Ya wanna get rid of it?
manney(a)nwohio.com
> possibly the TI-2500. i have one from the old college days - vintage
early
> 70's; definitely preceded the SR models. it is tan and has the label
> "Datamath" next to the TI logo. 4-banger, no memory. perhaps most
> recognizable by the orange "=" key in the lower right.
So did the TI SR-10, IIRC
At 08:16 12/02/98 -0600, you wrote:
>> EXATRON Stringy floppy (used tiny carts with 1/8" wide tape)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I remember those. They were about the only mass storage you could
>get for the ZX-81 IIRC. Didn't know they were continuous loop.
SINCLAIR made endless tape "MICRODRIVE" for the ZX Spectrum
>> There are at least two that used modified 8track drives. Forgot their
>> names. I tried 8tr for data, it was ok but the wait even for a 3minutes
>> loop was painful.
>
>They wouldn't seem practical for on-line storage; I was thinking more
>for archival applications. Of course, the $600+ pricetags for the
>FDD's available at the time were painful in of themselves.
TRUE
was a small upgrade comparing to the tape speed.
Riccardo
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? Riccardo Romagnoli,collector of:CLASSIC COMPUTERS,TELETYPE UNITS,PHONE ?
? AND PHONECARDS I-47100 Forli'/Emilia-Romagna/Food Valley/ITALY ?
? Pager:DTMF PHONES=+39/16888(hear msg.and BEEP then 5130274*YOUR TEL.No.* ?
? where*=asterisk key | help visit http://www.tim.it/tldrin_eg/tlde03.html ?
? e-mail=chemif(a)mbox.queen.it ?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
It now looks like I might at least get the manuals and so on for the
thing, I don't know about actually running it. What I am wondering
is if it's actually worth it. If I go ahead, it will be my first
experience with a non-microcomputer. Is using this thing something I
could learn from and be interested in, or is it something you would
roll your eyes and groan over? Could someone who has used the thing
tell me what it's like? Is its OS very system-level or does it have
some degree of ease of use?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
I think the following says all that need be said about this debate.
I received it from Mr. Ismail this evening.
Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 17:12:53 -0800 (PST)
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
To: Wirehead Prime <wirehead(a)www.retrocomputing.com>
Subject: Re: Are We Not Men? (& Women?) [OT^2] (Was Re: PDP-8/Es available [NOT!])
On Sun, 25 Jan 1998, Wirehead Prime wrote:
> My mail server must have been down the day you were put in charge. I,
> for one, would like to hear Mr Whitson's comments on this matter.
Mr. Whitson doesn't have to comment on the matter as he already has, IN
THE MANNER OF A FAQ WHICH CLEARLY EXPLAINS WHAT IS AND IS NOT ACCEPTABLE
DISCUSSION FOR THIS GROUP. Any drug addled moron can determine from the
FAQ that the last five days of you blowing your wad over yourself is not
what is considered on-topic for a discussion group on CLASSIC COMPUTERS.
> Clearly there is a question of interpretation here and, seeing as how I've
> received no warnings or chastisements directly from Bill or from anyone
> else for that matter, I'll assume
> that your opinion is either that of the minority or differs from his to
> such a degree that it isn't worth the bits wasted in its transmission.
No, its really just that Bill is too busy to police the discussion.
Otherwise, I'm sure he'd be objecting. Your "interpretation" of what
belongs in this discussion must be based on the "This-is-my-life" FAQ,
because nowhere in the FAQ does it say that what you've been discussing in
acceptable. It is my interpretation that anyone who would violate the
rules of the FAQ so blatantly as you have is a total ass.
> I suspect that you would do well to discard your copy of _Roberts Rules of
> Order_ and procure a copy of _When Anger Hurts_. A (wo)man's
> maturity is
> defined not so much by his principles and unwavering rigidity in the face
> of that which offends him as it is by the depth of his patience and his
> tolerance for others in spite of his dissatisfaction with their behavior.
My god, what is your problem? Don't quote any passages from some fucken
self-help book to me. Please. I'd suspect that you'd do much better to
read the ClassicCmp FAQ over and over until it registers with you.
> As I've said, I am not only confident but resolute that the
> aforementioned discussion WAS, indeed, within the parameters set forth
> for the group...IE the discussion of computer collecting, which is driven
> by various motivations which are worthy of discussion in and of
> themselves inasmuch as they reveal why one may wish to collect one sort
> of computer over another or collect computers at all and recognizing that
> we all need some reassurance, from time to time, that computer collecting
> is not merely a deviance or eccentricity.
Yeah, that would be all fine and dandy if that is what you were
discussing, but the fact is, you were telling us all about how you never
went to college, you started an ISP, you became relatively successful with
it, you make twice the median income of your state, you married a
beautiful woman, you think drugs are bad, blah blah blah. So what!? What
does THAT have to do with collecting computers? You claim to be making
some point about the motivation for collecting computers, but where was
it? I think your point was more to brag about your accomplishment, which
I really couldn't care less about, considering: a) I don't know you, and
thus don't care and b) this is not a discussion group for talking about
how good we feel about ourselves.
> You reveal yourself in your words and the manner in which you convey
> them. Should chastisement rain down upon me by the TRUE powers that be,
> then I will accept such knowing that I did so as a mature adult and not as a
> sniveling whiner. I will know that however just or unjust such
If you were a "mature adult" you'd realize you are out of order and would
police yourself. Think about it...only a child need be chastised for
breaking rules. Why not act your physical, rather than mental, age.
> judgement may be, many will recognize my sincerity and respect me for
> my forthright and honest nature and my respect for others. But I will NOT
Blah blah blah. There you go blowing yourself again. Thus proving my
point that all you are interested in is promoting yourself. Go put up a
web page about yourself if you think you're such a fantastic guy. I think
the only thing people will realize in this case is that you are obscenely
off-topic.
> accept condescension or judgement from YOU so descend from your horse and
> stand amongst men (and women) as an equal rather than a self-appointed
> proclaimer of what is worthy and what is unworthy of discussion.
How dramatic. Are you for real?
> As for your threat of spamming, it carries little weight here as it will
> result in the implementation of various hacks which function to deny
> incoming mail from specific mail servers or from specific addresses.
How impressive.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> wrote:
>If I then came across a higher version for that
>product and it was cheaper if you already owned a previous version (say it
>takes the older version disk to upgrade to newer, then I'd expect to pay
>the cheaper price, because it is upgrading the program found on my original
>set of install disks, that I rightfully own.
You might hope to pay the lower upgrade price, but Autodesk will surely
tell you that you have someone else's copy, and without a letter of transfer,
they won't sell you an upgrade. Or if the copy had already been upgraded,
they'll transfer you to their anti-piracy department.
>I look at it this way: If someone throws away the disks, they are giving up
>their license to use the product.
Not if they upgraded. It may seem ridiculous of me to pretend for the sake
of argument that these disks came from a dumpster, but that's in fact the
way a lot of us collectors get our stuff. :-)
>I'm sure any cold blooded lawyer worth his salt could tear down my logic
>and send me to the big house for having those disks and running them, but
>how many would take the time, effort and money to try?
That doesn't sit right with me. I don't think I should be able to
reproduce someone else's software just because they can't catch me.
If you have that lawyer's phone number, ask about if there are
any conditions under which copyright can expire apart from the
mandated number of years of protection.
To help keep this on-topic, I have tried to persuade the UCSD licensing
department to allow me to reproduce the Terak version of the P-System.
They did once grant a right to a TI-99 user group to reproduce a
P-System cartridge. I didn't have much luck because they didn't
want to offend the current sole non-exclusive license holder, who
is trying to sell the P-System as an alternative to Java in set-top
boxes. Good luck, guys. :-)
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
> I seem to remember a certain species of cockroach that was quite fond of
> wire insulation...
I really doubt that, sincd cockroaches eat human food. (Termites, maybe?)
My brother usta work in an abandoned building. His screen went funny, and
he looked down -- a rat large enough to require a driver's license was
gnawing on the cable. (This was over 10 years ago, just to _pretend_ to
keep this on topic).
Having just obtained a 1984 Apricot F1 computer (and a lovely looking
machine they are!) I find I can only get to the ROM boot stage. Onscreen, I
have Aprictot F1, a floppy icon, a chip icon, a hand pointing down, an arrow
pointing up, and thats about it. The arrow and hand are flashing.
When I place disks in the drive, it spins for a bit and places an X and a
number on the screen. Numbers I've seen are 4, 8 and 99. So... any proud
Apricot owners out there who can help me out? I'd love to see this one go.
The keyboard, by the way, is infra red - and working just fine. The mouse
(I don't have one - its shown in the manuals) is actually a handheld
trackball - that is, you spin it with your fingers - and its the size of
mmmh.... well I guess a bread roll is a good approximation. Neat.
I'll do an image of it if there is any interest.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers
Andrew
OK, what if people simply called up the maker of the software, told them how
they got it, etc. and gave them info that they have. Chances are, that
they'll either tell you to do whatever, or they'll be too busy with other
things to care, and just tell you to keep it, etc.
Or, they could tell you just to put it back where you found it, but
you've given it your best.
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 12, 1998 6:56 PM
Subject: Re: disk equals license
>John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net> wrote:
>>If I then came across a higher version for that
>>product and it was cheaper if you already owned a previous version (say it
>>takes the older version disk to upgrade to newer, then I'd expect to pay
>>the cheaper price, because it is upgrading the program found on my
original
>>set of install disks, that I rightfully own.
>
>You might hope to pay the lower upgrade price, but Autodesk will surely
>tell you that you have someone else's copy, and without a letter of
transfer,
>they won't sell you an upgrade. Or if the copy had already been upgraded,
>they'll transfer you to their anti-piracy department.
>
>>I look at it this way: If someone throws away the disks, they are giving
up
>>their license to use the product.
>
>Not if they upgraded. It may seem ridiculous of me to pretend for the sake
>of argument that these disks came from a dumpster, but that's in fact the
>way a lot of us collectors get our stuff. :-)
>
>>I'm sure any cold blooded lawyer worth his salt could tear down my logic
>>and send me to the big house for having those disks and running them, but
>>how many would take the time, effort and money to try?
>
>That doesn't sit right with me. I don't think I should be able to
>reproduce someone else's software just because they can't catch me.
>If you have that lawyer's phone number, ask about if there are
>any conditions under which copyright can expire apart from the
>mandated number of years of protection.
>
>To help keep this on-topic, I have tried to persuade the UCSD licensing
>department to allow me to reproduce the Terak version of the P-System.
>They did once grant a right to a TI-99 user group to reproduce a
>P-System cartridge. I didn't have much luck because they didn't
>want to offend the current sole non-exclusive license holder, who
>is trying to sell the P-System as an alternative to Java in set-top
>boxes. Good luck, guys. :-)
>
>- John
>Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
>I found a California Access "Bodega Bay". It's an Amiga 500
>expansion chassis!
>Does anyone have any solid technical information on this? Unfortunately
>in all the books and manuals I brought home not one was for this thing.
Sure, I've got all the Amiga developer conference notes and developer
packets from Commodore in the basement, including the rare Janus
(Bridgeboard) programming guide, if you find a Bridgeboard.
Circa 1987, I was technical editor of an Amiga magazine and was once
known as "the father of Amiga journalism." :-) I stopped paying
close attention around 1991, though. There's plenty of info on the
web - just start entering keywords into www.hotbot.com and www.dejanews.com
and you'll find more than you want to know.
>I remember last
>year picking up a California Access 3.5" floppy drive with a DB-25
>connector, and now I know what it went to!
They sold external Amiga floppies that could be used on any model
of Amiga - but its floppy port has 23 pins, not 25.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
<8-Track was such a corporate 'Soap Opera'. I'm a little bit
<surprised that endless loop recording wasn't used much for computer
<data back then.
You missed something then.
EXATRON Stringy floppy (used tiny carts with 1/8" wide tape)
There are at least two that used modified 8track drives. Forgot their
names. I tried 8tr for data, it was ok but the wait even for a 3minutes
loop was painful.
Allison
Re: Early PC kit mfgr?
If I'm not mistaken this sounds like the MITS (Altair 8800) story. An
excellent source of information relating to early pc history can be
found in the book 'Hackers' by Steven Levy, published in 1984. It was
available in paperback (mine is falling apart).
Marty Mintzell
Re: Possible source for parts
Now that the Psychic Hotline so fervently pitched by Dionne Warwick
has filed for bankruptcy (go figure > these were the REAL PSYCHICS,
not those other phony ones) I suppose we should expect to see
infomercials for 'The Gold Recovery Expert' on late night cable. I
can't wait.
Anyway, I don't think this guy is a crook, just another gold digger. I
agree with Zane, don't expect to get any spare parts from this guy
unless you want to pay by the Troy ounce. For a reputable scrap dealer
look under scrap/salvage in your local yellow pages.
Marty Mintzell
<Yes, the head widths are different, but I have always been under the
<impression that using the /f or /f:360 switch with format changes the wri
<current on the drive to adjust for the different coercitivity (sp?) of th
Assuming the drive/controller are correctly configured. My FD55Gs have
three different jumpers for write current, speed and a dual function one.
Of course the media must match the write current/speeds.
The narrower head is a big factor as it is optimized for a narrower
track and the gap dimensions are tuned a bit for that. When I first
encounterd it I could not understand it and then I O'scoped a pair of
drives and the read on a 360k(48tpi) drive data from a track written on
a 96tpi and the data waveforms were terrible. Too much noise from the
periphery of the adjacent track and effectively less than half the
magnetic strength imparted on the read head. Having played seriously
with magnetics the media and head do have to be matched.
This however does not solve the posters question. My cut on that is if
the media was created on a know good 360k drive and it doesn't read right
on a unknown drive, one of them is broken. ;)
Allison
I have encountered a puzzling problem and hope for some insight;
I've been trying to verify my box of DSDD floppy drives (On-topically
>10 years old) so I set up a 386DX-33 (Consider it a perpiperal to
my older systems) After configuring B: to 360KB, I can format/verify
a diskette. When I run Norton DD, (Ver. 6.01, IIRC) it says the disk,
and I assume the drive, is/are fine.
When I run Scandisk (MSDOS 6.22) it says the Media Descriptor Byte
is wrong and warns of dire consequences. It also says the FAT copy is
wrong! I check the Media Descriptor byte, before and after Scandisk
fixes it, and it's always $FD. Does Scandisk have a bug WRT 360KB
disks? I'm tempted to ignore it, but...
_______________
Barry Peterson bmpete(a)swbell.net
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
><From CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Wed Feb 11 17:59:22 1998
>
><People try, but the age of hacking is gone. Right now, there is just
><nothing exciting in the computing industry. Wait till holographic
><memory, and so on. As for people who think that they are "hackers" and
>
>You got to be kidding. Just look around the edges at things like
>autonomus robots and navagation to suggest a few. Theres plenty to be
>done.
Yes, and one of the most evedeint (to me) is Artificial Intelligence. If
they're programmers that can do it, they'll probably be hackers. And, you
can tie that in with robotics, etc. to make a true human-computer
interface, something which could completely revolutionize what we're doing,
or, better yet, trying to do.
At 09:23 PM 2/11/98 -0600, you wrote:
>It really depends upon the company, I imagine, but I support the notion
>that if your dumpster set is the last version purchased for that license,
>(i.e., the former owner hasn't upgraded and is no longer using the program)
>then sure, you can upgrade it. If, however, that's not the last version,
>then it is not a valid version.
But if you don't know if it is the latest version on that license, is it
really hurting the company? If I'm dumpster diving for this stuff, it
stands to reason that I wouldn't normally buy that same product in the store.
>eliminate any of those, you can reduce the price. Downloading software
>with on-line manuals eliminates the media and packaging cost, so that is
>often cheaper.
That's one thing that gets me: Software coming out today with no manuals
still cost the same ammount when first released as earlier manual included
packages.
>The SPA has done that -- to set examples. But realistically, I wouldn't
>worry about it.
I never do. :)
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
At 12:24 PM 2/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Sounds legit to me. If I found a disk set of Autodesk 3d Studio in the
>dumpster, just the disks, no manuals, I'd sure as heck use it, but wouldn't
>expect any company support. If I then came across a higher version for that
>product and it was cheaper if you already owned a previous version (say it
>takes the older version disk to upgrade to newer, then I'd expect to pay
>the cheaper price, because it is upgrading the program found on my original
It really depends upon the company, I imagine, but I support the notion
that if your dumpster set is the last version purchased for that license,
(i.e., the former owner hasn't upgraded and is no longer using the program)
then sure, you can upgrade it. If, however, that's not the last version,
then it is not a valid version.
As I see it, there is a reason for offering an upgrade discount. The cost
of a piece of software is made up of several things: development costs,
media/packaging costs, support costs, and (of course) profit. If you can
eliminate any of those, you can reduce the price. Downloading software
with on-line manuals eliminates the media and packaging cost, so that is
often cheaper.
If you sell a piece of software to someone who already knows how to use it,
you can budget a lower support cost, hence the upgrade price. Fishing a
set of disks out of the dumpster does not necessarily reduce your expected
support needs; in some cases it may (hey, if you're dumpster diving for
software, you're probably not a newbie) and in some cases, it might
increase your need for support ("I installed this software, but it won't
run" [three hours later] "oh, you're missing the frobnitzer disk. I'll
send it to you."). (Note that making your software compatible with XYZ,
the most popular program can reduce support needs as well, hence the
competitive upgrade idea.)
>I'm sure any cold blooded lawyer worth his salt could tear down my logic
>and send me to the big house for having those disks and running them, but
>how many would take the time, effort and money to try?
The SPA has done that -- to set examples. But realistically, I wouldn't
worry about it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
<At 16:37 2/4/98 -0500, Allison wrote:
<><>My first one was the SR-10...the
<><>"wedge". $110, IIRC....Was that TI's first?
<>
<>Not by a long shot. The first was in late '71 and went for about $140
<>(8digit 4banger). I had one going into EE school.
<
<But that WAS the SR-10.
No it was not. the sr-10 was two years later and wedge shaped. This
was barely pocket sized and not wedge shaped. the sr10 has a few things
this one didn't like constant. I also have an SR11.
