Did anyone catch the bit on ABC news last night about the use of old
computers to fill potholes?
I think some of our Windsor potholes would require at least a mini.
Regards
Charlie Fox
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
Anyone know if there's ever anything like this in/near/around Western PA
(Eastern Ohio, Northern VA)?
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Walker <lwalker(a)mail.interlog.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 6:34 PM
Subject: Re: SoCal TRW Swap and DEC Open House
On 7 Apr 99 at 17:04, John Lawson wrote:
>
>
> As promised last month... this month, April, on Saturday the
> 24th, I will offer hospitality and welcome to anyone wishing to
> view/play with/make bad jokes about my DEC collection. As many
> systems as I can get running will be 'on the air' (tho not all at
> once... zzzzzmp!) for your perusal and happiness. You can paw thru
> the junk and maybe find something you've wanted for months... we can
> trade... you can help me clean out the garage... (please....!)
>
> I will attend the TRW Swap Meet the morning of the 24th, and all
> are invited there, and immediately afterwards to the usual post-swap
> brunch-n-brag (around noon). Then I will travel to My Place, and any
> folk wishing to join in at any point in the day's activities are most
> welcome.
>
> We can party until Sunday night, if that's what you want. I have
> to be at work Monday morning, and so do you. Otherwise, it's
> unstructured.
>
> I would prefer to give directions privately, since where you are
> coming from will modify them. Please e-mail me if you think you
> might like to participate. It's completely informal, all are
> welcome, and if no one shows up, I'm gonna play with the machines
> all by myself. Directions will also be available from me at TRW.
>
> I know that several NorCal (Bay Area) listmembers [Sam?] told me
> they were going to try and make it down... let me know and we'll
> leave alll the lights on. :)
>
> Just a heads-up for all, and I encourage others in other locales to
> consider hosting a Compu-crawl for your area... it's a lot more
> interesting to me than Tupperware...
>
>
> Cheerz
>
> John
--- Bruce Lane <kyrrin(a)my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> Arrrgh! Why couldn't this guy have been in north Seattle or something?
> I've been hunting for an 11/83!
>
> Anyone in Ohio looking for a nice PDP in a Worldbox?
I've been looking for any PDP-11 faster than an 11/23. The WorldBox is
a nice touch (I've already got one for my uVAX-II)
> Attachment follows.
Thanks. I was out of town for the original announcement. I'll see if it's
still available (probably not).
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
--- Mike Ford <mikeford(a)netwiz.net> wrote:
> >Anyone know if there's ever anything like this in/near/around Western PA
> >(Eastern Ohio, Northern VA)?
>
> Yes of course. Find hams, any ham, and they will know all the horsetrading
> within unreasonable driving distance.
I am in Central Ohio (not exactly Eastern Ohio, but probably as close to the
request as we're likely to see). The big mother of swapmeets in my immediate
area are the shows in Dayton in March and August (Dayton Computerfest) and
the massive Dayton Hamfest in May. Admittedly, none of these shows are purely
people with cool, used stuff to sell (there are more vendors selling new
stuff),
but I got some great bargains at the computerfest last month on lots of used
items that I have been seeking for some time.
These days there aren't many classics at the Dayton shows, but I have purchased
at Dayton in the past things like a COSMAC VIP, an ASR-33, a PDP-8L (my first
-8, about 15 years ago), DECmates, CPU chips from the 1970's, etc. Lately,
it's been easier to find older components than systems; I've gotten boxes of
Teac FD55's for a song (still untested ;-), MFM disk drives for less than $0.20
per meg, uVAX and DECmate cables for $1, some older IC's occasionally, etc.
Other than Dayton, there are a few Hamfests that I make a point of going to,
first and foremost: the Mansfield Hamfest, one of the first of the season.
It's where I picked up that Apple //c+, recently. Someone had a Kapyro 2
there, but I wasn't going to pay $100 for it.
We don't have as many opportunities here as on the coasts, but things can
be found. I just last night rescued a uVAX 2000 with a pair of VR290's
(one working, one with a bad power supply) from the widow of a friend of
mine who died last year. I was told to get this "junk" this week or it
was going out with the neighborhood bulk collection next week. Besides the
CPU and monitors, there's a TK50-FA, an LA120 and an 8-port terminal server.
Does anybody but DEC speak LAT?
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
--- Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Further, I am also told that a 6XX/MP board _will_ work in any sort of
> Sun VMS cage, including a 4/110 tower, one of the smaller configurations
> that Sun sold.
Doh! Make that a "VME" cage.
