William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote:
> > So...how did/do you read the 386i?
>
> A bad mistake.
I gather that is what Sun feels these days too. A while back I asked
a friend within Sun who has been able to find interesting stuff for me
>from time to time whether he could get certain information about the
386i[1], and that is about the answer I got: don't ask about the 386i,
no-one wants to remember.
> God only knows what they were thinking - the 68020 and 68030 machines were
> quite capable at the time.
Well, one view is that they were thinking with a different brain --
the 386i was a somewhere-in-Massachusetts creation, while the rest of
Sun is in (or slightly north of) Sillycon Valley and I've gathered
didn't pay much attention to the 386i.
Also (from looking at the manuals) I gather it would have made a
pretty nifty MS-DOS development environment for its day, being able to
boot MS-DOS in several independent virtual machines. I'll have to
play with that someday and see how well it really works.
> Wasn't the i386 pretty much a failure by the time the Sun-4s came out.
I don't think so. In fact I think it came out pretty much
concurrently with, or maybe even shortly after the early Sun-4s -- it
only ever ran its peculiar version of SunOS 4.0.x. That's why I used
to think of it as Sun hedging its bets on the future.
-Frank McConnell
[1] Someone wanted to port Linux to it. No, I don't understand why,
there are plenty of i386s in the world to run Linux, and besides the
Sun 386i and the appropriate SunOS really sort of go together IMO.
But I figured I would inquire anyway, one can never have too much
documentation.
-----Original Message-----
From: Art Carlson <xnospamx(a)netrix.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.cpm
Date: Saturday, June 13, 1998 10:50 AM
Subject: Free Morrow S-100 CP/M Systems
>*** DO NOT AUTOREPLY ***
>
> I have two Morrow S-100 systems complete with drives, manuals, and
>disks, which I will give to a good home. They do not include terminals.
> The catch is that they are located in Northwest Montana, and I will
>not pack or ship them, they would have to be picked up here.
> E-mail me with any serious inquiries.
>SPAM BLOCK replace xnospamx in the address with acarlson
> Art Carlson
>
William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> wrote:
> Actually, the 88000 was killed off because Sun went with the SPARCs for
> their next generation of machines, the Sun-4 series.
So...how did/do you read the 386i? Back then, I read it as Sun
hedging its bets against a total victory by Intel in the CPU Wars of
the late 1980s: they could sell Motorola, Intel, and SPARC today
(today being then, not now) and promise to be around tomorrow no
matter what the CPU of tomorrow looked like.
-Frank McConnell
> The 320H is a decent machine (unlike the 220 dog), but lacks a ethernet
> port. Like most RS/6000s, it has screaming floating point, and can use XGA
> (a bit more tube freindly than other workstations).
[Pause while I get up from my desk and go and look at our RS/6000s]
Hey! You're right! Our 320 machines (320E, upgraded from 320 something
else I think, equivalent to 320H) have ethernet on a microchannel card.
That shouldn't be too hard to find...
We've had our 320s for six years or more, our 375 for four or five. We
are thinking of getting something faster but it's hard to match the FP
performance on anything modern. With luck, when (if) we do, I'll get
the old ones. FWIW the fastest FP we found in our sort of price range
was the RS/6000 model 397. The last of the POWER RISC machines, much
faster than the Power PC RS/6000s...
But I fear we're a bit off topic here...
Philip.
some guy at work knew i enjoyed collecting old stuff so he contacted me and
gave me all this:
15 apple scsi peripheral cables, 7 that were never opened
3 //e enhancement kits. 1 in original packaging. also some loose chips thrown
in with the rest of the junk i got.
localtalk locking connector kit. <?>
2 ext 80 col card 1 in original packaging never opened.