Allison
Someone related a story to me about a company (now defunct, and he
couldn't
remember the name) in the Southwest, that manufactured calculators...
Supposedly,
in an effort to obtain a loan (and thus, stave off bankruptcy), they
told a lending
institution that they wanted to "manufacture computers for the home
hobbyist
market, in kit form"... Supposedly, word got out, and they received
copious
orders (which I presume (never got the details)) they couldn't fill...
Anybody
know the "story behind the story", or was this guy "snowing" me?
Will
<From CLASSICCMP-owner(a)u.washington.edu Wed Feb 11 17:59:22 1998
<People try, but the age of hacking is gone. Right now, there is just
<nothing exciting in the computing industry. Wait till holographic
<memory, and so on. As for people who think that they are "hackers" and
You got to be kidding. Just look around the edges at things like
autonomus robots and navagation to suggest a few. Theres plenty to be
done.
Allison
>Organization: The University of Huddersfield HEC
>Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 17:08:31 +0100
>Subject: Past Computer Manufacturers
>From: "P.ATKINSON" <sdespa(a)pegasus.hud.ac.uk>
>
>I am currently working on a paper looking at the development of the
>designed form of the office computer, and to that end am trying to
>find out if certain computer manufacturers still exist or if not, what
>happened to them. If anyone has any idea I would be grateful, as I
>have to try to contact them in order to obtain copyright clearance.
>
>The companies concerned are:
>
>Muldivo
>Sanders
>Lear Siegler (Data Dynamics)
>Kienzle
>Mael
>Torch
>
>Hope someone can help
[and if anybody can, we can.... ;-) -- kc]
>Paul Atkinson
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
>I always thought it was a desire to _attain_ knowledge and apply it.
> ^^^^^^
>
Technology = applied knowledge, therefore a desire to attain knowledge
and use technology.
Now, unfortunately, people know that there is no reason to make a good
product because
a) Noone makes good products
b) They won't be proud of it anyway because the product won't be
noticed in the face of estabilished stuff.
People try, but the age of hacking is gone. Right now, there is just
nothing exciting in the computing industry. Wait till holographic
memory, and so on. As for people who think that they are "hackers" and
all they can do is use a Wardialer, I think they just need to feel proud
of something they do. These are mainly people who have no other way of
supporting themselves morally/emotionally. As the Unabomber would say,
"They have a disruption in their power process". What really doesn't
help is the "Hackers Manifesto", which pretends to imply that the
hackers are "fighting for a cause" of "freedom of information". If you
ask me, these "modern", "new age" ideas of freedom and community will
invariably lead to either something like the USSR or the USA. The USSR
is unquestionably a disaster in so many ways, and the USA is, in my
opinion, getting there.
Ok, kiddies, back on topic now... :)
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
This is not the origin of the term "bug". My source sez that it was in use
at least as far back as Edison's time.
> Can anyone confirm this is the origin of the term "bug"?
When you do a dir C: can you read what was originally on the hdd prior
to the upgrade attempt? If so, try booting with a DOS 5.0 boot
diskette which contains sys.com in A:, then copy command.com to C:
and do a SYS C: from A: as well. This might get this system bootable
again. On the other hand, if you can access your original data, now
would be a good time to back it up. Good Luck.
Marty Mintzell
We just gave a teacher a Magnavox Headstart 486SX PC. It has a large
yellow sticker on the back that reads "DO NOT FORMAT THE HARDDISK". So
what do you think he did? :-) Tried upgrading DOS. (5.0 > 6.2)
Dos says, "Wanna format the harddisk?" User says "OK, Whatever..."
Now we have a dead PC. It will boot off the floppy, it will do dir C:, but
it refuses to boot from the harddisk. I'm thinking they hid something
proprietary in the bootsector. Anyone else know anything? We have no docs
for it, but there's another PC like it in the building somewhere, I have to
go find it... Would it fix my problem if I were to get the partition
table off the other (good) machine and write it to this one, would that fix it?
We already laplinked it to another Magnavox Headstart and tried transferring
everything back, that finished OK but still won't boot. I'm getting ready to
hand the guy a bootdisk and say "Here, you have to boot from that..."
-------
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
> The Grappler was without RAM buffer. The Grappler+ had the 64K RAM. I
> should know...Power Demon I (my souped-up //e with 3.3Mhz accelerator, 1MB
> RAM, 20MB HD...) had one.
The Grappler/Grappler+ thing came to mind, but I came across a
Grappler+ a couple of months ago, had the presence of mind to note it
as such in my inventory, and don't remember there being any obvious
RAM on it. That probably says more about my memory than about any on
the card though, and I can't remember whether the Grappler I had in my
old ][+ was a + or not, just that it didn't have RAM. Whatever it is,
it's a parallel printer interface.
> > > > CableTV kludge to a "SUP 'R' MOD CH.33 TV Interface Unit ??
> But there was a necessity for Apple to ship one with every Apple ][ as
> Kip's message alluded to. Right around the time was when the FCC started
> laying down the law with regards to computer emissions. I'll have to
> look-up the specific why's but I know that's the basic gist of it.
Huh? The necessity was that there be some way to hook a ][ up to a TV
set, because not having to buy a monitor kept the overall cost of the
][ down for the many people who were willing to do that. But
designing an RF modulator in meant more work, time, money (and hence a
later, more expensive product) to get the sort of FCC certification
required for devices that are expected to produce RF.
Read what Kip wrote again:
K>The Sup'r Mod was the RF demodulator that one of the Steves talked Marty
K>Spergel into making as a third-party product, because then the Apple II
K>could be marketed under a much less stringent FCC restriction. As you might
K>imagine, Marty got passably rich.
What Apple did was to get someone else to make and sell the RF
modulator. They didn't make it, they didn't sell it, and the ][
worked fine without it (using a monitor with composite video input) so
when they went for FCC type acceptance they didn't have to include it.
Of course, something needed to happen to make sure that all those
prospective ][ buyers knew what they needed to get to hook the ][ up
to the TV, and that it was readily available to them. Kip? Care to
shed any light on how this was accomplished?
Anyway, I installed a brand-new Sup'R'Mod in my then brand-new ][+
before I turned it on for the first time, and I expect I wasn't the
only one who did, so you can't take the presence of a Sup'R'Mod as an
indication that what's in front of you is a ][ as opposed to a ][+.
-Frank McConnell
I am in search of BYTE Magazine from Issue #1 until December 1977.
Does anyone know where I might find these for sale and what a
reasonable price would be to pay?
Thanks-
Marty Mintzell
email: marty(a)itgonline.com
I just got a CMS SCSI card for my Apple // computer, but it came without a
manual. Does anyone have info on the jumper settings?
TIA!
-------------------------------------------------
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
- ClubWin Charter Member (6)
- MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> wrote:
>>OK, let's say I pull an old PC and some boxes out of a dumpster, and
>>there's a set of original AutoCAD Release 9 disks. By your rule, how
>>can I tell if I own a legit copy or not?
>
> Real simple. It they're original disks then it's a legit copy! Doesn't
>matter if it came from a dumpster or not.
No, it's not necessarily a legit copy. Autodesk sold one license
of the software, not one for each upgrade. You can't give away your
old disks if you upgrade. Licenses do not multiply when you upgrade.
>But unless you specificly agreed to that BEFORE you bought the software
>they can't hold you to it. The shrink-wrapped "agreements" are completely
>worthless. The US federal courts have made that ruling several times.
Leaving aside your quick dismissal of swaths of software precedent,
how exactly do you define "separate, licensed copies of software"?
Your "disk equals license" rule seems far too wishy-washy to me.
What's special about a disk? Are you saying that every copy a
company sends you is a separate "copy" that can be given away?
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
> Or maybe a moth.
> One of my favourite pictures - but is this a myth as WELL as a moth?
> http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~csclub/museum/items/first_bug.html
> Can anyone confirm this is the origin of the term "bug"?
> Its a nice site for Classic computer collectors, anyway.
A few years ago someone wrote a letter to the editor of Scientific
American about this moth. The letter quoted a letter from Thomas Edison
which uses "bug" in this way and explains the term.
The moth can at most claim to be the first time a bug was caused by a
_real_ bug.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Sorry David, it's taken. It took about 5 minutes....
Cheers,
Aaron
At 10:56 AM 2/11/98 EST, you wrote:
>yes! i need one! glad to pay shipping to nc. is it available?
>
>david
>
>
>In a message dated 98-02-10 15:25:34 EST, you write:
>
><< Does anyone need a Mac mono monitor? Model number MO400, circa 1987. Best
> offer takes it, no matter how pathetic. Recipient either pays shipping or
> picks it up in the LA area (it's not heavy at all, I can't imagine that ups
> ground would be more than a few bucks on this thing). >>
>
>
I added another 50+ volumes to the Vintage Computer Library today. A very
ecclectic bunch of books, manuals, leaflets (no I didn't count the
leaflets). I love collecting the books because in the dry times where I
don't find much hardware they still can give that "what a find!" thrill,
especially when you find a book from the 60's (or sometimes even the
50's!) on data processing or computer science with lots of nice pictures
of old data processing gear.
However, today's quick trip to the thrift store produced a very cool piece
of hardware. I found a California Access "Bodega Bay". It's an Amiga 500
expansion chassis! First of all, Bodega Bay is a cute play on words,
since that is also the name of a northern California coastal town, perhaps
where this particular piece of hardware was manufactured. I remember last
year picking up a California Access 3.5" floppy drive with a DB-25
connector, and now I know what it went to!
The chassis is a desktop PC sized case. Inside there is a passive
backplane with several slots. There are two cards occupying two of the
slots. One is a memory board and the other is a hard disk controller. The
chassis also houses an ST-225 hard drive. The 3.5" floppy was removed
>from the A500 and re-installed inside the chassis. What is very
interesting about the backplane is that it also seems to have 4 PC-style
16-bit slots. I only had an 8-bit card handy to try out but it fit
perfectly in the "8-bit" portion of the slot. I am almost sure this unit
could allow one to use IBM compatible hardware. Am I wrong about this?
The passive backplane extends into a protrusion coming out the front of
the chassis and plugs into the side expansion slot of the A500, which
connects neatly to the chassis to form one unified computer system.
Does anyone have any solid technical information on this? Unfortunately
in all the books and manuals I brought home not one was for this thing.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
I'm sure someone in the Toronto area would like to help Ennio out. Please
respond directly to ennio.cellucci(a)Canada.Sun.COM in you're interested.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)wco.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0!
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 10:14:33 -0500
From: ENNIO CELLUCCI <ennio.cellucci(a)Canada.Sun.COM>
To: vcf(a)siconic.com
Subject: TRS 80 model II
Hi,
I was hoping you could help me. I have an old TRS 80 model II I just
don't have room for anymore. It comes with three BIG hard drives
(physical size rather than storage capacity). Would you happen to know
anyone in the Toronto area willing to give it a home?
Thanks...Ennio
yes! i need one! glad to pay shipping to nc. is it available?
david
In a message dated 98-02-10 15:25:34 EST, you write:
<< Does anyone need a Mac mono monitor? Model number MO400, circa 1987. Best
offer takes it, no matter how pathetic. Recipient either pays shipping or
picks it up in the LA area (it's not heavy at all, I can't imagine that ups
ground would be more than a few bucks on this thing). >>
Or maybe a moth.
One of my favourite pictures - but is this a myth as WELL as a moth?
http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~csclub/museum/items/first_bug.html
Can anyone confirm this is the origin of the term "bug"?
Its a nice site for Classic computer collectors, anyway.
Cheers
Andrew
At 09:35 AM 2/11/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Yes, indeed the term "bug" is older than th earliest electrical computer.
>As eveidence, one could check out some of the 1930s issues of QST (a
>hamradio magazine), and the term shows up. If I could dig them out, I
>could give you exact dates.
I seem to remember a certain species of cockroach that was quite fond of
wire insulation...
- John Higginbotham
- limbo.netpath.net
Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> wrote:
>If you have the original disk then that is normally considered proof
>that you have a legal copy of the software.
...
> You're trying to read too much into this. I never said the having one
>copy of disks allowed you to have all the upgrades or newer versions. If
>you have a set of original disks for XYZ v 1.0, then that is generally
>considered proof of ownership of XYZ v 1.0 PERIOD.
OK, let's say I pull an old PC and some boxes out of a dumpster, and
there's a set of original AutoCAD Release 9 disks. By your rule, how
can I tell if I own a legit copy or not?
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
Is there a command to make TOPS-20 kill something from the mail queue BEFORE
it gets sent? That's really aggrivating(sp?) when you see so(a)and.so#Internet -- Queued and you realize that's NOT the intended reciever, and it sits in the
queue for awhile before getting sent, and theoretically you COULD stop it but
I can't figure out how...
Go ahead and (all but Sam) disregard that!
-------
>
>That depends on the terms of the license. A few years ago when I took
>up an offer from Borland to upgrade Turbo C from version 1.5 to 2.0 I
>asked them if I could sell on the old disks and manuals legally and they
>said that they fully supported that course of action because it
>increased their user base.
>
Now that would be just too logical, cut out this heresy. Next thing you know
MS and Netscape will get along and PC's and Mac's will be compatible.
-- Kirk
<I saw what was supposed to be the first Bug at the Smithsonian last week
<It was indeed a Moth and it was taped to a computer log sheet.
<
<George
The machine was one of the early relay based machines where a "bug" in the
contacts would indeed mess up execution.
The programmer was Grace Hopper (later to become Admiral).
Allison
Personal point of view:
<I always thought it was a desire and knowledge (and making use of same)
I always thought it was a desire to _attain_ knowledge and apply it.
^^^^^^
Allison
I picked up a nice example of an old GRiD Compass 1100, the first, most
rugged, and most beautifully rendered clamshell design laptop (1982). For
the most part, it works great. But it won't boot. It wants to boot from
it's internal bubble memory, a set of three Intel Magnetics 7110s. I
queried MemTech, the company that acquired Intel Magnetics, and they'd
like $400 a bubble to replace them, or, for $150, they'll try to "reseed"
mine and fix the "bootloop".
I'm not bubble savvy, and I would like to see this Compass live again.
Any suggestions on how I can boot my bubbles? Are there any other 1100
owners out there that have a spare boot bubble bobbing about (sorry, it's
late).
Thanks,
Doug
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Lawrence Walker wrote:
> > Grapple+ Printer Interface......... Serial, Parallel ??
>
> A very nice parallel printer interface with a 64K buffer.
Um, maybe. I'm pretty sure I remember the Grappler+ printer
interfaces (like the ones I have) being parallel printer interfaces
with no RAM buffer.
> > CableTV kludge to a "SUP 'R' MOD CH.33 TV Interface Unit ??
>
> This enabled Apple to comply the FCC requirements for a Class ? computing
> device. This means you did in fact get an Apple ][ and not a ][+. Very
> nice find, especially for a thrift store.
No, it doesn't mean that. The Sup'R'Mod was sold separately, there
was nothing to stop you putting one in a ][+, and there was no less
reason to do so because the ][+ didn't have any more of an RF
modulator in it than the ][.
-Frank McConnell
>>OK, let's say I pull an old PC and some boxes out of a dumpster, and
>>there's a set of original AutoCAD Release 9 disks. By your rule, how
>>can I tell if I own a legit copy or not?
>
> Real simple. It they're original disks then it's a legit copy! Doesn't
>matter if it came from a dumpster or not.
>
Though some software manufactures would like you to officially transfer the
license to a new party. It's usually buried in the fine print of the
software agreement.
-- Kirk
< Actually, if they are an earlier version and the software has been
<upgraded they should stay with the upgrade disk(s) and computer. If the
<owner throws them out, he no longer has a legit software package.
For example with VMS there are two types of kits, install and patch.
An install is complete and installs the current version of which you must
have a valid license key for. A patch kit is only those pieces upgraded
and is tied to a specific version or set or sequential versions. So if
some one tosses their V5.4 kit and installed 5.6 or 6.1 those are seperate
kits. If they went from 5.4-4c to 5.4-5h then it was patched. The first
case where the revlevel changes there is a seperate key(a license). So if
you cound a kit for 4.7 in the can it is a distinct copy however without
the key it would run only in minimal standalone mode(limited usefulness)
and only adaquately so for the purposes of installation and key
validation. Keys are either yours (legal) or obtained by other means.
Allison
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
Subject: More books added to the library
>One finds the best stuff at thrift stores. Check out what I found today:
>The Anatomy of the 1541 Disk Drive
>By Abacus Software, 1984
>ISBN: 0-916439-01-1
>It contains a full description of the file system, the file structure, the
>file commands, and also has a full 6502 assembler listing for the drive's
>ROM! Very cool. This book apparently also came with a "Test/Demo" disk
>but the programs are printed in the book so they can be duplicated. What
>a treasure.
If I recall correctly the book also describes tha basics of coding
your own fast drive access routines (fast loader, etc.) which is mighty
handy.
001010100101110100100011010110100011100101001000010100010111001001010000
Somewhat Classic Computer related was my acquisition of a Color
QuickCam for my Mac, I know it isn't even near 10 years old but it is
worthy to mention for its almost instant imaging capabilities... The
thing has a range of 1" to infinity (you can zoom in on the numbers
printed on tops of chips and have them readable!) So now I have to
clear the piles of papers away from a corner so I can use the cam to do
shots of some of my equipment (like a better picture of the P-500, etc.)
To give you an idea of the detail I am extolling, check out this pic I
put on-line for you to see for yourself:
http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/CLOSEUP.JPG
The pictue is of a 12/24 edge connector (.156" spacing), a Commodore
monitor connector and the top of a 6510 microprocessor DIP chip. (best I
could do in a couple minutes of scrounging.
Note this is 'medium size' and the resolution can go up to 640x400.
The real bummer to it is I don't think I can get it to work on my
Commodores,also it's leash (interface cable) is 6'long... :/
Larry Anderson
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our Commodore 64 BBS (Silicon Realms 300-2400 baud) at: (209)
754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
I just picked up an 8088-based NEC, which reports a bad HDD, but has a 720K
Floppy.
manney(a)nwohio.com
> Does anyone have any portable computers that are 15lb or less that
> they could give or sell to me? This includes Z88, Intel stuff, etc.
