:49:33 -0500
>>Reply-To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
>>Sender: CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu
>>Precedence: bulk
>>From: Ward Donald Griffiths III <gram(a)cnct.com>
>>To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
><classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
>>Subject: Re: PDP-8/Es available
>>References: <3.0.16.19980123181422.37e71016(a)ricochet.net>
>>MIME-Version: 1.0
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>X-Sender: ward(a)news2.cnct.com
>>X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 beta -- ListProcessor(tm) by CREN
>>
>>Uncle Roger wrote:
>>>
>>> At 11:07 PM 1/21/98 -0800, you wrote:
>>> >>I'll leave this public since it might be useful to someone...I'm 29
>now
>>> >>but when I was 16 or 17 my parents expended GREAT energy trying to
>get me
>>>
>>> >Well, I AM 17, and I'm up to 30 computers or so... Let me see if I
>can
>>> >remember them all, my web site is a partial listing.
>>>
>>> One other item that was pointed out to me in the collectibles forum
>of
>>> Compuserve -- teenagers who collect things rarely get into trouble.
>You
>>> don't see them spending money on drugs or liquor or whathaveyou, and
>they
>>> don't often end up in jail. (Yes, I'm an exception, but I wasn't
>actively
>>> collecting anything in high school.)
>>
>>What exception? In high school I actively collected science fiction
>>books since computers weren't affordable yet to a high school kid -- I
>>wore a slide rule on my belt because (1) I used it (2) that honestly
>was
>>the easiest way to carry a Pickett and (3) the HP-35 came out in my
>>junior year of high school priced about $395.00 more than I had on
>hand.
>>
>(SNIP)
>If you ask me, it is better to have a social life and do drugs (though
>I am firmly against drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and firearms) than not
>do drugs and sit for years in the basement without seeing the light
>of day. It seems to me that since we all die anyway, might as well
>enjoy. I am not brave enough to take that approach, so I sit at my
>computer all day (when I am not at school-I am in 9th grade).
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Anyone know right off hand what the highest supported baud rate is for the
RS-232 on a CoCo 2 or CoCo 3? Asking for a friend who thinks she can use a
9600 baud external modem on it. (!)
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
Subject: Re: 99 cent store find...
> Every once in a while you actually find something cool at those places.
> There is a 99 cent clearance store (same chain as the one you went to
> Larry) near me where I found a bunch of mid 80s computer programming books
> (all in a series). The titles were like '6502 Assembly Language
> Programming' and 'Z-80 Assembly Language Programming', 'FORTH', some
> others.
Were those those thinnish hardback editions... I have come across
PILOT, FORTH, and TRS-80 Graphics... No 6502 Assembly though, better
check there again...
A couple years back I bought a couple 64 games books from another
discount store, I could easily tell why they were so cheap, some had
doubled or missing pages, or pages upside-down... oops.
> I bought all of them at $.99 each (about 35 in all) kept a set
> for myself and sold the rest on Usenet. I still have a few copies left if
> anyone's interested.
There are some things where you can never have too many. I find
Commodore datasette drives at a real low price is my particular
weakness...
00101001111010100001010111010100001101101110100100010000101101001001000111
I just got some e-mail from a user who was thanking me for the PET FAQ
and directed me to a page where some Commodore stuff is (was) being
sold, of course he snagged the 8010 (PET) modem before he e-mailed but I
may had added a few precious books to me library. You may want to check
out the site at:
http://www.puppetgallery.com/compucat/sale/c64.html
Besides some nice pics of what he offered for sale (I think the drives,
cables, and 64 software are still available), the main page has an
interesting history of the couple's computer experiences over the years
(from buying one of the first PETs to having Lenoard Nimoy call his
BBS...)
Larry Anderson
P.S. the user who e-mailed me also has a notable page, especially if you
have any interest at all in the history of Commodore 64/128 BBS
programs... Check it out at: http://www.prismnet.com/~bo
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our BBS (Silicon Realms BBS 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
> Slot 8 on an XT
> is strange, and the card put in it needs to assert one of the pins (I
> think it's B8) during a read cycle. Just about the only card that does
> this is the IBM Async card
Um. My references tell me that the PC (thus, slot 5, nearest the P/S) is
peculiar, but nothing is strange with XT slot 8 -- at least, according to
my references.
FWIW, I've run a variety of cards in XT slot 8 and PC slot 5 with no
problems.
manney(a)nwohio.com
"Would a skinny ballerina wear a one-one?"
Wonderful things, but....
I was looking around on eBay, and found several things that cought my eye.
Hey, there's a Mac IIx 2/40 for $2! But pay another $20-50 more for
shipping? I could probably find it for the same price or cheaper locally.
Well, it will take some time... The most recent IIx I've seen for
sale(although much more RAM/HD) is $175. But I HAVE seen them around(before
I got interested in collecting computers) for anywhere from $10-500. It's a
crazy world... Everyone always asks me why I don't have a C64 or TRS-80 or
any of those type of computers. Well, I was offered a TRS-80 Model 4, I
offered $5 for it, he responded that he didn't even sell it when he was
offered $75 a few months earlier. I either run into people trashing or
giving away their computers(Series/1, Apple IIe, PS/2 Model 50Z) or they
want to sell them as antiques(and at prices much worse than any antique
store I'VE ever seen...). Would someone hurry up and invent a time machine?
Zip back about 5-10 years ago when people didn't really care either way and
pick up some collectors pieces for $5 and come back to the future where
people sell them for $500...
<sigh>
-JR http://members.tripod.com/~jrollins/index.htmlhttp://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1681/
Anyone have an extra dBASE II manual they'd be willing to part with? I've
got dBASE II in ROM on one of my GRiDCASE 3 laptops, and would like to
learn more about it.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
That's easy... the IBM 5100 is well over 50 lbs.
