M H Stein wrote:
> ------------------Original Message:
>>So to be clear, I am agreeing with the position that one can have
>>Windows outside of a GUI (and that one can have a GUI that lacks
>>windows, such as a CAD program), but in the mind of the masses, GUIs
>>== windows.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> And of course the mouse is irrelevant to this tiresome argument as well,
> since it was quite commonly used in plain old text-mode single-tasking
> non-windowed DOS (which could of course also have windows, multi-task
> and display graphics, so I guess DOS WAS a GUI after all...)
>
> Sheesh!
>
> The OP said all we need to know with "I was going by the *popular* definition
> of GUI/Windowed environment, not the strict one."
That was me that said that, but I'm not the OP. I was assuming that this was
what the OP meant, though.
And I have come to accept, as I'm sure most of us have, that the nature of
this list's populace makes a higher-than-average level of nitpicking inevitable.
Oh well. I wouldn't change it for the world.
,xtG
tsooJ
Jules typed
> Cameron Kaiser wrote:
>>> I question Tog's "$50 million dollar study" just as much.
>>> That's a lot of lettuce.
>>
>> On the other hand, Apple doesn't exactly do cost-economical anything.
>
> Except mouse buttons :)
Apple's plenty happy to save money, it just never trickles down to the
end purchaser.
------------------Original Message:
>So to be clear, I am agreeing with the position that one can have
>Windows outside of a GUI (and that one can have a GUI that lacks
>windows, such as a CAD program), but in the mind of the masses, GUIs
>== windows.
>-ethan
------------------------------
And of course the mouse is irrelevant to this tiresome argument as well,
since it was quite commonly used in plain old text-mode single-tasking
non-windowed DOS (which could of course also have windows, multi-task
and display graphics, so I guess DOS WAS a GUI after all...)
Sheesh!
The OP said all we need to know with "I was going by the *popular* definition
of GUI/Windowed environment, not the strict one."
Speaking of CAD, I remember being blown away by an early demo of
AutoCAD running on an XT with two monitors; an MGA for the
commands, etc. and a CGA (or was it an EGA) for the drawing.
Of course there were $$$ boxes that could do this as well, but on
a lowly XT? I was impressed (didn't take much in those days).
m
Does anyone remember how to unlock a Macintosh OS 8 Harddrive?
I've got a Quadra 800 I'm working on but the harddrive is locked and
doesn't allow for read or writes.
(Aside from formatting)
Thanks
Rob
Robert Borsuk
irisworld at mac.com
--
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.
Does anyone remember how to unlock a Macintosh OS 8 Harddrive?
I've got a Quadra 800 I'm working on but the harddrive is locked and
doesn't allow for read or writes.
(Aside from formatting)
Thanks
Rob
Robert Borsuk
irisworld at mac.com
--
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.
>From: "Dave Dunfield" <dave06a at dunfield.com>
>
> >Thinking about it some more, the
> > loading of the head against the surface on both sides is almost
>certainly
> > critical, so this wouldn't work :(
>
>I've often wondered if one could make up a drive with less head pressure,
>possibly using some additional electronics to clean up the signal - I've
>had a few systems come in where people wanted the data recovered, and
>they've been suffering from the "circular rings of death". Never explored
>the idea further.
Hi
If you spin it fast enough, you could us a hard disk head. You might
need a way to keep it flat such as a porous surface with a vacuum.
Or maybe float it like the bernulli ( sp? ) drives did.
You couldn't run it that fast in the envelope.
Dwight
>
>Regarding Als idea of reading the disk backward - It would be a fairly
>simply matter to make up a version of ImageDisk which reads from the
>inside out.
>
>Dave
>
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Hi,
>> It will drive a 3.5" floppy as b:, wondering if it
>>can do it as the a: drive also.
>>
>
> No reason why not. The disk interface is pretty standard. It's
>the normal 34 pin conenctor, signals as you'd expect them....
I'm pretty certain I've seen more than one Einstein with the "A:" drive
replaced by a 3.5" unit (and definitely one with two 3.5" drives).
