> A rail shipment may also be held until enough cars are destined for a
> certain area. Next to shipping by boat, shipping by train is probably the
> slowest method to get something some where, as far as total transit time. A
> truck can be anywhere in the US in a matter of 4 days. For perishible
> items, trucks are far more viable. Also, trucks generally ride better than
> rail cars, so delicate cargoes benefit from the air-ride suspension systems.
I've been told UPS has started holding the ground trucks
until they fill up, where they used to have a timer; timer
fires, truck rolls, full or not. When fuel costs jumped a
couple of years ago they changed this. May not be true...
-dq
Hello, I was referred to your email address when asking someone where I might be able to find a buyer for 30 TK50 tapes I possess that are no longer used.
If you're not interested in buying these, do you know of anyone who would like them? Do you have a forum that I could post these on?
I appreciate any assistance or info you could give me.
Got these two items for free; a HP 150 II (no keyboard) and a Atari
SM124 monitor.
For $10 I got Power Mac 5400/120 (has a bad hard drive).
My Microvision system arrived with 3 game cartridges and works great
(for what it does).
Got a great book titled Modern Computer Concepts-The IBM 360 Series by
Edward J. Laurie. It's stamped inside as being a "EXAMINATION COPY" and
was printed in 1970. It has 926 pages and lots of great pictures. Only
cost 50 cents at a thrift here.
Won a Brainiac (1959) kit computer on eBay it looks almost complete and
will make a great display item. Now if I could only find a Geniac for
cheap. :-)
I asked before and never got one answer but does anyone have a extra
Hero Jr remote control that they would like to sell?
Rumor has it that Douglas Quebbeman may have mentioned these words:
>> On Wed, 6 Mar 2002, Dave McGuire wrote:
>>
>> > Are you suggesting that the embassy is staffed by a bunch of
>> > dickheads?
>>
>> <playing straight man for Dave>
>>
>> You know who was the world's first computer operator?
>
>If you say Richard Head you will get one virtual nerf brick
>tossed in your direction immediately...
No... No...
You mean "Richard _Cranium_"
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
> As you will note, Barry authorized this posting.
As of this date, I've tried three or four times to contact
barry, with no response yet.
If any SOL jocks *have* been able to contact him, could
you have him contact me?
TIA!
-dq
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 17:24:45 -0500
> From: Barry A. Watzman <Watzman(a)neo.rr.com>
> To: 'Don Maslin' <donm(a)cts.com>
> Subject: RE: SOL-20 keyboard
>
> I won't but you may if you want to.
>
> Barry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Maslin [mailto:donm@cts.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 1:05 AM
> To: Barry A. Watzman
> Subject: Re: SOL-20 keyboard
>
>
>
> On Tue, 12 Feb 2002, Barry A. Watzman wrote:
>
> > By the way, in 1977 I made and sold a SOL-20 keyboard
> modification kit
> > that included a new ROM for the keyboard and new keytops.
> The new ROM
> > made the high order bit of the numeric keypad keys a "1"
> instead of a
> > "0". This made it possible to distinguish between the keys in the
> > numeric keypad and the numeric keys in the top row of the normal
> > keyboard (in the stock keyboard, these different keys
> produced exactly
> > the same output). This was transparent to normal
> applications because
> > they normally did an "ANI 7FH" anyway, stripping this bit, but it
> > could be used by an application if the application wanted to do so.
>
> > The new keytops had word processing legends instead of numbers, and
> > really was made for the "Electric Pencil" and "Wordstar" word
> > processors. The keytops were actually made by Keytronic (I
> had to pay
> > tooling charges, about $1,000 (those were 1977 dollars, it was about
> > one-fourth the price of a new car)) and and matched the SOL keyboard
> > exactly.
> >
> > I have a few of these kits left in a box in the basement. If anyone
> > wants them, they are $25. What I'm not sure of is if I have the
> > installation instructions anywhere.
> >
> > [If anyone takes me up on this, I'm actually going to have
> to FIND that
> > box, which may be easier said than done.]
>
>
>
>
>
>
In the last 50+ years, some 150,000 miles of railroad track have been
abandoned. At 100 pounds/yard or more for mainline track rail, that's a lot
of steel.