1 imagewriter 2 /lq localtalk option
2 mouse //e 1 never opened
//gs mem exp card
2 supr serial card 1 never opened
1 mouse //e
workstation card never opened <!>
6 apple 256k mem exp upgrade kits. only 1 was opened.
microtek language card
unidisk 5.25 controller
undisk 3.5 controller
many user manuals for apple // and mac some never opened
tandy dcm3 modem
2 ext 80 col card
1 scsi cable extender
grappler card
ibm 2.88 floppy drive. has standard form factor unlike ps2 2.88 floppy.
proprinter ribbons
ps2 mouse never used in box
ps2 tape backup for qic80 tapes with matching install b and c kits
appleshare pc program
future domain isa scsi card
2 ps2 4meg kits never used
1 16meg ecc mem
1 box of 10 2meg upgrade kits. never used!
mca 16/4 token ring nic
mca 2-8 meg mem expansion card
11 boca 512/1meg svga isa video cards never used
apple tutorial disks never used.
also a few other minor things i cant remember.
everything above remain in their original boxes
im cancelling a fishing trip to go back to his house tonight and pick up some
more things. he used to either work for skool system or was with a servicer
involved with skools which is where this probably all came from. i'll update
when i get the other goodies. unfortunately, no lisa stuff, although it cant
hurt to ask. i'll probably keep most of this although i bet i could make a
killing hyping it up for sale on ebay... 8-(
david
Hi,
I was wondering if there's a surefire way of telling if an IBM-PC has its
original motherboard, without opening the case. I saw one at the
Salvation Army today and was considering dragging it home (though I
decided to take another machine instead).
The machine did have a cassette port in the back, with a femal DIN
connector. Is this attached to the motherboard?
The machine also had a full complement of cards in its slots, with lots of
ports coming out of it. And a 3.5" drive that was poorly fitted into the
case.
I'm wondering if I should make a trip downtown sometime this weekend, with
the car.
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/
Sounds cool. Many of the greatest design concepts are stopped... not
because of bugs, not because of tiredness of developers, but because of the
only thing obstructing innovation: Money.
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: George Currie <g(a)kurico.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, June 26, 1998 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: NeXT cubes or slabs.
Actually they (NeXT) had started work on a dual Motorola 88000 machines
before NeXT dropped out of the hardware biz. Some former NeXT hardware
guys went on to form a company called FirePower to design PREP?, CHRP?
compliant PPC computers. They released a few but were then bought by
Motorola and of course we all know what happened to
PREP/CHRP/WhatEVER.
George
Not to mention the HP-110 Portables . . .
> operating systems in rom? that seems fairly popular. my atari portfolio has
> dos in rom as well as my tandy 100 has apps in rom. even the original 2011 IBM
> PS1 had dos in rom.
>
> david
>
> In a message dated 98-06-26 14:22:44 EDT, you write:
>
> << I LOVE that idea. Now, it'd need to be EPROM, especially nowadays with bug
> fixes, a new version every other day of the week, etc. but still, it's a way
> cool concept. Which computers did this?
> Ciao, >>
>
>
>
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Disclaimer: |
| |
| These opinions are entirely my own, and in no way reflect the |
| policies or opinions of my employer. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net> wrote:
] Picked up a cartridge for the Coco t'other day, and I'm not sure what it
] is. It says "Cat. No. 26-3129" and "Color Computer Controller" on it. Has
] the card-edge connector where it plugs in, then another, smaller one on the
] back end. My guess is it's a floppy controller?
Here is a URL for you:
http://members.tripod.com/~qtv/index-7.html
It lists Radio Shack items and catalog numbers. According to that,
what you've got is a "Color Thinline Disk #0 Kit 349.95". I suppose
that part number was for the entire kit, drive and controller both.
Bill.
operating systems in rom? that seems fairly popular. my atari portfolio has
dos in rom as well as my tandy 100 has apps in rom. even the original 2011 IBM
PS1 had dos in rom.
david
In a message dated 98-06-26 14:22:44 EDT, you write:
<< I LOVE that idea. Now, it'd need to be EPROM, especially nowadays with bug
fixes, a new version every other day of the week, etc. but still, it's a way
cool concept. Which computers did this?