> Not the Mac Portable, since I have that. Preferrably, I would like
> something that could run without being plugged in (having replaced
> the battery :). Anyone have an IBM Convertible?
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>First, my apologies. I didn't mean for my original message to be sent
>public.
Sam, this is a big step for you.... ;-)
>On Fri, 6 Feb 1998, Daniel A. Seagraves wrote:
>
>> The name hacker has been dragged through the mud for far too long.
>> There's almost no real record of the 1st and 2nd generation hacks. (1st
>> were the hacks at MIT. 2nd were those at Berkeley and elsewhere, who
>> adjusted the Hacker Ethic to allow for making money. 3rd are the
>> present-day warez loosers. [They're here for refrence. Technically,
>
>Not true. Read _Hackers_ by Steven Levy. It embodies the tale of the
>first two generations you mentioned and then also goes into the game
>hackers of the early 80s on microcomputers. An excellent book. I've read
>it twice (first in 1988) and may bring it on my next trip to read again.
Can you please get the ISBN for that?
>As far as the warez-loozers, well, they are just that, warez-loozers, and
>will be a footnote in some future book.
But nothing more. I dispise them. I've got a friend, who's brother claims
to know "hackers" who own looser warez sites. I asked them to get into my
system. They tried for 2 hours, and they eventually were convinced that I
WAS running Windows 2.0. ;-) Now, he knows how to "semi-hack" but hadn't
HEARD of C/C++, and thought that Unix was dead. He didn't even know about
the "clear" Linux command!!! Hacking into a NT system is... not un-hard.
>> they don't count]) All that survives to the actual public is the image
>> of some cybernerd on drugs with wild hair maliciously attacking big
>> companies just to be a punk. My brother hates computers, and he's
>> closer to THAT description than I am.
>
>Heheh. So true, unfortunately. The other extreme is the
>fat-pud-who-eats-while-he's-hacking stereotype and then the
>thick-glasses-total-dweeb-high-pitched-voice-hacker stereotype.
And then there's the nerdy NASA mission-control type revenge guy.
>> Of course, I'm still not as good as the 1st-gen guys. I can't solder
>> any good, I have nearly no idea how to wire-wrap or use a slide rule,
>> and I can't do number conversion in my head yet. I'm not very good at
>> math. (I can do it with a calculator, but I tend to drop numbers left
>> and right with big variables) I still have some to go... -------
>
>That's all myth, Daniel (except for the number-conversion-in-the-head,
>starting working at it :). The fact is, you don't NEED to know how to
>wire-wrap or use a slide-rule. They would be impressive skills and might
>get you a date some day, but if we still NEEDED to use those tools to this
>day then we wouldn't have progressed much in the realm of technology and
>that would be very sucky.
What are the requirements for being a hacker? ;-)
Tim D. Hotze
Does anyone need a Mac mono monitor? Model number MO400, circa 1987. Best
offer takes it, no matter how pathetic. Recipient either pays shipping or
picks it up in the LA area (it's not heavy at all, I can't imagine that ups
ground would be more than a few bucks on this thing).
Aaron
An exciting thrift day for me; I found a book I've been looking for for a
while now - the "Applesoft BASIC Programmer's Reference Manual" for the
Apple II. It's a hardcover in perfect condition, even the tear-out
reference card is intact! I got that and one from Digital press, "Technical
Aspects of Data Communication, 2nd edition" (1982), both for about 2 bucks.
I happened along a Motorola/Codex 2131 csu/dsu. Anybody know anything about
this little beauty? I couldn't find much on the 'net about it, but it's
obviously a 9600b csu/dsu with a nifty design.
Cheers,
Aaron
Recent postings about old calculating machines and their operation has
prompted me to fire up a web page with some information on my Contex-30
electromechanical calculator. For now I have some images up and have
transcribed the operating instructions on the back.
I am sure many of you will be stunned by how division is performed on this
device; in any case, I welcome comments on the page, the calculator, and
the idea of creating a museum for my other calculating devices.
Myself, I collect precisely this sort of wierd technology. Boy, they sure
don't make them like THAT anymore. Thank goodness :)
Please visit
Wierd Computing Machines
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/wierd/
Cheers
Andrew Davie
adavie(a)mad.scientist.com
PS: You may also like to visit my other two sites..
Museum of Soviet Calculators
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/calculator/soviet.html
Slide Rule Trading Post
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
thinkpad 700 and 720x are mca thinkpads. had a 3 year warranty and dont share
any parts with any other thinkpad. of course, windont95 wont work on them,
although linux probably would since it's been coaxed to work on other mca
boxes.
david
One finds the best stuff at thrift stores. Check out what I found today:
The Anatomy of the 1541 Disk Drive
By Abacus Software, 1984
ISBN: 0-916439-01-1
It contains a full description of the file system, the file structure, the
file commands, and also has a full 6502 assembler listing for the drive's
ROM! Very cool. This book apparently also came with a "Test/Demo" disk
but the programs are printed in the book so they can be duplicated. What
a treasure.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
Anyone know where I can acquire an Intel i86 and/or i286 development set
with software (asm, link, etc) and docs? Used is fine, of course, but
the software must be intact.
Thanks,
Mike
(I'm in Utah, BTW if anyone has one close...)
Thanks...
I haven't got time to reply in detail, but be warned.
1. The IBM cards that went in the 3270PC range were _not_ the same as
those they sold as upgrades - the latter drove ordinary displays, etc.
2. There were many popular 3rd party 3270 (3278/3279) emulator cards
available, the best known being IRMA.
Philip
BTW I was wrong about the 5272 - it is 720 x 350 x 8 resolution.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Tony.
I just happened to have my cards out for cleaning.
Yours seems a bit different. I wonder if it's earlier or an expansion
card for the pc/xt to give it 3270 comm capability.
My connection card has:
The BNC
2x8435
a BUNCH of gates or st, these 74L???
no memory that I can see (the computer has 640k)
a clock/crystal marked 14.1523 mhz (1589449)
Some IBM chips
2x 5617135
????
I dunno...
Mike
Tony Duell wrote:
> I have what I believe to be an interface card from a 3270 PC here. It's a
> full-length 8 bit card with PC/3278 on it. The main chips are :
> N8X305N (microcontroller)
> 3 off ROMs (15527-15529, Copyright 1983)
> 4 off 6116 RAM
> DP8340 and DP8341 (Some kind of interface chip...)
> Assorted TTL glue
> Passives, including a reed relay
>
> There's a single BNC connector on the bracket. There's also an expansion
> edge connector at the top front, which seems to be linked to the ROM
> pins/the microcontroller.
>
> -tony
Okay, I'm working on the next batch of computers for my web pages, and am
looking for any anecdotes, links, resources, or specs relating to these
computers:
Compaq Portable 386
HP 75D
Iasis Computer-in-a-book (8080)
Panasonic Senior Partner
Amstrad PC-20
NEC Starlet
Panasonic HHC
Seequa Chameleon
Sharp PC-4
TI Compact Computer 40
Specifically, the data points I list in my specs table are:
{mfr}
{location}
{model}
{processor}
{speed}
{opsys}
{bits-int}
{bits-data}
{ram-min}
{ram-max}
{rom}
{input}
{display}
{stor-cas}
{stor-fdd}
{stor-hdd}
{ports-ser}
{ports-par}
{ports-kbd}
{ports-joy}
{ports-oth}
{expansion}
{intro}
{discon}
{cost}
{size}
{weight}
{power-volt}
{power-conn}
{power-polar}
{notes}
A lot of these I can pull from the machines themselves myself as I sit down
to do each one, and for some I have manuals, but I really appreciate any
info anyone can offer. Also, stories of your experiences buying one new,
or how you always wanted one, or rumours, or what have are definitely
welcome.
Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 08:10 PM 2/7/98 -0800, you wrote:
>As for the Atari, the clones are coming out of Germany, and mainly targeted
>at the Music industry. The Atari's have built in Midi. I've a couple, and
Not only Midi, but also great software and (Falcon (68030) and beyond) a
DSP port for right-out-of-the-box direct-to-disk digitial recording.
Cubase Audio (about $600 new, I think) gave you 16 channels of digital
recording. (included software wasn't serious and only gave you two
channels.) All you needed was a lot of diskspace and something to record.
When the Falcon came out, it was one of the only affordable D2D solutions
available. And now, with CD-Recorders running around left and right...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Thanks to all who responded to my earlier plea for info about some of the
computers I've got in my collection! I've got the pages up (and fixed the
"\" <> "/" problem) for a dozen or so computers. Anyway, any info,
comments, suggestions, criticism, flames, etc. always welcome.
The page is at <http://www.sinasohn.com/clascomp/> for them what's interested.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Hi!
I was just offered a Lisa 2/10, which I will happily accept. I do have
the 2/5 but the second would be nice, albiet a tad greedy. :) However he
wants me to name my own price, and said that it wasn't working.
Apparantly the self test and stuff works, but it doesn't boot up - I
assume this to be a problem with the hard drive, but imagine that it
could be something else. Does the 2/10 have the battery problem found on
the 2/5, and is this particular error the sort of thing that can be
repaired given that it does start? I had imagined that a serious error
would not allow it to start at all. :) If it can't be easily fixed I'll
probably buy it anyway, but I don't want to offer too much (as I have
almost no money) but I definitly want to save it.
Thanks heaps,
Adam.
John Ruschmeyer <jruschme(a)exit109.com> wrote:
> Actually, you may want to set the disk to ID 3. SunOS does this weird
> swapping of ID 0 and ID 3. Somebody posted the historical reason a while
> back to comp.sys.sun.hardware, but I believe it had to to with 3 being the
> likely address of another sort of device.
Y'all are gonna make me pull aphasia out of storage and set it up
to look at the generic 4.1.1 config file for the Sun 3, aren't you?
My recollection is that this was changed about the time Sun started
shipping SPARC workstations that were likely to have internal disks.
(Or was it with the 3/80? That could also have internal disks.) I
first ran across it when I had to deal with SPARCstation IPCs and
found that the kernel config file mapped sd0 to SCSI ID 3 (and that
systems shipped with an internal disk tended to come with the internal
disk's SCSI ID set to 3).
My guess as to the reason for this was that a number of these systems
were displacing older Sun 3/50 and 3/60s with external shoeboxes,
where the disk in the shoebox was set to SCSI ID 0. The old Sun 3
would go away but its shoebox would stay behind, and the user would
get the bright idea to plug it into the new SPARCstation for a little
more disk space. The 0<->3 swap made this work a little bit more
smoothly by avoiding the need for the user to open up the shoebox and
switch the SCSI ID, as well as the service call required to explain
this need.
-Frank McConnell
"Richard A. Cini" <rcini(a)email.msn.com> wrote:
> I got a no-name "shoebox" drive for my Sun 3/50M workstation. It has a
> Maxtor 300mb SCSI hard drive and what appears to be a 60mb DC600 tape drive.
>
> After reading the Sun FAQ, I'm left clueless on how to get it to boot
> from the hard drive. The workstation that I got appears to have been a
> remote-boot type, because it looks for an Internet address at startup.
Ayup.
> Dirst off, how do I change the default boot device? Second, what are the
> appropriate SCSI device IDs for the hard drive and tape drive? Right now,
> they are set for tape:6, drive:4 (I remember from somewhere that the Suns
> look for a drive on ID=6).
Given that this is a Sun 3, I would re-set them for disk ID = 0 and
tape ID = 4. At that point, you should be able to get to the monitor
prompt by pressing L1-A (hold L1, press A) while it's trying to boot
>from the network (or before) and typing "b sd(0,0,0)" to get it to
boot from disk, or "b st(0,0,0)" to get it to boot from tape. Oh yeah,
you need to press return after that ")", unless you want to pass some
arguments to the boot, in which case you should type them before you
press return (e.g. "b sd(0,0,0) -s" to boot single-user mode).
I don't recall exactly how to set the default boot device. Once you
have something bootable on the disk, you want to set the default
boot device to "sd(0,0,0)". This setting goes in the EEPROM, only
I don't remember exactly what locations to use. If you install
SunOS 4.1.1 there will be an "eeprom" command that will help you
to not remember too.
-Frank McConnell
Does anyone have any portable computers that are 15lb or less that
they could give or sell to me? This includes Z88, Intel stuff, etc.
Not the Mac Portable, since I have that. Preferrably, I would like
something that could run without being plugged in (having replaced
the battery :). Anyone have an IBM Convertible?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Hello all:
Last week I got a toshiba T-100, with two 5.25" disk drives and a
monochrome monitor. It starts up with Basic.
Anybody knows if this system can run CP/M?
Another question: I own an IBM system 36. It has two hard disk drives,
105 MB each, and a tape cartridge drive. Could anybody tell me if these
drives are SCSI?
Thanks in advance.
--
Sergio Izquierdo Garcia
mailto:henrio@edu.tsai.es
I picked up a copy of D.P.I. s Print Director MS manual. Looks like
a neat peripheral-access controller device. Anyone have any need for
this ? No disks.
ciao larry
lwalkerN0spaM(a)interlog.com
allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) wrote:
><If only there was a mechanism to persuade companies to allow such hobby
><use of archaic software.
>
>OpenVMS archaic? It's a current product and definatly a high end OS
>and it includs DECnet networking.
Heaven forbid I ever insult anyone's choice of OS. :-) The gist of my
comments still stands, and I think it's highly appropriate to this
list: without an established mechanism for the preservation of the
rights of old software, or some process of stewardship of archaic
software, computer collectors are often violating the copyrights
of others.
Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> wrote:
>If you have the original disk then that is normally considered proof
>that you have a legal copy of the software.
I can argue with that. What about upgrades? If bought XYZ v1.0,
then paid a special price to upgrade to v2.0, I don't have two copies.
Technically, the company doesn't allow you to resell v1.0 as its
own package. It's true of many of today's packages, and I'm sure
it's true of any old mainframe/mini OS license, too.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
I thought the list might be interested in the feeding frenzy occurring at
eBay ( http://www.ebay.com ) over some Altairs and associated
hardware/software. This is going to be very interesting to watch. The
Altair 8800a is up to almost $500.00 in just twelve hours.
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
More information on the Altair auction items. They have (finally!) all
been posted to www.ebay.com
in the Hardware:General section. Most of the items have been posted, but
a couple have not. If you
are looking for a particular item, check the list below, the URL for each
of the items is listed.
There have been several requests for copies of some of the items. I don't
have a way to copy the disks,
can anyone help out with that? If you can, please let me know.
Feel free to e-mail me with questions.
Thanks again for your patience and support.
Joe
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 1 - Altair 8800a
--------------------
Altair 8800a - No Serial Number on case
Front Panel with LEDs and Toggle Switches
S-100 Bus (18 slots)
Note on inside: No +8V @ 8VA from terminal strip to motherboard
Remove spare BL + WT wire
Board 1- Vector 8800V
No components, wired to front panel
Board 2 - MITS CPU BD Rev 1
Intel 8080 CPU on board
Board 3 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1977
GPM PC210001 Rev C
Assy No. 210000
PCA 18-7
Board 4 - IMSAI Mfg. Corp RAM-4A Rev 3
Board 5 - MITS Disk #2 Rev 0-X2
Board 6 - MITS Disk BD 1 Rev 0-X3
Board 7 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1976
S/No. 124783
3P + S I/O Rev a
Board 8 - MITS 88-2 SIO REV 0
Bag of Misc Parts
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5857130
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 2 - Altair 8800b #1
-----------------------
Altair 8800b - No Serial Number on case
Front Panel with LEDs and Toggle Switches, one switch broken,
one switch bent (but still works)
S-100 Bus (15 slots installed)
Board 1 - MITS (C) 1976 D/C INT Rev 0
Board 2 - MITS 8800B CPU BD Rev 0
Intel 8080 Microprocessor
Board 3, 4, 5 - DRC Dallas, TX (C) 1978
Memory Board, 32 chips each of
2114L2PC
F 8139 P
Board 6 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1977
GPM PC21001 Rev C
Assy No 210000
Board 7 - MITS
MITS 8800 PROM Bd Rev 0
MITS 8800 PMC Rev 0
Chips labeled: VMTST V 2.2 BE00
MITS DBL BF00
Board 8 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1976
VDM 1 Rev D
Coaxial Connector attached to back plate
Board 9 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1976
CUTS rev B
Serial # 115802
Board 10 - Processor Technology Corp (C) 1976
3P + S I/O Rev A
Serial # 124764
Bag of Misc Parts
Weight 30 lbs.
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5857904
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 3 - Altair 8800b #2 System
------------------------------
Altair 8800b Serial # 5400775K
Front Panel with LEDs and Toggle Switches, one switch broken
Power supply missing Capacitor, with disconnected cables
S-100 Bus (11 slots installed)
Board 1 - MITS (C) 1976 D/C INT Rev 0
Board 2 - MITS 8800B CPU BD Rev 0
Intel 8080 Microprocessor
Bag of Misc Parts
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5858380
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 4 - MITS 8" Disk Drive
--------------------------
MITS 8" Floppy Drive in case Serial # DD0217
Pertec FD400 inside case
Part #920063-01
Serial # 365507098
MITS Disk Buffer board inside
37-pin connectors (female and male)
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5858679
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 5 - PROM Programmer + Card
------------------------------
Altair PROM Programmer
Serial # C11405
24-pin ZIF socket on front with handle
DB-25 (male) connector on back
MITS PPRG-INT Rev 0
S-100 Card
DB-25 connected to board
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5859054
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 6 - 88-2 Card
-----------------
MITS 88-2 SIO Rev 0
S-100 Card
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5859609
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 7 - 8800 PMC Card
---------------------
MITS 8800 PMC Rev 0
S-100 Card
800Prom BD Rev 0
Populated with seven PROM chips
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5859874
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 8 - Disk Controller Card Set
--------------------------------
MITS (Set of two S-100 Cards)
MITS Disk BD 1 Rev 0-X3
MITS Disk #2 Rev 0-X2
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5860149
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 9 - 88VI(RTC) Card
----------------------
MITS Inc. 88-VI(RTC) Rev 0
S-100 Card
Pat Pending (c) 1977
Main Chip labeled Intel C8214
S1260
P4920
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5860422
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 10 - 88-4 Card
------------------
MITS 88-4 PIO Rev 0
S-100 Card
Main Chip Motorola MC6820L
76350
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5860662
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 11 - 88SIOB Card
--------------------
MITS (88 SIOB) Serial-TTL
S-100 Card with daughterboard
daughterboard is: MITS MODEM BD
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5860943
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 12 - Manual
---------------
MITS Manual (only a part, missing several chapters)
altair 8800b Section IV Troubleshooting
May 1977
Some schematics, missing pages
Not for sale Yet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 13 - Cassette Software
--------------------------
MITS SW-EXTM - Cassette Tape
Altair Extended BASIC Version 4.1
February 1, 1977
2400/1850 Hz
(c) 1976 MITS, Inc.
