A question about the Sorcerer: I heard once that it used 8-track tapes.
Is this true, or did they mistake a cartridge for a cassette?
>I recently got a couple of Apple ][ and a couple of Exidy Sorcerors;
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
My girlfriend works for a sign company that does small and large scale
signage; including printing out vinyl signs. they can print onto lexan,
transparent vinyl, aluminum, etc etc; our project last week was making a
tower case out of clear acrylic, and putting some various translucent
designs on it (including a very dashing "Linux Powered" logo.) the company
is www.fastsigns.com, there are local all over the US and i believe also
england. for a full colour case design (they can scan and print any graphic)
it's usually about $50 US and then the cost of the materials. most likely
under $100. i'll upload some shots of this awesome case once i get my
digital camera back from a friend.
-Eric
>Absolutely! :-)
>
>I'd certainly be interested in a Mac with a neat paint job. It would
>have to be something interesting, though, after all, even I cold do solid
>colors. :-)
>
>A while back MacAddict gave away some custom painted Power Mac 5100's.
>They weren't very intersting, though, just crazy designs.
>
>Tom Owad
>
On Jul 14, 10:55, Max Eskin wrote:
> Subject: Re: How many computers?
> A question about the Sorcerer: I heard once that it used 8-track tapes.
> Is this true, or did they mistake a cartridge for a cassette?
No, they used "ROM Pac"s, which consist of a small circuit board with a
decoder chip and 4 x 2KB ROMs mounted inside a gutted 8-track tape
cartridge.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Jul 14, 6:50, Russ Blakeman wrote:
> Use paints that have glue type solvents, ones with toluene, acetone and
xylene
> that will melt into the finsih below and/or plastic and bond after
sanding
> with 400 sandpaper, works great.
[snip]
> After it dries overnight (esp black) clean it down with a sponge and then
dry
> it off and the excess dust of overspray will be gone, just like a factory
> finish.
Philips used to supply small runs of OEM monitors which were spray-painted
in custom colours, instead of using different coloured plastic.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Jul 14, 12:45, Hans Franke wrote:
> Subject: Re: How many computers?
> > BBC Microcomputer Model B-plus
>
> B-plus ? Never heard of it or is this jus another
> motherboard revision ?
The B-plus was a model introduced after the B but before the Master Series.
It had a lot of features of the Master 128, but was in a case just like a
Model B. The circuit board is completely different, though. Different
processor (65C12, IIRC), 64K RAM expandable to 128K, shadow memory and
extra modes, etc, and a very different layout.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Jul 13, 18:07, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> Here is a question, how do you include terminals? For example I've got a
> Tandy WP-2, it's a combo Word Processor, terminal sort of thing,
basically
> a keyboard with a LCD strip. Would it be a computer, or a terminal.
In the list I posted, I included anything that was vaguely a computer, like
the Psion and the AgendA, and the Torch, which is really a second processor
for a BBC B. I didn't include terminals, such as my VT131, a couple of
Cifer terminals, and some Wyse terminals. If the WP-2 runs software, even
just a dedicated word processor, I'd probably count it.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
I don't believe I've seen Anthony Clifton around recently? Has anyone
seen him? If you're reading this, Anthony, please post so that I know
your address and can email you.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
In a message dated 98-07-14 15:03:11 EDT, you write:
<< > I don't believe I've seen Anthony Clifton around recently? Has anyone
> seen him? If you're reading this, Anthony, please post so that I know
> your address and can email you.
> >>
he did have a website called retrocomputing.com but i am unable to establish a
connection to it. I hope that he still is present as I need to close a deal we
had made.
david
A friend has an RP06, an alignment pack, and the alignment tool, but
lacks the instructions to do the deed.
Anyone got the manual that describes the procedure, or know how?
-------
>Any idea how we might find the original paint color to restore a faded Mac
>or other Apple product to new condition?
The old Beige cases are made with Borg-Warner's ABS Cyclolac using the
color PMS 453.
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
In the old days, I used to work for a company that made hard disk
subsystems for the mac. When Apple changed to the "Platinum" color
scheme, they sent out a paint sample with a pantone color #. Someone
MUST know what it is...
Tony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Rachor [mailto:george@racsys.rt.rain.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 1998 1:53 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Re: Painting Macs (was: fake NeXT)
>
>
> Any idea how we might find the original paint color to
> restore a faded Mac
> or other Apple product to new condition?
>
> George
>
> =========================================================
> George L. Rachor george(a)racsys.rt.rain.com
> Beaverton, Oregon http://racsys.rt.rain.com
>
> On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Rax wrote:
>
> > >>If I ever get the time, I want to do a custom paint job
> on my SE/30.