In fact, if I recall correctly, we had an Einstein in which the "A:" drive
had been replaced with a 3.5" unit (for compatability with Spectrum disc
units) at the software company I was working at in 1986; our "fearless
leader" (and yes that was meant to be sarcastic) used his Einstein to
cross-assemble code for the Spectrum.
TTFN - Pete.
>> This is an easy problem to solve. Resist the temptation to bundle
>> non-OS software with the OS.
>
>That doesn't really solve anything; all it does is shift the debates to
>the question of what counts as part of the OS.
>
>For exmaple, I consider a C compiler part of the OS. Others will
>doubtless disagree. Some would consider perl part of the OS; I don't.
For something like a C compiler, or, say, a web browser or a mail reader,
it's easy enough to leave that out and let the user install one if he
wants it.
But a developer can say, "if I put Perl in the base installation, then I
can write some of the package management tools, etc, in Perl". The same
argument also applies to regex libraries, etc, that the basic
system software can end up depending on. I'm not sure that there's anything
wrong with this thinking, it just happens to be a slippery slope that can
eventually leave you needing 4 terabytes to get to a shell prompt.
-- Adam
>
>Subject: Re: Dreaming of a lean installation method [was Re: *nix on"classic"systems]
> From: Sean Conner <spc at conman.org>
> Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:26:58 -0400
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>It was thus said that the Great Angel Martin Alganza once stated:
>>
>> Here it's when it (finally) comes my idea... I've been trying to get
>> some modern Unix variant on my 486 notebook (no CD, PCMCIA NIC) for
>> quite some time now hithout enough (to my likings) success. It's got
>> 16MB RAM, but, for some reason, it recognises only 12. And, of course,
>> 12MB is not enough to run any modern installer. I've ended up running a
>> Linux distribution called Small Linux on it, but again, it's an old,
>> poorly maintained distribution running an old Linux kernel.
My first stab at a server was using a 486DX/66 with 16mb though it did have a
NIC. the distro I used was slackware V2 something. It fit in 120mb with
space to spare and ran decently.
I also had it on a 486slc/25 with 8mb but a 360mb disk with only the usual
difficulties (less than steller installers back then).
What made the task resonable for both was CDrom drive. I did it once with
floppies (75 of them!!!) and that was painful.
Since I stopped messing with linux at caldara OpenlinuxV2.3 version level
I can't say what the latest distros are like but those older ones fit an
amazingly small machines if you took the custom path and didn't install
more than the needed packages. I got tired of all the versions and the ever
expanding size of the system required to just (barely) run it.
Allison
>
> You could do what I did to install Linux on a 4MB RAM 120M harddrive
>laptop computer---find a Linux distro that will boot (I used Tom's Root Boot
>disk and even then it barely ran). The steps I ran through went something
>like this:
>
> On the target computer, I could run a shell, fdisk, mkfs and dd.
> That was enough to get started.
>
> Run fdisk. On the machine I was working on, two partitions: 112M
> and 8M. Format the 8M as a filesystem and mount it.
>
> On a full Linux system, get some needed tools like tar, dd to a
> floppy. Move to target system, and dd tar off to 8M partition. So
> likewise with some other tools.
>
> On full system, I created a 112M file, and mounted it. Formatted
> it, and put kernel, init, and a small /bin. unmount it. tar
> the file and dd to floppy.
>
> On target tar xzcf /dev/fd0 | dd of=/dev/hda1
>
> reboot target. Once rebooted, reformat 8M for swap and enable it.
>
> Keep using the floppy to get stuff over.
>
> Took a few hours, but I got it done.
>
> -spc (Wasn't the hardest install I did though ... )
I was looking for something else and ran across a two-binder set of
something called "PC-MOS" by The Software Link, circa 1992. I opened
the shrinkwrap on the nstallation manual and the thing looks like
it's a multi-user version of MS-DOS, talking to terminals. I
appear to have a 5 user version.
Anyone familiar with this animal? The version is 4.2.