MITS SW-DBLC - Cassette Tape
Altair Disk Boot Loader Version 4.1
May 1, 1977
2400/1850HZ
Copyright 1977 MITS, Inc.
Altair EXT BASIC Rev 3.2 Cassette
February 1976
Copyright 1975
Boot Loc 1=256
Boot Loc 2=57
Realistic Cassette with Label
(Same label as paper tapes, Original?)
Altair Package II Cassette (2 copies, one labeled Cassette Sticks)
Rev 3.0 June 76
2400/1850 HZ
Copyright MITS 1976
Maxell C46 Cassette
(Same label as paper tapes, Original?)
Not for sale yet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 14 - Box of 30+ Cassettes
-------------------------
Box of 30+ Cassette Tapes, not original, saved programs
Hand labeled or with notes on each cassette tape
Including:
CROS P A000 2000 - Cassette Tape
O-42 Counter
Cromemco Resident Operating System Z-80
Not for sale yet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 15 - Paper Tape Software
----------------------------
Altair Extended BASIC - Paper Tape
Rev 4.0 February 25, 1977
Copyright 1976 by MITS, Inc.
Assembler/ROS - Paper Tape
Order Number ZA-PT
Copyright 1977 Cromemco
Processor Technology - Paper Tape
Software #1
PT80-13 TSC 8080 Reloctor - Paper Tape
(c) 1978 By
Technical Systems Consultants, Inc.
Box 2574 W. Layayette, IN 47906
Cromemco Z-80 Monitor V 1.0 - Paper Tape
E000-E3FF
(c) 1976 Cromemco
ALT-2480 Intelligent Terminal Demonstration - Paper Tape
(c) 1978
Vincent C. Jones
Processor Technology - Paper Tape
5K BASIC
BASIC-VDM Driver - Paper Tape Software
Processor Technology - Paper Tape Software
VDM Driver
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5861229
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 16 - Floppy Disk Software
-----------------------------
CP/M on Altair - 8" Floppy Disk
(c) 1977, 1978, 1979 Digital Research
(c) 1977, 1978, 1979 Lifeboat Associates
Version 1.41 S/N 81-2097
with manual - CP/M on MITS DISK User Notes
Revision 1.0 April 27, 1979
Altair Disk Operating System - 8" Floppy Disk
Version 1.0 May 5, 19777
Copyright 1977 by MITS INC.
http://komodo.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5861450
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 17 - Hacked Case
--------------------
Altair Case - with power supply, NO Top Cover, no serial number
Very hacked up, black faceplate on front, not original
reset and power switches on front
Openings on front for two 5.25" full height drives
Altair S-100 Bus Replaced with Cromemco 8-slot S-100 Blitz Bus
Power supply modified to use 5.25" drive power connectors
Not for sale Yet
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lot 18 - 8" Drives
------------------
8" Floppy Drives (2), in Rack Mount cases
Pertec Drives inside
Model No. FD400 U2
Part No. 920003-01
(2) 37-pin D connectors on back
Homebrew(?) Disk buffer board on inside looks similar to
MITS disk buffer board.
One drive labeled Disk 0 the other is Disk 1
Power switch and Indicator LEDs on front panel
Not for sale Yet
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Not quite, there is still the Amiga, now owned by Gateway 2000. In fact
>I'm in the process of upgrading my A3000 (almost a classic) with a HiRes
I've got my old Amiga 1000 in the basement, with a serial number in
the 30s. Circa 1986, it qualifies, no?
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
Circular?
Believe me, I gave it strong consideration.
Purely to determine the efficiency of image manipulation in Java.
Oh yes, to show off as well, I guess.
I thought better of it, and went on to write emulators of my Soviet
Calculators instead.
;)
Cheers
Andrew
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 05, 1998 6:20 AM
Subject: Re: Slipping sticks
>At 04:20 AM 2/5/98 +1100, you wrote:
>>Well, since we're on this subject... how can I resist once more
>>mentioning...
>>
>>Slide Rule Trading Post
>>http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
>>
>>On my site you will find a link to JavaSlide on the main menu. That's a
>>JAVA slide rule I wrote some while back, so you can reminisc even if you
>>can't find your old faithful. Its quite good, actually.
>
> Yes, but when are you going to make a circular version? :-)
>
>
>
>
In fact, there are some useful things you can do to ACTUALLY recover
on computer running a reasonable operating system. Back in the late
60s and through 1981, Oregon State University ran an operating system
(called humbly OS-3 (short for Oregon State Open Shop Operating System
or OSOSOS)) but I digress.
OS-3 ran on a Control Data 3300 which had been fixed to actually
conform to the Control Data specifications for User/Supervisor
operation. The operating system was written to be as reentrant as
possible; all OS code (but a very small part pertaining to interrupt
dispatch) was PURE (not self modifying.) This is noted, since the
standard subroutine call (as was common those days) altered the
first instruction of the subroutine to be a JUMP back to the calling
code. I.e. there was no "stack" mechanism in hardware.
Since the monitor code was not self modifying, the OS could at boot
time compute an exclusive-or checksum for itself and save it for the
occurrence of a parity error. Parity errors only reported the memory
location of the error, not the actual value read. So when a parity
error occurred and if it was in the monitor reentrant section, the OS
could recompute the value of the bad location by exclusive-oring
all the OTHER locations together and then exclusive-oring the computed
monitor checksum. This reproduced the contents of the bad location,
it was stored back at the address indicated by the parity check
hardware and the OS resumed from the parity error interrupt.
Of course, for user programs (which were seldom re-entrant) the OS
just aborted the program with an error and went on about it's business.
Consequently, the parity error interrupt was RARELY fatal (at least to
the system at large. Individual users did occasionally complain when we
had a memory stack that started to go bad, but didn't get bad enough
to find with the overnight diagnostics.)
This was all back in a day when ECC did exist, but it was Horribly Expensive
(and this was compared to memory that cost about 1 to 2 dollars per byte.)
Gary.
At 05:24 PM 2/8/98 -0500, you wrote:
>> Tis' true if you meant ECC parity but this is really OVERKILL in
>> consumer machines that we're using. My machine is happily running
>> for years on non-parity as long as the memory are top quality kind
>> and cover by life-time warrenty if possible. Mac are doing that for
>> years ever since first Apple II all the way to today's Mac PCI's.
>
>Yes, I would not think of adding full ECC to a home computer. Doing so
>would probably add $25 to the cost of producing the machine - something
>the marketing types would scream about because it really adds nothing for
>them to sell!
>
>Anyway, it would have been nice if PeeCees were made so a parity error
>would tell the BIOS (or DOS) to try to clean up and do a gracefull
>shutdown, rather than just reporting the error and halting. Many parity
>errors are soft errors, only effecting one bit of the memory, so there is
>a chance that the programs (or DOS) could react and do a little damage
>control.
>
>William Donzelli
>william(a)ans.net
>
<So, if someone has a good source for VS2000 memory, I'd love to buy
<an extra 4 to 8 MB for it.
Keep an eye open as finding another VS2k with more memory than the one
you have is more likely. VS2ks are pretty common. Besides you can then
use the short memory one for spares. They are also a fun little vax. I
have three here, one running VMS, one diskless (mopboot)
and one running ultrix.
They can hold up to 14mb, with the 4 and 8 mb cards being the most common.
FYI: VMS 5.4 will run in 2mb (slowly as it will swap it's brains out).
With 4mb and a RD54 it makes a fine single user system with DECwindows
support.
Allison
<From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com>
<Since you can now add support for the VMS filesystem to Linux, I was hopi
<that it would be able to then share the files via NFS to a VMS machine.
First the VMS machine would have to support IP networks and VMS default
is DECnet. Now if linux would support DECnet that would be nice too.
<course I have no idea how full-featured the VMS support under Linux is.
It would have to be pretty rich as VMS is a loaded OS.
Allison
<You ought to be able to just "dd" from the raw CD to a file, which you
<can then write to a hard drive, again using the "raw" device. Then
<stick the hard drive on the VAX. (Or, alternatively, ftp the image
<of the CD to the VAX, and use one of the virtual disk drivers available
<for OpenVMS.)
there are several things on that disk including versions 5.4 through 6.1
and a bootable standalone. Most of the files are savesets.
Allison
Does anyone know what format this CD is in? Someone I know has been trying
to access his copy which he just got with no luck. I've not gotten a copy
yet, but I'd been hoping to stick it in one of my Linux machines and NFS
mount it on the VAX.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
Sorry... I don't know about such things. I knew about PS/2 parts
(keyboards, mice, etc.) then PS/2 SYSTEMS (last summer), then PS/1 systems
(about 2 months ago). So, other than the fact that they DO EXIST, I know
nothing about them. I'm guessing Microchannel, but I've never seen such as
system myself.
I don't know if he was willing to GIVE IT TO ME. Anyway, what's a
"garden variety" PS/1? What are un-garden variety PS/1's?
>If it's a garden-variety PS/1, strictly he should pay you to take it, but
>you can be a nice guy and let him give it to you. After all, that way it's
>off his hands.
>
>__________________________________________
>Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
> http://www.chac.org/index.html
>Computer History Association of California
>
>
<Does anyone know what format this CD is in? Someone I know has been tryi
<to access his copy which he just got with no luck. I've not gotten a cop
<yet, but I'd been hoping to stick it in one of my Linux machines and NFS
<mount it on the VAX.
It's VMS file format, files-11. I doubt it can be read as linux NFS for
the same reason though you can read individual blocks.
Allison
Hi!
Someone here has a couple of 64 GS's - I had only heard of them in
passing before, and thus don't know their interest. I looked on the web
but found almost nothing - are they worth getting hold of? Not saving as
such, as the owner isn't threating to destroy them or anything, but
simply worth owning. :)
It's been a reasonable week for me, computerwise. Other than being
offered a mainframe, which was fu, I picked up the Atari 800, 800xl,
heaps of software, and (a personal favorite) a Vectrex. Ok, so it is
only a games machine - but I have wanted one for 15 years, and I finally
have one. And for $15, too. :)
Adam.
Sorry about the headers, I use Lynx and Hotmail, but I now turned them
off, there should be no problem. About souping up Commodores, wouldn't
a 20MHZ CPU have a different instruction set than the original CPU and
thus require a different ROM? And if it has a changed ROM, then how is
it
a Commodore? Where can I get info on this? How much RAM would these
super-Commies have? What CPU?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
A trip to my local thrift today netted me some IBM technical manuals that I
needed. However, I didn't get it all. Still available are the following:
1) Hardware Maintenance and Service 3363 Optical Disk Drive.
2) Technical Reference 3363 Optical Disk Drive
3) Personal System/2 Model 30 286 Technical Reference
These are the IBM boxed three ring binders; the first two are still in
shrinkwrap. The other is clean and apparently complete. The price on each
is $5.00 plus 6% tax and whatever it costs me to ship them from here in
Ohio. If anyone wants/needs these, I'll go back and "rescue" them.
Also they have an Apple IIc and a dual floppy disk drive there for $50. It
looks clean, but there are no guarantees beyond that. There were no
manuals/software evident. There is also an Apple monitor there for $15. I
don't know if it is/was part of the IIc system. I say that because its been
sitting there for about a month, but the IIc just appeared. It's the right
color and looks as if it belongs with the IIc, but...........
Oh yeah, some time ago I picked up a CP/M Primer for the Epson QX-10. This
is a manual that shipped with the QX-10 and a duplicate in my collection.
It cost me a dollar, so if anyone has a QX-10 and needs this, contact me and
I'll pass it along.
Finally, a while back someone was looking for dBase II reference materials.
I just acquired eight or ten third party books on dBase II. I think I could
fix you up with something, el cheapo.
Regards,
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
Does anyone have any inforn=mation about a Tektronics 4041 DDU? I is a lon
dbox that has a 5 1/4" floppy drive and hard drive mounted in the front. I
was told that it is for one of the Tek computers.
Slow but good this week. picked a PDP 11/73 with two small mini manuals
for $15; digital pro 380 not tested; Global teleport/mercury 14.4 modem for
free;LaserWriterII for $15;GTCO corp Digi-Pad controller type 5A; something
called a Nic Nicolet with 2 3.5 FD's no idea what it is not opened yet $15;
HP 1040A HPLC-Detection-System $15; Mettler GA44 printer very small uses
paper the size on a handheld calculator free; some Mac items like keyboards
and mice all were free; Panasonic RGB interface ET10g rack unit for
free;another PC8300 notebook by NEC for free; a Manzana model MDQ 3.5 ext
drive for free; Irwin 8-bit controller card free; ESDI card with 4 1-meg
simms on it by CompuAdd $5; and lot more items that do not meet the 10 year
rule. All in all it was a good week. It three of us my wife, daughter, and
myself to get the PDP off the pickup, the place I got it from used a
forklift to put in my truck. Out in the snow it was alot of fun. Keep
computing John
OK... where can I get the Atari clones?
It's hard to believe that they're's anyone more emotional than a Mac
fanatic... anyway... please give me more info. Also, how much will it cost
me?
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, February 08, 1998 9:34 AM
Subject: Re: New Amigas, Atari Clones
>> Who, what where, why? Tell me all. ;-) Tim D. Hotze
>
>Who? Well for the Amiga, Gateway 2000 (I know, no one's heard of them)
>owns Amiga, Inc. and Amiga International. Amiga International is located
>in Germany and is in charge of marketing. Amiga, Inc is located in South
>Dakota IIRC, and is in charge of research (Gateway formed them). There are
>several clone manufactures, and I'm anxiously awaiting the BoXeR
>motherboards. There are several other clones either currently available or
>soon to be.
>
>As for why, the Amiga is still actively used in the video industry, and
>fairly popular in England and Germany. Personally I've got a bunch of them
>because I think they are major league cool! You can still buy the A1200
>and A4000 new.
>
>
>As for the Atari, the clones are coming out of Germany, and mainly targeted
>at the Music industry. The Atari's have built in Midi. I've a couple, and
>while the concept of their OS is very, very cool (it's all in ROM), I find
>it cumbersome to use. Probably the most fanatical computer user I've ever
>met is an Atari user, makes me look calm :^)
>
>
>Linux and {net|open}BSD run on various models of both the Atari and Amiga.
>
> Zane
>
>
>| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
>| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
>| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
>+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
>| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
>| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
>| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
>| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
>
>
Looks like some good prices here. If anyone's interested, please
contac the original author directly.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
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From: kshuff(a)fast.net (kshuff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec
Subject: Some older DEC stuff forsale
Date: Sat, 07 Feb 98 20:05:51 GMT
Organization: Im not organized
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I have some older DEC equipment looking to clear out of the basement,
everything is in working order...
TU-58 DA external dual TU-58 drive $20 OBO
DECmate III with monitor $30 OBO
External RD52 MFM drive with cable $15 OBO
VT 1200 base unit only, 4 meg memory $50 OBO
DECstation 3100, no memory or drives. Has color framebuffer and SCSI
floppy
adaptor, but missing the floppy $35 OBO
Prices do not include shipping.
-Keith S. Huff
kshuff(a)fast.net
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, SysOp,
The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fido 1:343/272)
kyrrin2 {at} wiz<ards> d[o]t n=e=t
"...No matter how hard we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe
an object, event, or living creature, in our own human terms. It cannot possibly
define any of them!..."
If anyone's using the classic Emulex serial boards in a QBus or Unibus
environment, this looks like a good deal...
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp11
Path:
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From: bruce(a)eisner.decus.org (Barton F. Bruce)
Subject: Free Emulex CP34 and CP11/12 panels
Lines: 10
Organization: CentNet, Inc.
Message-ID: <1998Feb7.120457.1@eisner>
X-Trace: news.decus.org 886871143 3642 BRUCE [192.67.173.2]
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: eisner.decus.org
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 17:04:57 GMT
Xref: Supernews70 alt.sys.pdp11:2993
I have several Emulex CP34 and the older CP11/12 16 port
async panels that connected to various controller cards
emulating DH11/DHV11/DMF32 (CS11/CS04/?)
These were daisychained to 64 (or for the dmf32, 128)
ports with a single 34 wire ribbon cable from the controller
card.
If you have such a controller card and want more ports
speak quickly or the dumpster gets them
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, SysOp,
The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fido 1:343/272)
kyrrin2 {at} wiz<ards> d[o]t n=e=t
"...No matter how hard we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe
an object, event, or living creature, in our own human terms. It cannot possibly
define any of them!..."
Does any one have a copy of a repair manual for the Tandon/IBM 5-1/4" drives
in the original IBM PC? The model# is Tandon TM1000-2A.
I seem to have a short on one of the power supply lines, so I'm looking
tor a diagnostics tree.
Thanks!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
At 11:26 PM 2/7/98 +0930, you wrote:
>Someone here has a couple of 64 GS's - I had only heard of them in
>passing before, and thus don't know their interest. I looked on the web
Now I've heard of Apple II GS, but no C-64GS.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
At 08:17 PM 2/7/98 -0800, you wrote:
>I think it's intended for 64's and 128's that are a lot more advanced than
>that. A machine with a drive like that is probably running GEOS, with a
>20Mhz CPU, and a lot of RAM. It's pretty amazing how souped up some of
>these old "Commies" are!
Nope. it'll run on a perfectly stock C-64.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
On Sat, 7 Feb 1998 20:13:14 +0000 (GMT), Tony Duell
<ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Why do you think you have a power line short?
With the drive connected to a PC power supply, the PS won't give a
PwrGood signal; removing the drive's power connector enables the machine to
boot.
I think that the problem is on the motor control board; it looks like a
repair may have been done on it before.
Thanks!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
I picked up a couple of IBM circuit cards today for ~$1.50.