As to who is paying for the scrapping, the railroad, or often a bankruptcy
court, would bid it out to scrappers -- the same people (as a general class)
who will take an old computer and cut the edge connector off a board in
order to recover the gold. Might not seem like an economical thing to do,
but these people can make a living out of it. Also, remember that in the
50's and 60's (and even earlier for most electric interurban lines) steel
was worth more. When the railroads converted to diesel in the late
40's/early 50's, most of the steam locomotives were sold for scrap. Nothing
sinister about it, just made economic sense at the time.
The subsidies that went into highway construction and trucking are another
matter, though, but that is too OT to go into. Still, we can't blame the
interstate system for all railroad failures, as many began their decline in
the 30's and 40's. Most electric streetcar lines and interurbans here in the
midwest were replaced by busses by the mid 50's.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Chase [mailto:vaxzilla@jarai.org]
Sent: Tuesday, March 05, 2002 5:35 PM
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Suggestions for hauling Computer Garage from Beaverton, OR
toYates
On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> > Where has rail been ripped up? I've never heard of that happening. Is
> > it a national trend?
>
> We've had quite a lot ripped out here in Oregon.
This does beg the question... Who exactly is paying for this, and to
what gain? I think someone's point of it not really being cost-
effective (even for the scrap) is worth investigating. Maybe it is.
I can't imagine it's more expensive to produce a ton of steel from
salvaged rails than it is to do the same from iron ore.
Still, it'd be interesting to know who's fronting the labor to do it,
and what money is backing it.
-brian.
VT55 with integrated printer
Not thermal or electrostatic
>From 1977 until about 1980 we actually used the terminals to print graphics
>from bacterial growth curves. The paper exited the side of the terminal.
We usually attached a weighted paper clamp to help pull the paper out of the
printer. The printer was placed so the paper hung down off the side of the
desk or table. The paper was initially wet and came in foil enclosed rolls.
The printer generated a spark to discolor the paper at the correct spot,
kind of a brownish printing. The paper didn't work if it was dry. Also
there was a problem with fungus growth on opened rolls of paper that weren't
used for a long time. Maybe caused by the microbiology lab environment.
Speed of the paper motion was important, nothing like looking at plots with
varied plot speed, scrunched graphs.
Picture of the internals of the printer is at
http://vt100.net/docs/vt5c-op/
Picture of the printer with the paper hanging out the side is
http://vt100.net/docs/vt55e-tm/
Mike McFadden
mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu
At 02:23 PM 3/5/02 -0800, you wrote:
>
>--- John Chris Wren <jcwren(a)jcwren.com> wrote:
>> This sounds like a machine I used to work on. PDP-8/a, two floppy
>> drives, a VT-50 terminal that looked like it could have been provisioned
>> for an internal thermal printer, and ours had a LA-36.
>
>Yep... they sold a bunch of them. The printer inside the VT-50 case
>wasn't thermal, BTW. The "1976-1977 pdp-8/a minicomputer handbook" calls
>it an "electrolytic copier" under the entry for the VT-61. My memory of
>working with them was that they used funky paper and there was a wet
>wiper brush that moistened the paper as it exited the printer. Perhaps
>it squeegeed it. I don't recall any more.
>
> Sadly, though, glow plugs do little to keep the oil thin enough to
keep
> from really hard cold starts. Especially back in the old days when
> multi-weight oils really weren't. It always cranked, that wasn't a problem.
> It was tearing up the cylinder walls until the molasses, er, oil could be
> circulated.
I'd suggest trying Mobile One synthetic oil... if it can find
leaks that no other oil can find on your engine, it should be
alble to flow into all the places oil needs to go...
-dq
On March 6, Jeff Hellige wrote:
> >> Openstep 4.2 still supports the black hardware though most
> >> people I've known running NeXT hardware have been running NS 3.3.
> >> This could partly be due to Apple giving it away to NeXT hardware
> >> owners in '99.
> >
> > It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that 4.x on black
> >hardware is slower than pissing tar.
>
> I've never tried Openstep on the black hardware. Is it that
> much slower than NS 3.3?