Cheers,
Chuck
In previous messages, Josh Dersch <derschjo at msu.edu> said:
> Hi all --
>
> Recently picked up a TRS-80 "Eight Meg Disk System" (model 26-4151) and
> the associated interface board, with the intent of hooking this up to my
> TRS-80 Model 16.
> On further investigation, it appears that the 26-4151 is a Secondary
> drive, which makes me curious as to whether this effort is going to be
> ultimately fruitless. So, without further ado, here's the questions I have:
>
> 1. Is it possible to get this secondary drive working as a primary, or
> am I up a creek without having a primary drive (or extra magic hardware
> in the drive I have.)
> 2. If I can work around #1, I need to know the pinouts of the drive and
> the controller board since I do not have a cable to connect the two.
> The controller has a 50-pin edge connector and the drive has three
> connectors -- 2 50-pin (labeled "Control") and one 20-pin (labeled "Data").
> a. And as a follow on to #2, where would you suggest getting the
> parts and tools necessary to build the aforementioned cable? I've never
> constructed such a cable, and I'll have need to do so again in the
> future (need to assemble some long-ish ESDI cables for my PDP 11/73...)
>
> Thanks for any suggestions,
> Josh
Josh...
The "secondary" drive is an 8 inch hard drive. It is VERY similar to the 5.25
MFM drives we have all used on various machines, but there are a couple of
differences:
1) The 'control' connector is 50 pins, not 34. This is the 'common' connector
that is connected to every drive.
2) The 'data' connector (both are 20 pins) uses positive and negative voltages
(a 10 volt swing) for the differential data. Some drives even decode the clock
>from the data stream, or use the clock to generate the data stream used on the
drive.
3) The 8 inch drives use +24 volts, +5 volts, and -5 volts, and some drives
use line voltage (120v/220v, etc.) for the motor drive.
4) The rotational speed of the disk is 3000 RPM, whereas the 5.25 drive is
3600 rpm. This means that the data rate for MFM is lower for the 8 inch drive
(usually the crystal is 8.666 MHz, not 10 MHz for the same rotational bit
density).
That being the case, adapters can be made, if you can re-clock the drive
controller.
Now back to the TRS-80 problem at hand. The box you have is just a container
for the drive proper. I doubt that much more is inside the box than the drive
and a power supply. The controller is in the "primary" drive box, and is
similar in function to a PC's controller at the register level (both were
designed by Western Digital). I don't remember if the TRS-80 used 256 byte
sectors, or 512 (what the PC uses) byte sectors. It needed an interface board
that plugged in the backplane of the Model 16.
I built up a "primary" disk box myself using the controller that works with the
5.25 inch drives, using my own 5.25 inch drives. The controller was limited to
no more than 8 heads due to the way it was designed (they hadn't made XT2190's
yet!). It worked OK. Later on in the Model 16/6000 time span, they built up a
single board that plugged into the backplane of the TRS-80 Model 16 (6000) that
was the full controller. By that time the only drives being produced were 5.25
inch ones, so that conformed to that interface (34 Pin control, 20 Pin data).
It is interesting to note that the drives used by Radio Shack had another
"feature" in that they connected a "drive selected" line on the Data connector.
This was used so that they didn't need to worry about where they were plugged
in. If the connector was "selected" (had the true signal), it had the data.
If you get a controller this may need to be taken into account.
Other than that, you have a "nice box". Good luck.
--
Tom Watson
tsw at johana.com
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Since we're still pontificating:
There's another aspect of the pros & cons of GUIs that I find particularly
frustrating: trying to write instruction manuals or doing phone support when
you have no idea or control over what the user's desktop looks like, which
menu bars, buttons, shortcuts etc. are enabled or disabled, where they are, etc.
Give me a "Press Control and Home; now Control, shift and end; now
Control and C" over a "Do you have a menu bar on the top of the window
you're in? The one that has the word EDIT in it? yes? Good; click on the
word edit and then click on the word select. Did the window change
colour? Good; now click on that word edit again, and this time click on
the word copy..." any day...
