test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

Nixies are also not a generic term; it's trademarked by, I believe, <Honeywell. When other manufacturers made similar displays (sometimes <incadescent, even) they were called "Numerons", "Numatrons", "Decatrons" <and various other terms. Quite often these displays were more dissimila <than similar, to tell you the truth (there were probably patent issues <involved in addition to trademark issues.) Yes patent issues and different drive methods. The decatron or Numatrons I forget which had 10 pins around the permimiter that would glow ehn active and there was a steering electrode to force a "shift up" or "shift down". They took advantage of the hysterisys of Neon gas displays (turns on at higher voltages than turn off. There was also a dot matrix display by burroughs "self scan" I have a 32 char version. Allison

27 years, 12 months

Classic prices at eBay...

by mor＠crl.com

Man things over on eBay are getting hairy. A Sol-20 and IMSAI 8080 recently went for over $600 ea. And the Sol-20 may not have sold because the seller's "reserve price" was not even met... Currently there is a MITS Altair 680 at $1,825 and an Apple Lisa at $500, both with over 2 days to go until the deadline. Oh well, it's back to the old thrift and scrounge circuit for me. -- mor(a)crl.com http://www.crl.com/~mor/tps/

27 years, 12 months

TS04 bootstrap?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

Does anyone have the TS04 bootstrap? -------

27 years, 12 months

Another good week for museum

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

Well it's be a good week but a little costly. Here's a short list; 1. The Sound Source by Disney lets have sound without a sound card hooks to printer port. 2. My second Mac Portable with case and manual, it works too! 3. Apple flat bed scanner model A9M0337 4. Zeos 386sx/20 powers up fine 5. 3M Whisper Writer 1000 teleprinter model 1482A 6. Hickok model 3301 digital multimeter 7. Heathkit utility voltmeter model 1M-17 042 8. Mac IIcx case with motherboard only had 8 1 meg simms in it (was free) 9. Fluke 901A Micro-system troubleshooter with manuals, service guides, newsletter and the following test PODs Fluke Z80/aa, Fluke 8085, Fluke 68000, Fluke 9900, Fluke 6800, Fluke 6809/6809E,Fluke 8086, Fluke 8080 10. HP colorpro model 74445A has power brick, manuals, color pins 11. Several packs of Fluke Instrument Accessory parts 12. Dr. Dobb's Essential Hypertalk Handbook 13. Computer Device miniterm 14. Monroe Beta 326 Scientist with manual and case, tape unit with power supply 15. Commodore PC-10III with KB and mouse 16. Tandy 1000 17 Commodore 128D 18. AGI 1700C 386sx/16 not tested yet 19. NEC multisync II not tested yet 20. Tandy 1000TL/3 model 25-1603 21. Tandy 1000HX manual 22. IBM PS/2 model 60 23. PB Legend I model PB686 24. TI99/4A in box 25. Commodore mouse 1351 26. Tandy RGB monitor CM-5 Well that's the short list there were alot more items and books but that's for anohter day. Keep Computing John

27 years, 12 months

Support for obsolete products

by jfoust＠threedee.com

"Jeff Kaneko" <Jeff.Kaneko(a)ifrsys.com> >You know, this idea makes sense. But have a feeling that most >product managers (the guys most in the position to make these >decisions) are so far removed from the product, so intimidated by >the almighty 'Company Policy (tm)', (not to mention hair being way, >way too pointy) that even this will not get consideration. Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: >Well, I'm sure we all think that would be a Good Thing, but just try >convincing companies of that. OK, help me brainstorm arguments to persuade companies to release obsolete information. Certainly pointy-haired managers (does the cartoon "Dilbert" cross the pond?) will opt for the simple safe solution of "don't let anything out of the office, or out of our control". And there's the question of money to be made. As soon as someone seems interested in old technology, they'll believe there's still some money to be made. Then there's the question of the cost and trouble of drafting or approving any legal document to make the transaction official. Why spend money on giving away products? - John Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>

27 years, 12 months

Low-end Unix (was: TI99: Anyone reading this with a TI-99/4A?)

