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101090 discussions

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com

I agree. At least we're preserving some things. And we can! Experimenters of the 8-bit era are a hardy bunch and there still are 'artifacts' from that era still around. Will one be able to say the same thing about PCs of today 20 years down the road? Will they be worth preserving or saving from the scrap heap, hardware and software and such. Happy computing all! Murrray--

19 years, 5 months

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> A couple of decades down the line I think we're going to have real problems - > not just with computers, but with all sorts of modern gadgets We don't even have to wait that long. All of the consumer devices tied to backend services are a perfect example of devices that are absolutely useless once a company fails. Unfortunately, revenue models based on this model are on the increase.

19 years, 5 months

Token Ring Hub

by teoz＠neo.rr.com

I have a few 16/4 Token Ring ISA cards and an EISA 100Mb one that I want to test out in a few 486 systems I have to compare it to 10Mb Ethernet that I currently run. Anybody have a super cheap hub for sale I can use (these are the RJ45 type cables)? Located in the US. Also what is a good way to bridge Token Ring to Ethernet so that these 486 machines can use my router/cable modem?

19 years, 5 months

eBay idiocy

by vp＠drexel.edu

ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: > > Well, as long as we're being petty, I tuned out your incessant (and often > > off-topic) jabbering long before I unsubscribed. > > Is this view wildly held? If so, I'll stop posting. No point in wasting > my time looking stuff up to post, and everybody else's time in reading > useless information. Let me just say that I for one enjoy reading Tony's postings. Sure a few are not interesting to me, but I can skip them. I much admire the technical insights in Tony's articles and the advice he so gladly gives. Keep up the good work Tony! **vp