Kai
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cdenham(a)tgis.co.uk [SMTP:cdenham@tgis.co.uk]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 1:35 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Mines heavy er than yours
>
> While moving some off my old computers around I wandered which was the
> heavy est luggable ever made so just for fun I got the bathroom
> scales out and weighted some off them .
> Commodore sx64 23 pounds
> Osbourne One 28 pounds
> Andromeda Zita D 44 pounds
>
> So lets have a fun competition , get those bathroom scales out and
> find out who made the heavey est luggable .
>
> Happy weighing
> Chris
>
> ps
> Any body got a boot disk for the Andromeda Zita D , I think its
> CPM based on a Raid its got 5 1/4 disks on it .
>No old computer is ever "dead". One shouldn't hold onto them only if they
>work. The point is to keep them around so that one can at least see and
>touch them, open them up and look at their circuitry. You can't do that
>with a picture obviously. All computers will eventually "die", but I'm
>not about to start burying them all. After all, they don't start
>decomposing and smelling bad. If you don't want to keep it, e-mail me
>privately and I'll pay to have it shipped to me and I'll hold onto it.
Sorry. :) I don't mean to say that I would dump it - simply that as I
cannot repair it myself, is it worth paying for someone to do that or
would I be better off just keeping it as a record, and looking at the
manuals as the main part of the deal (for now). Mostly I like to display
my computers as working systems (although I ran out of floorspace months
ago), and so prefer working models to broken ones. :) I figure that it is
better to have a computer working than broken, so long as I can afford to
get it fixed - but I refuse to trash any of my systems, no matter what
the problem. And this goes triple for anything that I only have one of
anyway!
I got very angry at a local dealer recently, for he trashed some 30
microbees 2 weeks before I got there. I had been searching for a
Microbee for about 6 months, and he was supposed to sell second-hand
8-bit systems as his business. He said he never liked Microbees anyway.
:( I finally got one, but if I could have saved those others I would
have been able to offer them (for shipping) to the list. Microbees, for
those who haven't heard of them, are neat little cp/m systems that were
designed and built in Australia - not many computers were made here,
although there were a few, but the Microbee would be one of the two most
significant locally made computers.
Adam.
Does anyone have a remedy for bad case yellowing? I have the suspicion
that it's a permanent chemical change, but I thought it might be worth a
shot. For most of the systems, I don't really mind and for some, it adds
to the character. The only one that's bugging me is my Atari 800xl, which
was my first real "programming" computer.
Thanks,
Aaron
Kip Crosby <engine(a)chac.org> wrote:
> At 15:33 1/28/98 +1100, Huw Davies wrote:
> >....I seem to remember
> >that to run UCSD Pascal you needed the "Euro+" Apple II. Can anyone confirm
> >this?
>
> Well, that's not a combo I've run, but if a Europlus will do it, any ][+
> should do it, the implication being that you need 48K RAM. (32K mainboard
> and the Language Card?? Help me out here....)
48KB on the motherboard, and the Language Card or equivalent 16KB RAM
card. The canonical configuration is a Language Card in slot 0 with a
16-pin DIP jumper installed between a socket on the card and a the
upper-left motherboard RAM socket (the RAM chip gets relocated to the
card), but of course there were many compatible memory cards.
I don't recall any reason why you couldn't do this on an Apple
][, but I know I did it on a Rev 7 ][+, and a friend had done
it on an earlier rev (4?) ][+ that still had the 4K/16K jumper
blocks on the motherboard. Obviously they were all set for 16K
(as you must have 48KB on the motherboard).
-Frank McConnell
I just acquired a PS/2 Model 25, the one with an integrated monitor and
8086. The reason it was being thrown away was that while it starts up
fine, the MCGA monitor eventually becomes tinted red and blurry. If I
turn it off and let it sit for a few minutes, then turn it on, it will
work fine again. What is the problem? Can I solve it without the risk of
shorting
capacitors and blowing myself halfway across the room?
My understading is that this machine needs no reference disks, but
can I use a hard drive > 20MB? It never mentions it on IBM's site.
Lastly, does anyone have any of the original stuff for it, ie software,
manuals, etc.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
At 03:33 PM 1/28/98 +1100, you wrote:
>To add some "on-topic" content to this e-mail:
>
>One of the seminal articles I remember reading in Byte (in the good old
>days :-)
>was one by Carl Helmers talking about setting up an Apple II to run UCSD
>Pascal. I'm slowly assembling all the necessary bits but I seem to remember
>that to run UCSD Pascal you needed the "Euro+" Apple II. Can anyone confirm
>this? Preferably someone running UCSD Pascal on an Apple II...
>
> Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
If you know which issue it was, I may be able to look it up.
Joe
>
Don't laugh. I'm getting complaints around here about one of my computers
the SMS-1000 (PDP-11/73) smelling of mold and mildew, and have been asked
to either remove it, or spray it down with Lysol. How safe is it to spray
a computer down with Lysol? Obviously I'd not run it for a while if I do.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
On Wed, 28 Jan 1998 02:03:21 -0600 (CST), Uncle Roger
<sinasohn(a)ricochet.net> wrote:
> It's a shame...but it seems to me that DEC should have seen it coming.
>>Can't disagree there...
Well, I should clarify. I'm sure that they did see it coming. A buyout
of some form was headed for DEC like a Conrail freight train traveling at
100 mph. I'm not too well-versed with DEC's current product line, but I get
the impression that, while good quality and adequate performers, there is
nothing very distinguishing.
>Death comes to the last of the old-line computer companies.
>>Huh? What about HP? Still going strong with the HP3000 (ca. 1972?).
