That's too bad, Id love to get ahold of some software, just a boot disk is
boring.....
----------
> From: Kip Crosby <engine(a)chac.org>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: TRS-80 model 4
> Date: Friday, September 26, 1997 10:12 AM
>
> Well, I was startled last night.
>
> I went to Back to School Night in my son's tenth-grade classes, walked
into
> one of the rooms (which was obviously shared among several subjects) and
> there....were about seven TRS-80 model 4's, networked -- or at least set
up
> with some kind of print sharing -- and clearly in daily use.
Unfortunately
> my son's teacher wasn't the one who used them, so she knew nothing about
them.
>
> __________________________________________
> Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
> http://www.chac.org/index.html
> Computer History Association of California
>
At 03:17 PM 9/24/97 -0600, you wrote:
>lifetime! Once it gets to this point, it will cease to be a 'fun'
>hobby, and will turn into a commercialized, over-marketed
>'investment vehicle'. Coin & Stamp collecting, Baseball cards, and
Not all coin collecting is like that. Certainly, modern US (with the
grading services and all) is like that, but there are still many areas of
numismatics that are still open to hobbiests. Large cents, Fugio Cents (my
personal favorite), colonials, canadian, a lot of foreign, tokens, and so on
still offer lots of opportunity for learning, research, and fun, without
being so sanitary and heartless as a lot of such hobbies.
Important note: Buy the book before you buy the coin. Know what you are
doing, or you *will* get burned. (There's a company ala QVC that sells
coins on TV at night -- Things like 3 Susan B. Anthony dollars for $10, when
you can go to the post office and get the exact same thing for $3.)
I think that even if the collecting of original PC's and Imsai's and such
becomes too mainstream, there will still be plenty for the rest of us.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Well, I was startled last night.
I went to Back to School Night in my son's tenth-grade classes, walked into
one of the rooms (which was obviously shared among several subjects) and
there....were about seven TRS-80 model 4's, networked -- or at least set up
with some kind of print sharing -- and clearly in daily use. Unfortunately
my son's teacher wasn't the one who used them, so she knew nothing about them.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
<Was any machine (most likely mainframe class) ever built using F100K ECL
<(the super fast stuff - even today)? The family is small but well thought
<out, and includes some rather bizarre functions.
I'm not certain but it may be in the VAX9000 series. It was all ECL and
the ecl was built up into special modules to control heat and compact the
circuitry (for less wire). It was a fast machine but costly to build and
would get real upset if the cooling failed..
Allison
At 20:07 9/25/97 -0500, you wrote:
>What does that mean for those of us that show up at British car meets and
>park next to the pristine Rollses, jags, bentleys, and so on, in mud-covered
>Land Rovers? 8^)
It means hearing a lot of people say "Hey, Roger! I see you got it running
again!" ;-)
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
<I also do a considerable amount of electronic design, so have a lot of
<the common stuff (TTL, signal transistors, op-amps, passives, etc) for that
I'm an engineer and do a lot of selfbuilt as well and the only way is to
have what I call the bottomless junkbox. I mean I have about 10+ xerox
paper boxes (holds 10 reams of A4 paper) full of old boards and loose parts.
and another 10-20 divided covered trays of parts many new (in 1979!) though
old as when I bought I'd get 10 as they were cheap even if I only needed
one. Even expensive chips I'd get two to have a spare.
I'm not fussy about replacing a 1977 datecode with 1990 as repairs are
simply that. Keep in mind function is my goal.
Allison
At 02:38 PM 9/24/97 -0400, you wrote:
>I agree. It's also interesting to read between the lines of this thread
>and note that some people would definately be the type to do "concours"
>restorations. (Personally, I draw the line at worrying about the color of
>the ribbon cables.)
What does that mean for those of us that show up at British car meets and
park next to the pristine Rollses, jags, bentleys, and so on, in mud-covered
Land Rovers? 8^)
Personally, I like computers in as new condition as possible, but I'm not
fanatically about it, and Upgrades/expansions don't matter much to me. I
actually like used machines because they have a history behind them.
Someone used them, and maybe they added a bigger hard disk or a better video
card.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 04:44 PM 9/24/97 -0500, you wrote:
>This is particularly evident in the realm of old games. If you have an
>old Ultima for the Apple ][, complete with everything it came with, it
>will fetch a pretty penny.
I did a search at Amazon.Com for "Atari" and was surprised to see quite a
few 8-bit games and programs show up, and with prices like $50. I think
they were pretty much all labeled "Special Order", but they were listed...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Miscellaneous Computer-related shows have been mentioned (Whiz Kids, Knight
Rider, Riptide, Automan, etc.) but have y'all seen a show called Reboot?
It's animated, and shown (generally, I think) saturday mornings on ABC
(Again, I think). It takes place inside a computer and the good guys are
always battling the evil virii, and such. All the characters are
computer-related terms/objects.
It's definitely worth watching at least once. (I was turned onto it in
Ottawa, Canada, so I know it gets around somewhat.) Of course, there's no
David Hassellhoff...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
An opportunity for someone in the Detroit area:
>From: "eaml" <eaml(a)ix.netcom.com>
>Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
>Subject: Vax equipment freely available
>Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 10:48:22 -0400
>
>We currently have the following equipment freely available to anyone
>interested:
>
>MicroVAX II
>Letter Writer 100
>VT240(broken)
>
>
>There is no warranty or maintenance on this equipment.This is a donation to
>the VMS community.
>The only thing we ask is that you pick it up from our premises at:
>
>
>Gallagher Kaiser Corp.
>13710 Mt Elliott
>Detroit MI 48212
>Phone (313) 368-3100
>
>Fax (313) 368-0415
>
>Attn: Emilio Moreno Ext. #123
>
---
Replys/inquirys to the address shown in the message. I'm just forwarding
this along!
-jim
---
jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
Hi,
I've got an Apple-I that I'm going to take out of a box in the attic and
try to set back up for showing/playing.
I've seen several postings about what components "should" or "shouldn't"
be in a vintage system. What's the feeling on replacing TTL chips, voltage
regulators, etc? Should I scour the land to find "vintage" parts or can I
buy stuff from regular electronics stores? (I don't actually KNOW that I
need to replace anything yet, just asking)
On a similar note: The Apple-I was a kit. Mine's just a bare board mounted
inside a plain aluminum box. Was there ever a case made for these? Or did
everyone just do what the guy who put mine together did?
One last question:
The Apple-I has on-board voltage regulators, diodes etc. to be used with a
Do-it-yourself transformer setup. Can I just bypass all that and use a
power supply from a PC with leads connected to the regulated side of
things? The board uses the ususal +/-5V and +/-12V if I remember
correctly...
Thanks for any tips,
Bjorn Eng
AS a result of finding a tandy 1000 I also aquired (in said tandy) a
Diamond Computer Systems Trackstar-128.
What it is that I know of. It is a 128k apple][ board that resides in
a XT PC and can use the PC disks or external apple compatable disks
to run apple OS and programs. I have the borad and very thin installation
manual for it. it however is totally lacking in software. What makes it
interesting is there are two 65sc02p-1s on it. Any further data or software
for it would be of interest.
Also information on the 65SC02 would be of interest. I know it's basically
6502 but I've been told the later versions have extensions to the basic
instruction set.
Allison
> On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:
>
> > Also information on the 65SC02 would be of interest. I know it's basically
> > 6502 but I've been told the later versions have extensions to the basic
> > instruction set.
>
There was some discussion on chip differences recently in the Apple II
newsgroups so you may pick it up using something like DejaNews. The
65SC02 was apparently also used in the Franklin Ace 2200, an Apple
IIe-ish clone, and some games allegedly did not like the fact that it
wasn't a 65C02.
Phil
**************************************************************
Phil Beesley -- Computer Officer -- Distributed Systems Suppport
University of Leicester
Tel (0)116 252-2231
E-Mail pb14(a)le.ac.uk
Speaking of Ko0ky apple stuff, I got an Appletalk PC card. M2050. I have
the box and card and docs. Anyone have the darn software? What can this
thing do? I also got a complete TOPS set, with two isa cards and farralon
jacks.
----------
> From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)crl.com>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: apple][ PC bus card
> Date: Thursday, September 25, 1997 11:38 AM
>
> On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Allison J Parent wrote:
>
> > Also information on the 65SC02 would be of interest. I know it's
basically
> > 6502 but I've been told the later versions have extensions to the basic
> > instruction set.
>
> The 65C02 runs slightly faster than the 6502 (1.1Mhz vs 1Mhz?) as well as
> having an expanded instruction set. I never got into using any 65C02
> instructions so I don't know what they'd be. Mostly it expanded the
> addressing modes of some existing operations as well as adding some
> addressing modes to instructions which didn't have any before (I think).
> I'm not the person to ask I guess :)
>
>
> Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
> Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer,
Jackass
>
> Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
it used to be historical(a)aol.com i checked the member profile for that name
but it doesnt mention anything about a historical computer society though.
you might want to email him directly and find out for sure.
In a message dated 97-09-24 20:22:07 EDT, you write:
<< If you can find out more about them let me know I sent a check to them for
their magazine and never got one issue.
At 07:12 PM 9/23/97 +0000, you wrote:
>Does anyone know if the Historical Computer Society is still going?
>If it is, how can I get in touch with them?
>
>Ken Harbit
>krh03(a)cvip.fresno.com >>
The previous message contained my employee's name and adress (WRONG), sorry.
>At 13.44 23/09/97 -0600, you wrote:
>>You have to keep in mind though, that this Thrift Store stuff is
>>strictly "as-is". If it dosen't work, or if it's flakey, tough luck
>>guy, you bought it.
>Ah, ok if it is "as is" (that here clearly mean "it's broken") 10 $ or
less are ok.
>
>
>>Having been burned numerous times by paying too
>>much for junk that flat out didn't work, I have resolved NEVER to pay
>>more than $10 for disk drives (of any sort).
>I FULLY AGREE (and been burned too).
>
>>
>>You know somebody who would pay $60 for a USED 1541? Hm, I wonder how
>>hard it is to get past Italian Customs . . .
>Yes, this is the real trouble.
>It depends how "expert" is the man in charge to controll stuff.
>If he recognize the stuff as used and "out-of-fashion" he will probably be
human; otherwise it will cost
>as gold.
Riccardo
Found this on the web today, don't know where he is located but whoever
is in that area might like to make contact with him....
> Attention: We are interested in purchasing your obsolete electronic
> equipment and other expendable assets. Since 1984, SGS Computer
> Corporation has been designing custom programs for those assets that no
> longer have value to your organization. We buy PC?s to mainframes,
> circuit boards to test equipment. We can pay on a per pound basis when
> approximate. We can remarket your items whenever possible for
> additional revenue.