19 years, 5 months

Ebay idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

I thought I'd weigh in on the latest policy change on eBay. I didn't know about the new change until someone e-mailed me about it. The only change I've noticed recently is that one is not now allowed to randomly send a message to another user with whom they have not done business, which leads one to ask why they have the fucking contact link there in the first place? Through the years there have been these recurring bitch sessions over eBay's increasingly idiotic policies. In the meantime, I and Patrick set up an alternate for the computer collecting community that was tailored for our specific needs and desires, taking into account all the bitching and pissing and moaning over eBay's abominable system. We got the first implementation off and running with big plans to expand it further, which have yet to materialize, and I'll get into that in a second. But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to that point. The usage was so minimal anyway that it didn't make sense to start charging until we could get a reasonably active user base. Granted, we could've done a lot more to promote and advertise the site, but the CC list community here damn well knew about it and was constantly reminded about it by myself and Marvin, and inspite of that the activity just never materialized. Patrick has since gone on to bigger and better things, having washed his hands of the CC list and community at some point last year when he couldn't take anymore of the petty bickering and flame wars that regularly erupt (this is paraphrasing what he told to me). He turned the site and its maintenance over to me and I've been running it solo ever since, mostly just approving all the new accounts and handling the very rare issues that crop up. For the most part, the VCM has been there processing transactions (for FREE) on autopilot, and running rather well considering. If it wasn't for Marvin--who was fed up enough with eBay but, more importantly, savvy enough to realize that the VCM is better for selling a lot of stuff, especially when there are no listing fees--the VCM would effectively be dead. I know people are using it, because I see you swooping in and grabbing some of the better stuff being offered for great prices (someone just bought a nice IMSAI 8080 for around $1,200, which is a pretty good deal). I buy a lot of stuff from Marvin, who is listing a lot of fantastic stuff for extremely reasonable prices. There are other people regularly selling there too and probably making a decent amount of money, COMMISSION FREE. Now, getting back to the expansion of the system. I do still have a lot of plans for the service, mainly in the area of making it a bit more friendly in the interface. When we launched it we had a service that I felt was superior to eBay's crap system. In the meantime, eBay used their billions of dollars of capitalization to make their system easier to use, integrated a lot of stuff, etc. Me, I'm still sitting on my IPO until the next irrational dot.com boom, so my funds are limited, as is my time, as is my ability to make any changes to the VCM since Patrick owns and controls the server and wrote all the code (based on a system he'd already designed for a past client of his). Now that Patrick is out of the picture, I'm faced with having to port the entire system over to my own server, which I would like to do so I can finally take it into Phase 2 and beyond. But quite frankly, why the fuck should I even bother? You guys don't use it anyway. You keep using eBay, and you keep bitching about how stupid they are and get all up in arms when they make yet another bone-headed policy change, and there sits the VCM doing everything you want, allowing you to communicate with whoever the hell you want without any over-bearing surveillance system in place to make sure you aren't doing something sneaky to deprive us of revenue, with the guys who built and run the system completely available directly via e-mail for any suggestions, complaints, praise(?) [hardly any, if you're wondering], and doing it without asking you for one god damn penny. So tell me, seriously, why should I bother moving forward with the VCM? You want an alternative? It's already there, and I'd like to continue to build on it and improve it and make it the premier place for trading in old computers, a de facto replacement for eBay, like I originally intended. But I'm certainly not going to waste my time unless people actually decide to USE IT. Is there a reason you don't use it? Is there something about the interface you don't like? Is there one or two or three or five reasons why you don't like it or don't want to use it? If so, why didn't you say so? You could've always e-mailed either myself or Patrick, and like the few people who did bother to give us feedback, your comments and suggestions would've resulted in immediate changes to the system. Try getting that from eBay. As O. Sharp pointed out, try even finding a fucking way to communicate with eBay!! They make it nearly impossible for you to get a hold of them because THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU. They just want you to buy shit from sellers to that they can get a cut of their money and they want you to shut the fuck up. I see now that I've been relegated to ranting about eBay it's time to start winding this up. In conclusion, I'm quite serious about my queries. The VCM has been out there for years and inspite of the lack of advertising 1,881 people have managed to find it and sign up for an account. Logically, that would make for a very strong and active user base. As far as I can tell, about 1,800+ of them don't actually do anything once they get an account. Why? Why didn't they spread the word to other collectors and to sellers on eBay so that they could convince them to sell their stuff on the VCM instead? I'll tell you one reason why: sellers make more money on eBay. And that's fine. eBay is good for making money selling crap. eBay is a crap market. The VCM is a marketplace for the serious trade of vintage computers for serious vintage computer collectors, hobbyists and afficionados. If you want to buy/sell/trade crap, continue using eBay, and give them your money and shut the fuck up because they don't care about you (only your money). If you want an alternative that caters specifically to the vintage computing community, use the VCM. Tell everyone you buy from about it. Sell your fine vintage computers on it (sell your crap on eBay). Use the god damn system. It's there and for the foreseeable future, it's free. Use it or lose it. In closing, many thanks to Marvin (whom I am also proud to count as a good friend) for utilizing the VCM to its fullest, and congratulations for the many thousands of dollars he's made COMMISSION FREE selling his stuff there for the past several years, and congratulations to the other sellers, and to the many people who have bought stuff in the simple and relaxed environment that is the VCM. Marvin and the others are the ones who deserve the credit for keeping it alive. YOU could be the one who helps to make it THRIVE if you would just USE IT. http://marketplace.vintage.org or http://www.vintagecomputermarketplace.com Please direct any replies to me via e-mail. I am not subscribed to the list and might not see any follow-ups you post. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 5 months

Sanyo MBC 55x

by dm561＠torfree.net

Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 12:19:33 -0800 (PST) From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> Subject: Re: Sanyo MBC 55x On Fri, 19 Jan 2007, Rick Companje wrote: >> Hello Don, >> I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS >> v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. >> Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what >> kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and >> Calcstar? >Don Maslin is dead. >There are no more bootdisks any more. -------------------------------------------------- As a matter of fact, the post he's referring to is probably the exchange between Don and myself in 08/02, when he was kind enough to send me that image. Here's my chance to pass it on; I've sent it to Rick off-list. Don is sorely missed... mike