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
On Apr 7, 22:38, Chuck McManis wrote:
> Subject: Q-bus pinout
> Hello, is the Q-bus pinout on line? I've got an extender card and I'd
like
> to know if it was compatible or not.
There's a PostScript file showing the pinout at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/QBusConns.ps
(and a larger copy there also). Can't help with the PDP-8 PSU, though.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Erm, I really don't think Smalltalk began with Lisp in any way.
The key idea in Smalltalk is encapsulization via class definition;
Lisp is all about lists and (to a purist) functional programming.
Both are very cool, and generally cleaner than the more "practical"
languages, maybe because they define a model that isn't so close
the the hardware. But they are really wildly different from each
other, right down to the bone. Lisp is not at all object oriented,
and Smalltalk is nothing but.
If all the languages you've used are the close-to-hardware
procedural kind, then these will seem novel. In that case, you
might also check out ML, Prolog, APL, SNOBOL, and Icon. APL and
Icon are still comfortably procedural, and SNOBOL is crude by
modern standards, but each of those has its own way-out-of-the-
mainstream aspects. Maybe none have the simplicity of pure Lisp,
though. There is something attractive about a language that does
just one thing, but does it well.
Bill.
PS. As a bonus, these all pass the ten-year rule. (Well, I'm not
100% sure about ML, but I *think* it does.)
] From: Max Eskin <max82(a)surfree.com>
] To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
] <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
] Date: Saturday, April 03, 1999 11:44 PM
] Subject: Hallelujah!
]
]
] I've finally gotten around to reading a LISP book that I had bought months
] before, and I can see why people refer to LISP as a religious experience
] (I've seen that said at least twice). It's really a wonderful language. I
] wonder how it is worse than BASIC or Perl. Also, although I didn't really
] take the time to really understand smalltalk (Squeak is slow and
] unstable), I can see the beginnings of smalltalk in LISP. Wow. This thing
] really is pretty amazing. This should be taught in every computer
] programming course, along with PAL-8, C, and Perl. I am now certain that
] if a language is hard to learn (C++ comes to mind), there's something
] wrong with it :)
]
] --Max Eskin (max82(a)surfree.com)
Cheap would be cost of postage. I've been trying to get rid of
three of them for that price for, oh, probably a year now.
Finally, as of last week, I may have a taker. Though I haven't
heard back from him, and it has been several days now...
Bill.
On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Mike Ford <mikeford(a)netwiz.net> wrote:
] In todays wanderings I found two seemingly very nice condition 4869
] external floppy drives, they were not cheap, but then I don't know what
] cheap for them would be. If anybody is interested email me as I will return
] to that haunt on Thursday.
<On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
<> I don't believe those were the earliest of the 5-1/4" types. The early
<> SA-400's I remember used a lead screw just like the 8" drives, but that w
the SA800 was lead screw but, the sa400 was the spiral groove disk. I
know as I still have the working SA400 (not the later L) that came with
the Northstar* MDS purchased in 1977 (very low sn#).
Allison
--- Aaron Christopher Finney <af-list(a)lafleur.wfi-inc.com> wrote:
> Speaking of sparcs,
>
> This might be a little OT, but it does *involve* a Sun 3/50. At least the
> dead shell of one. John Lawson was kind enough to donate the mainboard
> from a Sparcserver 600MP to the cause today, but I don't have anywhere to
> put it (no comments on that, please). The question is this: can I put this
> board into the 3/50's case? From what I understand, the old VME chassis
> only provided power. Of course, the capacity of the 3/50's ps is a
> question too; I think it's rated somewhere around 20A at 5v, and the 600MP
> board requires something like 15A @ 5v, with no RAM or Mbus modules.
I tried that with no good results. I'm told that the 3/50 PSU doesn't
provide both +12v and -12v on the single power connector, or that the
6xx/MP board doesn't get comm voltages from that particular connector
or some other power-related reason why RS-232 doesn't work in that
configuration.
I was also told that the 6xx/MP board wants to see some kind of termination
on some of the VME signals or it won't past self-test. As I said, I could
never make it work, and the original 3/50 mainboard _does_ work in my 3/50
chassis, so it's not an overall PSU problem.
Further, I am also told that a 6XX/MP board _will_ work in any sort of
Sun VMS cage, including a 4/110 tower, one of the smaller configurations
that Sun sold.
BTW, don't try to run a newer version of Solaris on that board... Solaris 2.6
has checks for the 6XX/MP line and halts on startup. 2.7 (Solaris 7) is
completely missing kernel support for any VME machines.