>
> We take it all!! We don?t cherry pick. (Larger quantities are
> encouraged)
>
> Ask for: Joe Grimm
> SGS Computer Corporation
> www.sgsasset.com
> e-mail sgsasset(a)apk.net
> Call 800-348-1946 Fax (440) 786-8107
Regards,
Hans
Geez, you must not be on the west coast. Around here, VIC-20/C64/C128
hardware is like weeds. There isn't a thrift store in the entire
Seattle area without a Commodore piece for <=$5. Can't give 'em away --
literally.
Kai
> ----------
> From: Jeff Kaneko[SMTP:Jeff.Kaneko@ifrsys.com]
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 1997 12:30 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: On the hunt at Goodwill . . . .
>
> Guys:
>
> I dredged this up from comp.sys.cbm. Alot of you guys out there have
> been talking about hunting down 'Heavy Iron'. Here's one who's struck
> the Mother Lode of 'Lite Plastic'. I sure wish I knew where this
> place was . . . .
>
>
> Jeff
>
> ------------>>>> Forewarded Message Follows<<<<---------------
>
At 18:00 12/31/70 -0500, you wrote:
>If you can find out more about them let me know I sent a check to them for
>their magazine and never got one issue.
Their last issue was #9 and I think it came out about eighteen months ago.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
Hi folks,
All this talk of dirt cheap computers in thrift shops is making my mouth
water! ;)
Anyone know of any good stores in the Los Angeles area? (Or is that like
asking a cook for a secret recipe?).
Thanks,
Bjorn Eng
> On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, John Ruschmeyer wrote:
>
> > I could use some advice here...
> >
> > I'm starting to sort through the misc. parts and accessories that
> I've
> > collected over the years and am wondering if certain things are
> really
> > worth keeping, such as:
> >
> > 1200 baud modems (Hayes external, Racal Vadic VA212LC)
>
1200 bps modems are unlikely to ever be collectible. 300 baud acoustic
coupled are worth keeping, plus the first Hayes SmartModem.
> > CGA cards
>
Actual IBM CGA cards are a must-keep.
> > Hercules and MDA mono cards
>
Original Hercules brand cards (as opposed to compatible) and IBM
Monochrome Display Adapter cards are also must-keeps.
> > Generic XT floppy controllers
>
Genuine IBM floppy controllers should be saved.
Kai
> Then on a
> very different level, there's the market for original distribution
> software, such as WordStar 1.x-2.x, dBASE II for CP/M, early Multiplan,
> etc. which if mint and complete are offered at $50 to $150.
This is particularly evident in the realm of old games. If you have an
old Ultima for the Apple ][, complete with everything it came with, it
will fetch a pretty penny.
--
Ben Coakley coakley(a)ac.grin.edu
Station Manager, KDIC 88.5 FM CBEL: Xavier OH
http://www.math.grin.edu/~coakley
EXCELLENT!
----------
From: Uncle Roger
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: RE: Computers in Movies (was: War Games)
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 5:02PM
At 09:48 AM 9/24/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Do you remember what the palm top was in T2?
Atari Portfolio (with the rare ATM interface kit (aka, the Tramiel
special))
8^)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Yes it was the Portfolio!
----------
From: Anthony Clifton
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: RE: Computers in Movies (was: War Games)
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 12:59PM
On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Faiaz, Michael C. HSD wrote:
> Do you remember what the palm top was in T2?
It was a little Atari palmtop I believe.
Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
At 14:38 9/24/97 -0400, John Ruschmeyer wrote:
>It makes one wonder whether there will someday be a market for
>reproductions of computer manuals, FCC stickers, etc. the same way that
>such a market exists in the automobile collecting world.
Well, there's already such a thing. First of all, look at the market for
"work docs," Xerox copies of manuals that people need to get things going.
I admit that these usually change hands for $5 to $10 or the cost of
copying, whichever is higher, but the commerce is flourishing. Then on a
very different level, there's the market for original distribution
software, such as WordStar 1.x-2.x, dBASE II for CP/M, early Multiplan,
etc. which if mint and complete are offered at $50 to $150.
I cannot prove, but I would bet, that there are already "forgeries" of
things like Apple I cassette BASIC and Micro-Soft black paper tapes.
And....what price an original set of Apple I manuals?
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
> > There are a few IBM cards that I've never seen and would love to get. Top
> > of my list is a PGC (professional graphics controller) - a 2 board set
> > that contained an 8088-based graphics accellerator. It emulated a CGA card
>
> > (I think) but had extra modes as well. Another thing I would like is a
> > Data Aquisition and Control adapter.
>
> I acquired one of the PGA boards and I passed up an opportunity a couple of
> years ago to get the IBM monitor that went with it. BTW, I am assuming here
> that what you are referring to as PGC is the same thing I am referring to as
> PGA. I see them occasionally and will keep you in mind the next time I find
> one if you like.
AFAIK, PGA=PGC. IIRC, VGA pixel resolution by lots of colours.
When I was working for IBM, I installed a PGC for a customer; I helped
with demos involving PGC and DACA (Yes, another nice piece of kit) but I
never had a chance to acquire any of that stuff :-( :-( :-(
The PGC was three (Tony, am I right, or am I just imagining the middle
board?) boards bolted together, with the outer two going in adjacent
slots of an AT or XT motherboard. Wouldn't go on a 5-slot PC of course.
Now that would be a hack...
PGC came with a new sticker for the _back_ of your PC - now no longer a
class B but a class A computer according to FCC rules (which thankfully
don't apply in the UK, but things are getting worse with our
Electromagnetic Compatibility directive)
Philip.
Recently Sam remarked:
>A neat thing: at the end of the movie during the credits they get to
>thanking those who provided technical assistance. The first company
>listed is none other than "CompuPro Division, Godbout Electronics". >Very
>cool! Others listed were Televideo, Fischer-Freitas (why does that >sound
It may have been Fisher (I'll check at lunch today, but they were ex
IMSAI employees who set up in business after IMSAI's demise supporting
the old machines. Just read "Fire in the Valley" ;-)
>familiar and did I get the Fischer part right?), Memorex, Qume, and
Hans
Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, Anthony Clifton said:
>In addition, I'd like to have episodes of Riptide on tape, which also
>featured a hacker as a main character along with a goofy robot. No
>Knight Rider thank you...intelligent cars just don't trip my trigger.
Sorry, tho I did like Riptide while it was on, Knight Rider is much better
of the two for me... Let's put this into perspective:
Riptide: Geeky guy who takes junk and builds robots with it to try to win
friendship with two macho PI's and almost never gets laid...
Knight Rider: Super-intelligent gorgeous _babe_ designs & builds ultimate
300mph _babe-magnet_ that can drive itself while you [circle one] (look
at)(chat with)(make whoopie with) _babes_, or play Intellivision if there
are no babes around...
;^> ;^>
It's the Sandra Bullock syndrome all over again.... but I like it!
(Tho I'll definately concede the point that 40-column Apple ][ basic
listings filled with nothing but PRINT statements is not what I'd consider
to give intelligence to a car... :-) Of course, how they got that Apple ][
to play Intellivision games was a technological wonder! ;-)
[the mind's not totally clear on the Intellivision point, but I'm sure it
was a commercially available video game system... It's been a while since
I've seen it]
Just MHO,
"Merch"
--
Roger Merchberger | Why does Hershey's put nutritional
Programmer, NorthernWay | information on their candy bar wrappers
zmerch(a)northernway.net | when there's no nutritional value within?
Tony Duell <ard(a)odin.phy.bris.ac.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Sep 1997, William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > > > > 2895B Tape Punch #1632A03303 FACIT model 4070
> > > >
> > > > Yep, this is a badge-engineered Facit paper-tape punch.
> >
> > Mine came with some sort of rack mount kit that I have not been able to
> > comprehend yet. I think I am missing parts.
>
> There is a rackmount kit shown in the Facit 4070 service manual/parts
> catalogue (which I have). I can look up how that one goes together and
> post details.
>
> >From memory it consists of a frame that fits round the 4070 chassis (the
> 4070 sits with the reels on the right, and the reels themselves vertical.
> There are little friction pads at the bottom to prevent it sliding out,
> and clamp screws that go in from the top to hold it in place. The whole
> frame mounts in the rack in the usual way.
I have one of the HP rack mounts in my living room right now (on its way
to storage with the punch). Unfortunately I can't post pictures for
y'all but here is how it goes.
Basically it is a sliding shelf with a front, with a hole in the front
for the chad box to poke through. There's a little metal plate
screwed to the shelf near the front, as well as a couple of black plastic
circles toward the rear. Those are just guides to keep the punch
>from wiggling around too much as it punches.
There are also a couple of dividers screwed down and held apart
with standoffs toward the left of the shelf. At a guess these make a
handy place to store a few reels of paper tape for when you have to
refill the punch.
Finally there are screw-downs for a twisted pair of wires that go up
to a power light mounted in the front of the rack. Well, it's supposed
to be there, the lightbulb is missing on mine; I think it got mashed in
shipment.
The shelf needs to slide so you can get tape off the takeup reel (if
you don't just let it spill out the front), get at the punch's
controls and most of the tape path, and feed the punch. Oh, also note
that there is a little widget at center rear between the shelf and the
frame; this is to keep the shelf from sliding out due to vibration
>from the punch.
> I _believe_ there's a special (metal?) chad box and front lid on rackmount
> 4070's. Oh, and the writing on the control panel is turned through 90
> degrees so that it's readable when the unit is in the rack. All my 4070's
> are table-top models.
It isn't clear to me that my 2895 punch is any different from a table-top
unit. Smoked-plastic chad box, BTW.
> > My sense (i.e. ears) tell me that the power supply is a switching type,
> > probably one of the first for computers, an is probably a bear to fix. Of
> > course, all of the house numbered HP parts does not help either.
>
> Switching PSUs don't bother me. The HP seems to have a large 50/60Hz
> transformer, so the chopper is (I guess) on the low voltage side anyway
> (like on most PDP11s). That sort of supply is not that hard to fix _given
> schematics_. Heck, if I can get a Boschert 2-stage running again, I can
> handle just about anything :-)
OK OK OK. I am planning on pulling all my 2100 manuals out for y'all.
I can't do it just yet, though; there are other things ahead in the
queue. Maybe this weekend if I can get some other pieces into place.
Fair warning: I am a software kind of guy; I know what a schematic
looks like but you shouldn't count on much more. OTOH, I can work
a photocopier.