The first is about 3.5" x 4.5", has 2 24 pin connectors, 5 of the IBM
square metal IC cans and many other components. It has id numbers:
75114 4B01536A1590 VCC
The other is 7" x 4.5", has four 24 pin connectors, 6 larger metal IC
cans , 9 DIP chips and misc components, it is marked
4161595A2828 VCC13607010
Does anyone know what these do and what system they are from and their
approcimate age ?
They came in nifty plastic "conductive containers" marked IBM with small
windows allowing you to see what is inside.
If nothing else they are great examples of IBM technology.
Regards,
--
Hans B. Pufal : <mailto:hansp@digiweb.com>
Comprehensive Computer Catalogue : <http://www.digiweb.com/~hansp/ccc/>
_-_-__-___--_-____-_--_-_-____--_---_-_---_--__--_--_--____---_--_--__--_
On 06 Feb 1998 20:53:16 -0800, Frank McConnell <fmc(a)reanimators.org> wrote:
>>Given that this is a Sun 3, I would re-set them for disk ID = 0 and
tape ID = 4. At that point, you should be able to get to the monitor
prompt by pressing L1-A (hold L1, press A) while it's trying to boot
>from the network (or before) and typing "b sd(0,0,0)" to get it to
boot from disk, or "b st(0,0,0)" to get it to boot from tape. Oh yeah,
you need to press return after that ")", unless you want to pass some
arguments to the boot, in which case you should type them before you
press return (e.g. "b sd(0,0,0) -s" to boot single-user mode).<<
I don't have a Sun keyboard or mouse, so what are the
terminal-equivalent keys for L1?
I've tried the "b sd(0,0,0)" command from the montior in DIAG mode, but
it complains that the device is not present. I don't have a SCSI terminator
on the end of the chain, so that may be an issue (the shoebox did not come
with one; I ordered one :-)).
>>I don't recall exactly how to set the default boot device. Once you
have something bootable on the disk, you want to set the default
boot device to "sd(0,0,0)". This setting goes in the EEPROM, only
I don't remember exactly what locations to use. If you install
SunOS 4.1.1 there will be an "eeprom" command that will help you
to not remember too.<<
I figured this one out. I've set the EEPROM for polling. I don't even
know what system is on the hard drive, though.
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
Sorry, this is going out to a lot of people that it doesn't apply to, but
as was pointed out earlier today a lot of the people on this list seem to
be in the Portland area.
I know a guy that is currently trying to get rid of quite a few VT320's,
and probably a few others (sorry, no VT520's). He's not on the Internet,
but if you want I can put you in touch with him. As I said this is for the
Portland area.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| For Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
| For the collecting of Classic Computers with info on them. |
| see http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/museum.html |
This guy has a working IDE interface for the Commodore-64/128. It will
accept up to an 8gb hard drive, and ATAPI CD-ROM support is in the works.
Price is $89US plus shipping. Access time is about 60 times faster than the
1541 floppy, about 25k/sec. It would be worth getting just to see it work!
Here's the address:
http://sgi.felk.cvut.cz/~vorlicek/Ide/c64ide.html
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
>> It's been a reasonable week for me, computerwise. Other than being
>> offered a mainframe, which was fu
>
>What kind? And what is "fu" (except what I think it is)?
Sorry. Fu was meant to be fun. I was offered a digital camera (or
something similar) this week, which included a bonus VAX to run it. Out
of my league, though. There is another mainframe I was offered a couple
of weeks ago where they didn't know the brand, but I am thinking of going
around to see it and work out if I can save it anyway, at least until a
more appropriate owner comes along. The third, which I was refering to,
was an AWA 5280 (I believe that was the number). I figure it may well be
just a mini or something, but I know nothing about this and he did say
Mainframe. :)
Adam.
>At 11:26 PM 2/7/98 +0930, you wrote:
>
>>Someone here has a couple of 64 GS's - I had only heard of them in
>>passing before, and thus don't know their interest. I looked on the web
>
>Now I've heard of Apple II GS, but no C-64GS.
It's a seriously cut down Commodore, apparantly. Intended as a
cartridge-based games machine. From the little I know it had no keyboard
and special joysticks with two fire buttons, the second of which replaced
the space bar from the keyboard. But I think it could use standard C64
carts.
Adam/
Don't forget to try re-inking if you can't find one.
manney
> Does any one know what type of printer ribbon can fit onto an original
adam
> (Colecovision)printer (ginerec one I thought Was a deablo hytype but it
wont
> fit.
> And where to get one from I live in Castlegar, British Columbia Canada.
>
> Thanx for your help
>
> Chris
>
I have to comment on a few things that have recently been posted here.
One is the addition of 37 books to a vintage library. How many books
do you people have? One would need a bill gates-type house to store all
of these old computers and books! I live in an apartment, and envy
people
who can- I am trying to sort out a few tens of manuals!
Incidentally, I have finally gotten permission to take old stuff from
a supply room in my school. I picked up Ventura Publisher 1.0, DOS 3.3
(I had an un-shrinkwrapping ceremony for that), and the PC XT manuals.
And, there is lots more stuff. Harvard Graphics, printer manuals, that
System/34 I mention every few weeks... What was the first publishing
program anyway? Also, how many different home/small office computers
have
been made, do you suppose? Now, it's just Intel and Mac :(
Lastly, I wanted to know if there was any place where I could actually
sit down at an old machine and play with it for half an hour, just to
get
the feel for it. P.S. How big was the IBM 370?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Alright, this may be a REALLY stupid idea, but it sounds like fun.
First, how many people on the list are in Portland, OR? Sure seems like
there are a lot.
Second, who in PDX would be interested in seeing a new classic computers
users group? Not a dozen groups of C64 and TI-99 fans, but a UG for ALL of
the old computers, wether it be an old mainframe/minicomputer or a funny
looking micro. Well? What do you think? Would it be worth it?
That's all for now, from my strange mind... But be careful, I might pounce
at any time! :->
-JR http://members.tripod.com/~jrollins/index.html - Computers
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Lair/1681/ - Star Trek
"Richard A. Cini" <rcini(a)email.msn.com> wrote:
> I don't have a Sun keyboard or mouse, so what are the
> terminal-equivalent keys for L1?
Oh. Never mind L1-A (or stop-A on newer keyboards), just press the
break key.
> I've tried the "b sd(0,0,0)" command from the montior in DIAG mode, but
> it complains that the device is not present. I don't have a SCSI terminator
> on the end of the chain, so that may be an issue (the shoebox did not come
> with one; I ordered one :-)).
Yep, it does want to see one. Something that you may want to look out
for: some Suns (including the 3/50 and 3/60 I think) do not supply
termination power on the bus. And some of these short the termination
power line on the bus to ground, which can lead to fireworks of one
sort or another if another device on the bus is trying to supply
termination power over the bus to an external terminator.
So you may want to do something like open that disk/tape box up,
declare one device to be "on the end" of the SCSI bus, install the
appropriate termination resistors on that device, and get that device
to provide termination power to its resistors but not to the bus.
Confused yet? Good.
-Frank McConnell
From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com>
Subject: More books for the library
>I added another 37 volumes to my vintage computer library yesterday.
>By far the most valuable from a historical standpoint is the book
>_Computer Power for the Small Business_ from 1979....[snip]
Some of those books are pretty good, years ago I passed by many of them
but nowadays they deserve a second look.
>It contains information on systems we know much of, such as the Atari's,
>Apple, PETs, Radio Shack, etc. But it also has blurbs on systems that
>I've not seen mentioned anywhere else (at least not in a way that is
>looking back on these systems with a historical perspective) like the RCA
>Cosmac VIP, the Sol-20, Exidy Sorcerer, Heathkit H-8 and H-11, Intecolor
>8031.
>The best part is the descriptions of systems I've never knew about before.
>Has anyone ever heard of an Outpost computer? Its a fully integrated
>package with keyboard, display and 5.25" drive, but its almost three feet
>wide, with the two 5.25" drive bays to the side of the display! How about
>the PeCos One from APF Electronics.
Is that the "imagination machine?" Never saw one, the production run
must have been short-lived.
> I have a pong machine made by APF but
>who would've thought they once made computers? How about The Renaissance
>Machine (aka Compucolor II)?
I saw it in a computer store in 1980, I recall it was pricy, nice
display, real crisp for the time, no hint of any decent games
whatsoever...
[snip]
>Here's an interesting tidbit. Apparently Data General made a line of
>computers dubbed "The Digital Group". According to this entry in the
>table, they were systems based on the Z-80, 8080A, 9080A, 6800 and 6502
>processors; they had 2K of main memory; they used cassettes for storage.
>Can anyone verify this?
Really cool cases, seen lots of pictures, no actual unit though...
001010111010100100100101001001011011001001011001101011010100101110100100100011
Speaking of old publications, does anyone remember the the album (12"
record) titled something like the "First Philidelphia Computer Music
Festival" it was distributed by Creative Computing, had music for a
variety of sources including some astounding stuff from Bell Labs and
the like (a computer sythesized Daisy tune, cathedral organ sethesis of
Fuge in D minor, etc.) as well as more contemporary for the time
computer stuff (Cosmac ELF three-voice tunes, etc.) All of it was
pretty extraordinary given the time it was recorded, to some it may seem
old compared to today's 'sythesisers on a card'...
001010111010100100100101001001011011001001011001101011010100101110100100100011
From: "Max Eskin" <maxeskin(a)hotmail.com>
Subject: Nostalgia
>I have to comment on a few things that have recently been posted here.
>One is the addition of 37 books to a vintage library. How many books
>do you people have? One would need a bill gates-type house to store all
>of these old computers and books! I live in an apartment, and envy
>people who can- I am trying to sort out a few tens of manuals!
It is not always the quantity but the quality too... I also live in an
apartment and have to be somewhat selective of what I get... Many of my
books are in storage... Maybe when I lin the Lottery I can buy a museum
for it all...
>What was the first publishing program anyway?
For micros, I would have to say the original Print Shop by Broderbund
Software,
it was a landmark achievement in my books... Wow graphics, text with
free-form design! I didn't say it was the best but one of the first
most popular publishing program for home use...
>Also, how many different home/small office computers have
>been made, do you suppose? Now, it's just Intel and Mac :(
Untrue Amiga is still in production (Gateway 2000 now owns em). I am
sure there are others, you limit yourself by saying that... There are
hundreds of brands/models...
>Lastly, I wanted to know if there was any place where I could actually
>sit down at an old machine and play with it for half an hour, just to
>get the feel for it. P.S. How big was the IBM 370?
Well where do you live? Maybe someone on this list lives nearby...
Heck I'd be tickled to have someone come over and look at my machines
while I fill their ear for an hour or so... Other than that there is
shows like the Vintage Computer Festival.
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our Commodore 64 BBS (Silicon Realms 300-2400 baud) at: (209)
754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Does any one know what type of printer ribbon can fit onto an original adam
(Colecovision)printer (ginerec one I thought Was a deablo hytype but it wont
fit.
And where to get one from I live in Castlegar, British Columbia Canada.
Thanx for your help
Chris
On : Fri, 6 Feb 1998 18:10:59 -0800 , Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com>
wrote:
>>Well, you need a ProFile interface card :)
>>That's going to be hard to come by. If you are an extremely persuasive
>>person, you may be able to get one from Sun Remarketing (www.sunrem.com),
>>but you'll have to talk 'em into it.
Hmmm. I've heard of these guys before, but never contacted them. Thanks
for the lead.
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
Gemmary tell me they're out of ES500 rules :(
Pity, they were a bargain at that price.
So, your next stop could be The Slide Rule Universe.
The site is a bit hard to navigate through, but in the forsale section
you'll find new Picketts and other rules - prices a bit higher... but if you
need one you need one
http://www.sphere.bc.ca/test/swap.html
Cheers
Andrew Davie
-----Original Message-----
From: Kip Crosby <engine(a)chac.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 07, 1998 3:50 AM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: slipping sticks
>At 16:04 2/6/98 GMT, you wrote:
>>> PS: Brand new Pickett ES500 rules (quite nice model) can be had for
US$25
>>[snip]
>>....I've never heard of the Gemmary - can you give
>>a bit more info?
>
>How about:
>
>The Gemmary
>Box 2560
>Fallbrook CA 92088 USA
>+1 760 728-3321 voice
>+1 760 728-3322 fax
>rcb(a)gemmary.com mail
>www.gemmary.com/rcb/ website
>
>They sometimes have Curtas too but not for $25!
>__________________________________________
>Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
> http://www.chac.org/index.html
>Computer History Association of California
>
>
>
I added another 37 volumes to my vintage computer library yesterday.
By far the most valuable from a historical standpoint is the book
_Computer Power for the Small Business_ from 1979. It is a buyer's guide
for microcomputers of the mid- to late -0's era. Talk about a treasure.
This book has pictures and decriptions of many computers I've never even
heard of.
It contains information on systems we know much of, such as the Atari's,
Apple, PETs, Radio Shack, etc. But it also has blurbs on systems that
I've not seen mentioned anywhere else (at least not in a way that is
looking back on these systems with a historical perspective) like the RCA
Cosmac VIP, the Sol-20, Exidy Sorcerer, Heathkit H-8 and H-11, Intecolor
8031.
The best part is the descriptions of systems I've never knew about before.
Has anyone ever heard of an Outpost computer? Its a fully integrated
package with keyboard, display and 5.25" drive, but its almost three feet
wide, with the two 5.25" drive bays to the side of the display! How about
the PeCos One from APF Electronics. I have a pong machine made by APF but
who would've thought they once made computers? How about The Renaissance
Machine (aka Compucolor II)? There's also mention of the Teal SHC-8000,
which is sort of like a pet with display, keyboard and cassette player in
one unit.
It then has a listing with about 40 different system descriptions,
including CPU, memory, external storage, input (ie. keyboard, lightpen),
output (ie. display, printer) and basic cost. There's also the company
address which is extremely valuable for research.
Here's an interesting tidbit. Apparently Data General made a line of
computers dubbed "The Digital Group". According to this entry in the
table, they were systems based on the Z-80, 8080A, 9080A, 6800 and 6502
processors; they had 2K of main memory; they used cassettes for storage.
Can anyone verify this?
I also got another similar book entitled _The Peter McWilliams Personal
Computer Buying Guide_ circa 1985. I haven't had a chance to go through
it in much detail but it is basically more nice descriptions of early- to
mid-80's computers, again some of which I've never heard of. I'll do a
review later.
In my travels I also picked up a Victor 800 electric adding machine. I
don't collect adding machines and only rare grab them for specific
reasons. In this case, this is the same Victor as the Victor 9000
computer. I knew right away because the 'o' in the "Victor" emblem was
that striped-circle that is telling of a Victor product (plus it had a
Scott's Valley, CA address on the back).
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
> How much is there on the 3270pc? I have absolutely NO documentation and
> I'd like to have some refs.
I have half a dozen to a dozen pages, I think. Email me privately at
Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk with your snail-mail address and I'll post
you a photocopy - I don't think there can be any objection to this (can
there?)
It is only marketing stuff, but it is not completely clueless (unlike
modern equivalents!)
Philip.
At 05:43 PM 2/6/98 PST, you wrote:
>been made, do you suppose? Now, it's just Intel and Mac :(
And AMD, Cyrix, Centaur, Alpha...
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
Hi,
Just a thought, but, this group has a handle on the "heritage
systems" that are still
in use..... Lott'a COBOL etc floating around... Could we, as
individuals, or as a group,
help work this situation? Could be a lot of employment out there, not to
mention a
"save the world" type thing... I apologize if this is off-topic, or out
of line....
Will
I ran across an IBM Portable Personal Computer (Model 5155) today in a
thrift store sans keyboard ("sans" = "without" for the English language
purists). The price was $50. I'd be happy to buy it and ship it to
someone who would want this. I don't know if it works, but I believe I
may be able to test it. I imagine shipping would be about $25 to the
farthest corners of the country (I'm in California, 94588), more for
out of the country of course.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
Steve, and all,
Its in here:
ftp://204.146.167.81/pub/pccbbs/refdisks
should be atdg207.*
look in the gen_text directory for allfiles.txt for a list of all the
bbs stuff.
-Mike Allison
Steve Przepiora wrote:
>
> Hi, does anyone have the setup utility for the IBM AT BIOS?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve Przepiora
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Name: vcard.vcf
> Part 1.2 Type: text/x-vcard
> Encoding: 7bit
> Description: Card for Stephen Przepiora
Hello, all:
I got a no-name "shoebox" drive for my Sun 3/50M workstation. It has a
Maxtor 300mb SCSI hard drive and what appears to be a 60mb DC600 tape drive.
After reading the Sun FAQ, I'm left clueless on how to get it to boot
>from the hard drive. The workstation that I got appears to have been a
remote-boot type, because it looks for an Internet address at startup.
Dirst off, how do I change the default boot device? Second, what are the
appropriate SCSI device IDs for the hard drive and tape drive? Right now,
they are set for tape:6, drive:4 (I remember from somewhere that the Suns
look for a drive on ID=6).
Thanks!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
>>Anyway, the place I saw them is called HMR Global Recycling. They
>>
>> 5 Mac Mice $6.00 ea
>
>This reminds me... can any of you recommentd a good mailorder place where I
>can find a couple of inexpensive Mac ADB keyboards and ADB mice (2 each)?
Hmmm... Perhaps I could pick up some for you next time I'm there? What
are you willing to pay for keyboards?
Say, anyone in the Bay Area wanna get together there sometime? I work from
home (generally) MWF, and can be somewhat flexible about my time. Lemme
know...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
If you have any 3270pc stuff laying around, I'm still in the market for
documents, software, parts, pieces or systems. Lemme know.
Or, if anyone is in Cleaveland and might be willing to go to the Lewis
Research Center to pick up items and send them to us, lemme know.
There's a beer in it somewhere....
-Mike
At 09:54 AM 2/6/98 -0800, you wrote:
>Heheh. So true, unfortunately. The other extreme is the
>fat-pud-who-eats-while-he's-hacking stereotype and then the
Ever see "Cloak and Dagger"? Y'know the
fat-pud-who-eats-while-he's-hacking character who gets killed? I got into
a couple of fights because people said that that was me...