I probably shouldn't have said "last" either. Wasn't DEC part of the
original "seven dwarfs" of early computing? I think that IBM was "Snow
White" and there were seven other mini/main companies right behind it. When
I said "old line," I was thinking along the lines of Sperry and Burroughs
and not HP or IBM.
-------------------------------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
At 06:33 PM 1/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
> It's a shame...but it seems to me that DEC should have seen it coming.
Can't disagree there...
>Death comes to the last of the old-line computer companies.
Huh? What about HP? Still going strong with the HP3000 (ca. 1972?).
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 15:33 1/28/98 +1100, Huw Davies wrote:
>....I seem to remember
>that to run UCSD Pascal you needed the "Euro+" Apple II. Can anyone confirm
>this?
Well, that's not a combo I've run, but if a Europlus will do it, any ][+
should do it, the implication being that you need 48K RAM. (32K mainboard
and the Language Card?? Help me out here....)
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
I'll take it!
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 10:05 PM
Subject: Re: Apple II GS
>On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, PG Manney wrote:
>
>> I've been offered and Apple II GS. Anyone interested? I doubt it'll ever
be
>> rare...
>
>Doesn't matter. Its a fun computer to play with and hack on. Someone
>should take PG up on this.
>
>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!
>
At 06:29 PM 1/26/98 PST, you wrote:
>Another thing: CP/M was run on just about everything, usually with
>about 64K ram. How is it that MS-DOS blew up to about 384K? What
>did they put in there?
The MicroSloth License Agreement. 8^)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 03:01 PM 1/26/98 -0600, you wrote:
>FastLynx: A program from RUPP corporation, alot like LapLink, except
>with a much simpler (and easier to use) user interface (IMHO). The
>program died off though, as Lap Link became more popular (I still
>don't understand why). If you used the serial link, it could upload
>itself to the target machine. I still use it.
I think it died out because of the gawdawful color of their cables. 8^)
(Some horrid shade of Red, iirc?) Actually, I had both, and preferred
LapLink. Haven't used FastLynx in about 10 years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
I think I have 2 of these somewhere, but called PC7000's. One with a HDD and
the other with 2 FDD's. No Docs unfortunately.
I think they have some unusual distinction, the first backlit LCD screen
maybe (from memory).
-----Original Message-----
From: Cliff Gregory <cgregory(a)lrbcg.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 28 January 1998 10:24
Subject: Interesting Find
>Found an interesting (at least to me) luggable/portable at the local thrift
>the other day. It's a Sharp PC-7100. Very compact and sharp (no pun)
>design. About half the size and weight of an old Compaq, with a
detatchable
>keyboard, tiltable LCD screen, 5.25 floppy, 20 meg hard drive. It booted
>fine from the hard drive (MSDOS 3.2).
>
>I haven't taken the time to open it up and look inside, but I ran MSD from
a
>floppy, and it reported the computer to be a Sharp/ERSO, 8088 or 8086
>processor, 704k RAM. When I browsed the ROM memory, the result was:
>aVADEM-SHARP Personal Computer System Firmware Version 3.0B copyright 1985
>Vadem Inc.
>
>I did a cursory search on the net for more information but came up empty,
so
>if anyone can help with more info or docs for this one, I would appreciate
>it. BTW, the screen has a blue/purple sort of tint to it. Kind of
>attractive in a psychodelic sort of way ( oh please, no more drug-related
>threads <g>).
>
>Cliff Gregory
>cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
>
>
>
Andrew Gammuto said:
>I never saw anybody use the cassette port for practical purposes. In fact, I
>never saw a cassette drive from IBM. Good trivia question. Has anybody >ever
>seen one? I do remember reading something years ago about hobbyists >using
>the cassette port for plugging in wierd hardware hacks.
I don't think IBM would have made cassette recorders.
IBM made a cassette adapter cable for the IBMPCjr, but I don't think
one was ever made for the PC.
Pero, Jason D. said:
>The orignals were lower density like 320k each at first but quickly
>gone after XT came out with standard 360k drive or two, or floppy and
>10mb HD.
It was DOS 2.0 that increased the formatted capacity from 320K to 360K.
---------------------------------------------
Fun Fact:
( system requirement chart for DOS from
the IBM Personal Computer Software Library
booklet,1985)
DOS version Computers
1.00 PC
1.10 PC
2.00 PC, XT
2.10 PC, XT, PCjr, Portable PC
3.00 PC, XT, PCjr, Portable PC, AT
3.10 PC, XT, PCjr, Portable PC, AT
Notes: DOS 3.00 does not support the 30MB IBM
Personal Computer AT. DOS 2.00 or higher is
required for fixed disk storage. DOS 3.10 or
higher is required for operation on the IBM
PC Network.
=========================================
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
=========================================
In a message dated 98-01-28 00:28:34 EST, you write:
<< And, this is NOT only compaq, IBM is bit guilty on few of their late
PS/1 486 with (soft power switch). Discovered Win95 would wedge in
strange manner unless we got the proper cd from IBM for specific
machines. Those machines were intended for LOW END users so they're
usually bit oddball.
>>
later model ps1 machines had rapid resume, which was basically a suspended
animation function essentially which i think bill gates wants to include in
some PC9x specification to known as instant on or something like that. win95
should still be able to to work with that function. I know the ibm machine i'm
using has the soft power switch and apm, and windont95 works fine with it.
david
Why not put in baking soda, as with a refrigerator? Just don't spill it...