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 02:12 PM 5/3/98 -0400, you wrote: ><To my knowledge no flavor of unix runs on anything less than a 32-bit ><processor. There's a unix-workalike for the C-64/128, but that's not > >Your knowledge is limited. Unix was started and lived for years on >PDP-11s (a 16 bit machine) in the form of V5, V6, V7 and 2.9BSD and >2.11BSD. I may add it was on other machines like the Interdatas. I have heard tell (from a very reliable source) of a version of Unix written for the Radio Shack Model 100 (8085, 32K max). (And no, it's not available, and yes, he's tried to get the company that did it to release it.) I thought someone had said that CP/M was based on Unix? Or was that one of the PDP opsys? >I find the idea of not less than 32bits, 200mhz cpus and large memory >being a must to be patently retrorevisionist to the history of what was >done before those things were available. Yep. --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/

27 years, 12 months

TRS80 manual

by RTSJackson＠aol.com

I am trying to locate a manual for a TRS 80 model 100 or 102. Can you help? A photo-copy will do nicely. Thank you for your help. I'm located in Jackson, Mississippi. Steven Froehlich

27 years, 12 months

Fwd: 75 lbs of DEC Ultrix manual for free

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

Found on comp.sys.dec - if interested please reply to the originator - webdolphin(a)my-dejanews.com This amounts to around 20-25 three ring binders, and is good information on Unix operations, processes, and commands even if you don't have Ultrix. Mike ------------------------------------------------------ Subject: 75 lbs of DEC Ultrix manual for free From: webdolphin(a)my-dejanews.com Date: Thu, May 7, 1998 15:59 EDT Message-id: <6it0a3$gki$1(a)nnrp1.dejanews.com> Hi all, Anyone interested in a complete set of Digital Ultrix manuals dating from 1990/1991? I am assuming they are complete, given a lot of them are still shrinkwrapped. Email me with your physical address with a Fedex or UPS account number if you want the stuff. Otherwise the box is going into the dumpster come next Thursday. Allister

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Actually, if I were to design a computer, I would consider not <including a floppy drive, or at least making it so that it doesn't <depend on it. I have six VAX computers and NONE have floppies. Why, becuase even 1.44mb floppies make sense in that environment. Since they have tapes and are networked together floppy is of little use. With the size of applications and all a writeable CDrom or a ZIP disk makes more sense than floppy. Further, I'm working on a z280 design and am seriously considering no floppy. Why? Eats power and space for intermittent use at best. I'd rather use a utility I wrote years ago to transfer files via serial port (back when no two machines had the same format or size floppy). I even intend to put the whole OS and then some in EEprom as it's cheaper and faster that floppy or hard disk. Allison

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by dastar＠wco.com

Anyone see the new Apple iMac unveiled today? I like it. Instant classic. Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't blame me...I voted for Satan. Coming in September...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0 See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details! [Last web page update: 05/03/98]