> > >>Remember the fighter planes of WW2 that had the
> mouth/teeth/eyes painted on
> > >>the nose? You get the picture... :)
> > >
> > >I've been tempted to do that too. :-) What kind of paint
> would be best
> > >for this? And how would you go about cleaning the unit
> before hand?
> > >
> > >Tom Owad
> > >
> > >--
> > >Sysop of Caesarville Online
> > >Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
> >
> >
> > My ex-girlfriend painted her Mac metalflake purple. She got
> the paint from
> > a model shop - it's the stuff they use for painting plastic
> models. I
> > thought it would fuck everything up when she spray-painted
> the keyboard,
> > but it didn't seem to do it any harm. Worked fine, but it certainly
> > challenged one's touch-typing skills...
> >
> > R.
> >
> > --
> >
> >
> >
> > Warbaby
> > The WebSite. The Domain. The Empire.
> > http://www.warbaby.com
> >
> > The MonkeyPool
> > WebSite Content Development
> > http://www.monkeypool.com
> >
> >
> > Dreadlocks on white boys give me the willies.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
At 07:38 PM 7/13/98 -0700, Tom Owad wrote:
>I've been tempted to do that too. :-) What kind of paint would be best
>for this? And how would you go about cleaning the unit before hand?
Hmmm. I would probably go with a really fine sandpaper to give the paint
something to stick to, then if I wanted, clear coat the finished product
for a good seal against possible flaking. I painted a 14" SVGA monitor
once. Flat black, straight out of a cheap spraypaint can. It never flaked,
but some did rub off when I moved the monitor. I touched it up with black
magic marker.
I have this weird idea that one day custom paint jobs on computers might
make me some extra money. Am I crazy? Do you think there would ever be a
market for it?
I've seen one guy on the net that has built custom mahogany and marble
cases for his Mac cx and others. Was cool to see a more recent Apple in
wood. :)
Is this off-topic?
-
- john higginbotham ____________________________
- webmaster www.pntprinting.com -
- limbo limbo.netpath.net -
Actually, there is a little known difference on the power supply board
between a beige Mac plus and a Platinum Mac Plus. Just a diode but boy
oh boy did it cause havoc when installing a certain CPU accelerator
board made by now defunct MacMemory.
Mommy! I let the magic smoke out!
Tony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zane H. Healy [mailto:healyzh@ix.netcom.com]
> Sent: Monday, July 13, 1998 9:08 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Re: How many computers?
>
>
> >Every so often, someone asks how many computers I have, and
> I always find
> >it hard to give a straight answer. It depends whether you
> count half a
> >dozen 68000 boards as 1 + spares, or 6 -- I only have two
> keyboards and one
> >PSU rigged up for them -- or none, since I haven't got the
> orignal case or
> >PSU. Or the PDP-11s; I have several spare CPUs and other
> boards, but only
> >a few cabinets.
>
> Well, just tell 'em what I do. I've got about 70 computers
> (See the web
> page if you want the list, I'm not typing them all in :^) ),
> not counting
> duplicates/spares. However, I do count such things as a
> "Beige Mac Plus"
> and a "Platinum Mac Plus" separatly, despite the fact the only real
> difference is the colour of the case (well, in this case the keyboards
> also). Still I think the only systems that fall into that
> catagory are the
> Mac Plus, TI-99/4a, and A1200(HD).
>
> Here is a question, how do you include terminals? For
> example I've got a
> Tandy WP-2, it's a combo Word Processor, terminal sort of
> thing, basically
> a keyboard with a LCD strip. Would it be a computer, or a terminal.
>
> Zane
> | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
> | healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
> | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
> +----------------------------------+----------------------------+
> | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
> | and Zane's Computer Museum. |
> | http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
>
>If I ever get the time, I want to do a custom paint job on my SE/30.
>Remember the fighter planes of WW2 that had the mouth/teeth/eyes painted on
>the nose? You get the picture... :)
I've been tempted to do that too. :-) What kind of paint would be best
for this? And how would you go about cleaning the unit before hand?
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
At 17:51 13-07-98 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Jul 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
>
>> What we now need is for some brave person (me, Allison???) to take a
>> number of old (and dead) drives, make a clean box, pull them apart,
>> document everything, and write a repair manual....
>
>I would love to help with this effort as I'm very good with my hands and
>the whole point of starting this thread was to guage the practicality of
>home hard drive repair, but currently I wouldn't have the time to embark
>on such an endeavor, although at some point I will. I hope that whatever
>tricks I'm able to pioneer with respect to hard drive repair will be
>passed on in FAQs.
Good! We'll be watching, Sam! :-)
>
>I've already noted the discussions on building a clean box and at some
>point will be creating one. QUESTION: Is there a way to determine just
>how clean such a clean box is after its built? Is there some meter that
>can be hooked-up to the exhaust opening that will give you a particulate
Yes there is a device used to count particles in the air. But you may not
like the cost of them.