> > Don't laugh. I'm getting complaints around here about one of my
computers
> > the SMS-1000 (PDP-11/73) smelling of mold and mildew,
Found an interesting (at least to me) luggable/portable at the local thrift
the other day. It's a Sharp PC-7100. Very compact and sharp (no pun)
design. About half the size and weight of an old Compaq, with a detatchable
keyboard, tiltable LCD screen, 5.25 floppy, 20 meg hard drive. It booted
fine from the hard drive (MSDOS 3.2).
I haven't taken the time to open it up and look inside, but I ran MSD from a
floppy, and it reported the computer to be a Sharp/ERSO, 8088 or 8086
processor, 704k RAM. When I browsed the ROM memory, the result was:
aVADEM-SHARP Personal Computer System Firmware Version 3.0B copyright 1985
Vadem Inc.
I did a cursory search on the net for more information but came up empty, so
if anyone can help with more info or docs for this one, I would appreciate
it. BTW, the screen has a blue/purple sort of tint to it. Kind of
attractive in a psychodelic sort of way ( oh please, no more drug-related
threads <g>).
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
I 've got a mint one. Reply privately.
manney(a)nwohio.com
> Does anyone have a luggable Commodore SX-64 for sale by chance? I am
_really_
> looking for one.
Yes. I have a 64-256K motherboard with cassette port, too.
manney
> Not quite. Only the 5-slot motherboards have the cassette connector. My
> IBM PC Technical reference gives a schematic for a 64K-256K system board
> with a cassette interface.
> BTW has anyone ever seen someone use the cassette port? I supported
> several hundred early PC user's and never even heard of anyone using the
> cassette port.
Nope. Except, of course, to plug in the keyboard by mistake.
A while ago, someone pointed out that IBM didn't even sell a cassette
player. You were supposed to go out to your local Radio Schlock...
At 05:26 PM 1/27/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Don't laugh. I'm getting complaints around here about one of my computers
>the SMS-1000 (PDP-11/73) smelling of mold and mildew, and have been asked
>to either remove it, or spray it down with Lysol. How safe is it to spray
>a computer down with Lysol? Obviously I'd not run it for a while if I do.
Well, I know it kills germs and bacteria, but I'm not sure about computer
virii.
(<RIMSHOT> Thank you! Ya'll have been a wonderful crowd! G'night everybody!)
Seriously, I don't see a problem, just try to keep it away from the boards,
let it dry thoroughly if you get alot of buildup, and you should be good to
go.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
I just picked up a book on Macintosh Think C (MS Press, 50c, I didn't
bother getting Macsbug and others, also 50c each). For one thing, does
anyone have an extra/unvalued license copy of THINK C, version 2.1-5.0?
Also, what was the first programming language (I mean not binary or
assembly)?
Another thing: CP/M was run on just about everything, usually with
about 64K ram. How is it that MS-DOS blew up to about 384K? What
did they put in there?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Ok Kaypro freaks Look what I found!
Please (as mentioned) email Eric direct 8-)
BC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From: epement(a)ripco.com (Eric Pement)
Newsgroups: chi.forsale
Subject: FS: Kaypro computers, books, software
Date: 27 Jan 1998 22:10:51 GMT
Massive sale of CP/M, Kaypro, and ZCPR books and software:
Kaypro computers:
------------------------------
About 12-16 Kaypro computers: Kaypro 1, II, 2, 2x, 4, and 10s
in varying stages of repair. A few are missing FDDs, a few
are missing power supplies, a few are missing power cords,
a few have video trouble. Probably 4-5 of them work as is,
and the others can be used for spare parts. 2 have Advent
TurboROMs included. Original master disks included.
External CP/M or ZCPR software, with disks and manuals:
------------------------------
NZ-COM v1.0 (replacement for the CP/M command processor)
ZSDOS v1.0 (replacement for BDOS, Plu*Perfect Systems)
MULTICOPY, DOSDISK (foreign disk formats, Plu*Perfect Systems)
HYPERTYPER (typing tutor, Summit Software)
KAMAS v1.2 (outline editor, Kamasoft, Inc.)
DOCU-POWER v1.1 (document outliner, Computing!)
POWER! (front-end shell for CP/M, Computing!)
SCS DRAW (Kaypro drawing program, Second City Software)
SMARTKEY II, SMARTPRINT (keyboard redefinition, Heritage Software)
FREE FILER v5.0 (freeform database, Telion Software)
PUNCTUATION + STYLE v1.21 (2 copies, Oasis Software)
CATALOG (disk catalog system, SRX Systems)
FOOTNOTE, PAIR (supports footnotes in WordStar, Pro/Tem Software)
NOTEBOOK v1.3 (text-oriented database system, Pro/Tem Software)
Books:
------------------------------
CHILTON'S GUIDE TO KAYPRO REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE, Gene Williams
(Chilton, 1985)
CP/M AND THE PERSONAL COMPUTER, Thos. Dwyer & Margot Critchfield
(Addison-Wesley, 1983)
CP/M REVEALED, Jack Dennon (Hayden Book Co., 1982)
MASTERING CP/M, Alan Miller (Sybex, 1983)
SOUL OF CP/M, Mitchell Waite & Robert Lafore (Howard W. Sams, 1983)
THE PROGRAMMER'S CP/M HANDBOOK, Andy Johnson-Laird
(Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1983)
A PROGRAMMER'S NOTEBOOK: UTILITIES FOR CP/M-80, David Cortesi
(Reston, 1983)
DIGITAL RESEARCH CP/M VERSION 1.4 & 2.0 DOCUMENTATION, Digital
Research, Inc. (Digital Research, 1978)
HOW TO PROGRAM THE Z80, 3d ed., Rodnay Zaks (Sybex, 1980)
Z80 USERS MANUAL, Joseph Carr (Reston, 1980)
Z80 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING, Lance Leventhal
(Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1979)
Z80 ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING MANUAL, Rel. 2.1 (Zilog, 1978)
Z80-CPU, Z80A-CPU TECHNICAL MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
Z80-CTC, Z80A-CTC TECHNICAL MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
Z80-PI0, Z80A-PIO TECHNICAL MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
Z80-MCB HARDWARE USER'S MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
Z80-AIO/AIB HARDWARE USER'S MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
Z80-PPB HARDWARE USER'S MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
RMB (RMB/E) HARDWARE USER'S MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
MCZ-1/20,25 HARDWARE USER'S MANUAL (Zilog, 1977)
TURBOROM USER'S MANUAL, 0816D1 Rev.B (Advent Products, Inc., 1986)
CROMEMCO Z80 MACRO ASSEMBLER (looseleaf notebook). Contains
"Cromemco Macro Assembler Instruction Manual," plus addendum (1980),
"Cromemco Text Editor Instruction Manual" (1978), and "Cromemco Screen
Editor Instruction Manual" (1979).