If y'all are interested in a little story about the 2100 power supply,
I suggest getting Analytical Engine 2.3 from CHAC's web/ftp site and
reading the interview with Barney Oliver. One spoiler: yes, it is a
switching power supply, and there was something patentable in its
design.
-Frank McConnell
did everyone else also notice that when the kids were at the bank hacking the
atm, as the pin numbers were scrolling down, it was making old mac disk drive
access sounds? =D
david
In a message dated 97-09-24 13:02:55 EDT, you write:
<< On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Faiaz, Michael C. HSD wrote:
> Do you remember what the palm top was in T2?
It was a little Atari palmtop I believe.
Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
>>
Make all the words you utter soft and sweet, for you never know, which ones
you will someday have to eat. :)
----------
> From: Anthony Clifton <wirehead(a)retrocomputing.com>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: War Games
> Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 11:52 AM
>
>
>
> > > "Do you remember when you asked me to tell you when you were acting
> > > rudely and insensitively? Well, you're doing it right now." It
sounds
> > > EXACTLY like conversations between me and this skinny techno-dweeb I
work
> > > with.
> >
> > I wouldn't let guys like that work at my company.
>
> Er....two responses....
>
> Judge not lest ye be judged.
>
> ...and the thing about walking in another guy's footwear.
>
> Anthony Clifton - WireHead Prime
>
Anybody that can help her out?
(What's a HP150 anyway?)
She is not a subscriber to this list so if you can help, please e-mail her
directly.
Thanks!
LeS
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:57:51 -0700
From: Brigid Cumming <bcumming(a)island.net>
To: more(a)camlaw.Rutgers.EDU
Subject: HP 150 II
My husband brought home a touchscreen Hewlett Packard 150 II. He has its
original manuals & it fires up fine. Could you help me find more
information on and applications for this computer?
Thanks,
Brigid Cumming
bcumming(a)island.net
Do you remember what the palm top was in T2?
----------
From: Uncle Roger
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Computers in Movies (was: War Games)
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 3:37AM
At 02:09 PM 9/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>First, why use a 300 baud acoustic coupler (which strangely seems to
>operate at 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 19200 and 38400 during different
>scenes) when you've got a perfectly good 1200 baud direct connect sitting
>on the monitor?
On a similar note, Anyone else notice that Messrs. Redford, Poitier, et
al
were using an Atari 830 300bps Acoustic Coupler for their super-duper,
high-tech, bounce-around-the-world phone call to James Earl Jones?
And in True Stories, the talking heads guy (whose name I can't remember
this
late at night) ran into the nerd from Varicor in the mall as he was
coming
out of a store loaded down with 8-bit atari stuff.
And in Terminator 2, the scientist is working at his desk full of Atari
16-bit stuff (including at least a TT) when the kid's mom tries to blow
him
away. When he does finally bite the big one, it's in a room full of old
HP
7925 & 7933 disk drives -- Could it be coincidence that just before T2
came
out, HP was having a big promo to turn those in as trade-ins on newer
drives? I don't think so!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 09:38 PM 9/23/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Sam I've been trying to send message to you for over a week. I get yours but
>can't reply. Here is a sample of what I get.
The problem is that CRL (Sam's and My provider) has arbitrarily decided to
cut off incoming mail from various providers. Juno, Earthlink, probably
others. They claim it's because they want to stop spam, but not only do I
still get 10+ spams a day, but I get it with From: addresses that they've
supposedly blocked.
Meanwhile, my sister. friends, and clients cannot send me e-mail. Sam can
be reached at <vcf(a)siconic.com> and I can be reached at
<sinasohn(a)ricochet.net>. I dunno if Paul Coad has another e-mail address or
not (He's on CRL too.)
>>>> MAIL From:<ccm(a)sentex.net> SIZE=1961
><<< 550 Access denied
>554 <dastar(a)crl.com>... Service unavailable
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
The HP 150 is a (not) IBM compatible, circa 1985. It's an 8088 that
runs a wacky disk format with a correspondingly wacky OEM version of
MS-DOS. I have one of these machines, but don't have the DOS for it.
It'll run a small subset of early MS-DOS based software that doesn't
make any hardware accesses -- sort of the same situation as a DEC
Rainbow. There's a FAQ at
http://www.mdn.com/oksoftware/Computers/hp150faq.html.
Kai
> ----------
> From: Mr. Self Destruct[SMTP:more@camlaw.rutgers.edu]
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 1997 8:18 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: HP 150 II (fwd)
>
>
>
> Anybody that can help her out?
>
> (What's a HP150 anyway?)
>
> She is not a subscriber to this list so if you can help, please e-mail
> her
> directly.
>
> Thanks!
> LeS
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:57:51 -0700
> From: Brigid Cumming <bcumming(a)island.net>
> To: more(a)camlaw.Rutgers.EDU
> Subject: HP 150 II
>
> My husband brought home a touchscreen Hewlett Packard 150 II. He has
> its
> original manuals & it fires up fine. Could you help me find more
> information on and applications for this computer?
>
> Thanks,
> Brigid Cumming
> bcumming(a)island.net
>
Ok, I went out and rented _War Games_ because I'm a total nerd and wanted
to see David's IMSAI. I noticed a couple interesting things in the
movie. First, in one scene early on where david is sitting in front of
his computer, they show it head on, and you can see sitting on top of his
monitor his modem, which had on it "IMSAI 212A MODEM". Did IMSA, in
fact, manufacture a 1200 baud modem? He also had an IMSAI labeled keyboard!
A neat thing: at the end of the movie during the credits they get to
thanking those who provided technical assistance. The first company
listed is none other than "CompuPro Division, Godbout Electronics". Very
cool! Others listed were Televideo, Fischer-Freitas (why does that sound
familiar and did I get the Fischer part right?), Memorex, Qume, and about
10 others.
Anyway, pretty cool flick. It combines elements of hacking, phreaking
(where he grounds the microphone on the old ground-start payphone, a real
ball-sy scene since that was a real-life trick you could pull in those
days) and of course classic computers!
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
I was walking past the scrap pile a few weeks back when I saw a large PCB
that appeared to be part of a DG Nova system. Digging a little further
produced another 3 boards, the cabinet/PSU (alas missing the fan), and
the frontpanel bezel. This identified the machine as a DG Nova 1210.
Since there are only 4 slots in the backplane, I think I have all the
cards. What I have is a Nova CPU board (with _1_ 74181 - did this machine
really have a 4 bit ALU?), a core memory board and 2 custom I/O boards
(missing a few TTL chips, but the locations are labeled with the 74xx
number, so that's no problem). I am missing the lights/switches board.
Does anyone know anything about this machine? I assume it's worth saving.
A schematic would be useful (or at least a description of the frontpanel
board and its interface), since then I could probably recreate the front
panel and get it running again.
-tony
>On a similar note, Anyone else notice that Messrs. Redford, Poitier, et
>al
>were using an Atari 830 300bps Acoustic Coupler for their super-duper,
>high-tech, bounce-around-the-world phone call to James Earl Jones?
While we're playing this, may I point out that in the control room of the
Red Dwarf is, in at least one episode, an original C64? I thought that,
being a BBC production, they should have at least use the BBC Micro. *grin*
Just think, one day some of our old computers will be used to control
starships a mile long.
Adam.
Hello again!
Some time ago I reported on an attic full of Sord computers that only
waited for someone to come along and grab them. I have now looked over
most of the attic (not all, mind you) and catalogued what I found. It is
an interesting list of 40 computers of 17 different types. Mostly Sord,
but also some PC compatibles. There is at least one Sord M680UX mini,
probably one or two more.
Sam and Kevan have already announced that they want several systems, so
there will be shipments going both to the US and the UK. The attic in
question is in Gothenburg, Sweden, but the more people join in, the
cheaper it will be. If you want a list of available stuff (also some
printers and a lot of manuals and software) let me know and I will send it
to you.
Next, I will try to determine what shipping would approximately cost.
/F
>> I'm starting to sort through the misc. parts and accessories that I've
>> collected over the years and am wondering if certain things are really
>> worth keeping, such as:
>>
>> 1200 baud modems (Hayes external, Racal Vadic VA212LC)
>> CGA cards
>> Hercules and MDA mono cards
>> Generic XT floppy controllers
To put in my 2 cents' worth...
Up until last year, I sold XT's pretty regularly. This year, I sold two. I
*do* still see some acquired out there (last Sunday, I set up a PC for a
friend and her kids...she bought it for $9 at an auction) and many of my
customers still have the older stuff (good grief -- we still have a couple
Epson QX-10's around, in this hick town!)
Motherboards are gonna start going rapidly pretty soon, and
monitors...nobody makes CGA anymore that I know of...what user (versus
collector) is gonna replace a CGA with VGA on an XT? He'll junk the whole
thing, and buy a Packard Bell at Wal-Mart (and use it to play Solitaire.)
Worth keeping? I think so. Boards don't take up a whole lot of space, and
you're going to make a collector *very* happy some day. (I'd take your
boards, except that I've already got plenty.) But, it'll be a long time
before you sell them!
At 12:22 AM 9/24/97 -0500, you wrote:
>I dunno about Compaqs, but if it takes standard 2.5" hard drives, Fry's and
Whups... You'd think I was on AOL... I forgot to change the TO: address.
Sorry!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 02:09 PM 9/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>First, why use a 300 baud acoustic coupler (which strangely seems to
>operate at 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 19200 and 38400 during different
>scenes) when you've got a perfectly good 1200 baud direct connect sitting
>on the monitor?
On a similar note, Anyone else notice that Messrs. Redford, Poitier, et al
were using an Atari 830 300bps Acoustic Coupler for their super-duper,
high-tech, bounce-around-the-world phone call to James Earl Jones?
And in True Stories, the talking heads guy (whose name I can't remember this
late at night) ran into the nerd from Varicor in the mall as he was coming
out of a store loaded down with 8-bit atari stuff.
And in Terminator 2, the scientist is working at his desk full of Atari
16-bit stuff (including at least a TT) when the kid's mom tries to blow him
away. When he does finally bite the big one, it's in a room full of old HP
7925 & 7933 disk drives -- Could it be coincidence that just before T2 came
out, HP was having a big promo to turn those in as trade-ins on newer
drives? I don't think so!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
On Tuesday, September 23, 1997 8:02 PM, Kip Crosby [SMTP:engine@chac.org] wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm thoroughly enjoying being here and I just wanted to remind everybody
> that our history page, http://www.chac.org/chhistpg.html , is perennially
> in need of new links. As an example, we haven't found a single site yet
> that's devoted to classic laptops.