27 years, 12 months

(Same Apple Here?) Re: the new Apple iMac

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

Hi. It just occured to me: Apple is known (with the ][) to have pioneered low cost floppy drives. They're the ones that made it a good alternitive to tape. But still, I agree, floppies arn't really an important part today, other than a remembrance of the past. (Has anyone seen those "Download warehouses" wherer you download software?) Tim D. Hotze -----Original Message----- From: Kai Kaltenbach <kaikal(a)MICROSOFT.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Friday, May 08, 1998 3:34 AM Subject: RE: the new Apple iMac >I don't know if I'd characterize the Sony 400K as "totally blameless", since >the floppy drives in all of my other old systems (both 5.25" and 3.5") have >about a 5% dead-on-acquire rate, while the Mac 128s I find are maybe 75% in >the dead floppy department. The 800K drives were much more reliable. The >big 400K chassis has lots of lubricant on it which after 10 years or so >turns into a rubber cement consistency and gums up the works. There's >nothing to do but to hit the whole thing with TV Tuner cleaner and re-lube >it. Pain in the butt, if you ask me. > >Kai > >-----Original Message----- >From: Kip Crosby [mailto:engine@chac.org] >Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 4:47 PM >To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers >Subject: RE: the new Apple iMac > > >At 16:15 5/7/98 -0700, Kai wrote: >>One word: "Twiggy". (Lisa 1 floppy) > >Agreed, but: The Twiggy drive was superseded by the Sony 400K 3.5, which >worked fine in the Lisa, went on to work fine in the Mac 128, and has been >the progenitor of a line of totally blameless drives. If Steve is tarring >the 3.5 with the brush of the Twiggy, he's doing it in the teeth of >evidence that he's thoroughly familiar with. > >__________________________________________ >Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org > http://www.chac.org/index.html >Computer History Association of California >

27 years, 12 months

Definition of an Analog(ue) Computer

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<From: Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> <Now contrast this with an analog filter, which performs a singular <function based on the laws of physics. No instructions, no codes, no <processing unit. Therein lies the distinction. The explanations of physics is based on the core of mathmatics. That's one way to look at it. Consider it from the perspective of a mathmatics view. Signal goes in FNC(x) is performed on it and signal comes out. FNC(x) can be performed using a DSP or analog circuits >from the outside of the black box dos it make much difference how? Computing is a process of calculation. Analogue functions perform calculation vastly different than the digital forms it does not negate the calculation performed. If this wasn't true digial signal processing would not be possible. I still have the Popular Electronics article that simulates the bounce of a ball in analogue form using opamps while displaying it graphically on a scope. Yes the ball would even flatten at the bottom of the bounce. Years later I would write a program to do the same, the mathmatics were unchanged as where the physics. The analogue form was faster at showing how small changes had an effect, it could be real time. The digital form allowed me to express those as floatingpoint numbers. Even on a PDP11 at the time, it would never approach real time. Allison

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

I don't know if I'd characterize the Sony 400K as "totally blameless", since the floppy drives in all of my other old systems (both 5.25" and 3.5") have about a 5% dead-on-acquire rate, while the Mac 128s I find are maybe 75% in the dead floppy department. The 800K drives were much more reliable. The big 400K chassis has lots of lubricant on it which after 10 years or so turns into a rubber cement consistency and gums up the works. There's nothing to do but to hit the whole thing with TV Tuner cleaner and re-lube it. Pain in the butt, if you ask me. Kai -----Original Message----- From: Kip Crosby [mailto:engine@chac.org] Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 4:47 PM To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers Subject: RE: the new Apple iMac At 16:15 5/7/98 -0700, Kai wrote: >One word: "Twiggy". (Lisa 1 floppy) Agreed, but: The Twiggy drive was superseded by the Sony 400K 3.5, which worked fine in the Lisa, went on to work fine in the Mac 128, and has been the progenitor of a line of totally blameless drives. If Steve is tarring the 3.5 with the brush of the Twiggy, he's doing it in the teeth of evidence that he's thoroughly familiar with. __________________________________________ Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org http://www.chac.org/index.html Computer History Association of California

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac (last words?)

by lgroebe＠insidermarketing.com

>If this new Mac has no removeable media, what happens when the hard >drive breaks? How do you re-install the OS? No doubt you'll re-install the OS from the built-in CD-ROM drive, as all Apple machines already do now. > >Good plan, system administrators will love this machine. No doubt >corporate types will beat down Apple's door to buy it. Quite clearly, this machine is not designed as a Corporate machine. One look at the physical design alone is enough to establish that this is for home use. Apple continues to sell quite traditionally designed machines for THAT market segment. ---- And now that we've all hashed and re-hashed the merits of this day-old computer, can we return to discussing our 10-year old classics? Let's all agree to meet and re-evaluate the iMac in 2008.