AN INTRODUCTION TO MICROCOMPUTERS: VOLUME 0, THE BEGINNER'S BOOK,
2d ed., Adam Osborne (Osborne & Associates, 1979)
AN INTRODUCTION TO MICROCOMPUTERS: VOLUME 1, BASIC CONCEPTS, 2d
ed., Adam Osborne (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1980)
WORDSTAR AND FRIENDS FOR THE KAYPRO II & 4, T. Gregory Platt and
Roz Van Meter (PeopleTalk Associates, 1983)
THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF PERSONAL COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS, Alfred
Glossbrenner (St. Martin's Press, 1983)
THE COMPLETE HANDBOOK OF PERSONAL COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS,
rev. ed., Alfred Glossbrenner (St. Martin's Press, 1985)
HOW TO GET FREE SOFTWARE, Alfred Glossbrenner (St. Martin's Press,
1984)
HOW TO TELECOMMUNICATE, Corey Sandler (Henry Holt, 1986)
PERFSTAR: MAKING PERFECT WRITER ACT LIKE WORDSTAR, Jon Trott
(self-published, 1986)
GREY KAYPRO MANUALS (for CP/M; standard size, 7"x9"):
------------------------------
CALCSTAR USER'S MANUAL - 4 copies
CBASIC - 2 copies
CP/M MANUAL - 5 copies
DATASTAR REFERENCE MANUAL - 2 copies
DATASTAR TRAINING GUIDE - 3 copies
dBASE II - 1 copy
INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE - 4 copies
KAYPRO 1 USER'S GUIDE AND PERFECT WRITER - 3 copies
KAYPRO II USER'S GUIDE - 2 copies
KAYPRO USER'S GUIDE - 1 copy
MAILMERGE REFERENCE MANUAL - 3 copies
MICROPLAN - 2 copies
MICROSOFT BASIC - 7 copies
MICROSOFT BASIC QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE - 5 copies
PERFECT CALC - 4 copies
PERFECT FILER - 3 copies
PROFITPLAN - 2 copies
REPORTSTAR GENERAL INFORMATION MANUAL - 2 copies
REPORTSTAR TRAINING GUIDE - 3 copies
REPORTSTAR USER REFERENCE MANUAL - 4 copies
S-BASIC - 2 copies
SUPERSORT - 1 copy
SUPRTERM - 1 copy
THE WORD PLUS - 5 copies
USER'S GUIDE FOR WORDSTAR/MAILMERGE - 1 copy
GREY KAYPRO MANUALS (for CP/M; large size, 8 1/4"x10 3/4"):
------------------------------
CP/M: AN INTRODUCTION TO CP/M FEATURES AND FACILITIES - 1 copy
KAYPRO II USER'S GUIDE - 1 copy
MICROSOFT BASIC - 2 copies (1 spiral-bound, 1 perfect-bound)
PROFITPLAN - 2 copies
S-BASIC - 3 copies
WORDSTAR v3.0 - 1 copy
LOOSELEAF NOTEBOOKS:
------------------------------
KAYPRO 10 USER'S GUIDE - 2 copies
PERFECT WRITER - 1 copy
WORDSTAR MANUAL v3.0 - 1 copy (MicroPro)
WHITE QUICK-REFERENCE COMMAND CARDS:
------------------------------
WORDSTAR - 1 copy
DATASTAR - 2 copies
CALCSTAR - 2 copies
REPORTSTAR - 1 copy
PERFECT WRITER - 1 copy
PERFECT CALC - 1 copy
I really don't have any good idea what to ask for this stuff in
terms of prices, so make me an offer. All the books are in very good
to excellent condition (no damage, no highlighting or underscoring,
etc.). I'll be accepting bids or offers until March 1, 1998.
First, I'd prefer to sell it all together, all at once, to save
myself multiple boxes for shipping. However, I'll *consider* selling
sections to people who really want it. Ideally, the person who gets
the Kaypro computers should also get the manuals to go with them.
Second, I'd prefer to sell the set to someone who can pick them up
here in Chicago, or who will pay for shipping. If you're involved with
a church or nonprofit helps organization (or a bona-fide CP/M museum),
leave me your phone number or e-mail address even if you can't afford
to buy them. If nobody is interested, I'll contact you.
Feel free to copy or repost this message in other "for-sale" areas
that would be relevant to CP/M, Z80, ZCPR, or Kaypro hardware.
Kind regards,
Eric Pement <epement(a)jpusa.chi.il.us>
senior editor, Cornerstone magazine
939 W. Wilson Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640
phone: 773/561-2450, ext. 2084
fax: 773/989-2076
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Perfect Writer on the other hand, because it is written in 'C',
will not become obsolete, but will easily accompany advances in
computer hardware through the year 2000, at least. This means
that if you upgrade your computer hardware in the coming years,
you can be safely assured that:
* Your text files will still be usable.