19 years, 5 months

eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al.

by dm561＠torfree.net

From: "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al. >Please terminate this thread as of midnight 1/19/2007. Any posts pouring gas >on the flames of this post after that time will result in 2 week ban from >the list. -------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you, Jay, for once again stepping in to calm the troubled waters (i.e., settling down us unruly kiddies). Interesting that Sellam started this, while chastising us for the "bitching" that goes on here and which caused his VCM partner to leave... But if his aim was to publicize VCM, I guess it worked. mike

19 years, 5 months

cqd220 jumpers

by aek＠bitsavers.org

got a follow up email from the person that the jumper list came from: While working with this new CQD220A document I found an error where "W6-5" is listed twice, and "W6-3" is skipped. Here is the original section: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-4 W6-5 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I expect it should be something like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------------- W6-1 OUT Adaptive DMA enabled (F) W6-2 OUT Adaptive DMA Dwell Time enabled (F) W6-3 W6-4 IN IN 0.8-ms DMA dwell time OUT IN 1.6-ms DMA dwell time IN OUT 3.2-ms DMA dwell time OUT OUT 6.4-ms DMA dwell time W6-5 OUT Block mode DMA enabled (F) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I am not sure. My card had a jumper installed on W6-3, and I am thinking it set the DMA dwell time to 3.2ms. Removing it, change to 6.4ms, seemed to help with a crashing problem.

19 years, 5 months

macintosh retrospect 2.0 backup

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

* Brad Parker wrote: Someone approached me about some "prior art" and I am now looking at some 1/4" carts marked "quadra 950 retrospect 2.0 mac os" I made in the early 1990's. If somehow I could find a working 1/4" drive (scsi) and got it connected to a macintosh, Is there any hope I could find a copy of retrospect 2.0? anyone else ever try this? it's probably hopeless, but it might be a fun ride. hard to say. good thing I saved that powerbook 145b :-) -brad ------------------------------------------ Don't know if it helps or not, but I have a wheeled table in the garage with an 8600 that I use for testing SCSI drives, peripherals. Was working last time I fired it up. I used to use a 9500. It is still on the floor; was working when I pulled it out. It's yours if you want it. (This is in Pleasanton, California.) I think I kept both systems at 8.6, since that was last of the good SCSI support drivers. (If any interest, write me off line: billy.pettit at wdc.com - only good on week days. Weekends are for fun not computers!) Billy

19 years, 5 months

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> The machines and common cards will be, but drivers and exotic > hardware/software will be long gone. It is hard to find drivers for some > things now let alone in 20 years. So the question is what should be saved? Is there something about the 'exotic hardware/software' that is historically significant? Was enough information released that you could actually do something with the device in the future?

19 years, 5 months

Sanyo MBC 55x

by rick＠companje.nl

Hello Don, I just read your forum post from 2002 regarding a bootdisk image (MS-DOS v2.11) for the Sanyo MBC 555. Can you please send me a copy by email? I'm running 1.25. Do you know what kind of software is available for this machine besides Basic, Wordstar and Calcstar? Regards, Rick Companje

19 years, 5 months

eBay idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

M H Stein said: > I suspect that if he really did give eBay a run for its money and > someone offered him a bag full of money (not so ridiculous these days), > he just might say yes. Yeah, you know what? Under the right conditions I probably would, because I just can't see myself still running something like that when I'm your age. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 5 months

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

William Donzelli wrote: OK, Mr. Curmudgeon, what can you tell us kids about the CDC Mass Store System? I got a couple of cartridges in the mail today from a buddy that used to be in the supercomputer business. Nearly everything on the web is about the IBM noodlepicker. -- Will ------------------------ Sorry, but I never worked on it. Saw it in action a few times and was fascinated with the picker arm moving so fast over the honeycomb. I don't believe a lot were sold. I saw one status report that only had 18 of them world wide. There may have been more sold, but I doubt it. The lack of compatibility with legacy tapes was a huge detractor. Pople who needed big tape libraries already had thousands of tapes and didn't want to convert them one by one. I do know that they were great job security. It required a full time field engineer. Don't think I have a manual on it, though I may have some Sales literature. I'll check the controlfreaks twiki and see if any info is there. Billy