Ciao, >>
If you ask me, CHRP was worthless, like the rest of the Apple cloning
program. In the end, not a soul made a cent off that whole thing, and
many people were stuck with machines that didn't have warranty /
support. Lastly, what's so good about a DB25 serial port on a Mac
anyway? Now USB is good. Could NeXTs run any non-NeXT software?
>Sounds cool. Many of the greatest design concepts are stopped... not
>because of bugs, not because of tiredness of developers, but because of
the
>only thing obstructing innovation: Money.
>
>Tim
>Actually they (NeXT) had started work on a dual Motorola 88000 machines
>before NeXT dropped out of the hardware biz. Some former NeXT hardware
>guys went on to form a company called FirePower to design PREP?, CHRP?
>compliant PPC computers. They released a few but were then bought by
>Motorola and of course we all know what happened to
>PREP/CHRP/WhatEVER.
>
>George
>
>
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I've got a TRS-80 Model I that MOSTLY works (I typed in a program to fill
the screen with characters and the screen did fill up) except for the
video synchronization.
Characters lean to the right, and the display moves all over the screen.
Usually the motion is quickly to the left while also moving upward, though
sometimes it stabalizes and just moves upward.
Is there an adjustment to control this somewhere?
The machine is in beautiful physical shape - it looks unused. There's
even a sticker still on it that is stuck to the expansion port's trapdoor
and sticks also to the machine's case. And the warrantee seal hasn't been
broken yet.
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/
>The latter (Sam Goldberger) is in Mill Valley, California. I think
>Deep Space is in New Mexico. There used to be some guy on the east
>coast but he seems to have disappeared... odd since he seemed to have
>most of the CIA inventory.
And what, prey tell, is so odd about that? ;-)
>Since I'm an Openstep developer, in my mind they aren't really
>antiques... though the CPU clock rates are low by todays standards
>they still perform very well for day-to-day use because the software
>(OS, application framework and display mode) layers were engineered
>very efficiently. The platform is just barely ten years old and
>still very modern if not futuristic.
Yep. I actually think that Apple could appeal more to the design market by
releasing a new PPC based NeXT. That would give the platform a significant
boost. Especially becasue I've heard that Apple's going to be making
$500-$1500 devices. PPC NeXTs could sell for well over $5-$10, even for a
lower-end one.
>The "PrinterWorks" I believe, still sells laserprinters for them.
>With these, you can essentially turn a NeXT Cube or station into a
>Win 95/NT printing engine via Samba networking, have it run your web
>server, and use it to run many applications that would make both
>Windows and plain old Unix jealous if they were jealous kinds of
>Operating Systems.
Sounds cool. But getting more and more off topic...
>If all else fails, there's also comp.sys.next.marketplace, where
>everyone is trying to sell what they have right now.
ALL RIGHT!!! There's a NeXT in my future!
>Collectable items include extra DSP memory, the ancient ISDN modem
>that worked through the DSP port, Ariel Digital Microphones, Digital
>Ears [a Digital Sound I/O system].
DSP Memory? DUDE!!!
>Also... the 20 " monitors were _beautiful_ to work nexst to. Before
>I sold mine I always felt like I was almost living inside my NeXT.
>But they are oh so heavy!
Well, it could have been inside of a titanium alloy casing...
>Cubes are ultra-ergonomic. The cases very somewhat depending on
>when they were made. I like the cases the early 68030 machines...
>they had less ventilation I think but they looked cooler... more
>metalic somehow.
No kidding. That's the big catch to NeXT's. The looks. Once you see one,
you can't really sleep easy until one's inside of your house.
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
GOD this is a long thread!
>Well, considering the reason that I started collection computers 12
>years ago was so that people would have the chance to use >frontpanels,
paper tape, punched cards etc in he future, I might do >that sometime.
Problem is it would take a lot of work, and I doubt if >anyone would buy
it.
