test-drb

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101090 discussions

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman(a)acm.org> > >My computer dims the neighborhood's lights when I turn it on... > >My computer has fewer transistors than yours... > >My computer has no transistors, just tubes... > >My computer's valves burn out faster than yours... > >My computer's got more gears than yours... Then there is... My computers daddy is bigger than yours. Allison

24 years

Boeing 707 simulator up for auction

by dpeschel＠eskimo.com

This is probably old news for the flight-simulator crowd on the list, but I just came across the article in the newspaper. It won't be cheap, partly because it's serial number 0001 (one). http://www.707sim.com/

24 years

Almost on topic - Cassette I/O

by bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca

I am building a FPGA ( Field programmable gate array ) computer in the style of the early computers that had a front panel and TTY for I/O. While I don't have have a front panel working the Hardware serial bootstrap does work on my prototype. Since I have a few LOGIC cells left in my FPGA to play with I was thinking adding a cassette interface. Does anybody know of schematics on the web that I can get ideas from. Ben Franchuk. -- Standard Disclaimer : 97% speculation 2% bad grammar 1% facts. "Pre-historic Cpu's" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk Now with schematics.

24 years

The PERQ factor (was: One-upsmanship) (fwd)

by pcw＠mesanet.com

> > I think the most beautiful processor I've seen is CPU card of the > > Symbolics 3645. The wiring and chip layout are really nice. One thing that > > always impressed me about that machine is that the disk label is in ASCII > > text! Of course it has a 68000 with a decent amount of ROM space (the FEP) to > > boot from... > > What do you mean by "the disk label is in ASCII text"? Its been a long time (>10 years) but AFAICR I was able to add a new Saber drive by using the FEP, The disk label is just plain text in the first block that is interpreted... > > I've played with a Symbolics for maybe half an hour. It has a lot of cool > software, though it kept trying to connect to a ChaosNet server to download > all the docs, so there was a lot I couldn't find out. I haven't really > explored the essence of the software. 1/2 and hour with an incomplete system is not much of a demonstration... > > The design of both the software and the hardware strikes me as baroque > (typical MIT "just keep adding features" hacking). Also the system as a > whole is not necessarily "self-sustaining". A friend of mine is having > trouble with his Symbolics -- his disk has bad blocks in the LISP world -- > he doesn't have the "breath-of-life" tape that has to be created for each > individual disk -- there's no way for the FEP to change the bad block list > -- the software to create new "breath-of-life" tapes is not available. > If any of those problems were fixed things might be better, but in the > current situation there's no recourse (except to pay Symbolics). That's > what I mean by "not self-sustaining" I dont think that there was a whole lot there that was not needed. A tagged architecture 36 bit machine with paged virtual memory, ECC, capable of executing about 5 million Lisp instructions a second was not trivial to build in 1985... > > I've read the manuals for the Xerox environment but I've never used the > actual machine. The hardware/software is less baroque but still heavily > layered (three separate LISP environments running on top of PILOT on a > variety of machines with a variety of keyboard layouts). INTERLISP's > comment handling never seemed sensible to me and it has lots of cryptic > names and messages left over from the TTY days. The Xerox hardware is less "baroque" because is is not a "Lisp machine" it is a microcoded 16 bit processor with WCS. The magic is done with (very clever) microcode but it is _much_ slower than the 36xx > > > The Symbolics and the Xerox WS running Interlisp always seemed to be > > the most "alive" computers I've used, which I think has something to do with > > how much the command interpreter, shell, etc knows about things... > > And how interconnected they are. I would love to play wtih DEdit (or SEdit > which is the newer version) -- its generalization of "select, then act" > to multiple selections and its "one man's output is another man's input" > mentality would be fun. I don't know much about TEdit or the Grapher but > they seem to have cult followings. > > -- Derek > You can download a Interlisp/common lisp environment from PARC that will run under Linux (its actually an application (LFG)) but you can play with SEdit and Tedit) ... Peter Wallace Mesa Electronics