27 years, 12 months

Definition of an Analog(ue) Computer

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Non electronic digital _computers_ are a lot rarer. If we decide that a <computer has to have a sequence of operations and some kind of <conditional branching, I can't think of any at the moment. Mechanical <sequencers, based normally on camshafts are common, of course. You kidding, air logic has been around for years and frequently used in atmospheres or other considerations that would prohibit using electronic or electically power controls. The basic elements such as switchs valves and oneshots all exist and can be combined into digital functions. I know I demonstrated a system where several inputs (switches) had to be true before a sequenced action using two bistable elements and a oneshot. It's not fast but fun to watch! <Are you thinking of 'Digital circuits are built from analogue parts' ? Not a valid concept. both OR and AND gates can be done using totally non amplifying devices (diodes). It was Vonda that postulated that digital was analogue with a precision of two states, true and false. The realm of analogue is one of infinite precision but possibly of limited accuracy. The digital realm is one of limited precision and absolute accuracy. <As a practical point for this list, if just about all (analogue) circuits <are analogue computers, then they are on-topic here :-). No I don't As a final thought, analogue circuits often perform complex functions. This very aspect and the realization that precision and accuracy are very differnt commodities are why some fuction are easy to do using an analogue approach and can be very difficult to do digitally. Allison

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by maxeskin＠hotmail.com

I can imagine a floppy disk stealing his college thesis. Pretty likely, actually. AFAIK, though, NO NeXT has shipped with floppies, but rather with MOs, which are pretty annoying because of the many formats and price per disk. Actually, if I were to design a computer, I would consider not including a floppy drive, or at least making it so that it doesn't depend on it. Steve Jobs is known to hold grudges >personally against floppies. Did a floppy drive try to kill his sister? >Insult his family? Steal his college thesis and claim it as its own? > >Whatever grievous harm a floppy drive has done to him in the past, >it must have been quite bad for him to hold a grudge this long. > >> Tom > >-Seth > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by engine＠chac.org

At 16:15 5/7/98 -0700, Kai wrote: >One word: "Twiggy". (Lisa 1 floppy) Agreed, but: The Twiggy drive was superseded by the Sony 400K 3.5, which worked fine in the Lisa, went on to work fine in the Mac 128, and has been the progenitor of a line of totally blameless drives. If Steve is tarring the 3.5 with the brush of the Twiggy, he's doing it in the teeth of evidence that he's thoroughly familiar with. __________________________________________ Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org http://www.chac.org/index.html Computer History Association of California

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by peacock＠simconv.com

Steve Jobs is known to hold grudges >personally against floppies. Did a floppy drive try to kill his sister? >Insult his family? Steal his college thesis and claim it as its own? One word....Twiggy Anyone who ever used a twiggy floppy drive would swear off floppies forever. Jack Peacock

27 years, 12 months

terminal keyboards needed

by rhblake＠bbtel.com

Well I found agood home for the otherwise in my way terminals and the new owner is in need of a keyboard for the VT 100 and the VT 220. A few people wrote me in the past but I'm not sure who it was but if you email me direct I can relay your message to this person in New Hamster and he can contact you about them. He is getting working units for the cost of shipping and I imagine he has some collection intent for them -------------------------------------------------------------------- Russ Blakeman RB Custom Services / Rt. 1 Box 62E / Harned, KY USA 40144 Phone: (502) 756-1749 Data/Fax:(502) 756-6991 Email: rhblake(a)bbtel.com or rhblake(a)bigfoot.com Website: http://members.tripod.com/~RHBLAKE/ ICQ UIN #1714857 AOL Instant Messenger "RHBLAKEMAN" * Parts/Service/Upgrades and more for MOST Computers* --------------------------------------------------------------------