>
>-tony
Why not? The Soul of a New Machine, Insanely Great, and Hackers seemed
to do just fine, to name a few. I don't mean an encyclopedia, but a
bunch of stories about the design of stuff (i.e. a chapter on how
Multics was made, a chapter on how the Apple arose, a chapter on where
the ENIAC came from,etc.). It seems that people can only read things
like this if they are made about people rather than, "The idea began
slowly to take shape that instead of using a two-stage adder it would be
easier to use a shift register. This was to come up later when..."
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
>> >So, what to use ? Writable CDs ? They have only a guaranteed
>> I suggest real CD-ROMs
> Do you believe that there will still be working CD-ROM drives in
> 20 or 30 years time? Remember they contain custom chips as well...
Jep, I think there will still be (new) compatible drives
in consumer price range - and I bet that there are for shure
still new drives in the 'professional' price range in 20 years
>from now. I don't think the drive is the problem, new medias
are maybe a lot more difficult to aquire - try to buy _new_
_manufactured_ 8" disks - everyting you get as 'new' is at least
6 years old.
> And storage systems change. When was the last time you saw a working
> Syquest 10Mbyte drive (note, the 2 on my shelf don't count, as they need
> minor repairs...)
No, never had one, but what about 10 MB Bernouli Drives from Iomega ?
I still have a unit of two in working condition - now 15 years old.
>> What is the problem with EPROMs? Why not just put them in styrofoam?
> The problem is that the data is held by an electrostatic charge on a
> floating gate in the chip. It's a capacitor, really, and like all
> capacitors it slowly discharges. Now, the time constant may be 10 years
> or 20 years, or whatever, but it's still going to discharge.
? depending on the tecnology.
> And chips - all chips - fail. If (say) the bondout wire on one of the
> data pins falls off, there's no easy way to repair it.
Yes, but a lot less and later than magnetic medias.
> Oh, and putting chips in styrofoam is the quickest way to damage them
> from static. And although the damage may not be noticeable at the time,
> the chip might fail 1 month later, or whatever.
:)
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
> > I just found a discarded Packard Bell 486 (I almost left it because the
> > case looked like a 286's). I don't know why you all dislike those things
> > so much, this case is very good. Anyway, when the machine boots, the ROM
> > displays a "Packard Bell" graphic, complete with a 3-second fade-in (if
> > only people paid so much attention to _useful_ stuff). Underneath, it
> > displays, "America grew up listening to us. It still does." Now, this is
> > my question. What does this mean? When was this company founded, and
> > what was their original product?
>
> Packard-Bell, as you see it, is simply not the company it used to be. As
> with so many American company names, someone bought the name.
<Some Defence-Related stuff PB did in the 1950's SNIPed>
> I have no idea what happened to Packard-Bell. They may still be around,
> doing defense work, or they may have been swallowed up. The Packard-Bells
> at CompUSA, however, are simply not related.
The way I seen it, P-B may have been a defence contractor during WWII
and later, but their main claim to fame was that for decades, they
were one of the biggest manufacturers of Broadcast radios, and
Television Sets.
I know for a fact they were making TV's (of the humongous console
variety in vogue at the time) in the early 70's because I remember an
inane TV commercial for it. In the 50's and 60's there were some
other major players that manufactured TV's (they actually *made* the
stuff): Admiral (my grandmother had one), Motorola, GE, RCA and
Zenith. Others were: Pilot, Curtis-Mathes (still around, I think),
Hofmann, Westinghouse and a whole bunch of other minor players.
Then the Japanese arrived (en force) in the mid 70's, and the next
thing we knew thousands of americans were out of work, and no
Televisions (or Computer monitors, for that matter) were made
domestically. Packard-Bell was one of these victims.
I don't know who is behind the resurrection of the P-B brandname. I
suspect they wanted to appeal to baby-boomers who fondly remember
watching 'Hopalong', 'Cisco' or 'Bonanza' on their parents' Packard
Bell console TV.