>
> I'd also appreciate any suggestion of a good win32 link-checking bot
> because this page has gotten far, far too voluminous to check by hand.
>
> Finally, thanks for all the Apple ][ material -- I'm still sifting through it.
Hi,
I have a small Home-Computer-Museum here in Germany you might want to link:
http://192.102.161.122/~walgen/index.html
At 19:12 9/23/97 +0000, Ken Harbit wrote:
>Does anyone know if the Historical Computer Society is still going?
>If it is, how can I get in touch with them?
Their address is 2962 Park Street, #1, Jacksonville FL 32205.
historical(a)aol.com was down for a while but I think it works again now.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
<WOPR downloaded a Java aplet into his computer that the web browser
<continued to execute! C'mon, that one's easy!
Actually that was done back then. It was called callback security. you
would call in and give account and password if valid the machine would login
then log out and then call back to a prearranged number and you would log in
again. I used that for my vax to take advantage of the company phone lines
being cheaper out going to me that my calling them.
<> In the book, when David walks in while Jim Sting is underneath his desk,
<> he says "Hey Captain Crunch, I'm from Ma Bell and Boy is she pissed!"
<
<Nobody would've understood that reference. Nobody would today either.
As a former blue boxer and phone hack the pay phone in the dorm had a
diode hack so it didn't keep change. My trick on that was to hide the
diode in the company distribution box.
FYI: I was uing a cosmac elf to do the blue box in the late '70s by
spinning loops to make the tones and memory dial.
Allison
At 02:58 PM 9/22/97 -0700, you wrote:
>drive. If anyone knows where to get a cheap hard drive
>for a Compaq Contura 430 please let me know ;).
I dunno about Compaqs, but if it takes standard 2.5" hard drives, Fry's and
NCA (Silicon Valley, but possibly elsewhere) had been selling 500mb 2.5's
for under $100. I picked up a 2GB 2.5'er on AuctionWeb for $235 with
shipping (Seagate drive).
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)crl.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Sam I've been trying to send message to you for over a week. I get yours but
can't reply. Here is a sample of what I get.
Still interested in helping and chatting about promotion. Hey you should do
a post-festival review on the web site and tell people you plan to do this
so they'll plan to return to the site after the event.
The original message was received at Tue, 23 Sep 1997 07:10:01 -0400 (EDT)
>from p22a.lithium.sentex.ca [207.245.212.183]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<dastar(a)crl.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail.crl.com.:
>>> MAIL From:<ccm(a)sentex.net> SIZE=1961
<<< 550 Access denied
554 <dastar(a)crl.com>... Service unavailable
----- Original message follows -----
Return-Path: ccm(a)sentex.net
Received: from p22a.lithium.sentex.ca (p22a.lithium.sentex.ca
[207.245.212.183]) by granite.sentex.net (8.8.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id HAA29463
for <dastar(a)crl.com>; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 07:10:01 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 07:10:01 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199709231110.HAA29463(a)granite.sentex.net>
X-Sender: ccm(a)sentex.net
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)crl.com>
From: ccm(a)sentex.net (COMMPUTERSEUM/Kevin Stumpf)
Subject: Re: Yo!
Glad to hear from you too. I've been trying to contact you ever since you
asked for a informal poll about attendance figures. Your mail keeps bouncing
back...and then I'm having difficulty getting online now that school is
back...the number is incessantly BUSY. I was gonna pass my messages on to
you via the LIST, but couldn't even get online!
So I haven't even read this message, but in 9 hours I will respond - got to
go to work now.
The original message was received at Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:06:56 -0400 (EDT)
>from p15a.lithium.sentex.ca [207.245.212.176]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<dastar(a)crl.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail.crl.com.:
>>> MAIL From:<ccm(a)sentex.net> SIZE=2966
<<< 550 Access denied
554 <dastar(a)crl.com>... Service unavailable
----- Original message follows -----
Return-Path: ccm(a)sentex.net
Received: from p15a.lithium.sentex.ca (p15a.lithium.sentex.ca
[207.245.212.176]) by granite.sentex.net (8.8.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id HAA20534
for <dastar(a)crl.com>; Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:06:56 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Fri, 19 Sep 1997 07:06:56 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199709191106.HAA20534(a)granite.sentex.net>
X-Sender: ccm(a)sentex.net
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)crl.com>
From: ccm(a)sentex.net (COMMPUTERSEUM/Kevin Stumpf)
Subject: Re: update, poll & returned mail.
I'm am experiencing difficulty getting through to you. Still doing my part
and will chat soon.
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 19:33:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <MAILER-DAEMON>
Subject: Returned mail: Service unavailable
To: <ccm(a)sentex.net>
Auto-Submitted: auto-generated (failure)
The original message was received at Wed, 17 Sep 1997 19:33:35 -0400 (EDT)
>from p16a.lithium.sentex.ca [207.245.212.177]
----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<dastar(a)crl.com>
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to mail.crl.com.:
>>> MAIL From:<ccm(a)sentex.net> SIZE=1654
<<< 550 Access denied
554 <dastar(a)crl.com>... Service unavailable
----- Original message follows -----
Return-Path: ccm(a)sentex.net
Received: from p16a.lithium.sentex.ca (p16a.lithium.sentex.ca
[207.245.212.177]) by granite.sentex.net (8.8.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id TAA05560
for <dastar(a)crl.com>; Wed, 17 Sep 1997 19:33:35 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 19:33:35 -0400 (EDT)
Message-Id: <199709172333.TAA05560(a)granite.sentex.net>
X-Sender: ccm(a)sentex.net
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
To: dastar(a)crl.com
From: ccm(a)sentex.net (COMMPUTERSEUM/Kevin Stumpf)
Subject: VCF Poll
>The original message was received at Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:06:03 -0400 (EDT)
>from p11a.neon.sentex.ca [207.245.212.204]
>
> ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
><dastar(a)crl.com>
>
> ----- Transcript of session follows -----
>... while talking to mail.crl.com.:
>>>> MAIL From:<ccm(a)sentex.net> SIZE=644
><<< 550 Access denied
>554 <dastar(a)crl.com>... Service unavailable
>
> ----- Original message follows -----
>
>Return-Path: ccm(a)sentex.net
>Received: from p11a.neon.sentex.ca (p11a.neon.sentex.ca [207.245.212.204])
by granite.sentex.net (8.8.6/8.6.9) with SMTP id VAA03733 for
<dastar(a)crl.com>; Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:06:03 -0400 (EDT)
>Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 21:06:03 -0400 (EDT)
>Message-Id: <199709170106.VAA03733(a)granite.sentex.net>
>X-Sender: ccm(a)sentex.net
>X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>To: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)crl.com>
>From: ccm(a)sentex.net (COMMPUTERSEUM/Kevin Stumpf)
>Subject: Re: VCF Update
>
>About the informal poll...hope for the best and expect the worst...jah, jah,
>but seriously folks you will probably not have enough attendance to break
>even. Then again I'm way off in my marketing suggestions, i.e. I recommended
>Computerworld and WSJ, but your market are the BBS'ers and a very local,
>personal clientele and that's precisely who you are approaching. Right on dude.
>
>There's my 2 cents.
>
>Kevin
>
>
>
>
>There are a few IBM cards that I've never seen and would love to get. Top
>of my list is a PGC (professional graphics controller) - a 2 board set
>that contained an 8088-based graphics accellerator. It emulated a CGA card
>(I think) but had extra modes as well. Another thing I would like is a
>Data Aquisition and Control adapter.
I have boxes of unclssified PC cards. If you would describe what you wani, I
could dig through and see if I come up with wahat you covet.
You never know what you'll turn up. I even snagged an ST-412, which I'll put
in my "original" PC, when I get around to it. (except I don't have any Xybec
HDD controllers. Anyone have one cheap?)
Manney
| an overhead display unit of some sort of EXTREMELY high
quality.
... made by Stewart Filmscreen Corporation, who also outfitted the NASA
Johnson Space Center, Pentagon War Room, and the _real_ NORAD control
center.
Not to mention ABC, NBC, CBS, Lucasfilm, MGM, Paramount, Disney, Fox,
and Universal.
Kai
| Ok, we have a conflict of nerd movie trivia here. Was it
CompuPro S-100
| boxes or HP Vector Graphics generators?
CompuPro/Godbout is in the credits... they obviously didn't supply the
IMSAI :)
My friend Norm here in the next office swears it was CompuPro boxes.
Since he owned a CompuPro at the time the movie was released, I'm
inclined to believe him -- apparently it was common knowledge in the
CompuPro community. He's very specific about the MicroAngelo S-100
graphics boards that were used.
Kai
<> What's neat is that this movie came out in 1983, probably filmed in 1982
<> or so. This is still nearly 3 years after the heyday of the IMSAI.
Filming likely started in '81 and extended into '82.
At that time you had altair (way off the their time), IMSAI, TRS80,
Apple][, early PC, atari, commodore, various S100 crates, and some
minis to pick from.
What the imsai had was a colorful pannel with blinking lights, the only
other one that matched that were Ithaca Intersystems s100 crates, and
minis most of wich were no longer FP machines. The kid was not supposed
to own a mini as a budding hacker.
<Did it strike anybody as odd that while David was seen to turn the IMSAI
<CPU on at various times, he never once turned on the disk drives? B^}
He did a lot of majik that was technically suspect! Most secure systems
back then would at best give you three tries at the password and drop you
and if you tried the account within 15 minutes you were again dropped and
the timer reset. The was to prevent cracking via successive tries. That
was an example of commercial systems, secure military would not even have
outside access that wasn't encrypted and highly secure.
Allison
Another source to consider for classic stuff is the eubiquitous ((sp?)
here in the
Eastern Ma. area, anyway) "yard (or tag) sale". Saturday, I found a
"roll table"
built for DEC's old WT78 (revised VT52) word processor.. Paid U.S. $20
for
it.. Best PC stand I've ever seen!
Will
--
Sorry to have to resort to this, but, due to the myriad of automatic
e-mail advertising ("SPAMming") programs out there, I've been forced
to modify my "reply to" address. To reply to this message, you must
remove the .spamfree from the reply-to address. To those friends, and
folks
who are trying to contact me with info that I will likely be happy to
receive, I apologze for this inconvienence. To those out there, sending
all these annoying "junk mail" messages, I say "Oh well...."
Will
Allison, Can you send me a list of what you got?
----------
From: will emerson
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
Subject: Intellivision stuff claimed!
Date: Saturday, September 13, 1997 8:40PM
Hello Everyone,
Allison Parent has taken over custody of the Intellivision stuff..