Particularly relevant right now since I just got off the phone after spending
about 5 minutes walking a user through a problem with a fairly complex
150+ module menu-driven DOS program and then more than an hour taking
them through a fairly simple routine Excel spreadsheet operation.
m
Hello all,
I have a Kaypro 10 that works pretty good. The hard drive is a Seagate ST212 10meg that is getting very noisy and gives read errors now and then. I have been playing with the Advent TurboROM and KayPLUS rom upgrades with no luck. All testing that I have done with both roms has been with the original ST212, an ST251, an ST277 and a Mitsubishi MR535, all with the same bad results. I have verified the eproms many times so they match the images that I've downloaded from the net. I got the KayPLUS rom from here: http://www.microcodeconsulting.com/z80/kayplus.htm and I've gotten the turbo rom from 3 sources that all match what you see here: ftp://ftp.mrynet.com/pub/os/Kaypro/Private-Images/TROM34/
When I use the KayPLUS rom with the prescribed boot disk etc. as per instructions, the machine boots but doesn't seem to see the hard drive. The led on the hd never even blinks. If I run HDCNFG.COM to setup the hard drive, the machine hangs. Another person has verified this also. So my first question is: Has anyone gotten this rom to work?
When I put the TurboROM in, I get some very different results. The screen has the initial Turbo welcome screen and the machine hangs there. The led on the hard drive is always on. The floppy never tries to boot. If I disconnect the data & signal cables from the hard drive, it boots from the floppy after 25 seconds just like the manual says. If I disconnect the 49 pin cable from J9 (the hard drive connector) on the motherboard, the machine boots almost instantly. It seems to be looking at the hd but doesn't like what it sees. Other people have said that this copy of the rom works. So my second question is: Has anyone else run into this problem or what can be done to fix this?
Her's a link to some pictures of the mess.
http://home.comcast.net/~redodd/turbo.zip
Thanks a lot.
Ralph
Jim Battle wrote:
>Are you sure about that? Nick Tredennick, the architect (or maybe co
>architect) of the 68000 left Motorola, went to work for IBM, and was the
>architect of the "micro 370". The design and its evolution were
>described in a book Tredennick wrote, Microprocessor Logic Design: The
>Flowchart Method.
The source for my information is the IBM Systems Journal, Vol 23, No 3 from 1984.
>From page 245:
"After studying several types of microprocessors to identify one architecturally suitable as a base for System/370, IBM selected the Motorola MC68000 microprocessor and began working with Motorola engineers to develop a customized microprocessor. At IBM's site in Endicott, New York, a group in the engineering organization wrote the internal microcode which allowed the device to directly execute a large subset of the commercial System/370 instructions."
Later in the article, they just call it the "custom" processor.
It sounds like the same part could be an MC68000 or the S/370 depending on microcode load; when they say 'the device,' I believe they are referring to the aforementioned MC68000.
Thanks,
Mike
I've noticed that 68kmla.net has been down for quite a while now and still
is. Does anyone know what happened? Will it be coming back? I certainly hope
it's not going to disappear... :-(
You (and your family) would be in trouble (if not in
danger) every time it froze or crashed. What about in
a power cut - batteries dont last forever? Would most
retro computers be able to do such a job? ( trying to
get this back on topic) - Andrew B (via mobile phone)
--- cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org <jvdg at sparcpark.net>
wrote:
> woodelf wrote:
>
> > Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >
> >> As I've learned before from this list, the only
thing which that question
> >> generates is a flamewar about what is a computer,
and what's a "home
> >> computer".
> >
> > I have yet to see a real HOME computer. Most game
boxes I have seen
> > - Coco, C-64 ect. where marketed as home computers
but what do you need
> > a home computer for?
>
> To assist you in managing your household, or Course!