* You will not need to purchase a new word processor.
* You will not need to learn a new word processor."
-- Perfect Writer User's Guide [for CP/M], 1982
------------------------------------------------------------
Well, you could see it coming. Poor financial performance (and hence, weak
stock price) over the last few years. Weak products. Then, DEC sells-out the
Crown Jewels (its Alpha procesor) to Intel.
After listening to an interview with Eckhard Pfeiffer of Compaq, they
paid $9.6 billion for DEC's customer list, not its products. He mentions
nothing about DEC's products.
It's a shame...but it seems to me that DEC should have seen it coming.
Death comes to the last of the old-line computer companies.
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
That's good to know, Tony. I think I have one or two TRS-80 cables around
here somewhere. It would be nice if a Tandy cassette player would also
work; I think I have one of those here as well. I've put a couple of
feelers out there looking for an IBM variety.
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: Development, round II
>> I've never seen an IBM cassette drive; fact is I've never seen a 5150
>> without at least one disk drive. The 5150 does boot to cassette BASIC if
no
>> boot disk is present. Now my curiousity is piqued. I'm going to have to
>> find a cassette player and interface cable somewhere.
>
>AFAIK the IBM 5150 PC cassette cable is the same as the cable used to
>link a cassette recorder to a TRS-80. That should make it quite easy to
>find - I have a couple here (which I need to hang on to).
>
>It wouldn't be hard to solder one up, well, apart from soldering those
>infernal DIN plugs.
>
>-tony
>
>
I've never seen an IBM cassette drive; fact is I've never seen a 5150
without at least one disk drive. The 5150 does boot to cassette BASIC if no
boot disk is present. Now my curiousity is piqued. I'm going to have to
find a cassette player and interface cable somewhere.
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 1:14 AM
Subject: Re: Development, round II
>
>I never saw anybody use the cassette port for practical purposes. In fact,
I
>never saw a cassette drive from IBM. Good trivia question. Has anybody ever
>seen one? I do remember reading something years ago about hobbyists using
>the cassette port for plugging in wierd hardware hacks.
>
>The original PC came with Cassette Basic. As I recall, defaulted to that if
>you had no DOS boot disk. GWBasic and BasicA had to be loaded off the DOS
>disk.
>
Actually, I've had lots of bad luck with Compaq. They're semi-PCs (like the
Tandy 1000's) I mean, if you go to download Internet Explorer 4 from
Microsoft, they have a seperate download for Compaqs. If you call tech
support, they'll charge you for ANYTHING they can.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 1998 1:56 AM
Subject: Re: back ontopic: mac 400k drive.
>>
>> Big CHOMP!
>>
>> >... You could hose up the head, or send a minute
>> > electrical charge through your body that could affect your ability to
>> > reproduce in the future. Unless you are really good with working on
tiny
>> > mechanical parts, save yourself the headache and replace the drive.
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>
>> To vent abit...
>>
>> This reponses is typical of tech-support droid who do not wants
>> anyone to mess with internal computer parts without giving any tips
>
>Well said. I agree 100%
>Not only do I _enjoy_ doing repairs, but I am getting fed up with the
>number of times I've received replies like :
>'Monochrome monitors are old-fashioned. You can buy a new SVGA colour
>monitor for less than the cost of repair'
>
>The problem is, the monitor in question was off a Whitechapel
>workstation. Not the sort of machine you can just plug a PC monitor into.
>
>Ditto disk drives. You can't plug just any hard disk into a PERQ or a
>PDP8, or an Apple ][, or a whatever. Sometimes you have to repair the old
>unit.
>
>That's apart from the fact that you should try to keep as many original
>parts in a classic as you can.
>
>Without wishing to blow my own trumpet, some people on this list are
>quite good at handling small parts (a lot smaller than you find in disk
>drives), are quite happy to replace surface mount components at home,
>will rebuild thick-film hybrids, will rewind motors, will realign disk
>drives, and have an array of tools and test equipment that exceeds just
>about any service centre.
>
>Another mini-flame for service manuals that claim that some part is 'not
>field repairable'. Sorry, but _I'll_ decide what _I_ can repair. At the
>moment, the only thing I can't rebuild is hard disk HDAs. But I'd much
>rather have a service manual that starts 'Take the HDA into a clean room
>and undo the cover screws (#1 in fig 4.2), lift off cover' etc than one
>which entirely misses out the HDA.
>
>> or solution besides telling them off to "authorized sites". Compaq
>> is pretty bad especially when I own years out of date equipment and
>> needs trival info on two resistors to fix a SLT power brick, I'm
>
>Do you have any idea as to the circuit topology in this unit? I don't
>have any Compaq stuff, but I may be able to guess what's going on if you
>indicate what the main chopper control chip is, and where the resistors
>are located (electrically) in relation to it.
>
>> Jason D.
>
>-tony
>
I have the manuals somewhere, i.e., not handy. Do you need something looked
up?
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Tuesday, January 27, 1998 6:53 PM
Subject: Monitor woes
>Lastly, does anyone have any of the original stuff for it, ie software,
>manuals, etc.