P.S., I think real hacking is basically just a strong sense of curiosity,
coupled with a need for adventure. A lot of people go rock climbing or
skydiving or skiing or what-have-you to get their adrenalin flowing, and
some get that same rush from getting a tricky program working (Like that
web page generator I wrote a couple weeks ago) or from getting a circuit up
and running.
I think innovation comes not necessarily from a desire to innovate, but
>from running out of challenges that have been done before. The first time
you write a "hello world" program, it's great. But pretty soon, that, and
G.P.A. average programs and Tetris-clones get to be old hat, and hackers
start looking for new challenges, only there's nothing left they can say
"hey that's neat, I think I'll try and do something like that" and they
have to find something like "Hmmm... what if I used that thing to make
doing this thing easier..." and voila, you've got Visicalc or whatever.
P.P.S. warezloosers are just liquor store robbers in disquise. Doesn't
take much intelligence to copy MSWord on to a CD or upload it to an FTP
site.
P.P.P.S. For them what was interested in my web page generator, I'm working
on documenting it and will put it up on the web Real Soon Now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 04:55 PM 2/5/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Anyone know where there's a good IBM program and/or doc archive that
>goes back beyond last month? Really into the 80's Looking for original
>PC stuff...
IBM has one -- internally. I was just e-mailed some good info on the IBM
9075 PC Radio's I have in response to form I filled out on their web site.
(Sorry, I don't know where...)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
I've had my eye on a little toy Panasonic, improved sinclair clone.
Anyone know what's inside? It's silver with a nice keypad, letters with
basic functions, tape port, tv port, etc. and 32k
Can't remember the name off hand.
Just wanted to know before a spend the whole 6 dollars. (yeah, I'm
becoming a bit of a baby).
But I coould pull down the Apple ][ + with a Z80 card....
I'm leaning towards the Z80.... but it's twice the price : -}
-Mike
Well, you need a ProFile interface card :)
That's going to be hard to come by. If you are an extremely persuasive
person, you may be able to get one from Sun Remarketing (www.sunrem.com),
but you'll have to talk 'em into it.
The cable is simply a DB25-DB25 straight through.
Kai
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard A. Cini [SMTP:rcini@email.msn.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 06, 1998 5:41 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: ProFile interface/cable needed
>
> I just got a ProFile /// hard drive off of eBay. What is the interface
> card
> that I need for it?
>
> Rich Cini/WUGNET
> <nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
> ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
> MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
> ============================================
>
>
>
>
I just got a ProFile /// hard drive off of eBay. What is the interface card
that I need for it?
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
Is there a difference between a DecStation 3100 and a VaxStation 3100? I
saw some of each today at one of my favorite money pits (escaped for under
$200 today!). Are they Vaxen or something else? I'm not too interested
(I'm an HP 3000 guy).
Anyway, the place I saw them is called HMR Global Recycling. They
basically take a *HUGE* warehouse full of old PC's and Macs and ship them
overseas everyday. But they also sell some stuff to the average joe. It's
mostly as-is, especially for the odder stuff. They have the DEC stuff,
plus some Sparc stuff, misc. Apple (mostly mac) stuff, and the occassional
wierd thing.
Sometimes they have good prices, and sometimes they don't; it depends on
who you talk to and how they're feeling. You go in, look around for what
you want, then find someone to tell you how much they want for it. There
is no set pricing, or anything, they seem to make it up as you go. They're
open to negotiation; I am generally able to talk them down a bit.
Anyway, today I picked up:
4 DB25-Cen50 SCSI Cables (HP) $2.50 ea
5 Mac Mice $6.00 ea
10 Mac Appletalk kits MIB $2.50 ea
4 250MB 3.5" SCSI HD's $17.50 ea
1 6 HH drive ext SCSI case $20.00
1 HP 9114 disk drive $10.00
and the best of the bunch...
1 GRiD Compass 1101 $15.00
Anyway they have a web page (not much, last time I checked) at
<http://www.hmr-usa.com/>, and they're located on 23rd St., just East of
3rd, near Army (or Ceasar Chavez for the tourists.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
<>> The name hacker has been dragged through the mud for far too long.
<>> There's almost no real record of the 1st and 2nd generation hacks. (1
<>> were the hacks at MIT. 2nd were those at Berkeley and elsewhere, who
<>> adjusted the Hacker Ethic to allow for making money. 3rd are the
<>> present-day warez loosers. [They're here for refrence. Technically,
Being one of the first generation hackers...
Some of my better hacks was blueboxing and using it to call MITS about
hardware bugs. The college dorm pay phone that always gave money back
(the trick was truly hiding the diodes used so TPC didn't find them
easily). Running a VLF (160khz) site, using FM on CB in the early 70s
when it wasn't full of "breaker breaker". Though the three 12v car
batteries used to power the 26v line on G's minuteman missle computer
in the early '70s was pretty crufty. Sending 4800 baud data through a
repeater while a principle engineer from RCA was telling us it couldn't
be done. It can be handy not knowing you can't. ;) Sometimes it was as
silly as putting a speaker to the link lamp of a PDP-8 front pannel and
coding music. By the early '80s hacking was going to disrepute as the
tech wars style came in. Early hacking was serious doing it on zer0
budget, the technically difficult with bailing wire or the subtle
application of brute force. Most of all hacking was doing it with minimum
docs and piecing the picture from it's smoke signals.
that was hacking as I knew it. the last remnents I see todat is people
talking about getting an old PDP-8 or 10 and using a modern IDE disk so
they can power it up and run it affordably.
Allison
I forget who wrote half of this, but here goes:
> Isn't PGA Pin-Grid-Array? (It's probably wrong, but hay....)
[...]
> You sure this isn't PGA?
PGA = Professional Graphics Adapter, as Kip Crosby so rightly pointed
out. When I was at IBM this was called PGC (C = Controller).
FWIW, the PGC was three circuit boards bolted together, the two outer
ones going into adjacent slots of an XT motherboard. It had an 8088 as
graphics coprocessor, and did 640 x 480 x loads of colours.
But back to the original question,
> I'm sure my 3270pc handles a "better" quality CGA. It just looks like
> EGA, thought it was... It was running a version of Norton Utes and it
> was just beautiful turquoise blue set and clear characters.
>
> I'd have to think this was better than CGA, especially since it took two
> coupled long cards to run the video...
>
> -Mike
No, it isn't PGA. (Although most of the chips on the cards are likely
to be PGAs, in IBM custom metal cans, as I recall...)
The IBM 5272, the 3270PC display, was a very nice monitor. I don't know
the pixel resolution, but I'd guess at 800 x 400. Unfortunately, AFAIK,
it only did 8 colours.
The 3270PC display card did TEXT MODES ONLY - it was aimed at emulating
the 3279 terminal. You could buy two add-on cards for it that went in
the slots either side in the motherboard.
1. The PS card. This provided emulation of the Programmed Symbols
option on the 3279. Very nice graphics, but only as a terminal, not as
a PC (although presumably you could have written PC drivers for it...)
2. The APA card. This provided support of the All Points Addressable
modes of the CGA. These CGA modes were displayed in the top lefthand
corner of the screen. And the only 8 colours reduced the capability
somewhat as well.
It looked very good, but AFAIK IBM never supported it properly. Pity.
Later IBM released the 5370 series machines. These included the
3270PC/G and the 3270PC/GX. These had full graphics capability, the G
on a monitor the same size as the 5272 (but with I think more colours);
the GX had a graphics coprocessor (5378) in a box the size of a PS/2
model 30 and a 19 inch monitor (5379) with lots of pixels (1280 x 1024 I
think, but could have been only 1024 x 768) and I don't know how many
colours (but might have been 64).
But your description of the 3270PC sounds like you've got only one of PS
and APA, alas.
Hope this helps
Philip.
<At 11:34 2/4/98 -0500, you wrote:
<>Texas Instruments was naming some of their calculators "SR" (for Slide
<>Rule) up until the mid-80's, at least. My first one was the SR-10...the
<>"wedge". $110, IIRC....Was that TI's first?
Not by a long shot. The first was in late '71 and went for about $140
(8bigit 4banger). I had one going into EE school.
Allison
Well, since we're on this subject... how can I resist once more
mentioning...
Slide Rule Trading Post
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
On my site you will find a link to JavaSlide on the main menu. That's a
JAVA slide rule I wrote some while back, so you can reminisc even if you
can't find your old faithful. Its quite good, actually.
There's a society called the Oughtred society, with around 400+ members.
Each devoted to their slide rule collection. I know of some people with
700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom rule.
Cheers
Andrew
-----Original Message-----
From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 05, 1998 4:22 AM
Subject: Re: Slipping sticks
>
><At 19:20 2/3/98 -0500, PG wrote:
><>"Slipsticker"?!? I thought I was the last one! C'mon -- who else here ha
><>his old slide rule _and_ still remembers how to use it?
>
>I have my 10" white aluminum pickett handy and grab it when a quick
>"good to three places" answer will do. I also use a E6B which is a
>circular aircraft slide rule for time, speed, distance, fuel use and
>wind correction. That one is in the plane as I'm absolutely certain
>it works as the calculator version of the E6B allways seems to need a
>new battery.
>
>Allison
>
>
there are many models of ps1 computers, that its hard to say. the first
2011/2121/2123 were of proprietary nature, and later ps1 types were just
standard 486 pc types. later models had power management and suspend functions
like laptops do. if its a 2011 or 2121 type make sure the monitor works, since
the cpu gets it power from there.
In a message dated 2/4/98 2:44:50 PM Eastern Standard Time,
photze(a)batelco.com.bh writes:
<< I don't know if he was willing to GIVE IT TO ME. Anyway, what's a
"garden variety" PS/1? What are un-garden variety PS/1's?
>If it's a garden-variety PS/1, strictly he should pay you to take it, but
>you can be a nice guy and let him give it to you. After all, that way it's
>off his hands. >>
Thanks to all who responded to my request to form an east coast
antique computer club. I've enjoyed corresponding to you all and will
stay in touch. Would still like to meet more old computer enthusiasts.
Marty Mintzell
5635 Heming Avenue
Springfield, Virginia 22151
703-569-2380
marty(a)itgonline.com
< Aluminium galls too bad to use with aluminium against aluminium. and it
I used to used a aircraft silicone lube on mine and cleaned it
periodically. Otherwise it would bind annoyingly.
<been a lot of slide rules made of it. My MB_4 and EB-6 aircraft navigati
<slide rules are both built of it. My dad had an old (K&E ?) rule that's
<also aluminium.
I may add that it depends on the alloy too.
Allison
OK, well, about to enter high school, I've got this to say: 13 is for
7th-8th grade, so it's 14 minimum for high school. There are, of course,
exceptions, like in Kansas and Florida they enter school a year older, etc.
Actually, here, in 7th grade, we've got 2 14 and one 15 year old(s). And,
people ARE much smarter, but they didn't learn anything in school, if
they're like me.
(Sam alert...) ;-)
Tim D. Hotze
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Kaneko <Jeff.Kaneko(a)ifrsys.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, February 06, 1998 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: slipping sticks
> >>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
> >>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a
belt
> >>loop. ...
>
> Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
>
> Also, for the benefit of us non-Americans, what approximate age is "high
> school"?
>
The age range for highschool in the US is 13 - 19 (approx). You
usually enter around 13 or 14, and finish four years later (older
but in general, not much wiser). 8-P
Present company exepted, of course . . . .
Jeff
>>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
>>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a belt
>>loop. ...
Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
Also, for the benefit of us non-Americans, what approximate age is "high
school"?
At school slide rules were the only permitted calculating machines in
maths classes up to age 16 in my day (academic year 1982-83)
(requirement was dropped a couple of years later). I went through a
series of cheap plastic ones and ended up with an expensive plastic one
- I asked the local stationers for a replacement cursor and they sold me
this really nice slide rule for the same price (one pound) just to get
rid of it! This too has lost its cursor, tho' I believe I still have
the rule somewhere.
More recently I bought a decent wooden one for a similar price at a car
boot sale - still in box with plate glass cursor. I also have a special
purpose cardboard one with two slides that is meant to calculate the
flow of water through pipes of various sizes, materials and gradients.
>>700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom rule.
Wow! On a 7 foot rule you should be able to get four sig. figs without
too much interpolation anywhere along the length. Or are the markings
too coarse for that?
Philip.
If only there was a mechanism to persuade companies to allow such hobby
use of archaic software. It would be great if there was a standard
document, perhaps similar to that OpenVMS license, that would eliminate
the guilt from violating someone's copyright. "What's the harm" isn't
good enough for me. To me, preservation of the rights of the old software
is almost as important as the software itself. But it's not easy.
It may be impossible. You can get an old system from a dumpster
and if you're lucky you find floppies and the manuals.
Take an example from one of my pet projects, the Terak computer.
Terak was sold to CalComp, and CalComp was bought (or was always
owned) by McDonnell-Douglas. The last anyone saw of the Terak assets
was a semi driving from Scottsdale to New Hampshire. This Herculean
task now consists of finding someone within MD who has the time
and the good will to care, and who's been around long enough to
know what the heck I'm asking for.
Then I've got to persuade them to give me the right to, oh, copy some
fifteen-year-old floppies for someone without a legit copy, or to write
an emulator that uses the code and allow others to get a copy.
I've long heard that some varieties of dark-side hacking involve
Social Engineering that can open a door or shoulder-surf a password,
but I doubt it's powerful enough magic to persuade a defense contractor
to sign a paper to give you something for nothing.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
My Mac Portable has 2MB RAM, 1MB soldered on and 1MB on an expansion
board. This board has room for more chips, which, if added, would make
the board a total of 3MB. The problem is that the board has chips on
both sides, so that the little legs stay on the surface, instead of
going through. Can I technically solder on the chips by myself, or is it
unrealistic?
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
<If only there was a mechanism to persuade companies to allow such hobby
<use of archaic software. It would be great if there was a standard
OpenVMS archaic? It's a current product and definatly a high end OS
and it includs DECnet networking.
Unlike DOS VMS is richly packaged with tools, utilities, libraries,
editors, VMSmail, DCL command line language, macro32 and DECwindows
client and server.
<document, perhaps similar to that OpenVMS license, that would eliminate
<the guilt from violating someone's copyright. "What's the harm" isn't
Keep in mind while they grant a hobby license it's for 1 full version
level behind. DEC policy was sofware that old is unsupported but the
copyright is still valid. Still V5.4->v6.1 systems are still good for
production work. There are still systems in production use still running
them.
Often the problem with "abandoned" software is finding the oner of record
or who it is.
Allison
<Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
No idea, here in the lat 60s and early 70s they were one step better than
plastic but not as expensive as the bamboo or mahogany ones.
<Also, for the benefit of us non-Americans, what approximate age is "high
<school"?
approx 15-18 years.
<At school slide rules were the only permitted calculating machines in
<maths classes up to age 16 in my day (academic year 1982-83)
In the late 60s and early 70s slide rules were permitted where the
calculated value was part of the answer for geometry, trig and calculus
90% of a given problem was the work and 10% the actual numeric result.
In the technical (EE world) it'was expected you knew how to run a
slipstick and answers were expected to be accurate to three places
plus correct exponent. I was the first one to bring an electronic
(pocket almost) calc but I still kept a 7" stick for quick trig
functions.
<boot sale - still in box with plate glass cursor. I also have a special
<purpose cardboard one with two slides that is meant to calculate the
<flow of water through pipes of various sizes, materials and gradients.
I still have a few special ones including a plasticized paperboard one
for coil spring design.
The 15" I have is good to 5 places on the left and 4 on the right for
basic finctions, trig and logs were good to 4 and 3 places.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk <Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 07, 1998 2:09 AM
Subject: Re: slipping sticks
>>>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
>>>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a
belt
>>>loop. ...
>
>Nice! Why have I never seen an aluminium slide rule?
Almost ALL Pickett Slide Rules are aluminium.
[snip/snip]
>>>700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom
rule.
>
>Wow! On a 7 foot rule you should be able to get four sig. figs without
>too much interpolation anywhere along the length. Or are the markings
>too coarse for that?
The 7' rule is simply a blown up version of a 12" rule. Everything 7 times
bigger. Sure, you can estimate a bit better, but you wouldn't really want
to try to calculate with this thing. Its massive!!
PS: Brand new Pickett ES500 rules (quite nice model) can be had for US$25 at
the Gemmary.
Tell them I sent you ;)
Cheers
Andrew
Andrew,
> PS: Brand new Pickett ES500 rules (quite nice model) can be had for US$25 at
> the Gemmary.
Who? Where? Seriously, I've never heard of the Gemmary - can you give
a bit more info?
$25 is reasonable for a nice slide rule, I agree.
Philip.
> My friend (and I, for that matter), would never condone software piracy,
> in all seriousness. However (again, hypothetically speaking of course)
> my friend would have a lot of trouble understanding how posessing and
> running an old, obsoleted version of VMS would bring harm to anybody or to
> any organization. He might also be very disappointed that there were no
> available inexpensive hobbyist licenses available, which, if one existed,
> he would certainly jump at and support with his own hard earned money,
> quite happily.
If your hypothetical friend lives hypothetically in the United State of
hypothetical America, he might, hypothetically, spend some time searching
http://www.dejanews.com/ for the original hypothetical hobbyist VMS
license announcement, which would (hypothetically) include a URL pointing
at a place to obtain a hypothetical CD-ROM distribution. Your hypothetical
friend would then, hypothetically, be reduced to finding someone willing
to copy said hypothetical distribution files to hypothetically blank
TK50s (hypothetically, some extra work would have to be done to build
a hypothetically bootable standalone backup tape as well).
I'd supply the URL, but I don't have it handy and I don't recall it offhand.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
<Is there a difference between a DecStation 3100 and a VaxStation 3100?
<saw some of each today at one of my favorite money pits (escaped for unde
<$200 today!). Are they Vaxen or something else? I'm not too interested
<(I'm an HP 3000 guy).
DECstations is MIPS (R4000 I think) cpu and VAXstation is VAX powered.
What do they get for the oddball SCSI-68 to SCSI-50 cable
Allison
Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net> wrote:
>Does anyone know of a MS-DOS (pretend it's a 10yr+ old version) compatible
>backup program that can handle a SCSI DAT drive? I have *not* been able to
>find one. If you know of one, would you know where to find a copy now?