24 years

Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 21, Ben Franchuk wrote: > > To bring this back on-topic: in the years prior to the existence of > > Micro$oft and it's viruses pretending to be operating systems, can > > anyone think of any vintage operating system(s) that was (were) known > > for being poorly designed, annoying to use, and dangerous to data, > > which was (were) regarded with the same disdain as Micro$oft windows, > > yet still had loyal lusers who apparently didn't know any better than > > not to use it (them)? > > Users never had a real say in the matter. Really? Interesting. Was there a law passed that I was unaware of? -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hmm...I sense some Microsoftism on the list... -Dave On April 20, Richard Erlacher wrote: > ... and if you're dumb enough to believe that, you'll get what you deserve. > > Dick > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "R. D. Davis" <rdd(a)rddavis.org> > To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> > Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2002 7:53 PM > Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format) > > > > Quothe Christopher Smith, from writings of Tue, Apr 16, 2002 at > 01:04:18PM -0500: > > [biz'droids] > > > Indeed I would tell them if they would listen to me. As it is, I have > > > > Just talk louder and be more persistent; they'll reach a point where > > they'll either listen or fire you; it the later, no great loss since > > it doesn't sound like they're worth working for. > > > > > agreed to follow their rules, and will have to do that until they make > > > more sane rules. > > > > Why? > > > > > In other words, when I took their job, I gave them > > > my word. > > > > You gave them your word that you'd act like a good little obedient > > dimwit? Why would anyone promise to do that? I suggest that you > > run emacs and invoke doctor ("M-x doctor") to get some help. ;-) > > > > > I don't believe I can count on them to fix these problems > > > on my account. After all, they don't impair my work -- all of our > > > clients use this junk too. (Sad, but what can you do about it?) > > > > One can always refuse to work with that Micro$oft rubbish. Perhaps you > > could educate your employer's clients; tell them all about the big > > mistakes that they're making by wanting to use that Micro$oft > > virusware which is broken, and otherwise annoying, by design. Don't > > mince words, tell it like it is, and tell them that no reasonably > > intelligent computer hacker would work with that rubbish unless it was > > as part of a project to change over to a UNIX system, or VMS, or even > > CP/M... that is, changing over to a system that doesn't destroy data > > and do other peculiar things with files. Ask them why they like > > operating systems that molest data... someone needs to make an "Eddy > > Electron" like film, that's Monty Pythonish, called "Pfe$ter, the > > Micro $oft Mole$ter," showing him doing strange things with bits of > > data as they flow through the computer. > > > > -- > > Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other > animals: > > All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & > > rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify > such > > http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty. > > > > > > -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

Apple-1 Auction Action

by carlos_murillo＠epm.net.co

At 07:07 AM 4/20/02 -0400, Sridhar wrote: >On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote: >> Try MSNBC. >I find their journalism a bit too yellow too. I tend to watch the BBC >world news. I find NPR to be the only sort of OK source of news in the U.S. They're every bit as imprecise as cnn and msnbc, but at least they try to be balanced. BBC's world service is much better. Deutsche Welle is good too. -------------------------------------------------------------- Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org

24 years

Info wanted- North Valley Designs SPGM-100 Universal Programmer

by tractorb＠ihug.co.nz

Subject line sez all- still looking...... Dave Brown Christchurch NZ

24 years

Prime PT250 Terminal, NIB VT keyboards at Yahoo! Auctions

by whdawson＠localisps.net

Just happened to notice this: Prime PT250 Terminal, Use with UNIX systems, Keyboard Included Clean and Works Some Burn in.. No bids yet. Opening bid of $4.99, buy it price of $14.99 http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64250839?aucview=0x30 2 LK250-AA keyboard NIB: http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64903339?aucview=0x10 http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/64234817?aucview=0x30 Appears to be some Apple IIgs's and Mac Pizza Boxes in this one, though the shipping's kind of steep. FCFS gets pick. http://page.auctions.shopping.yahoo.com/auction/63282847?aucview=0x30 Bill

24 years

OT: Toshiba Strata XXe Power Supply Help Needed

by bill_r＠inetnebr.com

We use a Strata XXe phone system in our house, and after working just fine for many months, it suddenly went completely dead. No phones, no lights, no power light - nothing. We have checked the power supply, and none of the 4 breakers or 5 glass fuses seem to be blown. There was a diode near a bank of large capacitors which appeared to be shorted - it or something near it had gotten hot enough to blacken the PC board a bit. Replaced said diode with no change in status. AC is present on the primary and secondary of the line transformer, but that's about it. Primary bridge rectifier is fine. Anyone (Sellam, maybe?) have a schematic for the HPSU-9120 power supply (or a cheap source for a replacement)? We purchased a downloadable PDF of the installer's manual some time ago, but it doesn't have schematics. It indicates that you should try swapping out power supplies and/or checking the output voltages of the supply and replace it if they are incorrect. So much for that... Suggestions? -Bill Richman (bill_r(a)inetnebr.com) Web Page: http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r Home of the COSMAC Elf Microcomputer Simulator, Fun with Molten Metal, Orphaned Robots, and Technological Oddities.