A home computer would
> be, I imagine, a computer installed somewhere in a
closet or the basement,
> and it'd have connections for thin clients all
through the house. It'd
> control your furnace, communications systems,
lighting, heating, water
> supply, you name it. You'd use it to determine at
what level of ambient
> light the room lighting switches on and at what
times the curtains open
> and close, or what temperature your bedroom needs to
be a the time you
> get up on workdays. It'd make sure your bath tub is
filled at the right
> time. and that your toast and coffee are ready in
the kitchen when you
> finish your bath, displaying your email on the
kitchen's display while
> you breakfast.
>
> No, haven't seen many of them, yet. Only in a few
proof-of-concept "home of
> the future" type projects.
>
> ,xtG
> tsooJ
>
>
> I was looking for something else and ran across a two-binder
> set of something called "PC-MOS" by The Software Link, circa
> 1992. I opened the shrinkwrap on the nstallation manual and
> the thing looks like
> it's a multi-user version of MS-DOS, talking to terminals. I
> appear to have a 5 user version.
>
> Anyone familiar with this animal? The version is 4.2.
I remember this!
It was a multi user MS-DOS. It supported a number of 8 port serial cards
of the same generation (Starcomm or something like that). You'd attach
terminals to the serial board and run software that was written to run
under PC-MOS. Medical office software was what I mostly saw on these
systems.
At 11:41 AM 4/12/2007, Ethan Dicks wrote:
>Hmm... sounds like what the Amiga did out of the box with a "newcli
><AUX:" I used to hang a VT220 off of my Amiga and read e-mail and
>NetNews (aquired via UUCP and read off-line) while my flatmate played
>"Silent Service".
I seem to remember doing it in both directions between PC and Amiga,
with Pro-YAM delivering a good command line over the serial port.
On the Amiga side, wasn't there a better alternative than 'newcli'?
I also remember having either the PC or the Amiga answer the modem,
then let me into the command line on either machine when I was
on the road. When I was debugging PC programs, I'd use a debugging
printf() that spit out the serial port, which I'd watch on the
adjacent Amiga screen.
- John
> I have heard of a lot of m68k variants (including XC-series parts),
> but I've never heard of an MC68000R
PGA package. Not commonly used on the 68000.
The version I worked with for a client was circa late 1980's. Basically it was
software that would support multi-tasking on one CPU. It was installed on an
original IBM 6 MHz AT and was fairly slow but did save the expense of another
computer by using a terminal instead. They also sold some hardware that was
basically a four-port serial card/connectors for attaching to the terminals thus
allowing multiple operations. As I said, the whole things was fairly slow then,
but worked well for something like word processing.
> I was looking for something else and ran across a two-binder set of
> something called "PC-MOS" by The Software Link, circa 1992. I opened
> the shrinkwrap on the nstallation manual and the thing looks like
> it's a multi-user version of MS-DOS, talking to terminals. I
> appear to have a 5 user version.
>
> Anyone familiar with this animal? The version is 4.2.
>
> Cheers,
> Chuck
Jim Battle <frustum at pacbell.net> wrote:
> Mike, your web page says:
>
> "The System/370 processor is implemented in three microprocessors --
> two Motorola 68000 processors and a custom 8087."
>
> Are you sure about that? Nick Tredennick, the architect (or maybe co
> architect) of the 68000 left Motorola, went to work for IBM, and was the
> architect of the "micro 370". [...]
>
> I know nothing of the machine you have there, but I suspect it is really
> using redundant copies of the micro 370 described in the book. [...]
This quote from the article "System/370 capability in a desktop Computer"
(IBM System Journal Vol 23, No 2, 1984), may help resolve this issue:
As previously mentioned, three microprocessors are used to implement
System/370 processing functions. A custom-developed System/370
Subset microprocessor performs most of the System/370 commercial
instructions. Floating point, including extended precision, instructions
are executed by a custom developed Floating point microprocessor
which works in close conjuction with the System/370 Subset processor.
The remaining instructions are emulated by an MC68000R microprocessor
which also performs other tasks such as exception handling.
Having said that, I also remember reading somewhere about the 68000
with modified microcode somewhere (maybe Byte magazine?)