19 years, 5 months

VCM idiocy

by sellam＠vintagetech.com

> Ooh, good one. I'll bet he STILL feels that. Oh jeez, shut up already. > Starting a business is hard work, and success is difficult. Right, but what would you know about this, Donald Trump? > (By the way, while I feel it inappropriate for the list, or any other > civilized or pseudo-civilized discussion, anyone who wishes to see the > e-mail exchange between Sellam and myself should e-mail me off-list, and > I will be happy to send them a copy.) By all means, please do. But why not just post it here for all to see? It doesn't fall below the level of your Tourettes-induced outburst. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

19 years, 5 months

dovebid is a good source for wire racks/shelving

by legalize＠xmission.com

FYI, There are scads of lots up there right now... dunno what they will sell for, but I'm guessing lots cheaper than the several hundred you would have to pay for these new. If you're not local to the sale location, you'll have to add shipping, but they are light and when disassembled can be shipped rather easily by a company like Craters & Freighters. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 5 months

Need help Imsai Floppy disk system

by keith＠harrells.net

I now have a working Imsai now need to try to get the 8" Imsai floppy sub system working. I have a number of floppy disk controller but no Imsai FD controller. I have Cromemco 4fdc, Cromemco 64fdcCromemco 16fdc, dual systems FDC and some CCS fdc. I'm not sure of the cable connection from the Imsai disk to the controllers. I had heard the Caldisk pin out is not the same as the Shugart I do have CP/M working on another 64k Imsai using the CCS controller for 8" shugart and a Northstar controller for 5 1/4". Has anyone gotten the old Imsai drive working using CP/M? Thanks.

19 years, 5 months

Lilith (was Archiving workstation hard drives)

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> Early Liliths use a 10MB Cartridge drive from Honeywell/Bull ( Mididisk > D120) I did not find any info on this drive Are copies of the hardware documentation around anywhere that could be copied/scanned for the system? I've searched the CHM archives, and we don't appear to have anything other than the user's manual (which I've put up on bitsavers) It would be nice to find this, since we have a Lilith.

19 years, 5 months

Looking for OS/278 to boot up a DECmate I

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

Hello, fellow 12-bitters, I know this has been discussed recently (as in, "how can I boot my DECmate?"), but IIRC, the "easiest" way to get OS/278 to a DECmate I is by copying a boot floppy and putting it in the mail. Can anyone on the list assist me with this? I have NOS blank RX01s, so I can do a diskette swap, or a mail-and-return, or whatever arrangement is required; but at the moment, I have no way to hang an 8" floppy off of modern hardware, so I'm pretty much limited to solutions that are based on 100% DEC and DEC-compatible hardware. All I have for my DECmate I is WPS-8, not all that interesting, frankly. One of my goals, BTW, is to snarfle off images of my PDP-8 RX01 and RX02 disks for preservation and sharing. I have a few boxes of disks from the 1978-1985 timeframe, up to the time I stopped using a PDP-8 on a daily/weekly basis. Thanks for any assistance, -ethan

19 years, 5 months

Archiving workstation hard drives

by legalize＠xmission.com

OK, suppose you have a workstation and it has stuff installed on its drives. You don't have the original distribution media for the OS and any installed applications and you don't have a spare system with the same stuff installed. What's the best way to make a backup of the entire hard drive so that the essential software doesn't get lost? The drives are SCSI. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download <http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html> Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>