24 years

Dayna EtherPrint-T and AppleShare

by mythtech＠mac.com

>Will a Dayna EtherPrint-T work for connecting, say, a LocalTalk Mac into an >EtherTalk network, or does it only work for printers? In other words, is it >a true LocalTalk-to-EtherTalk bridge? I think it will work as a true LocalTalk to Ethernet bridge. However, you may need to change a dip switch on it. IIRC, the Dayna has a couple of switches on the back that tell it what localtalk address range to look at, one direction is low addresses (CPUs) the other is high addresses (CPUs or Printers). If you check your AppleTalk control panel, you can see what your current AppleTalk address is (1-255, the break in the Dayna I think was at the 128 point, splitting the addresses in half). Many Macs auto assign into the lower range, so you might have to flip the switch to see it. Of course, I could be thinking either of an older version of the box, or of the wrong box, so you might want to double check (I think there is still tech info on Dayna products off Intel's web site. If you are looking to buy one, and want to know for sure, let me know... I have a Dayna box at work that I can hook up and test. I have had it sitting on a shelf since I got it, I have never used it since I have an Asante one that is half the size. (Don't know if it is the EtherPrint-T... actually, I think it is not, as I think it only has AUI and BNC connectors on it... but I am fairly sure it carries the EtherPrint name, so hopefully the only difference is the RJ-45 connector) -chris <http://www.mythtech.net>

24 years

Rainbows and NEC V20 upgrades.

by mtapley＠swri.edu

Rainbow owners, I did get a request for the mods to make a Rainbow run with an NEC V20. Info below is from a reprint from the Rainbow News; unfortunately I don't have the date or the original issue, only the reprint. The article does carry the notation, Copyright (c) 1986 by Carl Houseman, all rights reserved, which means I'm probably about to get myself into potential legal trouble here. Carl, contact me if you are listening, I'll try to work out something you are happy with. Paraphrased heavily, the reprint says there is a 5% speed improvement overall, with up to 33% improvement (max.) for routines using the "fast video" firmware options. GW-Basic has a problem with displaying characters in the medium resolution graphics screen, and a hard disk diagnostic (test #4, seek time) doesn't work. There is also a set of problems with booting, but these are supposed to be fixed by the below modifications to the boot EPROM (though the article includes the expected YMMV-and-your-machine-may-explode kind of disclaimers). The EPROM is, for a Rainbow 100B or 100+, a 27128 PROM. If you install a V20, that EPROM (located between the connectors for the hard disk option) should be duplicated with the following changes: Location Data -------- ---- 072F 64 08E6 E8 08E7 17 08E8 36 08E9 90 0B36 20 3F00 51 3F01 B9 3F02 04 3F03 00 3F04 D4 3F05 0A 3F06 E2 3F07 FC 3F08 59 3F09 C3 3FFE EC 3FFF B2 For a PC100A, the Hard disk problem is irrelevant, the EPROM is a 2764, and the change list is: Location Data -------- ---- 043F 64 067D 20 1FFE 2B 1FFF 70 Let me know if you try it; I have not. Good luck! - Mark

24 years

The Unit (was: One-upsmanship (was: Secret Mac))

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 20, Sridhar the POWERful wrote: > > > > It does so! Just the basic unit of nature they picked was not a real > > > > basic unit - it was the earth! The meter was something like 1/10,000,000 > > > > the Earth's curumfrence going thru Paris and the North and South poles. > > > > The Kilogram's (derived from the meter ) volume was filled with water > > > > and thus you got a unit weight. > > > > > > <PEDANTIC> > > > Ahem. Kilograms don't measure weight. Newtons measure weight. > > > </PEDANTIC> > > > > Oh MAN. We could shove charcoal briquets up his butt and make > > diamonds. ;) > > Let's leave your homoerotic fantasies out of this, Dave. Freak. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