**vp
Andrew Burton wrote:
> You (and your family) would be in trouble (if not in
> danger) every time it froze or crashed. What about in
> a power cut - batteries dont last forever?
Manual override. A bit of a nuisance that your tub isn't filled and the tea isn't ready, but we're getting by, now, so why wouldn't we get by then?
> Would most retro computers be able to do such a job?
> (trying to get this back on topic)
I would think so. Thermostats and phone systems are embedded computer systems, have been for ages. So are dedicated routers. No huge amounts of processing power necessary.
,xtG
tsooJ
> Does a TU56 normally have rack-mount rails? I have two TU56 drives and
> neither of them have rails. How are these typically mounted?
>
Like others have said with the normal rail screws. To make it easy
to get in and out I got some angle iron from the hardware store and
bolted it between the front and back rails below the drive so I could
slide the drive in then put a couple of screws in. Most items that
will be below it are narrow enough that they will clear the angle iron.
Not correct but since I was taking it for display that made the disassembly
and reassembly much easier.
Der Mouse wrote:
>> A windowed environment is a GUI, yes?
>
> Not necessarily. NetBSD - and presumably others - ships with
> window(1), which provides a text-mode windowing environment. Nothing
> graphical about it any more than any text "terminal" necessarily is.
Fair enough.
>> What's meant here is that the Chris M has a point: you *do* cheat
>> yourself of some functionality when using a non-windowed environment
>> "these days".
>
> I'm not sure "cheat" is really an appropriate word, but yes, you lose
> some functionality when you drop windowing.
Just going with the way things were phrased in the original post.
> Sometimes that functionality is irrelevant, or worth losing to get some
> other benefit. Sometimes it's not.
Exactly my point.
>> However, you also cheat yourself of functionality exactly by using a
>> windows environment. There are things that are much more efficient
>> if you don't have to wrestle the point-and-click interface.
>
> Windowing environments don't necessarily mean point-and-click. In my
> own X-based environment, for example, I can work productively for hours
> - and not just all in the same window, either - without touching the
> mouse. As you yourself said,
>
>> Look at *real* power users, even on windowed systems. They hardly
>> touch the mouse.
>
> It's not GUI environments that lose the functionality you're talking
> about; it's about a particular subclass of GUI environments that are
> designed - misdesigned, arguably - so as to compel their users to
> switch between keyboard and mouse comparatively frequently (on a
> timescale of seconds to minutes).
As I assumed was meant by the OP.
>> It's all keyboard shortcuts, and it's *way* faster. The downside is
>> having to master all those cryptic gestures and key combinations.
>
> Sounds to me as though you're talking about primarily point-and-click
> windowing environments with keyboard "shortcuts" grafted on, rather
> than environments designed from the ground up to be keyboard-driven.
> (That one particularly dominant windowing environment is an especially
> egregious example of this doesn't help....)
Yes, I was going by the *popular* definition of GUI/Windowed environment, not the strict one.
,xtG
tsooJ
>
>Subject: Re: ST506 WTB:Micropolis 1325
> From: "Steven N. Hirsch" <shirsch at adelphia.net>
> Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:42:34 -0400 (EDT)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
>
>On Thu, 5 Apr 2007, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
>
>> John Kourafas wrote:
>>> Also looking for a Micropolis 1325 MFM Drive, 71/80MB , I've seen both the
>>> ST506 and Mic. 1325 on eBay for like 600.00 which I think is crazy...
>>
>> What's the largest capacity 3.5" MFM HDD available?
>
>I have an extensive collection of MFM/RLL drives and have _never_ run
>across one with that interface in a 3.5" form-factor. Not sure that
>anything of this sort existed. 5.25" 1/2-ht. was about as sophisticated
>as they got.
I have several miniscribe 20mb in all flavors of interface st412, SCSI
and IDE. I have some really old 3.5" WD 10mb. to name a few.
They show up around the beginning of the IDE era but by time IDE hit 40mb
they seemed to have disappeared.
Allison