Will
--
Sorry to have to resort to this, but, due to the myriad of automatic
e-mail advertising ("SPAMming") programs out there, I've been forced
to modify my "reply to" address. To reply to this message, you must
remove the .spamfree from the reply-to address. To those friends, and
folks
who are trying to contact me with info that I will likely be happy to
receive, I apologze for this inconvienence. To those out there, sending
all these annoying "junk mail" messages, I say "Oh well...."
Will
Hi,
I'm thoroughly enjoying being here and I just wanted to remind everybody
that our history page, http://www.chac.org/chhistpg.html , is perennially
in need of new links. As an example, we haven't found a single site yet
that's devoted to classic laptops.
I'd also appreciate any suggestion of a good win32 link-checking bot
because this page has gotten far, far too voluminous to check by hand.
Finally, thanks for all the Apple ][ material -- I'm still sifting through it.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
Believe it or not, all of the war room displays were generated by 4
CompuPro S-100 boxes with MicroAngelo graphics cards; thus the
Godbout/CompuPro inclusion in the credits.
Kai
> ----------
> From: Sam Ismail[SMTP:dastar@crl.com]
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 1997 11:30 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: War Games
>
>
> Ok, I went out and rented _War Games_ because I'm a total nerd and
> wanted
> to see David's IMSAI. I noticed a couple interesting things in the
> movie. First, in one scene early on where david is sitting in front
> of
> his computer, they show it head on, and you can see sitting on top of
> his
> monitor his modem, which had on it "IMSAI 212A MODEM". Did IMSA, in
> fact, manufacture a 1200 baud modem? He also had an IMSAI labeled
> keyboard!
>
> A neat thing: at the end of the movie during the credits they get to
> thanking those who provided technical assistance. The first company
> listed is none other than "CompuPro Division, Godbout Electronics".
> Very
> cool! Others listed were Televideo, Fischer-Freitas (why does that
> sound
> familiar and did I get the Fischer part right?), Memorex, Qume, and
> about
> 10 others.
>
> Anyway, pretty cool flick. It combines elements of hacking, phreaking
>
> (where he grounds the microphone on the old ground-start payphone, a
> real
> ball-sy scene since that was a real-life trick you could pull in those
>
> days) and of course classic computers!
>
>
> Sam Alternate e-mail:
> dastar(a)siconic.com
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
> Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete,
> Writer, Jackass
>
> Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
>
> With all of the commotion on pdp8-lovers concerning old HP stuff in
> Michigan, I decided to take a look at what I have. I have no software or
> paper with my "pile" (no rack, that was kept by the previous owner), so I
> am basically stupid about the thing. Maybe someone can help.
>
> 2100A Computer #1304A02190 "Option 008"
How to read HP serial numbers, in case you are interested:
1304A02190
13 == year, since 1960 (in this case 1973)
04 == week within year
A == country of manufacture (A = USA)
02190 == serial number
The year/week are supposed to be date of manufacture, but I think I
have seen it used to mean date of last revision. Either that or HP
managed to turn out a lot of some things in a week. It's also not
clear whether a change in year/week resets the "counter" portion of
the serial number.
I'm not sure what option 008 is on a 2100A.
> 7900A Disk Drive #1527A04334
> 2895B Tape Punch #1632A03303 FACIT model 4070
Yep, this is a badge-engineered Facit paper-tape punch.
> 2748A Tape Reader #1133A01747 "System Serial 0815F"
> 13215A Disk Drive Power Supply #1435A04338 "Option STD"
> ????? Line Printer #? (Way too buried to investigate)
Hmm, 2613A, 2617A maybe?
> Inside the 2100A are cards:
[elided]
In row 1, A1 through A9 are the CPU. I am thinking that A9 and maybe
A8 are options (DMA?), but will need to pull manuals to look.
Likewise I will need to pull manuals to tell you more than obvious
bits (e.g. DISC INT'F 1 and ...2 are how it talks to the 7900A) about
the other things in row 1.
Row 2 is where the memory lives. I am thinking that you have 32KW in
that system; the XYDs should be the X-Y drivers, the SSAs should be
core stacks, and I can't remember exactly what the ID (16K), IDL, or DC
cards do.
I do recall that there is also another flavor of the ID (16K) card for
smaller memory configurations.
There should be five-digit product IDs on each of those cards, most
likely of the form 12ddda, where the "d"s are digits and the "a" is an
alpha character. Those would help me when I have the manuals handy.
Might even help me figure out which ones to pull.
> The processor boards date to 1972, yet others date to the early 1980s.
> Apparently this thing was upgraded (or repaired) several times during its
> life doing secret things.
>
> OK, what do I have? Any input would be helpful.
Well, you have more than I do in the way of hardware. My 2100A was
part of a Fourier analysis system, and so I have some cards that do
some sort of fast crunching on some sort of input signal, but all of
the other I/O and memory was removed. So otherwise I just have the
CPU cards.
But I have manuals. Bug me, I'll pull 'em out and look through them
and try to find out more for you.
w/r/t the rack -- as near as I can tell HP used the same style of 19"
rack for lots of stuff, from various 2100-based systems (including HP
1000s) to the early HP 3000s. I see them from time to time but they
usually have been gutted already and are just empty racks.
-Frank McConnell
Yeah Im the "computer guy" at the salvation army store I frequent. I think
i've yet to pay full price for anything yet. I like to "haggle"
----------
> From: Scott Ware <s-ware(a)nwu.edu>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: RE: On the hunt at Goodwill . . . .
> Date: Tuesday, September 23, 1997 12:10 PM
>
> On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, James Willing wrote:
>
> > Now on the other hand, the Salvation Army store could not sell gear to
Bill
> > Gates based on the way they price stuff. An Apple IIgs for $495?!?
Really
> > now...
>
> Here (in Chicago), the Salvation Army store that carries computer
> equipment tends to price everything computer-related at $45, regardless
of
> what it is. There was (until it recently closed) a Salvation Army
"as-is"
> store in the building with one of their warehouses that had some great
> deals, primarily on items that they couldn't easily classify. It may be
> worth looking for these in other cities, since the one here had items
such
> as oscilloscopes and Nixie tube DMMs that never made it into the normal
> stores.
>
> Sometimes, thrift store pricing and procedures are hard to understand. I
> once saw a thrift store employee deliberately damaging items with a
hammer
> before marking them down. I guess the theory is that you don't deserve
> all of the keys if you're paying $2 for a computer instead of $20.
>
> Is anyone else here recognized as "the computer guy" at thrift stores?
At
> one store (admittedly only a block from my apartment, so I visit it
> regularly), they save documentation for me and often mark down computer
> equipment the day after I've passed it up. Prices have risen slightly
> since they've realized that there is demand, but they seem to be stocking
> more old computer equipment now, and if something is too expensive, it's
> easy to wait a day or two!
>
> --
> Scott Ware s-ware(a)nwu.edu
>
>
>
Hello,
I'm trying not to buy too much more of this stuff but this guy made me a
heck of a deal on a Model 100 along with a video camera I wanted. I put
it in the auction. It's really nice and is still in the original box!
Radio Shack Model 100 Laptop Computer (photo)
Current bid: $42.01
Auction ends on: 09/28/97, 14:36:03 PDT
http://komodo.ebay2.com/aw-cgi/ItemISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=511656
Actually, I've had great success at goodwill here on the east coast. i picked
up a complete platinum //e machine, a colour composite monitor with two
undisk 5.25 drives, a trs80 model 3, an IBM PC RT, and the rare <?> printer
attachment for my pc convertible and my uVAX II ! the pickings have been slow
lately, but its always a luck of the draw kind of thing. i usually hit the
stores about once a week and hope for the best. I regret not getting a plus/4
i saw in the original box last month.
david
In a message dated 97-09-22 23:33:48 EDT, Sam Ismail put forth:
<< Here's a hint for everyone...don't waste your time at Goodwill (well,
usually). All the good stuff is at those for profit or non-chain thrift
stores. Look for places like Thrift Town, Thrift Center, Thrift This,
Thrift That, etc.
I've heard that Goodwills take all the computer junk and auction it off.
I never, ever find any computer stuff at Goodwills or Salvation Army's.
I used to find stuff at the Salvation Army, and occasionally find some
software (found an MSX cassette of all things at one recently) but never
any hardware.
>>
This sounds like the Houston GW ?? I lived there a few years back and was a
great place to find items. I like your help idea may try it here.
At 09:41 PM 9/22/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Sam Ismail wrote:
>
>> I've heard that Goodwills take all the computer junk and auction it off.
>> I never, ever find any computer stuff at Goodwills or Salvation Army's.
>> I used to find stuff at the Salvation Army, and occasionally find some
>> software (found an MSX cassette of all things at one recently) but never
>> any hardware.
>
>A friend of mine gave me a really good idea. In our area Goodwill does
>auction off a bunch of stuff every Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:30AM.
>The idea is to go in and help them to work on the computers. This
>accomplishes a number of things. 1) It can help train some of the people
>they are trying to help. 2) Fixed machines are worth more money hence a
>larger income for Goodwill. 3) If we are helping, we will most likely have
>the opportunity to see what is coming in and thus might be able to salvage
>some classic machines!
>
>
>
>
Sorry you feel that way as I find a ton of items at the GW, such hardware,
manuals, parts (new and used), and software (new and used). The prices range
>from .25 to 35.00.
At 08:23 PM 9/22/97 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Sep 1997, Zane H. Healy wrote:
>
>> I guess I'm in the wrong part of the West Coast! In the Portland area I've
>> only gotten lucky enough to find stuff that cheep once or twice. Plus it
>> seems like most stuff is either a C64, a 1541 drive, or a TI-99/4a, and
>> they are always bare. You can't find stuff like power supplies, cables, or
>> whatever else it takes to make them function without a LOT of looking. The
>> average price at GW in this area for any item of this class is about $10!
>> I think my best find ever around here was a TI-99/4a with PS, modulator,
>> cassette cable, and 3 carts (which included extended BASIC) for $4.
>> Needless to say this wasn't at GW it was another local Thrift Store which
>> happens to be litterly next door to GW.
>
>Here's a hint for everyone...don't waste your time at Goodwill (well,
>usually). All the good stuff is at those for profit or non-chain thrift
>stores. Look for places like Thrift Town, Thrift Center, Thrift This,
>Thrift That, etc.
>
>I've heard that Goodwills take all the computer junk and auction it off.
>I never, ever find any computer stuff at Goodwills or Salvation Army's.