Jeff
>
> By the way, Packard-Bell has nothing to do with HP.
>
> William Donzelli
> william(a)ans.net
>
>
>
>
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
|Disclaimer: |
| |
| These opinions are entirely my own, and in no way reflect the |
| policies or opinions of my employer. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------------+
Actually the slabs are very common in the U.S evidently because of
the contract NeXT had with the CIA. Cubes aren't that much rarer...
just more expensive. Two places where you can go for NeXT equipment
are:
http://www.deepspacetech.comhttp://www.orb.com
The latter (Sam Goldberger) is in Mill Valley, California. I think
Deep Space is in New Mexico. There used to be some guy on the east
coast but he seems to have disappeared... odd since he seemed to have
most of the CIA inventory. I seem to remember his warehouse lease
expired and he had some kind of blowout sale last year!
Since I'm an Openstep developer, in my mind they aren't really
antiques... though the CPU clock rates are low by todays standards
they still perform very well for day-to-day use because the software
(OS, application framework and display mode) layers were engineered
very efficiently. The platform is just barely ten years old and
still very modern if not futuristic.
The "PrinterWorks" I believe, still sells laserprinters for them.
With these, you can essentially turn a NeXT Cube or station into a
Win 95/NT printing engine via Samba networking, have it run your web
server, and use it to run many applications that would make both
Windows and plain old Unix jealous if they were jealous kinds of
Operating Systems.
If all else fails, there's also comp.sys.next.marketplace, where
everyone is trying to sell what they have right now.
Collectable items include extra DSP memory, the ancient ISDN modem
that worked through the DSP port, Ariel Digital Microphones, Digital
Ears [a Digital Sound I/O system].
Also... the 20 " monitors were _beautiful_ to work nexst to. Before
I sold mine I always felt like I was almost living inside my NeXT.
But they are oh so heavy!
Cubes are ultra-ergonomic. The cases very somewhat depending on
when they were made. I like the cases the early 68030 machines...
they had less ventilation I think but they looked cooler... more
metalic somehow.
thomas100(a)home.com
Heads up, 9-track users! RE-PC, a local (Seattle/Tukwila, two locations)
used computer place I work with has turned up yet -another- pair of M4 Data
9914R 9-track tape drives. Specs can be found at www.m4data.com.
The 9914 is built like the proverbial tank. It is actuall a dual-interface
device. Leave the SCSI card in, and it is standard SCSI-1 with a 768K
buffer. Pull the SCSI card out, and uncover the edge connectors on the
back, and it becomes a standard Pertec interface unit. Only one interface
may be used at one time; you cannot have both simultaneously.
One -really- nice feature of the 9914's, besides how robustly they're
built, is that they're quad-density. They will handle any standard density
of 9-track tape from 800 (NRZI) to 6250 (GCR). They're front-loading,
horizontal mount, and feature a very reliable vacuum-driven autoloading
system. Stick the reel in, close the door, and wait about twenty seconds.
The 9914 is still manufactured, and supported by M4 Data. Documentation,
parts and firmware updates are still available if you can live with some of
M4's prices. I've inspected both drives and they look to be in good shape.
One looks like it took a minor impact to the rear quarter, as the card cage
cover had bent corners (believe me, that's not going to bother a 9914!).
Other than that, they look great.
If you're interested, contact RE-PC in Tukwila directly: (206) 575-8737.
Ask for Eric and tell him I referred you. The last 9914 in good shape went
for $165 (a steal considering that these monsters still go for around
$7,000 from M4), and I expect the others will be about the same (probably
less for the one that's slightly dinged).
Take a friend with you when you go. These drives are not light! I can lift
one by myself, but it's not a fun experience. The back end is the heaviest
as that's where the power transformer is.
I've already grabbed three of the beasties. It's time to share the wealth.