Unbelievably so, yes.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
On March 5, Jeff Hellige wrote:
> Openstep 4.2 still supports the black hardware though most
> people I've known running NeXT hardware have been running NS 3.3.
> This could partly be due to Apple giving it away to NeXT hardware
> owners in '99.
It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that 4.x on black
hardware is slower than pissing tar.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
I have a lead on a PDP 7 coming out of service in the Portland Oregon area.
I hope to go look at it on March 19th or 20th. I believe it is still plugged
in but out of service. I think it is a late '60s machine.
Anyone interested in it please contact me at whoagiii(a)aol.com, not on the
list please. I am not interested in getting it. I think that there are very
few out there and any left need rescue.
I will take pictures when I get a chance to look at it. I would like info on
what to look for when I look at the machine.
Paxton Hoag
On March 5, Doc wrote:
> > It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that 4.x on black
> > hardware is slower than pissing tar.
>
> My cat is glaring at me. From _way_ under the desk.
>
> "Damn you, Dave McGuire!"
SCORE! hehehe
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
I've got a loaded uVAX II in a BA123, available here in Austin, TX.
CPU: KA630-AA
two DHV11M multiport serial cards
one DHQ11M (8line QBus Async serial card)
one DEQNAM QBus etheret adapter
one TK50 tape drive
has two "H3100" ports for serial breakout boxes on the back; not sure
if these are connected to the DHV11Ms or the DHQ11M.
Unknown RAM/storage; I havent had time to take the machine out of the back of
my truck.
The front panel covering the storage control buttons is missing; I have the
"back flap" cover, but the plastic "hinge" will need to be replaced.
Would like to trade for smaller VAX (VAXstation VLC, etc) or later-model
(73,83,93, etc) PDP-11 system. WILL NOT SHIP. You gotta come pick it up
at my house. 8-)
Also have a BC23K 15-pin-to-1BNC mono monitor cable, free...
Bill
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
> From: "Jay West" <jwest(a)classiccmp.org>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Symbolics rescue (question about picture)
> Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 16:06:04 -0600
> Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>
> For nostalgic reasons, I have wanted to acquire two particular disk drives
> for a PDP-11 of mine... I don't remember what they are called or what brand.
> But - there are two of them in the very far right of the symbolics rescue
> picture at the top of the rack with light brown trim line across the front.
> Can anyone tell me what those are - and if there are any around to be
> obtained? How hard are they to work on? Is the positioner based on patterns
> on the drive or a glass reticule?
They look like DEC RK03's to me. Predecessor to the RK05, and actually
re-badged drives from some other manufacturer, the name of which escapes
me at the moment. RK05's used a glass reticule for positioning. I think
that on-disk format tracks came with the first "Winchester" sealed drives.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu
> Where has rail been ripped up? I've never heard of that happening. Is
> it a national trend?
>
> Chad Fernandez
> Michigan, USA
We've had quite a lot ripped out here in Oregon.
Zane
On March 5, Doc wrote:
> > First I've heard of it. It primarily ran on NeXT hardware (of course), x86
> > systems, and had limited support for HP and Sparc. I've *never* heard VMS
> > mentioned as having any sort of an OPENSTEP environment.
>
> We are talking about OpenSTEP, right? Not NeXTSTEP? There has
> been a port of OpenSTEP to XFree86 for long and long.
NeXTSTEP by any other name...
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
St. Petersburg, FL "Less talk. More synthohol." --Lt. Worf
Hi.
Location: Germany, Kaiserslautern
Items: Two Symbolics 3600 Lisp machines, see
http://kogs-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~moeller/symbolics-info/3600.html
Yes, they are heavy, big (1,8m / 6') 19" rack boxen.
State: _NOT_ working, it may be possible to build one working machine by
ripping the other.
Free for everyone who takes them.
BUT: You must take both (+ console Monitor) and you must take them
Sunday afternoon (14:00 - 15:00) or Monday (9:00 - 17:00). If they are
not gone on Tuesday, they will be taken apart and scraped.
Further details unknowen. No. I can not store them. I already managed
the salvation of three 3640 and one 3670 from the same location...