20mA serial cable connector

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Apr 19, 20:36, Don Maslin wrote: > On Sat, 20 Apr 2002, Tony Duell wrote: > > > > I've kludged together cables for a PDP-11/34 by using the pins > > > out of those 4-pin Molex connectors that are normally used on > > > disk and tape drives. We just stuck the pins in the appropriate > > > sockets and left it at that! Being careful not to pull on the > > > wire, of course. > > > > Couldn't you get a strip of plastic and drill some suitable (stepped) > > holes in it to hold the pins? OK, it wouldn't lock to the socket, and it > > would probably fit either way up, but at least the pins would be kept in > > the right sequence. > Another possibility, depending on the shape of the receptacle recess, > might be to encapsulate the pins(?) with RTV. Same caveats as Tony > cited above. Yet another revolutionary idea might be to buy a few of the correct housings :-) They're made by AMP, by the way, not Molex. They're readily avaialble from any AMP supplier, and very cheap. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

24 years

The Unit (was: One-upsmanship (was: Secret Mac))

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 20, Sridhar the POWERful wrote: > > It does so! Just the basic unit of nature they picked was not a real > > basic unit - it was the earth! The meter was something like 1/10,000,000 > > the Earth's curumfrence going thru Paris and the North and South poles. > > The Kilogram's (derived from the meter ) volume was filled with water > > and thus you got a unit weight. > > <PEDANTIC> > Ahem. Kilograms don't measure weight. Newtons measure weight. > </PEDANTIC> Oh MAN. We could shove charcoal briquets up his butt and make diamonds. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

TRS-80 book identification

by jss＠subatomix.com

I would like to identify the book that was my first book on computers, with which I learned BASIC on a diskless TRS-80 Model II in the fifth grade. The book was small, about the same size as a TV Guide but maybe twice as thick. It had a blue cover, I think, with maybe a drawing of a TRS-80 on the front. Does this ring any bells? -- Jeffrey Sharp jss(a)subatomix.com

24 years

Guys take a look at this qbus cpu board on Ebay :-)

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> > On April 18, Sridhar the POWERful wrote: > > > > Except that a real PDP-11 will probably be a good deal more stable than a > > > > PC. And how are PC's running windows at things like realtime data > > > > acquisition? > > > > > > My computer ( 600 Mhz ?? ) states not to use the seriel port faster than > > > 9600 because the internal modem uses the irq line. sigh! > > > > *shakes head* > > > > Pathetic. > > Pathetic indeed. The pdp-11/34a that I had when I was in high > school...I think I babbled about that machine at one point. I had a > DH11-AD mux in there (16 lines, modem control, DMA...a 9-slot > backplane full of boards), it had my terminal and another terminal in > the house, both running at 9600 baud, and a 1200 baud modem for > dialin...It would keep up with me and two friends using kermit to move > stuff back & forth, or hacking code (yay Swedish Pascal and DECUS C!) > with no problems at all...three sessions, two at 9600 baud and one at > 1200 baud...simultaneously. Without even feeling the bump. > > Why do people use PeeCees, again? Pathetic, indeed. In this case a better question might be, why is he using an Internal modem? OTOH, it sounds as if he might only have one Serial Port and an internal modem, now that's pathetic! Still, I use ethernet a lot more than I do serial ports, though I did toss a 8-port DHV-11 (I think that's the right model) in the PDP-11/23+ I put together last week, along with the ethernet adapter. Still PC's aren't all bad, I've got a 1Ghz Pentium III that makes a very nice PDP-10 and PDP-11, I've had TOPS-10, TOPS-20, RT-11, and RSTS/E all running on it at the same time. Zane

24 years

Dayna EtherPrint-T and AppleShare

by spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu

Will a Dayna EtherPrint-T work for connecting, say, a LocalTalk Mac into an EtherTalk network, or does it only work for printers? In other words, is it a true LocalTalk-to-EtherTalk bridge? -- ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu -- Burglar alarms: For the man who has everything! ----------------------------

24 years

in search of Bay Networks...