I use a circa 1992 "ASPITAPE.SYS" driver I got from Compuserve to drive
SCSI DAT and Exabyte under MS-DOS. I even had a 'tar' that worked with it.
I'll find them and send to you in e-mail if you like.
It was made by Greg Shenaut. In the docs his e-mail address is listed
as marva4!gks1!greg(a)ucdavis.EDU . Now there's a blast from the past,
if you want to keep this thread on topic and explain e-mail in the Old Days.
<You're in high school right? Is there any chance that when you graduate
<you'll want to come out to California to work for me? I don't know if yo
Hi, I'm interested... ;) Around MA they want a PHD to hack stuff like
that now.
Right Now I'm hacking a DEC vt180 z80/cpm card to run stand alone
(without the vt100 case and power), Z280 design and a PC keyboard to
ascii translator (8749 or 8742) to fit my needs for the z280 system.
Fortunatly it's not a dead skill.
Allison
<Here's a completely hypothetical situation for you:
Here I'll make it simpler. Your can get (US residents currently)
For free a decus basic membership, then get a VMS hobbiest license.
Now, for a modest $30 you can get a CDrom with VMS versions 5.4 though
V6.1 on CDrom for hobbiest use. (Current is either 7.1 or 7.2).
So if you happen to find an old vaxen with VMS and a valid key it's
likely cool. If you need a key for said beast you know where to get
it(www.decus.org). The CDrom would be read/bootable on a vax (VMSfile
system) so a RRD40/RRD50 or scsi compatable CDrom for a VAX is needed.
now if you didn't have said CDrom drive but had the disk someone with
a vax can cut a tape from it or just give you the savesets for any
version from 5.4 through 6.1 and you would use the DECUS provided
hobbiest license key.
<Would anyone care to venture a hypothetical answer? :)
Was the above hypothetical enough.
<Also -- no longer speaking hypothetically! -- let's say that I (myself)
<wanted to get a distribution of NetBSD on TK50 tapes. Is there anyone
<in the group who could send it to me, in exchange for fresh virgin blank
<TK50 tapes? Unfortunately I have no way of writing the available TK50
<images to tape myself, or I would.
Check with the crowd on the PORT-VAX list. (check the NetBSD web page
for help).
Allison
> My friend (and I, for that matter), would never condone software piracy,
> in all seriousness. However (again, hypothetically speaking of course)
> my friend would have a lot of trouble understanding how posessing and
> running an old, obsoleted version of VMS would bring harm to anybody or to
> any organization. He might also be very disappointed that there were no
> available inexpensive hobbyist licenses available, which, if one existed,
> he would certainly jump at and support with his own hard earned money,
> quite happily.
So, you and your friend might want to webulate over to
http://www.montagar.com/hobbyist/index.html for starters.
Hope this helps.
-Frank McConnell
> I still have my circular slide rule from high school and even use it
on
> occassion. I won't say when I got it but it was before HP released the
-35
Well, I learned the slipstick in '68.
> $110, IIRC....Was that TI's first?
>
> Not by a long shot. The first was in late '71 and went for about $140
> (8bigit 4banger). I had one going into EE school.
What was the model number? I got my SR-10 in '74, my first year of
college.
Still have it, somewhere.
manney
Well, this one's not really good at all, but try http://www.can.ibm.com .
-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Allison <mallison(a)konnections.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, February 06, 1998 2:53 AM
Subject: IBM Archive
>Anyone know where there's a good IBM program and/or doc archive that
>goes back beyond last month? Really into the 80's Looking for original
>PC stuff...
>
>Thanks,
>
>-Mike
<2708 (looks like 12 volts according to a spec sheet in one of my
<books.)
2708 is three voltage for operation (+5, +12, -5) programming is
for programming CS/ must be 12.0v and program pulse is 26v
<2716 25 volts
27c16 12.5
TI2532 25v differing pinout and programming spec.
<2732 25 volts
<2732A 21 volts
<2732B 12.5 volts
<2764 21 volts
<27C64 21 volts
<2764A 12.5 volts
Later ones are generally 12.5v. Some require different Vcc when
programming as well. Also the part numbers given do not always match
given vendors for a stated programming voltage
Allison
Does anyone know of a MS-DOS (pretend it's a 10yr+ old version) compatible
backup program that can handle a SCSI DAT drive? I have *not* been able to
find one. If you know of one, would you know where to find a copy now?
Failing that, how about a windoze 3.11 program?
Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
> Forgive me, but I've sinned... :)
> I had a circular slide rule, but I never learned to use it.
> It's buried somewhere in my collection of junk, I think...
> I'll go look for it tonight. Anyone have directions for it's une
anywhere?
If you can't find them, e-mail me and I'll tell you how. It's just like a
straight one, but wrapped, with 2 cursors. Clear? <g>
manney(a)nwohio.com
From: Bill Yakowenko <yakowenk(a)cs.unc.edu>
Subject: EPROM programming voltages
>Can anyone point me to an on-line reference showing the necessary
>voltages for programming various EPROMs? I'm especially interested
>in the oldies-but-goodies: 2708, 2716, 2732, and 2764's. In
>particular, it seems some of them want 25v while others want only
>21v, and I suspect that even the same chip number from different
>manufacturers may want different voltages.
2708 (looks like 12 volts according to a spec sheet in one of my
books.)
2716 25 volts
2732 25 volts
2732A 21 volts
2732B 12.5 volts
2764 21 volts
27C64 21 volts
2764A 12.5 volts
Source: EPROM Programmers Handbook for the C64 and C128 by CSM
Software.
--
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Visit our web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/
Call our Commodore 64 BBS (Silicon Realms 300-2400 baud) at: (209)
754-1363
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
I have recently bought a second-hand Pencil II computer. This machine was
made in the mid-eighties by Soundic Electronics. I have heard it was
distributed my Hanimex, although there's no indication of this on the
computer itself. Its microprocessor is an NEC Z80 clone, and it appears to
have 16Kb RAM. The case is light grey and black, with dark grey
alphanumeric keys and light grey cursor and function keys. Its BASIC comes
on a cartridge which is inserted in a slot in the top right-hand corner of
the unit. You can see a picture of it at
http://www.insset.u-picardie.fr/museum/english/pages_museum/hanimex.htm
(the only mention of the machine I've found on the Web). Unfortunately I
do not have a power supply or any documentation for it. Could anyone tell
me what the pinouts for its power supply are (the power socket is a
four-pin DIN socket)?
Thanks in advance.
Regards,
| Scott McLauchlan |"Sometimes the need to mess with their heads|
|Information Services Division| outweighs the millstone of humiliation." |
| University of Canberra |__________Fox_Mulder_"The_X-Files:_Squeeze"_|
| scott(a)isd.canberra.edu.au |http://www.canberra.edu.au/~scott/home.html |
:
><>My first one was the SR-10...the
><>"wedge". $110, IIRC....Was that TI's first?
Allison wrote
>Not by a long shot. The first was in late '71 and went for about $140
>(8digit 4banger). I had one going into EE school.
Kip wrote:
>But that WAS the SR-10.
I was reading through this quarter's issue of the International
Calculator Collector. (The cover story is about the 30th anniversary
of the world's first "pocket" calculator- TI's "Cal-Tech" prototype)
They print an excerpt from Electronics magazine dated July 3,1972
that said that TI was test marketing their first calculator - The Datamath
in Dallas and Houston, selling for 149.99.
Another excerpt from a TI press release dated September 21,1972
states "A line of three new calculators introduced today marks the
formal entry of Texas Instruments into the electronic calculator market.
The three new calculators are the TI-2500 portable calculator and the
TI-3000 and TI-3500 desk models."
According to TI's calculator history page (Check out
http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/calchist.htm) the TI-2500
DataMath came out in 1972. And the SR-10 came out in 1973.
=========================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com
Senior Software Engineer
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
Curator
Museum of Personal Computing Machinery
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/museum
=========================================
Anyone know where there's a good IBM program and/or doc archive that
goes back beyond last month? Really into the 80's Looking for original
PC stuff...
Thanks,
-Mike
At 09:48 05-02-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote:
>> Sounds about right. 11A at 230V is 2.5 kVA, which will do 1.8kW at 0.7
power
>> factor (typical for a rectified mains power supply) with ease.
>>
>>> Still dumped alotta heat! :-) We got cheap electricity in this
town.$0.036
>>> per KWH vs. about $0.08 or more per KWH outside of the area.
>>
>> Even $0.08 is less than we pay (typically $0.11). But we can get dual
>> tariff systems which charge us the same peak rate and less than half
>> that off-peak for heating etc. But I digress.
>
>This sounds like a perfect time to get on my soapbox concerning big
>computers and electricity!
>
>Lets say you have this wonderful IBM mainframe and wish to use it. When
>you add up all of the DASDs, maybe a terminal or two, perhaps you end up
>with a 3 kW system. Now run that value thru your electric bill. I think
>that you will find that a night of hacking on your system will cost less
>than a ticket to a movie!
Certainly more _fun_ than some of the films that have been released for
sure! The wife will not agree though. But if one of us had a large old
S/360 or S/370 in our basements, the power consumption would financially
kill us (because of the water chillers for cooling, current consumption of
older technology electronics, etc.) I'd love to even _see_ a large S/360
and all its utilities.
>
>And I must admit that I am suprised that the CPU sucks so much. I suppose
>if some of the memory was taken out, it would be quite a bit less. My
>Sun-4/280 draws a hell of a bunch, but it has 32 megs of 41256 DRAMS,
>each one sucking a little bit. Just removing 24 megs from it drops the
>power consumption greatly.
Only one 8 Meg board installed. Maximum, IIRC, was 16 Mb storage. DASD was
probably used as workstation storage. Philip, can you confirm any of this
>from your sales literature? If you're interested, William, I can give you
the lineup of PC board modules in the CPU which I briefly talked about
earlier in the thread.
- Chris
-- --
=======================================================
Christian Fandt Phone: +716-661-1832 -Office
ACU-RITE INC. +716-488-1722 -Home
One Precision Way Fax: +716-661-1888 -Office fax
Jamestown, New York
14701-9699 USA email: cfandt(a)servtech.com
I had a trip down memory lane yesterday - I cleared a path to the filing
cabinet and got out my old IBM glossy leaflets. As well as things like
"IBM 3090 - the Base for Growth into the Nineties" I found a couple of
things on the 9370 series. I also found some stuff on PC graphics
platforms and 3270PCs (of which more in my next).
> At 12:30 03-02-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote:
>>
>>Just because the sticker says 30 amps does not mean it will draw that
>>much! In general, those ratings are worst case (a fully blown system), and
>>includes some safety factor (as well as some surge).
>
> Oh I already knew that, William. A 30A breaker works out fine to handle the
> six 9332 DASD units (IBM's accronym for these type of hard disks for some
> of you other observers), 9345 tape drive, rack power controllers and the
> 9370-60 CPU.
Ah. A 9375. Despite my joke and William's response, a 9375 model 60
has the highest power consumption of any in my catalogue, at 1.8kW -
enough to heat a room, if not a house.
(FWIW DASD = Direct Access Storage Device)
If you are interested in operating systems, those listed for the model
60 were:
VM/SP
VSE/SP
IX/370 (The AIX you were asking about)
MVS (which won't run on the 9373 (model 20) or model 40.)
There were also integrated packages carrying their own environment based
on VM, which was then called VM/IS
> Can't recall exactly, but total draw was about 11 to 12 amps or so when I
Sounds about right. 11A at 230V is 2.5 kVA, which will do 1.8kW at 0.7 power
factor (typical for a rectified mains power supply) with ease.
Still dumped alotta heat! :-) We got cheap electricity in this town. $0.036
per KWH vs. about $0.08 or more per KWH outside of the area.
Even $0.08 is less than we pay (typically $0.11). But we can get dual
tariff systems which charge us the same peak rate and less than half
that off-peak for heating etc. But I digress.
Can't wait to work more with the system later this year if the wife has no
additional remodeling in the new house for me to do :-(
Have fun!
Philip.
> At 13:15 13-01-98 -0500, William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote:
>
>>> Me too! But I think a 4381, say or even a 9370, would be easier to work
>>> on.
>>
>>Getting a 9370 should not be a problem - they are dogs that really were
>>not sucessful. I have seen quite a few in the scrap yards (none suitable
>>for taking, however).
>
> I'll agree it's no problem. I got the old 9370 from my company setting at
> home. Paid an official $1 to act as a transfer of ownership. It's just
> barely a classic now. Obsolete as heck -not too long after we paid $200k+
> for it in '86/'87. Lot of Tylenol used to sooth aching back muscles when I
> dragged it home piece-by-piece. (Should have seen the wife look at me...)
Strange how people in different (geographical) areas find different
machines. In the [year + 2 vacations] I worked for IBM, I never saw a
9370 at all. It was released at about that time - I grabbed some
marketing leaflets which I believe I still have - and I thought it
looked an interesting system, but I never saw one :-(
> It's a dog, but nevertheless, something important in the line of S/370
> lineage which I literally rescued from the dumpster.
>
> Notably, it is said to be the first actual production unit sold. Don't
> exactly recall complete serial number, but it probably is first since it is
> something like xxx0001. Will get back to the list later with SN, etc. if
> anybody interested in confirming this.
Fun if true. Do find out!
> I need OS books (VSE, I think) and help in bringing her completely up.
> Xerox, I believe, kept the OS manuals since they did all the software
> maintenace under contract. IBM did hardware maintenance, of course. We used
> the Xerox Business Management System (XBMS) product to run our company. Have
> virtually all other hardware books and most periferal books safely at home.
>
> Heard that AIX could run on the 9370 under (I think) VM or something. Any
> AIX and VM OS's around that I could scrounge for this iron??
I'll have a look in my marketing bumf and see what IBM were offering.
Alas, I have little of a technical nature.
I'd think a 9370 ought to run Phoenix/MVT at least. Do any of our
Cambridge (UK) contingent want to have a go?
> Have tried to bring it up at home but, apparently, lack of certain
> periferals it expects to see hung off the terminal ports causes the IPL to
> quit before OS completely loads. Need a guru or present-day user to help
> figure this out.
You know, that sort of thing _might_ be in the marketing stuff (as in, a
complete system need consist only of...) since the main selling point
was the small size and no need of special machine room.
> Any of you folks willing to help me with this project later in the year???
Yes, but not physically, since I am unlikely to get to travel to the
States again in the near future! That said, I do have a voucher to
spend with Continental Airlines sometime...
> Wife and I just bought another house and will not be settled until
> summertime or later. I'm making provisions during my rewiring of the house
> to include a 30A double-pole breaker since the 9370 takes 230V, single
> phase. Will duct the air coming out of the CPU to heat the house instead of
> using the furnace (just kidding, but there's quite a few BTUs dumped outta
> the thing and could keep the house above freezing in the winter at least.)
30A at 230V is around 7kW - running continuously, that could keep a
small house quite warm. (Typical electrical domestic heating
installation in UK, four storage heaters rated at between 2kW and 4kW
each, heat up for 7 hours at night, release heat slowly during day -
equivalent of 3 to 4 kW continuously)
Will tell the list anything more on this machine if any interest.
Yes please.
Philip.
The only piece of useful information about the 3270PC displays I could
find yesterday was the resolution - 720 x 512 x 8 for the small
graphics display, which I am now fairly convinced was a 5272. I don't
know the scanning rates I'm afraid.
Larry, you can get text on it with only one of the 3270PC display
cards, which will indeed work in an XT.
I'm curious that 720 x 512 (or 800 x 512) was so uncommon - it seems a
logical (-ish) step up from 640 x 400.
I was going to go on at length here about the PGC (PGA) and its
display, since the marketing leaflet surprisingly gives a lot of info,
right down to the connector pinout. But Tony got there first.
Philip.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Assuming that all this is right (and I have no way of knowing as I'm
using the 3270pc), I bet you could find VGA, EGA or CGA cards which
could run a 3270 mode or a 5272 mode if told. It's a question of
knowing what to ask and the software or firmware knowing. Someone had
to be dumb enough to include it.
Otherwise, what do you want for the 5272 $$?
-Mike
Lawrence Walker wrote:
>
> On 3 Feb 98 at 17:22, Philip.Belben(a)powertech.co.uk wrote:
>
> snip
> >
> > > I'm sure my 3270pc handles a "better" quality CGA. It just looks like
> > > EGA, thought it was... It was running a version of Norton Utes and it
> > > was just beautiful turquoise blue set and clear characters.
> > >
> > > I'd have to think this was better than CGA, especially since it took two
> > > coupled long cards to run the video...
> > >
> > > -Mike
> >
> > No, it isn't PGA. (Although most of the chips on the cards are likely
> > to be PGAs, in IBM custom metal cans, as I recall...)
> >
> > The IBM 5272, the 3270PC display, was a very nice monitor. I don't know
> > the pixel resolution, but I'd guess at 800 x 400. Unfortunately, AFAIK,
> > it only did 8 colours.
> >
> > The 3270PC display card did TEXT MODES ONLY - it was aimed at emulating
> > the 3279 terminal. You could buy two add-on cards for it that went in
> > the slots either side in the motherboard.
> >
> > 1. The PS card. This provided emulation of the Programmed Symbols
> > option on the 3279. Very nice graphics, but only as a terminal, not as
> > a PC (although presumably you could have written PC drivers for it...)
> >
> > 2. The APA card. This provided support of the All Points Addressable
> > modes of the CGA. These CGA modes were displayed in the top lefthand
> > corner of the screen. And the only 8 colours reduced the capability
> > somewhat as well.
> >
> > It looked very good, but AFAIK IBM never supported it properly. Pity.
> >
> snip
>
> > But your description of the 3270PC sounds like you've got only one of PS
> > and APA, alas.
> >
> > Hope this helps
> >
> > Philip.
> >
> I've had a 5272 -23 monitor stashed for some time. Was never able to
> get it working on an XT trying various standard cards and drivers,
> altho it did display jumbled-up color lines so I figured it must be
> the driver. IBM wouldn't/couldn't offer me any help.
> From the above, it appears that I would need a 3270pc display card
> and one of two add-on cards. If I was fortunate enough to find these
> would it work on an XT ?