PLEASE mail me only if you are able to transport them.
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
Does anyone on the list have experience with the Canon Objectstation
Model 41. I think it's just short of being on topic.
I'm trying to install NS3.3 on my Objectstation. It has a Buslogic
BT-445C SCSI controller, VLB, and I can boot the box, start installing,
Next finds the controller, the CD-ROM and the hard drive. The install
routine asks me to choose a disk for installation and then fdisk tewlls
me "Bogous BIOS information, please reset the bios setting in your
mother board or SCSI controller card". I have noticed that I don't get
the usual "Press Alt-B for setup" message that I've gotten from Buslogic
cards in the past or that the pdf manual from Mylex's site talks about.
Did Canon install some funky custom Rom on the card? I'm going to
take a spare 486 VLB motherboard home tonight and try setting up the
drive using a DOS driver disk that came with the Objectstation.
James Rice
Dallas, TX
http://home.texoma.net/~jrice/classiccomp2.html
Hi everybody,
I have heard that OpenSTEP ran on VMS (Alpha) at one point.
Having never heard of, nor seen this, I am curious, and would
like to acquire a copy of this miraculous thing to run at home
(on a hopefully soon-to-be-had DEC 3000, using the VMS hobbyist
license...)
Does anyone have any idea where to get it?
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
> Try around NY, Boston and east coast in general, especially the metro
> regions. Many of the rails have been abandoned over the last 50 years
> and are being removed infavor of many uses from trails to roads.
If they've been abandoned for to long it takes a lot of work to get them
back into condition to run trains over them. While we've had a lot of track
ripped out around here, they've also reopened a fair amount of it.
Zane
From: Ethan Dicks <erd_6502(a)yahoo.com>
>
>As others more qualified than I have said, there isn't a way to boot
>RT-11 over an ethernet card;
True. However you can mop boot using DDCMP over serial or sync
lines but that is not supported by RT11 internally but it can load
the rt11 image that way.
> I am, however, confident you can boot RT-11
>over a TU-58 and a serial port. I have never done it (I've always used
>floppies or a hard disk), but with the right bootstrap on the -11, it
I have, and do. it expects a standard DL device on one of several
likely addresses and uses RSP/MRSP (TU58 serial protocal).
>shouldn't be a big deal. You could then bring up your machine from an
>emulated TU-58 (a DOS or Linux box, probably, or even VMS, with a little
There are programs for Linus or unix boxen and it's doable with VMS.
>development work to port an emulator) and tape images. It's a bit slow -
>38400 bps is a standard transfer speed, but not as bad as the original
>because you won't have enormous seek latency.
At 38.4 with a real tape the seeks are killer slow. With a tu58 simulator
it's remarkably fast and useable. Hint: boot rt11, install VM: and INIT VM:
then copy/boot DD to VM, then copy the core of RT11 to VM and boot
that. Then the slow tape is less an issue as swaps and commonly used
files are local to the ramdisk (VM:). Minimum ram for that is 256k
(VM:192k),
as usual more is better. With a 1 or 2Mb of ram VM: is quite large and the
effect is
a system that beats an RL02/RLV21 for performance. Most of this is
forgotten
by all but the most hardcore PDP-11 users and likely unheard of to the kids.
>Also, it's possible to force-feed a bootstrap or any other memory
>tidbits down the console line and ODT. We used that technique to
>test COMBOARDs when I was at Software Results - the rig was software
or to load the TU58 loader. ;)
Allison
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk]
> If you write machine code rather than assembly language (I've
> done this a
> few time...) then again there's no way to include comments...
Sure there is -- just don't run them ;)
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
Today I just got a pair of IBM 3192 (saved from the dumpster), and was
wondering what options I have for using them. I know they're 'supposed
to' be hooked up to a 3270-mode terminal controller, (like the AT&T 6544 I
have, perhaps??), but I'm having a hard time finding much information out
about them using Google.
Does anyone know of a good reference site for info on these 'beasts'? I
also need to get software still for my at&t 6544 if that'll work with
these - still not clear if that's a *useful* option.
Thanks for the help
-- Pat