>I used to find stuff at the Salvation Army, and occasionally find some
>software (found an MSX cassette of all things at one recently) but never
>any hardware.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
>
> Attend the First Annual Vintage Computer Festival
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
>
>
>
Well this week is not starting off as well as last week: items that were free:
commodore 1541-II disk drive, flat C64 computer with a Epyz Fast Load
cartridge still in it, Power supply for 1541-11,1571-II, or 1581; old metal
transfer box for the apple from inmac it's blue/black metal; various
appletalk cables; Hayes 1200 baud ext modem with power supply. Purchased the
following items: HP utility disk for print srceen on the IBM PC/XT boxes for
LaserJet and ThinkJet units; C16 ower's manual; apple mac book by Cary Lu;
and last a copy of PC DISK Magazine with the manual 5 1/4 disk other items
that were mailed with it, it si Vol 1 No 4 sold for $29.95 cost me $3.50.
Well that's it for today hope to hit 3 more shoes tomorrow. Keep computing !!
<Original ][
this is 1978 ish starting point (possibly earlier)
<"Expanded" //e (1987, the one with 64Kx4 RAM)
If anything the //e was likely 1983 or so.
You could still buy these in late '85 along with IIc.
1987? the two series was almost dead by then with the IIgs (maybe //c).
This was mid 80s
<IIGS ROM 00, 01, 03, and the prototype-only 04
<IIGS Upgrade Kit for //e, especially what it cost
<If there=92s a model I=92m missing, and I don=92t think there is, please=
what's with the (=92)?
Allison
At 08:54 PM 22/09/97 -0300, you wrote:
>I could use some advice here...
>
>I'm starting to sort through the misc. parts and accessories that I've
>collected over the years and am wondering if certain things are really
>worth keeping, such as:
>
> 1200 baud modems (Hayes external, Racal Vadic VA212LC)
> CGA cards
> Hercules and MDA mono cards
> Generic XT floppy controllers
>
1200 baud external modems? Hell yes keep them! You never know when they
will come handy, i wish i had a few lying around now. Great for Minix boxes
to check your mail...
As for the assorted cards, well i am going to use the mass of cards i have
here to bolt into my stell shelf units as book ends (i am going for the
"inside the mainframe" look in my apartment :)
"Linux users are people who would convince you that 10 steps are better
than one"
----------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________Live from the GLRS
The Man From D.A.D
----------------------------------------------------------------
hello,
i have seval apple lisa's(lisa 2's). there was a model that wouldn't keep
time if they were unpluged. that's when they came up with the battery
idea....
dave
>>But as far as that sort of stuff goes, I'm with Kai. Of course, I'm on
>>the west coast as well. I can find stuff like C64, Atari 800, TI-99/4a,
>>etc. in thrift shops for anywhere from $.99 to $2.98.
Not bad. :) I've had a good run at thrift stores myself. Other than A
Commodore 64-SX for $20, I picked up a Tandy TRS-80 Model 4P for $5, a
VIC-20 (with 11 carts) for $5, and my Honeywell Microsystem 6 for $20.
Whoever invented thrift stores was a very clever person.
Adam.
Hi all,
Well this weekend I got the boards out and removed the battery pack. I
ended up using White Vinegar to clean up the mess the batteries had made.
Seems to have worked OK.
Now I've got a problem. How do I go about replacing the four batteries in
the pack? I've no idea what they were rated at. Do I need replace them?
I noticed an On/Off switch next to them, any ideas what it's for?
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Mac Programmer |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
I can get cables, power supplies , and other items for all the units talk
about send me a e-mail at jrkeys(a)concentric.net with your list of needs. We
can trade if you extra items to trade with.
At 06:20 PM 9/22/97 -0800, you wrote:
>>But as far as that sort of stuff goes, I'm with Kai. Of course, I'm on
>>the west coast as well. I can find stuff like C64, Atari 800, TI-99/4a,
>>etc. in thrift shops for anywhere from $.99 to $2.98.
>
>I guess I'm in the wrong part of the West Coast! In the Portland area I've
>only gotten lucky enough to find stuff that cheep once or twice. Plus it
>seems like most stuff is either a C64, a 1541 drive, or a TI-99/4a, and
>they are always bare. You can't find stuff like power supplies, cables, or
>whatever else it takes to make them function without a LOT of looking. The
>average price at GW in this area for any item of this class is about $10!
>I think my best find ever around here was a TI-99/4a with PS, modulator,
>cassette cable, and 3 carts (which included extended BASIC) for $4.
>Needless to say this wasn't at GW it was another local Thrift Store which
>happens to be litterly next door to GW.
>
> Zane
>
>
>| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
>| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
>| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Mac Programmer |
>+----------------------------------+---------------------------+
>| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
>| and the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
>| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
>
>
>
>
I sent this message out a while ago but the person responding never came
through with the postage. Free to the first response. One requirement
though: I must receive the postage within one week or I'll post it again
or drop them off at the Goodwill.
This is the second time this happened. I have the hardest time giving
stuff away!
Hi all.
I've been away vacationing and intended to read the list
but my laptop bit the dust 2 days into the trip (damn
PC crap ;).
At any rate, I'll be reading and catching up again but
if there is anything pressing, please get in touch.
I'll also be getting back to work on the web site stuff
and the FAQs over the next couple weeks as I've been
slacking lately.
To those I was going to meet up with on the trip - sorry
I lost all phone numbers/directions/etc with my hard
drive. If anyone knows where to get a cheap hard drive
for a Compaq Contura 430 please let me know ;).
-------------------------------------------
Bill Whitson bcw(a)u.washington.edu
(mail may come from alternate addresses)
Classic Computers List Operator/Owner
http://haliotis.u.washington.edu/classiccmp
Well if you see a working 128D or anymore 1702 monitors grab one!
----------
> From: Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: RE: On the hunt at Goodwill . . . .
> Date: Monday, September 22, 1997 3:44 PM
>
> Geez, you must not be on the west coast. Around here, VIC-20/C64/C128
> hardware is like weeds. There isn't a thrift store in the entire
> Seattle area without a Commodore piece for <=$5. Can't give 'em away --
> literally.
>
> Kai
>
> > ----------
> > From: Jeff Kaneko[SMTP:Jeff.Kaneko@ifrsys.com]
> > Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> > Sent: Monday, September 22, 1997 12:30 PM
> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> > Subject: On the hunt at Goodwill . . . .
> >
> > Guys:
> >
> > I dredged this up from comp.sys.cbm. Alot of you guys out there have
> > been talking about hunting down 'Heavy Iron'. Here's one who's struck
> > the Mother Lode of 'Lite Plastic'. I sure wish I knew where this
> > place was . . . .
> >
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> > ------------>>>> Forewarded Message Follows<<<<---------------
> >
> On Sept 29, starling(a)umr.edu wrote:
> are? I've got a friend offering me an IBM 3278, and I can't remember
> if that's a dumb terminal or if it's something more exciting.
The 3278 is a dumb terminal used for information display on IBM mainframes.
It requires a 3270-type controller unit attached to an I/O channel in order
to function, along with the requisite software on the host processor. These
are not ASCII devices.
Regards,
Jason Brady jrbrady(a)delphi.com Seattle, WA
At 22.57 21/09/97 -0400, William wrote:
>People are abandoning System/36 boxes like crazy these days. If you
>search, you should be able to find a deskside system for free in little
>time.
>
>> 2) But the main thing that keeps me away from IBM machines (and towards
>> DEC/Philips/etc) is that IBM machines are often almost impossible to hack
>> and repair. The chips are those strange IBM square metal cans with
>> unlisted numbers. Schematics and spares are impossible to obtain. A
>> binary listing of the instruction set is sometimes a pain to find.
>You do have a valid point, IBM does things weird. The chips are far from
>off-the-shelf. The solution is to build up spares from donor machines. For
>my RS/6000s, I saved some extra motherboards (planars, as they call them).
>For System/3x stuff, there seem to plenty of machines in the scrapyards
>that can be picked apart. IBM tended to cram lots of stuff in a small CPU
>box, situated inside the normally spacious cabinet. Pulling an entire CPU
>should pose no problems.
> The best thing for repair is to get donor boards.
I fully agree with William's opinion.
Unfortunately here in Italy IBM had a great fame, comparing to others
(Digital,Honeywell, etc.)
I can say that talking with many general manager about the first
installation of a computer system
in the company where they were working during early 70'S, everyone
confirmed that was IBM the first approach.
This, together with the incompatibility of the hardware of other producers,
leads many company here (once sticked in the net of the IBM-spider) to have
no way out rather than the same "system".
So, in few years, during '70 years, too many IBM S/3X were installed in
many companyes and today IBM is still present there.
This big park of machines needed to have many company to be involved for
programs and maintenance.
I can say that those machines reached a level of diffusion here nearly to
be compared to the success of the VHS
system as a consumer video system.
If all above said seems to help a collector to find plenty of those system,
this is not true.
In fact there is a market of used hardware for those units that are still
requested.
Why?
1)The "family" is so well known by programmers
2)There are many IBM and specially ex-IBM programmers available for those
systems (=low price know-how)
3)Park of twinax peripherals already installed (=why change all?)
4)Strengthness of IBM Hardware (=if it last is very good)
5)Low price of faster used CPU (=easy upgrading/maintenance)
5)Customerized application running ONLY on them.
All this keep high in price and request of used S/3x hardware.
I remember one of those specialized company based in Milan to have a
"STOCK-EXCHANGE-LIKE" price list of S/3x machines as advertisement in
PC-WEEK last year.
This sort of "market fever" keeps working IBM system far from scrapyards.
CIAO
RICCARDO ROMAGNOLI
.
- Original Apple II: introduced April 1977, code name "Annie", $1300
with 4K
- Apple II+: introduced June 1979, $1195 with 16K
- Apple III: introduced May 1980 (ships February 1981), code name
"Sara", $4340 with 128K
- Apple IIe: introduced January 1983, code name "Super II", $1395 with
64K
- Apple III+: introduced December 1983, $3000 with 256K
- Apple IIc: introduced April 24, 1984, numerous code names, $1300 with
128K
- Apple IIe enhanced: introduced March 1985
- Apple IIgs: introduced September, 1986, code name "Phoenix"
- Apple IIe platinum: introduced January 1987
- Apple IIc+: introduced September 1988
Kai
> ----------
> From: Kip Crosby[SMTP:engine@chac.org]
> Reply To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> Sent: Saturday, September 20, 1997 10:25 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
>
> Hi ClassicCmp,
>
> Issue 4.2 of the CHAC?s journal, the ANALYTICAL ENGINE, will
> commemorate
> the 20th anniversary of the Apple ][ and its descendants. As it
> happens,
> I?m in the middle :-) of writing the lead article :-) and I?m
> wondering if
> you could help me with a few data points. In spite of the laudable
> work
> done by Liethen, Mates and Weyhrich -- all of which I've gone through
> with
> some care -- the rest of this stuff is still remarkably hard to find.