Enjoy!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
Hi. For those who care, from the 27th to the 8th of July, I'll be out of
contact. In the mean time, I can be reached at worldsfate(a)geocities.com ,
and that should get to me after the 8th. This eMail address is getting
disconnected. I'm unsubscribing from the list until I can get a faster POP
account. Maybe a Hotmail/web based eMail one would work. Anyway, does
anyone know an ISP in Washington, DC that could get me hooked up QUICK, from
a handheld and only for about a month?
Ciao,
Tim D. Hotze
Dave -
Your timing is good for asking about a ProcTech tape archive. I've been
working with another Sol owner and will soon have a CUTS programs CD-ROM
(just use a portable CD-ROM player in place of the cassette player) with as
much of the original software as it's been possible to find (TARG, BASIC5,
TREK80, FOCAL, PILOT, etc.). I also have a tape from Proteus, the ProcTech
users group, which I can send you immediately. Email me you address and
I'll pop it in the mail.
Bob Stek
On 25 Jun 98 at 21:38, SUPRDAVE(a)aol.com wrote:
> Ive got a IIcx that ive tricked out with 5meg, mono display, two external
> drives, syquest 44 meg drive and the apple cd300 drive and a radius rocket
> accelerator with 8 meg. unfortunately, the rocket accelerator locks up the
> machine on the second reboot. disabling it lets the mac work at original
> speed. can anyone provide suggestions? the rocket seems to be temperamental,
> from what i can see.
David,
You are about to discover how temperamental the Rocket really can
be...
I dare say you know that Radius still have the latest
RocketWare software and a brief FAQ available on their ftp site.
There's another utility there called "lift-off" that checks the
configuration of the host Mac for timing senstitive cards that may
conflict with the Rocket.
Have you tried knocking up a minimal system floppy (eg disk tools for
System 7.0 with the RocketWare extension added) and thried booting
>from that?
Phil
**************************************************************
Phil Beesley -- Computer Officer -- Distributed Systems Suppport
University of Leicester
Tel (0)116 252-2231
E-Mail pb14(a)le.ac.uk
>
>I was wondering if there's a surefire way of telling if an IBM-PC has its
>original motherboard, without opening the case. I saw one at the
>Salvation Army today and was considering dragging it home (though I
>decided to take another machine instead).
>
>The machine did have a cassette port in the back, with a femal DIN
>connector. Is this attached to the motherboard?
Yes it is. So it sounds like it's original.
There were 2 motherboards, a 16-64k and a 64-256k. The former was the
original one. The latter has a B in a circle stamped on the back plate.
On 25 Jun 98 at 23:22, Zane H. Healy wrote:
> Wow, it has the complete OS in ROM? I didn't know any of the Mac's did
> that. Are there any others or was this a one shot experiment that failed?
> The OS in ROM is the main thing I like about the Atari ST's.
ISTR that Apple were looking at a diskless Mac project -- the sort
of thing that would interest education. The Classic was available as
a hard diskless model according to the manual but I've never seen
one. Of course the diskless idea would never have worked very well
as there was nowhere to install extensions/INITs and the diskless
Classic was stuck on System 6.0.x and there was no ethernet
capability.
(An aside: Sonic Systems later developed The Diskless Mac (TDM) which
used a boot PROM on an ethernet card to attach to an AppleShare
server where a System image was stored. This worked with System 7 but
the hardware range was limited.)
Phil
**************************************************************
Phil Beesley -- Computer Officer -- Distributed Systems Suppport
University of Leicester
Tel (0)116 252-2231
E-Mail pb14(a)le.ac.uk
I have made contact with an individual who has
what he describes as an Altair 8800 which is
in an "Attache" case made by Icom in 1976. Would
appreciate any information about this "Attache".
Is it a very desirable thing. Were very many produced, etc?
It has MITS
boards (CPU, IO, disk controller) and power suppy.
He wants to trade it to me for an Imsai 8800.
Would that be a good trade on my part?
Thanks,
Bob
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