by john_boffemmyer_iv＠boff-net.dhs.org

i'm now in search of anything pertaining to the Bay Networks 16/4 BayStack Token Ring Hub with Fiber MDA RO/RI, 24port RJ45. Documentation, manuals, software (it does seem to have a DB9 "console" port on the back)? it is currently working well on my little network of 3 token ring machines (one P-III 850, one Athlon 750 and one P-II 350), where i get link, 16M, FRM, Mgt, etc. steady Green. One thing that bothers me though: WTF is NNM and DCM and why are they flashing Green? also, is there a way to disable the MDA module and why is it showing Snpx lit steady Green? there is no connection to it currently. the hub does, however, link up nicely to the 3Com LinkBuilder FMS TR 12 that i also have through cascade port 1 on the Bay unit and the internetworking port on the back of the 3com unit. main goal: to make the P-350 my main linux netowrk server with my own web hosting at some point and email hosting with dual or possibly quad token ring going out to the network and having a singular ethernet AMD PC-Net II (IBM badged) PCI for Ethernet going out to the router and out to the broadband cable modem. i even went out and found the nifty yellow ethernet cables (CAT5) that have soft rubber strain relief boots on them (really nice and professional looking and obtained free). =) -John Note: next goal is to toss narrow SCSI into the linux box (it is still partially built) and maybe have dual 9 gb or quad 4.x gb drives in it. ---------------------------------------- Founder, Lead Writer, Tech Analyst and Web Designer Boff-Net Technologies http://boff-net.dhs.org/index.html ---------------------------------------

24 years

Apple-1 Auction Action

by vcf＠siconic.com

If interested, you may watch the Apple-1 auction action here: http://www.vintage.org/special/apple-1/status.php The auction starts at 8:00 AM PDT. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

24 years

Guys take a look at this qbus cpu board on Ebay :-)

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 19, John Allain wrote: > > Why do people use PeeCees, again? Pathetic, indeed. > > I encoded some family geneology into set of frame HTML > pages once. It turned out to be something line 600 small html > files, 300 KBytes or so. When I went to put it on a floppy, it > took over 30 Minutes to write! > > Pathetique! So everyone's complaining about PeeCees, but some people are still using them. THIS is what I don't understand. -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

AS/400s in the Champaign area

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 20, Sridhar the POWERful wrote: > > My mistake...it was my impression that z/Architecture is very similar > > to that of ESA/390, more so than the other evolutionary steps in the > > S/360->S/390 family architectures. > > 64-bit addressing, twice as many instruction formats. That's a pretty big > change. The change from ESA/370 to ESA/390 wasn't that drastic. Ok, I must've been thinking of something else. The original point stands, however, that these are mainframe architectures. -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

OS/2 Warp 3 Connect from floppies??

by fernande＠internet1.net

Hello, I'm trying to install Warp 3 Connect on my 9577 from floppies. I made the floppies from the cd-rom, but when I try to install it, I don't get the network options to choose. It's as if I didn't even have a network card installed. I have a 3Com 3C529-TP Does it have to be installed by cd-rom to get network support? The manual doesn't seem to mention floppies, only the cd-rom. Help!!! Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA

24 years

AS/400s in the Champaign area

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 20, Sridhar the POWERful wrote: > > Umm, I have to disagree with you there...the machines in question are > > indeed of a mainframe architecture, and some IBMers were calling them > > "servers" many years before the zSeries was even an itch in IBM's > > pants. > > That's a mighty big itch. Yes. > > Regardless of what industry buzzwords the marketroids are trying to > > take advantage of...those machines implement the S/390 architecture, > > which is a mainframe architecture descended from mainframe > > architectures. > > Actually, those machines don't implement ESA/390. They implement z/Arch. > But z/Arch definitely evolved from ESA/390 R4. My mistake...it was my impression that z/Architecture is very similar to that of ESA/390, more so than the other evolutionary steps in the S/360->S/390 family architectures. -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

24 years

Apple-1 Auction Action

by dquebbeman＠acm.org

> On Fri, 19 Apr 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote: > > > Try MSNBC. > > I find their journalism a bit too yellow too. I tend to > watch the BBC world news. I used to prefer ITN World News, with Daljit Daliwahl, but lately, it's not being carried locally. And I can't seem to find the streaming version on their web site... -dq

24 years

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test-drb