>
> What I?m looking for is:
>
> · Date, or at least month and year, of introduction, and location if
> pertinent
> · "Secret" (internal development) name ? I realize there may have been
> several
> · Price of typical config at introduction
> · Total number produced, even if approximate (tough)
> · Date, or at least month and year, of discontinuance (sometimes
> tough)
>
> and for these models:
>
> Original ][
> ][plus
> ][ europlus
> Original //e
> //e Enhanced
> "Expanded" //e (1987, the one with 64Kx4 RAM)
> //c
> //c+
> //e Emulation Card for Mac LC
> IIGS ROM 00, 01, 03, and the prototype-only 04
> IIGS Upgrade Kit for //e, especially what it cost
>
> I'm also in need of everything about the Black Apple II marketed by
> Bell &
> Howell, including not only the above, but its technical
> specifications.
> And, if anybody ever actually SAW a IIx and remembers what it looked
> like,
> please let me know.
>
> If there?s a model I?m missing, and I don?t think there is, please
> clue me;
> but I hope that what I?m asking for, and the way I?m asking for it,
> will
> reassure you that I?ve done some homework already. I have at least
> ONE of
> these data items for every model listed, except the ][ europlus, but I
> don?t have ALL of them for ANY model listed. If I could complete this
> table with solid information, IMHO, it would be a significant
> contribution
> to the literature.
>
> Thanks in advance for your time and attention, and I hope you can and
> will
> contribute. You?ll understand that I want the CHAC?s commemoration of
> this
> quasi-eternal computer to be as good as we can make it.
>
> cheers,
>
> __________________________________________
> Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
> http://www.chac.org/index.html
> Computer History Association of California
>
>
Guys:
I dredged this up from comp.sys.cbm. Alot of you guys out there have
been talking about hunting down 'Heavy Iron'. Here's one who's struck
the Mother Lode of 'Lite Plastic'. I sure wish I knew where this
place was . . . .
Jeff
------------>>>> Forewarded Message Follows<<<<---------------
Hey All,
For those of you in the U.S. looking for backup systems, extra
drives, or just new and different Commodores, I have a small story to
share.
This weekend I had the privilege (sarcasm) of putting together
a low-end IBM-compat system for my dad. After hunting around, I found
that Good Will is now selling their computer systems separately at a
place called Good Will Computerworks. As I priced the PC items with
them, I asked casually if they ever dealt in old Commodore 8-bits.
"Well", the Good Will lady said, "we do get them in all the
time, but we typically put them in a salvage bin, where they end up as
scrap or garbage."
At that moment, I felt like one of those animal rights activists
watching the Science channel.
"If you like, though", she went on, "you can come down and sign
our request book."
Not an hour later I was at Good Will Computerworks, making a deal on
a VGA monitor for $50.00 and asking about signing up to have Commodore
hardware set aside. The lady asked what specifically I was after, and
I mentioned a few items. She then introduced me to another lady who
was in charge of salvage. She, in turn, brought me to the salvage
bin. The Good Will junk pile for computers.
As I sit here folks, my eyes got as big as saucers when I saw this
bin.
Commodore 128's, 1571's, 1541's, Vic-20s, bread box C64s, printers,
ALL
of it-- just lying there like turtles on thier backs.
Yesterday, my friends, I drove home with a VGA monitor for $50.00,
and
another box with a flat Commodore 128, Commodore 1571 DSDD disk drive,
assorted software in the box, a Commodore VIC-20, and power supplies
and power cables all around for $5.00!!!!!! I spent the rest of the
day testing, cleaning, and tinkering. It's all in perfect condition.
The VIC-20 was a particularly special find, as I had been looking for
one.
Today I've been downloading VIC-20 software from ftp.funet.fi and
playing some really great little games on it. The charm of this
computer can not be understated. If you can get your hands on one, I
highly recommend it.
The moral of this story? I'm not sure there is one, except that
there
are
Commodore computers all over this country on their way to their deaths
at the hands of the "Good" Will folks. Only we can stop them, and as
for my part, it's been a pleasure to.
- Bo
Kip Crosby <engine(a)chac.org> wrote (after a correspondent I've lost
track of):
> At 09:58 9/22/97 BST, you wrote:
> >The IBM AS/400 is, I am told, based on the S/38.
>
> I'd be interested in knowing how, and to what extent. When my company was
> installing a bunch of Novell LANs in the late eighties, we used to call an
> AS/400 "a '386 surrounded by a lot of expensive air," but I suspect that
> that was the same kind of disparaging performance benchmark as comparing an
> S/38 to an 8088. I also suspect that what's inside an AS/400 box has
> changed an _awful lot_ over the years while the badge has provided continuity.
Doug Jones wrote a nice little explanation of this in a.f.c in early
1996. It's in dejanews if you want to go looking (long URL follows):
http://xp8.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?recnum=4528820&server=db96q1&CONTEXT=8749…
The summary is that there's a capability-based CISC architecture that
derives from the System/38. That is what the compilers compile to.
The AS/400 loader takes that code and generates RISC code for the
underlying AS/400 CPU. That underlying AS/400 CPU has changed over
the life of the product, and they can change it again. Pretty nifty.
Apparently the underlying RISC architecture doesn't have much in the
way of access protections; all that is implemented in the
loader-generated code.
It's not clear to me whether this means that linked executables can be
moved from one flavor of AS/400 to another, or you have to recompile
>from source, and I don't enough about AS/400s to know whether its
users really care about stuff like that.
-Frank McConnell
At 09:58 9/22/97 BST, you wrote:
>The IBM AS/400 is, I am told, based on the S/38.
I'd be interested in knowing how, and to what extent. When my company was
installing a bunch of Novell LANs in the late eighties, we used to call an
AS/400 "a '386 surrounded by a lot of expensive air," but I suspect that
that was the same kind of disparaging performance benchmark as comparing an
S/38 to an 8088. I also suspect that what's inside an AS/400 box has
changed an _awful lot_ over the years while the badge has provided continuity.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
> 1) Is there a FAQ somewhere that lists all IBM part nubmers and what they
> are? I've got a friend offering me an IBM 3278, and I can't remember
> if that's a dumb terminal or if it's something more exciting.
>
> not that i know of, although i think you can call boulder parts for parts
> lookup. 800.388.7080 i can look up fru part numbers when i'm at work though.
>
> 3278 isnt worth much unless you have an ibm mainframe to connect it to. its
> just a plain old ugly terminal. i think the 3279 was colour and the 3278 was
> monochrome. I do have most of the parts to an ibm xt3270 around here
> somewhere...
"xt3270"? When I was at IBM, we called it the "3270-PC". Very nice machine,
but not as nice as the 3270-PC/G or 3270-PC/GX, the graphics terminal versions.
The latter had a graphics coprocessor box almost as large as a PC, and a 19 inch
monitor (I think 1280x1024 resolution)
3278 is an extremely dumb terminal. It not only needs a mainframe, but AFAIK it
needs a 3274 or 3174 "terminal controller" - a minicomputer dedicated to MUXing
terminals to an IBM channel, which also ran most of the local loop on the
terminal and sent packets to the mainframe (a sort of PAD, I suppose). I can't
remember how much of the "dumb terminal" functionality was in the 3274 but I
used to suspect it was quite a lot...
3278 is indeed monchrome, 3279 the colour version. Superseded (mid '80s) by
3178 and 3179, and some cheaper monochrome ones (3196?)
To reply to some other comments on the recent IBM thread,
Yes, I might take a system/38 if someone offered it to me. I don't have
anywhere to put it but I might find room at the back of my garage. I'd prefer a
System/34 though - mainly because that's the machine I worked on when I was at
IBM.
I agree with Tony, though - difficult to maintain with all the custom chips.
Allison, I don't think when [previous contributor] described it as a "room-sized
8088" he was talking about the processor involved. The processor is a custom
IBM minicomputer on ?several boards, based on the System/32 and System/34 and
things. I think he was making a performance comparison, and probably being a
bit unfair.
The IBM AS/400 is, I am told, based on the S/38.
Philip.
(4) PCjr cartridges --
Lotus 1-2-3 (2 carts)
Managing your money
BASIC
PCjr program disks --
Your PCjr Sampler
Exploring the PCjr
Snoopy's Reading Machine (Random House)
Charlie Brown's ABC's (Random House)
Math Rabbit (The Learning Company)
Make an offer...
ps Also have a bwoken PCjr system available -- probably bad motherboard.
manney(a)nwohio.com
In a message dated 97-09-21 21:51:33 EDT, c. starling put forth:
<< Two questions:
1) Is there a FAQ somewhere that lists all IBM part nubmers and what they
are? I've got a friend offering me an IBM 3278, and I can't remember
if that's a dumb terminal or if it's something more exciting. >>
not that i know of, although i think you can call boulder parts for parts
lookup. 800.388.7080 i can look up fru part numbers when i'm at work though.
3278 isnt worth much unless you have an ibm mainframe to connect it to. its
just a plain old ugly terminal. i think the 3279 was colour and the 3278 was
monochrome. I do have most of the parts to an ibm xt3270 around here
somewhere...
david
>>>My second job as a computer programmer put me in front of an IBM 5120.
>>>It was a desktop model which incorporated a B&W monitor, keyboard, and
>>>two 8" floppy drives in the main cabinet.
>
> Sounds like an early Datamaster to me. I have a Datamaster (5123), but it has
> a green-screen, not a B&W one. Otherwise the description matches.
Interesting. My datamaster is a 5322, and calls itself System/23. It
doesn't match the 5120 description except in the eight-inch drives. In
particular it does not blank the screen (that I recall) during I/O. The
screen is green; the keyboard is built into the system unit but looks
very like an early PC keyboard.
A brief speculation on IBM numbering. 5123 is probably a derivative of
5120 in some sense. 5322, on the other hand, looks like a variety of
System/32 (the 5320). System/32 begat System/34 (5340) begat System/36
(5360 = large, 5362 = desk side, 5364 = dekstop) begat AS/400 (I think).
System/38 also fits in there somewhere (5380) so you would expect a
System/23 to be called 5230.
> As I understand the Datamaster, it really was the predecessor to the PC. It
> was desktop based, although you needed a large desk <g>. It had an ISA-like
Nonsense! I've got mine on a very small desk! However, system unit and
printer between them take up the whole desk.