My job involves work in our Class 10,000 cleanroom at my place of
employment. A few of you others out there either once had or now work in
such a company that has cleanroom(s), or possibly had spent time in a
cleanroom as a service person.
I can give a brief primer on how a cleanroom is built and short definition
of the federal standard of cleanroom classes if some of you are interested.
That would give a picture of the environment within which the drives had
been manufactured and what one would do to make a simple one for his/her use.
We make linear encoders of which the finest line size of the ronchi ruling
on the encoder substrate is 4 microns (157.48 millionths of an inch.)
Figure one micron = 39.37 millionths of an inch (0.00003937"). Most dust
particles in 'free air' (the air we normally live in and breathe everyday)
are in the 0.5 to 10 micron range. Therefore, keeping the air _clean_
during the manufacturing process has benefited us extremely well. Of
course, semiconductor manufacturers fabricate microprocessors, transistors,
all other IC's in cleanroom environments. Those hokey Intel TV
advertisements with cleanroom workers in full body suits are actually not
far off the mark with regard to the actual need to keep a class 10 or 100
cleanroom clean when making chips with sub-micron features.
I had purchased a particle counter at work to check the "cleanness" of the
air in various zones in the cleanroom. These machines are somewhat
complicated though the basic concept used for counting particles is not.
Most particle counters are sensitive. The one I bought is able to "see",
therefore count, a *single* particle as small as 0.5 micron. Our unit has
similar specifications as other typical brands of particle counters but it
still cost us a little over US$10,000. Used equipment dealers have them for
less but it's still not reasonable for the hobbyist or even a very small
business. Maintenace parts and calibration is also a bit high.
BTW, the air quality in most areas of our cleanroom stays at less than 100
particles per cubic foot. Very clean when considering that outside air
which is relatively clean (say, the proverbial fresh mountain air) has
100,000 to 500,000 particles per cu. foot -more with forest fires, etc.
nearby.
If I do decide to tinker with some of my dead hard drives, I plan to bring
them to the plant some weekend and have at it :-) I'll just slip on a
boufont (sp.?) cap as a hair cover, special gloves, my lab coat and maybe a
face mask of some sort, setup at an empty table and away I go!
>count? My Panasonic vacuum cleaner has such a detector that triggers a
>dual-color LED on the front panel: it lights red if it detects dirt
>particles passing through the hose and green if the particle count is
>below some threshold.
This is an extremely simplified version of a particle counter. I can
envision it as having a simple LED emitter, probably IR, on one side of the
hose and a photodetector on the opposite side. The detector and the analog
front end may be rather sensitive to differentiate minute changes in light
intensity. When significant amounts of dust and crap are sucked thru the
hose the light is slightly occluded whichs lowers the output of the
photodetector which then trips the circuit driving the red LED on your
Panasonic vac. This is much too coarse of a device to measure air quality
in any home-built glovebox/cleanroom any of us may build. It serves to show
the homeowner that the Panasonic company's wonderful Model Such-and-Such is
doing a great job at cleaning their house. Pure marketing gimmick but kinda
neat on a home vac anyway IMO.
>
>> Yep, this is an interesting thread for me...
>
>Me too!
Thanks for starting the discussion Sam, as a few of us who have the
resources will need to get into it in the future -if not now. I can offer
additional ideas and advice from my own cleanroom experience to the group
on setting up a work area using either homemade or used commercial "clean
benches", etc.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/
I seem to remember a company way back (when the Mac Plus was considered
a power machine) that used to do custom faux finishes on Macs. The cool
one was the granite macintosh.
I think the company was also the first to make a fishtank out of a Mac
128K
Tony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tom Owad [mailto:tomowad@earthlink.net]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 1998 12:19 PM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Re: Painting Macs (was: fake NeXT)
>
>
> >I have this weird idea that one day custom paint jobs on
> computers might
> >make me some extra money. Am I crazy? Do you think there
> would ever be a
> >market for it?
>
> Absolutely! :-)
>
> I'd certainly be interested in a Mac with a neat paint job. It would
> have to be something interesting, though, after all, even I
> cold do solid
> colors. :-)
>
> A while back MacAddict gave away some custom painted Power
> Mac 5100's.
> They weren't very intersting, though, just crazy designs.
>
> Tom Owad
>
> --
> Sysop of Caesarville Online
> Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
>
This is off-topic, so I'd like to know if anyone would like to start a
short discussion off the list regarding data recovery on crashed hard
drives?
I recently had two hard drives go south on me. One was my 2.5" IDE in my
laptop...scary considering it had all my notes, memos and source code.
The other was a 3.5" IDE on the voicemail system in the office. The
laptop was a physical crash; the voicemail was a soft crash (directory got
over-written somehow).