If you find out any of this is wrong, I'd love to hear it; maybe someday
I could get my configuration working. For now, I'll restore the 3/50 as
is.
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
These were in common use on Z89's and Z-90's. Heathkit used drives made
by
Tandon and Siemens. The Siemens drives were kinda unique: It used a
disk with a spiral groove for the head positioner.
The cabinets are among the best floppy enclosures ever made IMHO
(although
they can be a bitch to put back together). I have several of them
myself.
The (linear) power supplies in 'em are fairly beefy.
Jeff
On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 10:35:59 +0000 "Lawrence Walker"
<lwalker(a)mail.interlog.com> writes:
> I made a curbside rescue of a dual ext. fdd. Two FH 5 1/4 floppies
>mounted
>vertically. ZenithDS Heathkit H77 with ribbon cable connector. Looks
>more like
>an 8" mechanism than your standard floppies. I'm assuming these were
>for a
>Z-100 guaged by the ZDS H-K label timeframe . Any info on them ?
> Judging by the mechanism that I can see , like Rainbow drives but not
>
>laterly opposed , they're SS.
>
>ciao larry
>lwalker(a)interlog.com
>
>Collectors info http://members.xoom.com/T3C
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
From: Christian Fandt <cfandt(a)netsync.net>
>>Anyone know if there's ever anything like this in/near/around Western PA
>>(Eastern Ohio, Northern VA)?
nope but here's an open invitation for anyone passing through Jacksonville
anytime.
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
This is one of APPLE & wierd Woz's patents. It's in almost every well
equipped electrical engineering library. There's also an ANSI standard for
GCR as applied by the 9-TRACK TAPE people to get up to 6250 bpi, which will
shed some light as well, should you choose to look it up. I used that
information to lay a groundwork for my APPLE HDC, which never made it to
market.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com <CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 7:12 PM
Subject: RE: Apple GCR
>>Can someone explain how the Apple II GCR worked? I tried deciphering this
>>several years ago and I could figure it out (the only references I found
>>were very vague).
>
>There's one reference which is extremely non-vague: _Beneath Apple
>DOS_, by Don Worth and Peter Lechner. In it you'll find wonderful
>illustrations featuring Sir Isaac Newton and leading you through the
>wonderfully intertwined world of the Disk ][ state machine, 6502
>machine code, and modulation formats. This book is still available
>new (see my past posts to comp.sys.apple2 for details on how to buy it.)
>
>If you're too cheap to buy the book (again, buy the book! It's
>worth every last cent!), the relevant section of it (minus the
>cute drawings) is online at
>
>http://www.umich.edu/~archive/apple2/misc/hardware/disk.encoding.txt
>
>But, again, buy the book! Woz is not my super-hero, but he could do
>amazing things with a half-dozen TTL chips, that everyone else was
>doing with a hundred or more...
>
>--
> Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
> Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
> 7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
> Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
I saw a hardcover book from 1957 at the used bookstore, that discussed
digital computer circuits, and had chapters on vacuum tube logic circuits, corememory circuits, some transistor circuits, etc. If this is something
that someone here is dieing to have, perhaps because you're designing
a vacuum tube computer circuit, just let me know and i'll try to get it
before someone else does ;)
-Lawrence LeMay
Grab it before it's gone! Good chance for someone in or near Chicago
to mess with VME hardware.
-=-=- <snip> -=-=-
On Wed, 07 Apr 1999 18:32:42 GMT, in comp.arch.bus.vmebus you wrote:
>>From: mike(a)gmx.com
>>Newsgroups: comp.arch.bus.vmebus
>>Subject: Free! Motorola VME-10 System and Motorola Development Hardware
>>Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 18:32:42 GMT
>>Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion
>>Lines: 20
>>Message-ID: <7eg8ca$gmi$1(a)nnrp1.dejanews.com>
>>NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.179.170.230
>>X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Apr 07 18:32:42 1999 GMT
>>X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.01; Windows 95)
>>X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x17.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 199.179.170.230
>>Path: news1.jps.net!news.pbi.net!206.190.128.10!newsfeed.yosemite.net!news1.ltinet.net!news.he.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!news-feeds.jump.net!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail
>>Xref: news1.jps.net comp.arch.bus.vmebus:23
>>
>>We have the following equipment which is going to be scrapped in the next
>>week or so unless someone in the Chicago area (we are in Northbrook) is
>>willing to come and pick it up (sorry, no shipping available).