> bus into which you could plug-in cards. My guess, from talking to someone who
> worked on the project, that it was a business machine (A/P, billing, word
> processing, etc.) that fell out of favor when IBM introduced the PC in 1981.
It was indeed. There were two video options, Data Processing and Word
Processing. The DP video card had one byte per screen character, the WP card
having two. The difference to the user was that on the WP you could set the
attributes (blink, underline, intensify, inverse video) for each character
individually; on the DP model you used up a character space to make the change,
which then took effect until another attribute code appeared further down the
screen.
Mine, being a DP model, came with some sort of accounting application that I've
never used.
CPU was an 8085, using bank switching to access 128k each of RAM and ROM. Very
slow. The large ROM, though, had almost a complete mainframe basic with matrix
operations and all sorts.
Character code was EBCDIC, unlike the PC. What did 5100 use?
> The PC was 1/3 the size, probably 1/4 the weight, much faster, and used 5-1/4"
> diskettes.
And less than 1/4 the price. The previous owner of my datamaster paid
L11000 for it in 1980. The PC when it came out in the UK (1983?) was
L2399 I think.
> There are several Datamaster owners here who can fill in more about the
> actual specs. I don't use mine much because I have a blown ROM chip that
> prevents me from booting...
I was hoping that one of those hand-held machine EPROMS advertised here
a few weeks ago might act as a replacement. (No, I haven't forgotten!)
Philip.
Recently signed back on the list after being absent for a few weeks...
hope I haven't missed anything! :)
Two questions:
1) Is there a FAQ somewhere that lists all IBM part nubmers and what they
are? I've got a friend offering me an IBM 3278, and I can't remember
if that's a dumb terminal or if it's something more exciting.
2) Anyone have any suggestions for a **MASS** shipment of computer stuff?
I'm mainly concerned with keeping the cost down. I'm working on a deal
right now that might involve as many as five desktop-type machines
with monitors, lots of repair parts in original boxes and a "shelf of
software". I'm the one getting the goods, so shipping cost is my problem.
Are there any companies other than UPS I should look at?
Should I try to minimize the number of boxes, even if it means bigger
and heavier boxes?
Is it completely insane to try to get this much stuff shipped?
Perhaps I should just drive down to Florida and pick the stuff up...
thanks...
chris starling
>> At 02:25 9/21/97 +0100, ARD wrote:
>Hmmm... Well, us HP71 owners have the problem that the IDS....
>cost about \pounds 1000
>when it came out in the UK. That makes it _very_ difficult to find
>second-hand, since so few were ever sold.
>>choke<< talk about an HP collectible....
>> Which [the PC CP/M-86 binder] is sort of pink, for those who are hunting.
>
>Is it? I've seen a grey Digital Research binder for CP/M86
>for the PC.
The IBM PC -- not DRI -- binder for CP/M-86 a la Principles of Ops is
covered in calamine-pink vinyl. I've got one, seen another.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
At 02:25 9/21/97 +0100, ARD wrote:
>The
>releasing of the full TechRef for the first PC was something of a suprise
>to hackers used to IBM's behaviour in the past.
It is worth remembering, though, that the above-captioned item was a $125
extra-cost option, which did tend to (as someone once said about something
roughly similar) chase away the squirrels.
What's fun is to find one of those now, in its oh-so-refined lavender
binder. The only strictly comparable prize is an IBM PC CP/M-86 manual.
Which is sort of pink, for those who are hunting.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
At 15:04 9/21/97 -0700, Don Maslin wrote:
>No I don't [know who wants the IMS,] Pete, but I am forwarding this to
classic computers list
>where it will get much wider distribution.
> - don
I just told McCracken that we did. The first computer I ever owned was one
of the IMS all-in-one-piece single-user desktops, which is now in our
collection (still running, video weak,) and it would be excellent to have
one of the multi-terminal minis to go with it. Thank you Don.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
On Sun, 21 Sep 1997, Pete V. McCracken wrote:
> Have access to an IMS (Z-80 based???) multi-user, TurboDos computer
> system with dBase 2.0, CYMA Accounting System, Wordstar 3.0, three
> terminals and keyboards.
>
> Do you know of anyone who might be interested? It is planned for the
> scrapheap in the very near future.
No I don't, Pete, but I am forwarding this to classic computers list
where it will get much wider distribution.
- don
> --
> Pete V. McCracken
> Country Western Style Dance Center
> 341 E. Olive Ave., Porterville, CA 93257-4890
> CWSDanceCenter(a)ocsnet.net 209 784-2341 FAX 209-784-6192
>
donm(a)cts.com
*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Don Maslin - Keeper of the Dina-SIG CP/M System Disk Archives
Chairman, Dina-SIG of the San Diego Computer Society
Clinging tenaciously to the trailing edge of technology.
Sysop - Elephant's Graveyard (CP/M) - 619-454-8412
*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*
see old system support at http://www.psyber.com/~tcj
Remeber that S/36 I was gonna get for $200? I just got it for free.
I'm told it runs RPG. The key for it was lost, so I can't boot the
machine 'till I short the appropriate pins to Service position.
All the docs and disks are gone too.
Any idea what to do with it?
I'm trying to find a twinax terminal for it now.
Picked up a Apple Techstep testing unit with case and all manuals, sofware,
and cables. Unit has modules for MAC Classic,SE,SE/30, II, IIx, IIcx and
SCSI HD's. I would like to find the test modules that work on the machines
made after the IIcx, if Apple made any. I went to their web site and found
nothing about these units. The one I have is from 1992. Also this wek
picked up the following items; Apple graphics tablet interface card with pen
(free), ThunderScan unit for MAC (free), Franklin PC8000 (.80), New unopen
box joysticks for Color computer, and about 6 different manuals from early
micro's to IBM maintenance analysis procedures for the 6360 diskette unit
6580 display station. All told it was a very good week. Keep computing !!
On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Sam Ismail wrote:
> AuctionWeb is ridiculous. While there are some great finds there, I've
> realized that whatever I bid on I will end up finding a week or two later
> locally for a tenth or less of what I bid. The prices for stuff on there
> are horribly inflated.
That's jus like all auctions. People get caught up in the bidding and forget
what things are really worth. I see prices both ways. I've sold things there for
way less than their value also. They always sell for less than the average
asking price on usenet. Recently, bidding is way down. Either due to the good
weather or the influx of other on-line auction companies. Apple IIc-$15, Mac 512
complete-$24.
> Don't bid on the item. That is, not until the last 5-10 minutes of the
> auction. This serves two purposes that ultimately benefit you. 1) If you
> bid early, it gives someone a chance to come in and outbid you early, then
> you will counter-bid, then he will, then you will, etc. You get into a
> bidding war. 2) If you bid just before the auction is over, you avoid 1).
> You'll get in with a low-ball bid and hopefully nobody else will get a
> chance to outbid you in the last remaining minutes, although I've had some
> close calls. I once bid on an item (forgot what) at the last minute and
> some character tried to do the same but his bid was late. In the same
> token, I've had that happen to me where I was just too late. The problem
> is, if you try to bid just before the auction ends (like within 1-2
> minutes of closing) there are about 14 other dweebs like you trying to put
> in last minute bids. The record in the database for that item becomes so
> locked up that nobody can make a bid, and your effort is futile.
That's how the experts do it. I've seen auctions where after the ending time of
the auction, the bidding can continue for 5 minutes (Onsale?). This means
whenever a bid is entered, there's 5 minutes added to the clock. That would
eliminate that scenario. I've had lots of people email me with higher offers
because they didn't get in quick enough. I've missed items because my connection
is slow.
> The seller usually comes out on the short end of the stick.
> Bidders wait until the last possible second and put in a bid that's not
> necessarily fair market value.
You can always put in a reserve price. You are also allowed to bid on your own
item once during the auction. This rule is a little strange but I assume they
allow it because bidding might be way below what they want to sell the item for.
Doesn't make buyers happy though. I've only used it a couple times when someone
locally made a legitimate offer for an item, never to boost the bid.
> In real life, the bidding keeps going until one person concedes or passes
> out. These onlines auctions need to instate some similar format.
The system used by Onsale (I think) eliminates this.
> I just realized this message is horribly off-topic but I just had to
> complain about something today.
My reply is off-topic too, oh well. Since many people here use AuctionWeb it's
not that far off. I like using it because I usually don't have a clue what this
stuff is worth. It's worth what people will pay.
Hi ClassicCmp,
Issue 4.2 of the CHAC?s journal, the ANALYTICAL ENGINE, will commemorate
the 20th anniversary of the Apple ][ and its descendants. As it happens,
I?m in the middle :-) of writing the lead article :-) and I?m wondering if
you could help me with a few data points. In spite of the laudable work
done by Liethen, Mates and Weyhrich -- all of which I've gone through with
some care -- the rest of this stuff is still remarkably hard to find.
What I?m looking for is:
? Date, or at least month and year, of introduction, and location if pertinent
? "Secret" (internal development) name ? I realize there may have been several
? Price of typical config at introduction
? Total number produced, even if approximate (tough)
? Date, or at least month and year, of discontinuance (sometimes tough)
and for these models:
Original ][
][plus
][ europlus
Original //e
//e Enhanced
"Expanded" //e (1987, the one with 64Kx4 RAM)
//c
//c+
//e Emulation Card for Mac LC
IIGS ROM 00, 01, 03, and the prototype-only 04
IIGS Upgrade Kit for //e, especially what it cost
I'm also in need of everything about the Black Apple II marketed by Bell &
Howell, including not only the above, but its technical specifications.
And, if anybody ever actually SAW a IIx and remembers what it looked like,
please let me know.
If there?s a model I?m missing, and I don?t think there is, please clue me;
but I hope that what I?m asking for, and the way I?m asking for it, will
reassure you that I?ve done some homework already. I have at least ONE of
these data items for every model listed, except the ][ europlus, but I
don?t have ALL of them for ANY model listed. If I could complete this
table with solid information, IMHO, it would be a significant contribution
to the literature.
Thanks in advance for your time and attention, and I hope you can and will
contribute. You?ll understand that I want the CHAC?s commemoration of this
quasi-eternal computer to be as good as we can make it.
cheers,
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
Just ran across a Windows emulator for the HP-16 calculator (if you want an
RPN calc instead of AOS, this is neat Besides, it does hex, binary and octal
calculations.) It's freeware.
http://www.teleport.com/~dgh/hpsim.htm#wrpn
This is part of the HP calculator museum, which has all kinds of keen stuff,
including shots of old slide rules. It's at
http://www.teleport.com/~dgh/hpmuseum.html