I took the hard drives to a data recovery shop (Data Recovery Group in San
Leandro for the locals). They have complete clean room and repair
facilities. The data recovery technician, Yongin, opened up the 2.5" HD
in the clean room and found the head had gone bad. He assembled a new
head onto the drive but it wasn't repairable: it was a temporary fix to
get the data off. He then proceeded to extract all the directories I told
him were the most critical. Over all he said he was able to read about
60% of the 1.2GB drive.
The other drive he found had a bad root directory, apparently having been
over-written with random data (I suspect a virus). They basically used
Norton Utilities on that to locate the lost directories and re-link them.
They were able to recover the entire drive contents.
What I wanted to discuss is the possibility of doing home drive repair
without the luxury of a clean room. Is it possible to use some sort of
cheaply available or easily made vacuum chamber with positive airflow and
filtering, or is it absolutely required? Can a drive be opened in room
air and be worked on without introducing dangerous dust particles onto the
platter? Figuring out the data on the drive is the easy part, compared
with actually trying to read the data off the platter, whether the problem
be a failed head or a crashed head.
Why can't they make a hard drive that's crash proof? Even if the
mechanics fail, can't some hardend substance like glass be layed over the
platter so if the head did crash it would only scratch the glass? Then
you would simply open the drive, pull out the platter, replace the glass
shield if necessary, then insert it into a working assembly. The head
calibration would be adjusted to compensate for the extra distance to the
platter.
If anyone would like to continue this discussion, please reply to me
privately. Thanks!
BTW, the above drive repair cost $1,490 total. Not only is the job
challenging and fun, but highly lucrative. Back that data up!
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ever onward.
September 26 & 27...Vintage Computer Festival 2
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
[Last web page update: 07/05/98]
Why not use a radioisotope and a metal plate, like in a smoke detector?
I think the element could be removed from the smoke detector and wired
into a different circuit that triggers on dust.
>
>I don't know how it works. For high particle counts (like your vacuum
>cleaner), I would guess you could use light scattering. I can't believe
>that would work at class 100 levels, though.
>
>-tony
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
< What we now need is for some brave person (me, Allison???) to take a
< number of old (and dead) drives, make a clean box, pull them apart,
< document everything, and write a repair manual....
Either that or I have to trouble shoot the two maxtor2190s(rd54) I have
with seek spindown death. I know it's not a HDA problem as I opened them
and watch the gyrations.
Allison
>I have this weird idea that one day custom paint jobs on computers might
>make me some extra money. Am I crazy? Do you think there would ever be a
>market for it?
Absolutely! :-)
I'd certainly be interested in a Mac with a neat paint job. It would
have to be something interesting, though, after all, even I cold do solid
colors. :-)
A while back MacAddict gave away some custom painted Power Mac 5100's.
They weren't very intersting, though, just crazy designs.
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
Yes the RJ-11 jack is to hard wire the keyboard. My PC Jr works
wireless okay up to four or five feet then gets flakey. Batteries
don't last long in mine either although it's been a long time since
I've played with it.
Marty
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: Re: How many computers?
Author: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu at internet
Date: 7/14/98 11:45 AM
On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Tony Duell wrote:
> Remmeber it was supposed to be a _home_ computer. At the time very few
> home computers came with floppy drives.
>
> BTW, how common are PC-jr machines without floppies? Were most of them
> upgraded?
Dunno, mine's got an IBM 360k drive in it. My biggest complaints about are
the 'sidecar' expansion (the second all-time-lamest computer innovation)
and the fact that all backpanel ports are.. BERG headers (the first
all-time-lamest computer innovation).
What's up with the tiny card-edge connectors inside on the motherboard?
I also noticed my keyboard (which is a joke) has an RJ-11 jack off to the
side, and that there's a 2x3 BERG header at the back labelled 'K'. Could
this be for a keyboard cable, heaven forbid?
Also, keyboard battery life is uniformly poor. It seems like I get about
20 minutes. Is this normal?
ok
r.
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From: "R. Stricklin (kjaeros)" <red(a)bears.org>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: How many computers?
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I suppose I'll chime in with my small collection:
Apple ][+ clone (label says "Tel-Com", the keys have CP/M, MBASIC, and
other commands silkscreened onto them)
Apple Lisa 1
Apple Lisa 2/10
DIGI-COMP 1 (an educational toy from 1963)
Osborne 1
Epson QX-16
(seeking more, as always...)
Other stuff:
Televideo 950 terminal
Power Macintosh 6100/66 (maybe as one of the first powermacs it will
have some historical significance someday. Contains a 486 DOS card.)
Generic 586 PeeCee (yawn)
This account is used so mailing lists don't
clutter up Tom's real account. If you really
want to talk to Tom, use tom(at)galena.tjs.org