>
> Also I pulled an IBM DM12n501 monitor out of a dumpster. No
> power cord , just a 15 pin female connector . I surmise it's some
> sort of dumb terminal. So before I dump it any idea on what it is ?
>
> ciao larry
> lwalkerN0spaM(a)interlog.com
>Does anyone know of a conversion utiliy which will convert files from a
>CP/M machine to Mac format? There is someone here willing to part with his
>Kaypro 4 but needs to convert his old files first.
No one's mentioned the problem that you'll also need to convert
the *data* once you've moved the *files*. Which word processor
created the files, and which contemporary word processor do you
hope to use them in? You may need to revive the original machine
or something similar in order to re-save the documents in ASCII.
Conversion programs might be available, but that might cost $$$.
Of course, you'll need to run 22Disk on a PC equipped with both
5 1/4 and 3 1/2 floppies, then move the files to a 3 1/2 PC disk, and
the Mac can read them as-is.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>"Slipsticker"?!? I thought I was the last one! C'mon -- who else here has
>his old slide rule _and_ still remembers how to use it?
>
>manney
Yo! Right here in my desk drawer. Used this one through High School
(graduated 1980). The teachers cut me some slack on the 3rd digit from time
to time.
>No, I do not have _my_ high school/college slide rule, which was a
>magnificent 12" yellow aluminum Pickett with a hard leather case and a belt
>loop. ...
>__________________________________________
>Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
Oooh, a pretty one. That's just like my "home system".
>I also use a E6B ... That one is in the plane as I'm absolutely certain
>it works as the calculator version of the E6B allways seems to need a
>new battery.
>
>Allison
Right - and it's fast, and the readout is visible in any lighting condition
in the cockpit (if you can't read an E6B, navigation is *not* your main
problem!) and you can drop it about as far as you want and it'll be OK. I
have never used an electronic E6B, for all those reasons.
> I know of some people with
>700+ units. Me, I have 30, including a 7 foot long Pickett classroom rule.
>
>Cheers
>Andrew
Wow...I didn't think this thread would lead to massive array parallel
processing *or* supercomputing...but you never know! ;-)
- Mark
>the eminent slipsticker Andrew Davie wrote:
<Snip>
"Slipsticker"?!? I thought I was the last one! C'mon -- who else here has
his old slide rule _and_ still remembers how to use it?
manney
Nickolas & everyone else on this thread:
Again, I _really_ disagree with this tip. It shouldn't make any difference as
to the name. I renamed the files to .dsk and it really didn't make any
difference at all, for me anyway. Just wanted to reiterate that myself and
many, many other users have not had this problem either.
My $.02
CORD COSLOR
Nickolas Marentes wrote:
> Thanks Paul! I will add this tip onto my Web Page. Could solve many
> people's problems.
>
> > I had some problems using the wonderful files I downloaded from
> > Nickolas' web page as well, initially. I was downloading the file under
> > MS-DOS, then renaming from *.zip to *.dsk, then porting it to the CoCo
> > using the emulator. Couldn't get it to dshrink in any format (ASCII
> > thru binary).
> >
> > Then it occurred to me that by renaming the file in MS-DOS, I was
> > slightly changing the contents (the first few bytes of the file, I
> > imagine), thus making it unuseable. The solution was to port it over
> > with the .ZIP extension as a binary executable, then rename it under
> > CoCo BASIC. Worked like a charm.
--
_________________________________________
| Cord G. Coslor : archive(a)navix.net |
| Deanna S. Wynn : deannasue(a)navix.net |
|-----------------------------------------|
| PO Box 308 - Peru, NE - 68421-0308 |
| (402) 872- 3272 |
|_________________________________________|
Ward (and others) wrote:
> > I keep an 8" floppy disk in the front of my store to amaze people ("Just
> > fold it twice and stick it in your drive...it holds a lot!")
> >
> > Just how much do (did?) they hold? (I'm sure there were different data
> > densities...just a range is all I want!)
>
> If I recall, when IBM first invented the things, they held right about
> 128k, single sided, single density. By the time I first dealt with them
> in the TRS-80 Model 2, they were packing 512k on a single-sided disk.
> Later, the Model 16/6000 Xenix systems were packing 1.25M on a double
> sided disk. Shortly after that, the format died in favor of 5.25HD.
Fair summary, except that I'd have said 'the format lives on in 5.25"
HD' - IBM introduced the HD 5.25 inch diskettes to behave as much as
possible like 8 inch ones, even though that meant different magnetic
properties of the oxide from conventional 5.25". And IBM had enough
clout that this displaced the existing 80 track formats right out of the
market. IBM PCs that have HD drives have an 8 inch disk controller
controlling them.
So in summary, an 8 inch disk holds as much as a 5.25 inch one, although
older formats held less...
Now, does anyone know how much a 14 inch floppy held? (it was 14, wasn't
it?) For that matter, who else has ever seen one?
We had a drive at IBM which was bigger than the PC it plugged into. The
disk (I only ever saw the one!) was in a white card envelope instead of
the conventional black plastic one, and the slot where the head went in
was along one of the diagonals, but otherwise I remember blank-all about
it.
Philip.
"Andrew Davie" <adavie(a)mad.scientist.com> wrote:
>Well, since we're on this subject... how can I resist once more
>mentioning... Slide Rule Trading Post
Well, a fellow winner of the "Geek Site Of The Day" Award. I mention
your site on my site, the Terak Museum, which won on October 16, 1996.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
Acrobat PDF versions of the Shugart SA800/801 Diskette Storage
Drive Maintenance Manual can be found online at:
<http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~itda/frames.html>
This is the page of the Internet Techincal Documentation Archive,
a project with the admirable aim of securing official permissions
to scan and post the documentation of archaic computer equipment.
They have some Terak documents online, but not much else. If you
can think of other documents that might be able to be posted in this
fashion, please drop them a note! They'll do the work. You'll
have to send the scans or paper to Edinburgh, though.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
I mean, a paper is flat, and a board is (mostly) flat too, so why wouldn't
I be able to scan it? Answer is, I can. It works fine. The only bug
is the board is bigger than the scanner... I'll be retryin throughout the day,
you can see the pictures at http://209.174.127.164/pdp8
Tell me what you think! Oh, and I wouldn't try this with anything with
EPROMs on it... :)
-------
>From the Microsoft Museum
1980
Microsoft Announces XENIX OS
Microsoft announces Microsoft XENIX OS, a portable operating
system for 16-bit microprocessors. It is an interactive, multi-user,
multi-tasking system that will run on Intel 8086, Zilog Z8000, Motorola
M68000, and DEC PDP-11 series. All of Microsoft's existing system
software (COBOL, PASCAL, BASIC and DBMS) will be adapted to
run under the XENIX system, and all existing software written for
UNIX OS will be compatible as well.
? 1998 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
Data General has a neat "museum" of influentional systems. Find the
personal computer section at:
http://www.dg.com/about/html/microprocessors.html
Here's the machines they feature (with pictures)
MITS' Altair 8800 (1974)
Apple II (1977)
Tandy TRS-80 (1977)
Osborne 1 (1981)
IBM PC (1981)
Compaq Transportable (1982)
IBM PCjr (1983)
Data General's DG/One (1984)
Sun 3/50 workstation (1986)
Data General's AViiON AV 9500 SMP server (1989)
-Mike
Thanks. I'm in Ohio, 44857
As I understand it, you have a complete system, with a (fuzzy?) monitor? Is
there a HDD, or is that the bernoulli? Is there software?
Thanks,
manney(a)nwohio.com
----------
> From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> To: Manney
> Subject: Re: Stuff, while we're at it...
> Date: Sunday, February 01, 1998 9:51 PM
>
> Manny:
>
> Sorry I haven't responded, I've been in Vegas since friday am.
>
> The MAC stuff is yours, if you desire. The only exception is the 5mb
> bernouli which was spoken for (but not yet taken) if that works out it's
> gone. I do have another 20MB bernouli, but I need the enclosure, you
> can have the drive though, if you like.
>
> Lemme know you're address and I'll check the shipping and send you back
> a total for your decision.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike Allison
>
> PG Manney wrote:
> >
> > I'd be interested in the Mac stuff
> >
> > manney(a)nwohio.com
Can anyone point me to an on-line reference showing the necessary
voltages for programming various EPROMs? I'm especially interested
in the oldies-but-goodies: 2708, 2716, 2732, and 2764's. In
particular, it seems some of them want 25v while others want only
21v, and I suspect that even the same chip number from different
manufacturers may want different voltages.
Thanks,
Bill.
>Now that you've said that -- how about a Centronics-type connector, with
>the female end on the end of the monitor cable, and the male end recessed
>into the card bracket, where it would just be another feature connector of
>sorts? This exact combination, when used for parallel printers or external
>SCSI, is almost indestructible.
One problem with that is that the average centronics connector is wider
(thicker?) than the standard PC slot allows for. I believe this may be
true of Mac slots as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Those of you who have been dreaming of your own Kennedy 9400, take a
look at this...
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
Path:
Supernews70!Supernews73!supernews.com!news.gv.tsc.tdk.com!WCG!news.oru.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.mathworks.com!mvb.saic.com!info-pdp11
From: Dan Lanciani <ddl(a)deas.harvard.edu>
Newsgroups: vmsnet.pdp-11
Subject: Kennedy 9400 tape drive available
Message-ID: <199802040522.AAA06277(a)endor.das.harvard.edu>
Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 00:22:34 -0500 (EST)
Organization: Info-Pdp11<==>Vmsnet.Pdp-11 Gateway
X-Gateway-Source-Info: Mailing List
Lines: 11
Xref: Supernews70 vmsnet.pdp-11:9192
I have a Kennedy 9400 drive here (Gloucester, MA) for the taking. This
is a tri-density upright unit with formatted Pertec interface. It worked
the last time I used it, but, as I look at it now, it appears that the
backup
battery on the CPU board has failed. It would likely be necessary to run
through the calibration procedure after replacing the battery. (I recall
doing the calibration before, so it must be in the manual. These drives
have an RS232 port to control the diagnostics.) I also have an extra
drive
(with mechanical problems) for spare parts; they should probably go
together.
Dan Lanciani
ddl(a)harvard.edu
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, SysOp,
The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fido 1:343/272)
kyrrin2 {at} wiz<ards> d[o]t n=e=t
"...No matter how hard we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe
an object, event, or living creature, in our own human terms. It cannot possibly
define any of them!..."
> Not quite (at least for PS/2's). PS/2 models with a number lower than
> 50 (ie, mods 25, 30, 35, 40) have an ISA (or is it EISA?) bus.
25 and 30 are ISA, anyway.
> Am I the only person
> to have been brought up with a Keuffel & Esser ivory covered mahogany
> rule? Also, what was the name of the manufacturer who made a bamboo core
> rule?
K&E made a bamboo one, too. (At least mine looks like bamboo -- it
certainly isn't mahogany).
I was told that bamboo has a low coefficient of linear expansion, which is
why they used it.
manney
> >Slide Rule Trading Post
> >http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/
> >
> >On my site you will find a link to JavaSlide on the main menu. That's a
> >JAVA slide rule I wrote some while back, so you can reminisc even if you
> >can't find your old faithful. Its quite good, actually.
It is -- vary well done! There are still people interested in them...I
didn't know there were so many slipsticks around!
(btw, I bought about 10 at an auction awhile back...still have a few left,
sans cursors. Anyone want one?)
manney(a)nwohio.com
First of all, did MS Xenix run on PC hardware?
Secondly, was there ever a Windows NT 1.0 and 2.0? How did they compare
to a cheap version of UNIX?
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>The divergence from OS/2 and windows3.x was also influenced by MS getting
>Cutler an OS heavy that created DEC RSX-11 and early VMS incantations.
>the idea of NT was clean sheet 32bit OS with multitasking, multiprocessing
>and inherant networking all of which were glueons for windows. OS/2 was
>a different path from NT with a different base designer.
It is interesting that many of the error messages in the pre V3.1 beta releases
referred to OS/2. Maybe it was an almost clean room.
bw
In a message dated 2/4/98 5:38:18 PM Eastern Standard Time,
mallison(a)konnections.com writes:
<< PS/2 = MCA
PS/1 = EISA
Agreed??
-Mike >>
nope.
ps/2=some ISA and mostly MCA
ps/1=ISA
<example, certainly is. I'm not saying we don't need 15 pins; I say we ne
<15 THICKER pins, and since this connector is typically the only connecto
<on the back of a VGA adapter, there's plenty of room.
Par of the resoning was that it should have a connector that is not like
any other. if it were a standard db9 or db15 you'd have people plugging
into the serial port screaming it don't work. It's bad enough that you
have people that will force things no matter what.
Allison
>First of all, did MS Xenix run on PC hardware?
Yes.
>Secondly, was there ever a Windows NT 1.0 and 2.0? How did they compare
>to a cheap version of UNIX?
No, the first Windows NT was V3.1 which matched the current shipping version
of Windows at that time. IMHO it was not even close to any reasonable version
of Unix but was/is much easier to configure.
Regards,
Bob
<NT prior to 3.x was called MS LAN Manager, and didn't compare particularl
<well to anything.
NT prior to NT wasn't. NT was a divergent design that is non dos
filesystem. LANMAN is the networking component of WFW3.11.
The divergence from OS/2 and windows3.x was also influenced by MS getting
Cutler an OS heavy that created DEC RSX-11 and early VMS incantations.
the idea of NT was clean sheet 32bit OS with multitasking, multiprocessing
and inherant networking all of which were glueons for windows. OS/2 was
a different path from NT with a different base designer.
In reality NT is not a stand alone OS as it requires windows as the user
interface wher OS/2 it was a add on. Also the roots for OS/2 go back
further and it was the DOS replacement with all the things that DOS
still does not have.
Allison
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kip Crosby [SMTP:engine@chac.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 2:16 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Re: Microsoft OSes
>
> NT prior to 3.x was called MS LAN Manager, and didn't compare particularly
> well to anything.
>
Hmm, couple of misconceptions there. First off, LAN Manager was a network
product, not an operating system. LanMan Server ran on top of OS/2 1.x, and
LanMan clients were available for MS-DOS and OS/2. LAN Manager 1.x was an
OEM product and was not sold by Microsoft. It was available as 3Com 3+Open,
IBM LAN Server, etc. LAN Manager 1.x was a first generation product, but
LAN Manager 2.x performed well and was the first network product to capture
significant market share away from NetWare, where many others had previously
failed. LAN Manager 2.x was also the first network server sold directly by
Microsoft.
Kai
Ok, if Xenix runs on PCs, does anyone have a copy they could send me?
(Piracy won't work, I want the manuals as well)
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Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
First of all, did MS Xenix run on PC hardware?
Yes, 286 and above as I recall. Introduced August 1984.
Secondly, was there ever a Windows NT 1.0 and 2.0?
In a sense, this was OS/2. OS/2 1.x was a cooperative venture between
Microsoft and IBM, with the majority of the OS/2 core designed by MS
architect Gordon Letwin (ref: the 80s book _Inside OS/2_ by Letwin, MS
Press). The first version of Windows NT, 3.1, arose from a difference of
opinion between Microsoft and IBM over the future of advanced operating
systems; a difference of opinion created by the huge unanticipated success
of Windows 3.0. After the Win3.0 release, IBM and Microsoft development
paths diverged, with IBM focusing on OS/2 2.x, and Microsoft on Windows 3.x.
Both continued work on their 3.0 releases of advanced operating systems,
which became OS/2 Warp and Windows NT respectively.
Kai
My opinions not Microsoft's, etc.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Max Eskin [SMTP:maxeskin@hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 1:02 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Microsoft OSes
>
> First of all, did MS Xenix run on PC hardware?
> Secondly, was there ever a Windows NT 1.0 and 2.0? How did they compare
> to a cheap version of UNIX?
>
> ______________________________________________________
> Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
<The manual/documentation I have gives a procedure you can follow (manuall
<flipping the switches all the way) which is a self-test. Following the
<procedure you can check if your 8800b is working correctly. Using this
<procedure I tracked down several problems (loose wires to fron panel) bu
<still have the address light problem.
<
<I'll track down the procedure and explain further, if there is any intere
Having done that (owner of a 8800 early, early one) I know it well.
Allison
I keep an 8" floppy disk in the front of my store to amaze people ("Just
fold it twice and stick it in your drive...it holds a lot!")
Just how much do (did?) they hold? (I'm sure there were different data
densities...just a range is all I want!)
manney
Sun Hemmi, of course.
>With all of this dialogue about slide rules, I am appalled to note that
>Pickett & Eckell is the only brand name mentioned. Am I the only person
>to have been brought up with a Keuffel & Esser ivory covered mahogany
>rule? Also, what was the name of the manufacturer who made a bamboo core
>rule?
> - don
<At 19:20 2/3/98 -0500, PG wrote:
<>"Slipsticker"?!? I thought I was the last one! C'mon -- who else here ha
<>his old slide rule _and_ still remembers how to use it?
I have my 10" white aluminum pickett handy and grab it when a quick
"good to three places" answer will do. I also use a E6B which is a
circular aircraft slide rule for time, speed, distance, fuel use and
wind correction. That one is in the plane as I'm absolutely certain
it works as the calculator version of the E6B allways seems to need a
new battery.
Allison
Hi. There's this guy, in Bahrain, who's got a PS/1 386 2MB RAM, that's been
"sitting in his closet." Now, he wants to know what it would be worth. I
want to know what it'd be worth, too. (There's going to be arguements....
I'm sure.) Anyway, condition is currently unknown, but assumed in working
condition.
Dollars, please. C'mon, I'm not THAT far away. (PS-The guy's here now...
might be handy.)
-----Original Message-----
From: John Higginbotham <higginbo(a)netpath.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, February 04, 1998 10:12 PM
Subject: Re: PS/1 How Much?
>At 09:21 PM 2/4/98 +0300, you wrote:
>>Hi. There's this guy, in Bahrain, who's got a PS/1 386 2MB RAM, that's
been
>>"sitting in his closet." Now, he wants to know what it would be worth. I
>>want to know what it'd be worth, too. (There's going to be arguements....
>
>Shekels or dollars? :)
>
>- John Higginbotham
>- limbo.netpath.net
>