>
>______________________________________________________
>Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>
part of my new additions last week was a bunch of old mac stuff. i finally got
one of the 400k drives, but its having eject problems. the mechanism was stuck
so now im able to get a disk in, but when i call it to eject, the motor turns,
the disk lifts up to the slot, but wont pop out, then the mechanism goes back
down in position to read the disk. it does the same thing when i use a paper
clip; it will go up, the disk will stay in, then it goes back down into read
position. amazingly, the drive works fine otherwise. i dont quite understand
the mechanicals of it, anyone have ideas?
david
i enjoy reading what others have acquired, so i'd add what i just found.
apple //e and a franklin 5.25 drive $5
ibm dictionary of computer terms on disk (never opened) for $1
also, an old IBMer at work gave me some interesting things.
i got the usual 286 boards and some mfm drives and controllers.
i also got some kind of interface board that prompts for a password before
booting. made by sdi incorporated. i tried it in a 486 i built, but it wont
accept the passwoid.
also got something called a corvus systems ibm interface. it has a 34pin
header in some kind of funky mounting bracket. anyone know what it is?
also got something called a videotrax in its original but ragged box. its a
card that lets one use a vcr for backup. i think 80 meg per tape. i wont plan
to archive important data, but would be useful to image one old xt drive to
another.
i also got the host/client cards for the old pc expansion case. i have
extras, so if anyone needs them, make a deal.
i also saw a trs80 model 4? it looked like my trs80 model 3 except it had no
disk drives and was white! i never saw a white trs80. i might go back and get
it.
also found a tandy trs80 model ? which was similar in a way to the model 4
except it had a vertical 8 inch drive, but someone had gone into it and the
keyboard was missing. not bad for finishing out the week.
david
> Well, I found out that Atari is kicking. Has anyone heard about the game
> "Primal Rage" It's copywrighted to Atari Games.
Atari Games is the arcade division of Atari, which is doing just fine
(though I think they're part of some MegaArcadeConglomerate these days).
The home computer and console divisions of Atari are pretty much gone.
--
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
well, you could get your 5150 in several different flavours: one, two or no
floppy drives. i actually saw a pc with no floppies, just had plastic cover
plates so your only choice of saving data would be like an early apple, just
cassette. i never knew of anyone actually doing it though. i might ask some of
the old ibmers when i go back to work.
david
In a message dated 98-01-27 00:05:46 EST, you write:
<<
> BTW has anyone ever seen someone use the cassette port? I supported
>several hundred early PC user's and never even heard of anyone using the
>cassette port.
Well, just off the top of my head, the original IBM PC came with two 5 1/4"
floppy drives. That tells me you'd have to be crazy to even attempt using
the cassette interface. Either that or have some special purpose
application (don't even want to imagine what). >>
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subj: Re[3]: Development, round II
Philip Belben wrote:
>REXX on a PC? I think I have heard (very dimly) of this (there was
>something called REXX-88 or some such name when I was at IBM) but I
>haven't used REXX for years! What does it run on? Will it run on a
>Compaq 386? An IBM AT?
Yes - it is an optional part of an IBM PC-DOS 7 installation. I believe
that someone mentioned that that OS will run on any Xt or better PC w/
512k memory or higher. Of course the other PC OS with great built in
support for Rexx is OS/2. I do not know about any ports to Microsoft OSes
nor any of the variety of UNIXes available for Intel machines. Nor do I
know what relation this (Rexx w/ PC-DOS 7) may bear to the REXX-88 product
that you mention - does that run on MS DOS e.g.?
Peter Prymmer
>512K). [Hey Roger, it's got a handle!] I was also able to find the
Yep, it was (kinda) a clone of the Compaq (which was, of course, and IBM
PC clone...)
>QUESTION: Does anyone know how many of these were produced?
According to Haddock: "Was in production by 1984, and was withdrawn on
April 2, 1986. Not many of these machines were made."
Also: "This portable had eight expansion slots and used an XT motherboard."
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
In a message dated 98-01-27 11:09:28 EST, you write:
<< REXX on a PC? I think I have heard (very dimly) of this (there was
something called REXX-88 or some such name when I was at IBM) but I
haven't used REXX for years! What does it run on? Will it run on a
Compaq 386? An IBM AT? >>
any machine that can run pcdos can have rexx installed as part of the dos
upgrade. according to my dos 7 manual, any machine xt and above with 512k or
greater can accomodate it.
david (pcdos7 user)
I never saw anybody use the cassette port for practical purposes. In fact, I
never saw a cassette drive from IBM. Good trivia question. Has anybody ever
seen one? I do remember reading something years ago about hobbyists using
the cassette port for plugging in wierd hardware hacks.
The original PC came with Cassette Basic. As I recall, defaulted to that if
you had no DOS boot disk. GWBasic and BasicA had to be loaded off the DOS
disk.
-----Original Message-----
From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 11:45 PM
Subject: Re: Development, round II
>> BTW has anyone ever seen someone use the cassette port? I supported
>>several hundred early PC user's and never even heard of anyone using the
>>cassette port.
>
>Well, just off the top of my head, the original IBM PC came with two 5 1/4"
>floppy drives. That tells me you'd have to be crazy to even attempt using
>the cassette interface. Either that or have some special purpose
>application (don't even want to imagine what).
>
> Zane
>
>
>| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
>| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
>| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
>+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
>| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
>| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
>| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
>| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
>
>
>
Another fellow with more DEC'ish stuff available. Please reply
directly to the original author if interested.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
Path:
Supernews70!Supernews60!supernews.com!peerfeed.ncal.verio.net!207.12.55.133.MISMATCH!news-peer-west.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!newsfeed.internetmci.com!207.176.80.103!news.smart.net!smarty.smart.net!not-for-mail
From: yven(a)smart.net (James J. Yven)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec.micro
Subject: FS:VR201 monitor $25
Date: 27 Jan 1998 13:19:18 GMT
Organization: Smartnet Internet Services, LLC of Laurel, Maryland
Lines: 3
Message-ID: <6akmsm$5ch$2(a)news.smart.net>
NNTP-Posting-Host: smarty.smart.net
X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 960817]
Xref: Supernews70 comp.sys.dec.micro:8215
DEC VR201 monitor, in great shape, $25
also various Rainbow software and hardware available.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, SysOp,
The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fido 1:343/272)
kyrrin2 {at} wiz<ards> d[o]t n=e=t
"...No matter how hard we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe
an object, event, or living creature, in our own human terms. It cannot possibly
define any of them!..."