>>
>>1 Mot VME10 System w/monitor & keyboard
>>1 Mot HDS-400 Hardware Development Station
>>1 Mot HDS-400/BSA 68020 Emulator/Analyzer
>>1 Mot HDS-300 Control Station
>>1 Mot Benchmark 20
>>1 Mot ExorTerm 155
>>
>>Plus miscellaneous manuals, cables, etc. This equipment was all working when
>>put in storage so years ago, but there are no guarantees... If interested,
>>contact me via email.
>>
>>Mike Magnus
>>mike(a)gmx.com
>>
>>-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
>>http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho,
Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech [dot] com
Web: http://www.bluefeathertech.com
"...No matter how we may wish otherwise, our science can only describe an object,
event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot possibly define any of them..."
I don't know about designators, but the first mini-floppy drives I got all
had lead screws like the 8" drives. Later on, the SA400-<something> became
available, and I don't remember what the <something> was, but they had the
helical cam with a 2-phase stepper.
Dick
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) <cisin(a)xenosoft.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 5:41 PM
Subject: SA-400's (was: Heatkit 5 1/4 floppies
>On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Richard Erlacher wrote:
>> I don't believe those were the earliest of the 5-1/4" types. The early
>> SA-400's I remember used a lead screw just like the 8" drives, but that
was
>> too costly for the competition that followed. When Apple started buying
>> "partial" drive mechanisms in order to implement their more
software-driven
>> approach, with the idea of saving a few bucks . . . multiplied by a
milion
>> or two drives . . . other manufacturers including SIEMENS and BASF, among
>> others, tried a two-phase stepper on a helically-tracked drive wheel as
>> opposed to the stepper driving a lead screw. Most makers later went to a
>> band-actuator system using a small stepper.
>
>Interesting. All of the SA400s that I've seen used the spiral groove on a
>rotating disc. The only 5.25" drives of that vintage that I have with a
>helical lead screw were the Micropolis 35 track 48TPI and 77 track 100TPI
>(NOT 96TPI!!). Was there any sub model designation for the Shugarts to
>differentiate different positioners?
>
>--
>Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
>XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
>2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
>Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
>
Interesting. The Siemens drives were the only ones I've
ever seen that use this scheme. But then again, I didn't
look closely at the Shugarts in the Burroughs word processors
when I took my first real job ("you're not qualified").
These were the only ones I've ever seen.
Jeff
On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 12:22:56 -0700 (PDT) James Willing
<jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com> writes:
>On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Jeffrey l Kaneko wrote:
>
>> These were in common use on Z89's and Z-90's. Heathkit used drives
>made
>> by
>> Tandon and Siemens. The Siemens drives were kinda unique: It used a
>
>> disk with a spiral groove for the head positioner.
>
>Hmmm... hardly that unique it would seem... The Shugart SA-400
>series
>drives used that same positioning systems (first?).
>
>-jim
>---
>jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
>The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
>Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
>
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]
At 22:33 31/03/99 +1, Hans wrote:
>For a usefull system a Country identyfier and the ZIP code
>should be used, like US-90210 or DE-81541 or CA-M2R3G3
>(ISO 2 Char Country identifyer plus up to 9 char for ZIP -
>there is _no_ ZIP code in the world with more than 9 digits).
>And for the state/province thing - that's not used outside
>US/CA and defacto redundant information, since the ZIP code
>already includes this - everybody knows the location of
>(at least) the first two or 3 digits within his country.
>
>Servus
>Hans
I fully agree with this kind of format
[CC-XXXXXXXXX]
C=International country identifier
X=National ZIP code
that I think it is also a recomandation from the international postal
organization.
Riccardo Romagnoli
<chemif(a)mbox.queen.it>
I-47100 Forl?
I don't think I have cp/m. I've got a bunch of software mothballed for just
this occasion but havent got to it yet. Ahhh... software.... good. good.
Does the 6 weeks start today?
:)
- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Sellam Ismail <dastar(a)ncal.verio.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 7:29 PM
Subject: RE: Chicago trs-80s
>On Tue, 6 Apr 1999, Steve Robertson wrote:
>
>> After careful disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly, the Model 2 returned
>> to life. Another list member has located a keyboard for me (thanks) so,
>> that one is complete. I haven't found a boot disk for it yet but, I'm
sure
>> it'll work just fine.
>
>I recently made a CP/M and TRSDOS-II boot disk for another list member and
>I'd be happy to do the same for both you and Mike. Of course, you'll
>probably have to wait as long as Aaron did (about 6 weeks).