19 years, 5 months

eBay idiocy

by dm561＠torfree.net

Sellam: I'm sorry you took my reply (and others) as a "personal assault" and yes, perhaps I should have prefaced them with a paean to your indeed considerable contributions to the CC community; I did NOT say that you are "only" in it for the money, nor do I see any problem with your generating income that helps defray your costs and/or puts $$s in your pocket. More power to ya! I was just reminding Evan ("The man just wants some reassurance that his time and hard work will be appreciated. What's wrong with that? More people in our hobby should be that devoted!") that money was also a factor: >But first I want to take the time to congratulate the community for the >big fuck you they gave to the VCM. It has always been the intention that >we would start charging at some point for using it, but we never got to >that point. I wasn't offended by your language per se, but by the contempt and lack of consideration it expresses for the members of this list and the fact that you are blaming us for the VCM not becoming a viable revenue generator. I thought I was also offering you what I thought was constructive criticism, that perhaps your time and energy might be better spent in promoting VCM instead of alienating at least some of your potential customers by ranting at us for not beating a path to your door . FWIW, the same thing happened between you and me back when we were talking about some things I was going to send you; your talking to me in the same manner made me decide that I didn't really care to deal with you. But if it works for you to alienate people, good luck to ya. mike cc: Sellam

19 years, 5 months

Jules Richardson wrote on "Digital Archaeology of the Microcomputer, 1974-1994

by Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com

William Donzelli wrote: Yes, I realize when...no, never mind...I think some of you guys were born with grumpy old man syndrome fully in place. -- Will --------------------------------------------- Can't speak for the others, but I worked hard to earn my right to be a curmudgeon. After 45 years of dealing with all the bullshit in this field, I relish my chance to be cynical and know-it-all. Let the kids be nice - I'm gong to have fun. Billy

19 years, 5 months

NOS librascope heads for rpc4000

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1247&item=2500753548… these appear to be for the RPC4000

19 years, 5 months

Ebay idiocy

by aek＠bitsavers.org

> My two items of low-denomination currency, anyway. Which goes to everyone EXCEPT Sellam, since he DOESN'T READ THE LIST! I sent email to Jay asking that Sellam be banned from posting. I suggest others do as well.

19 years, 5 months

Unrealistic price?

by cclist＠sydex.com

$148,995 starting bid for a 32GB AS/400 memory. http://auctions.yahoo.com/i:IBM%203017%2032GB%20CHIP:216674201 Cheers, Chuck

19 years, 5 months

VAX Assembly question

by spc＠conman.org

I'm currently perusing _Computer Programming and Architecture: The VAX-11_ by Levy and Eckhouse and I come across the description of the CALLG and CALLS instructions. They go on to describe the stack frame created by the CALL* instruction: Condition handler (initially 0) <- FP SPA | S | 0 | MASK | PSW | 0 FP + 4 Saved AP etc ... Saved FP Saved PC Saved R0 . . . Saved R11 My question is about the condition handler. In the text, it's described as: A longword condition handler address. Here, the calling routine may store the address of an error-handling routine to be called if an exceptional error condition arises in the procedure. This is the only section (as far as I can tell) where this is described, and I'm curious as to how exactly it worked. It appears that while the CPU may set this location to 0, its purpose isn't really dictated by the hardware, but it a convention used by VMS. But then (as I was typing this), I was struct by this bit: ... the calling routine may store ... Huh? How? The calling routine either does a: argsize: .long 0 arg1: .long 0 arg2: .long 0 arg3: .long 0 arg4: .long 0 movl #4,argsize ; use fixed memory movl filehandle,arg1 ; for the arguments moval somememory,arg2 movl #0,arg3 movl #4096,arg4 callg argsize,dump_memory or pushl #4096 ; use the stack pushl #0 ; for the arguments pushal somememory pushl filehandle calls #4,dump_memory (forgive if my assembly isn't quite right, I'm going from the book rather quickly here). How can the calling code set the condition handler? The CPU creates the stack frame (as diagrammed above), not the calling routine. Am I missing something? -spc (Really curious about this ... )

19 years, 5 months

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