I stand corrected. A dab of white grease will do ya. Vaseline works in a
pinch.
No off topic or lewd comments on this please....
-----Original Message-----
From: SUPRDAVE <SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 11:54 PM
Subject: Re: back ontopic: mac 400k drive.
>In a message dated 98-01-26 23:36:11 EST, you write:
>
><< The grease on the eject rails hardens and causes this behaviour.
You -can-
> get it out with the paper clip if it moves at all, but you have to push
> hard. >>
>
>
>turns out that's exactly what it was! thankfully the drive mechanism
separates
>from the rest of the drive with screws. i had some head and disk cleaner
>(alcohol) in a spray can, so i just sprayed it on the parts and worked them
>back and forth until they were loose. i've no grease, but at least its
working
>just fine now.
>
>david.
>
From: "Cliff Gregory" <cgregory(a)lrbcg.com>
Subject: Re: Okimate 10
> The Okimate 10 uses a serial connection designed for computers without a
> parallel port, such as the Commodore. There are interface cables made to
> allow such a computer to communicate to a printer with a standard centronics
> connector.... [snip]
The Okimate Printers employed a modular interface called a "plug-n-play
module, usually you would find them being Centronics parallel or
Commodore Serial (I am sure there was an Atari SIO too, but I can't be
certain...)
As far as hooking printers to the
IBM, it takes a parallel port adapter and special printer driver
software.... Given the general speed of the Commodore serial port I
would not bother. Besides, color dot matrix printers can be had for
under $50 at many thrift shops.
P.S. The Okimate is a real hog when it comes to color, expect about only
8 full color pages from a color ribbon, period. The ribbons are thermal
transfer and are one-shot.
00101011110100100100011110100111010101010011100100110101000101001110011010011
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
Subject: Re: Interact Model One
>On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Scott Ware wrote:
>> I recently acquired an Interact Model One computer. It's a relatively
>> small unit with calculator-style keys and a built in cassette deck for
>> data storage. Inside, there is an 8080 CPU and 16 Kbytes of RAM. The
>> latest date codes on the components place its manufacture in early 1978.
><snip>
> Scott, I've got one of these systems, and I've only seen two others: one
> owned by Doug Coward and another that (I THINK) Marvin Johnson bought at
> VCF 1.0.[snip!]
At a very reasonable price too I might add, I was tempted to get it
myself...
> These are not very common machines. I think they were used as training
> computers for those "Become a Computer Technician" ads you see in computer
> magazines for those cheezy tech schools.
I remember seeing Protecto Enterprizes (and possibly COMB too) selling
them they referred to them as "16K color computers." This was before
Protecto started selling VIC-20s and B-128s...
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our BBS (Silicon Realms BBS 300-2400 baud) at: (209) 754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
At 05:01 AM 1/27/98 GMT, you wrote:
>I have purchased from Timco a couple of times; he's slow to ship
>but okay to deal with. I guess that's an endorsement.
Me and my friend have had a hard time with Timco. He says he will hold a
product until payment gets there, but then he ends up selling a laptop to
someone else that he was supposedly holding for me for one week. I
eventually got a refund, but my friend had the same luck with him, only he
just got a refund for the cost of the item, not shipping.
Buyer beware. Maybe we just had a run of badluck with the guy. I'm not
condemning him for two mediocre deals, just telling it how it is.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
Jason-
You missed my point and (obviously) poor attempt at a little humor. I'm not
connected with any authorized repair institution. I'm not sure that's what
you were implying, but it kind of sounded like that. All I was saying was
that if the mechanical parts were bent up or broke, it would be sensible to
replace it. A working 400k spare drive for a Mac would be cheap and
relatvely easy to find. Turns out it was only petrified grease. Great. Now
everybody has learned somethng.
I into classic machines as a hobby and don't try to make a living out of it.
I guess that if I did, I'd be more inclined to avoid buying parts and
repairing everything. I fix everything I can, and replace what I can't.
That's the reason that I subscribe to this list - to save a few bucks, learn
>from other people, and swap, buy, or sell hardware to and from other
collectors. I assume that's why most of us are here.
Big CHOMP!
>... You could hose up the head, or send a minute
> electrical charge through your body that could affect your ability to
> reproduce in the future. Unless you are really good with working on tiny
> mechanical parts, save yourself the headache and replace the drive.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
To vent abit...
This reponses is typical of tech-support droid who do not wants
anyone to mess with internal computer parts without giving any tips
or solution besides telling them off to "authorized sites". Compaq
is pretty bad especially when I own years out of date equipment and
needs trival info on two resistors to fix a SLT power brick, I'm
still have not gotten this information yet from anything else.
Without fixing that, I can't sell the SLT 286 to others without
losing that only different type working brick cuz I have SLT 386s/20
also. @&#!
No fun to listen this especially when if that drive
is no longer in production and *is* nonstandard. All we only do want
some info and real techies are far fewer and far between common guys
with stuff that can use support help so there should not have a fear
of losing $ to those few techies. I really appreciate if some did
released this design to private makers to keep making older non
standad floppy drives for older machines.
That goes double to: any laptop drives (oh how godawful different
they're are!), Mac drives (Apple destroys their return broken parts
when traded in for credits from their authorized service support
places, thus drives up the cost becomes harder to get by the minute),
and many other different drives.
Jason D.
email: jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca
Pero, Jason D.