>
>Sellam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
>
> Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
> See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
> [Last web site update: 04/03/99]
>
>
As promised last month... this month, April, on Saturday the
24th, I will offer hospitality and welcome to anyone wishing to
view/play with/make bad jokes about my DEC collection. As many
systems as I can get running will be 'on the air' (tho not all at
once... zzzzzmp!) for your perusal and happiness. You can paw thru
the junk and maybe find something you've wanted for months... we can
trade... you can help me clean out the garage... (please....!)
I will attend the TRW Swap Meet the morning of the 24th, and all
are invited there, and immediately afterwards to the usual post-swap
brunch-n-brag (around noon). Then I will travel to My Place, and any
folk wishing to join in at any point in the day's activities are most
welcome.
We can party until Sunday night, if that's what you want. I have
to be at work Monday morning, and so do you. Otherwise, it's
unstructured.
I would prefer to give directions privately, since where you are
coming from will modify them. Please e-mail me if you think you
might like to participate. It's completely informal, all are
welcome, and if no one shows up, I'm gonna play with the machines
all by myself. Directions will also be available from me at TRW.
I know that several NorCal (Bay Area) listmembers [Sam?] told me
they were going to try and make it down... let me know and we'll
leave alll the lights on. :)
Just a heads-up for all, and I encourage others in other locales to
consider hosting a Compu-crawl for your area... it's a lot more
interesting to me than Tupperware...
Cheerz
John
There exists a well known file, the Field Guide, which lists all
PDP and VAX DEC boards by number and description. I have created a
web page on VAXarchive, my site with information on old DEC VAX
hardware and its operating systems, which is to be the visual version
of this list. It shows pictures of boards, and their number
and function. This makes it easy to identify boards with unreadable
or missing module numbers. There are now 24 pictures on this page,
which is of course just a tiny part of all boards that exist.
I am hoping that the readers of this list are able to help me get
more pictures.
If you own boards that are not on this page, I would appreciate
it very much if you could send me an image of them. If it is a dual
or quad width board, you do not need a digital camera to make this
picture, you can just lay it face down on a flat bed scanner.
(This is how all the pictures on the page were made.) Please mail
any pictures to pb0aia at iae.nl, or let me know on which ftp or www
site they are. Thanks in advance!
The URL of the page is:
<http://www.vaxarchive.org/hw/vfg/>
The boards already on the page are:
Dual width: M7270, M7504, M7546, M7555, M7607, M7954, M8043, M8044,
M8047, M8659, M9047.
Quad width: M3104, M7164, M7165, M7168, M7169, M7196, M7454, M7602,
M7606, M7608, M7609, M7624, M8639.
Non-DEC: QD21.
Regards,
Kees.
--
Kees Stravers - Geldrop, The Netherlands - kees.stravers(a)iae.nl
http://www.iae.nl/users/pb0aia/
I'm Sysadmin and DEC PDP/VAX preservationist - Visit VAXarchive!
http://www.vaxarchive.org/ (primary)
http://www.sevensages.org/vax/ (mirror)
http://www.coyote.org/mirrors/vaxarchive/ (mirror)
"D. Peschel" <dpeschel(a)u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I guess posting something on-topic is the best solutioon. Does anyone have
> a Corvus Concept? I bet Blockout (3D Tetris) would look pretty cool on it.
What do you think a Corvus Concept would bring to Blockout? I don't know,
and it's been years since I played Tetris.
Yep, I've got one, the fancy landscape/portrait display boils down to
a VERT/HORIZ switch on the back of the CPU that the software reads to
figure out how to draw the display. (It's up to the user to make sure
the switch and the monitor are set the same way, and the switch doesn't
change anything about the beam deflection.)
-Frank McConnell
>On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>
>> > computers, the service representative came to the site, opened a panel
>> > on the operator console, and changed the 5 1/4" floppy disk. By doing
>>
>> I think I read somewhere that the 8" floppy was originally designed for
>> this purpose.
>
>IBM invented the floppy disk to distribute microcode updates.
>
>Sellam
I believe that I saw the first floppy disk drive invented at IBM San Jose
in late 1969. It was designed to load microcode into the new selector
channels being designed for the IBM S-370. Unlike the CPU's and selector
channels of the S-360 that had a variety of ROM designs, the System 370 and
the stand alone selector channels had writable control stores for microcode.
The device was very primitive since it was essentially a read only device
when installed in the channel. It was designed by Al Shugart or a team
under his direction. I know he was credited with it within IBM. I have
always hoped somebody would do an oral history with him of his IBM days and
the reasons that he left to start his own company.
Dean