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

Steve Jobs is known to hold grudges >personally against floppies. Did a floppy drive try to kill his sister? >Insult his family? Steal his college thesis and claim it as its own? > >Whatever grievous harm a floppy drive has done to him in the past, >it must have been quite bad for him to hold a grudge this long. One word: "Twiggy". (Lisa 1 floppy) Kai

27 years, 12 months

Whilt I sill have use of this camera, any requests?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

I finished posting those pictures. http://linux.epchs.k12.il.us/dseagrav Does anyone want a picture of anything special in there? -------

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by kaikal＠MICROSOFT.com

| -----Original Message----- | From: David Wollmann [mailto:dwollmann@ibmhelp.com] | Sent: Thursday, May 07, 1998 1:40 PM | To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers | Subject: Re: the new Apple iMac | | is/will there be a USB Zip drive? Nope. Kind of off the classic subject but... USB is for sound, keyboards, pointing devices, joysticks, single-user printers, and low-bandwidth video such as webcam/lowres videoconferencing/frame capture. USB is a low-speed bus that is already overwhelmed with all of these duties without dropping a very high bandwidth storage device on there as well. The last thing you want is for your mouse to get choppy when you print, for example. The "high speed" version of USB is only 1.5MBps and Dolby Digital AC-3 DVD audio can take half of that alone. We are strongly evangelizing against anyone doing fast storage devices for USB. IEEE1394/Firewire is the connection of choice for full motion video/editing, storage devices, workgroup printers, etc. Kai

27 years, 12 months

Proposal: "Legacy" Open Products Partition

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

OK.. this is very quick, but basically, I want to outline the following points for making a way for old, no longer profitable hardware/software to make it available: Reasons To Change 1) Public relations. People who think that you're giving away info on products that your company made will have a profound effect on anyone involved. 2) No longer responsible for the information. You don't have to archive old data anymore, meaning that you can make information lean and clean. Support for old products can come from those who now hold the information. 3) Recieve credit for work. You (the company giving information) will get credit for your work, meaning that if someone thinks that Product A Rev. 1.x has innovation, then Product B 8.x will, too. Also, it means that you significantly increase your user base without costly advertising/marketing campaigns. Now, here's what I propose needs to happen to get this done: 1) Liscense agreement. This would be similiar to the GPL (in the fact that it's free, but does not bar anyone from profiting by information.) 2) Central orginazation. Something like GNU, but less proffesional. It would contain all archives collected, as well as user-made enhancements, notes or other docs. (For example: Getting a ST 251 to work under Linux/Windows) Then for support, tech. support reps. could reffer ceretain products to the orginiaztion and not waste any more time. This would prove to save companies time and money, especially if it saves training. 3) Petition would need to be made of lots of people (Founding members) willing to support this idea, weather through time, money, or just a name giving support. For the liscense agreement, we need to be as flexible as possible to get as much information as possible. So we'd have levels, where any information could be used for commercial purposes (building new drives based on information), where it could be used for referance (for instance fixing a drive), or for "small" commercial purposes. (For example, Fredrick's XT Part Shop could build new Seagate MFM drives/re-sell modified copies of PC-DOS 1.x, whereas Maxtor couldn't.) So, this is just a basic list, and I want it to get improved, then when we're sure we know what we want, finilize it, legalize it, put it on the web, and propose to hardware/software manufactuers. Just my 0.02 (with interests, no doubt.) Tim D. Hotze

27 years, 12 months

the new Apple iMac

by tomowad＠earthlink.net

>Anyone see the new Apple iMac unveiled today? I like it. Instant >classic. Has me excited. Beautiful design, fast G3 processor, really cheap...But does it have a SCSI port? A floppy drive? Those are two things I can't make do without. Tom

27 years, 12 months

Data General's AOS operating system and its MP/OS operating syste m

by jconklin＠leydig.com

I am searching for a source of manuals and any related documentation for Data General's Advanced Operating System (AOS) and for its MP/OS operating system. The AOS ran on DGs Eclipse minicomputer. The MP/OS ran on DGs microprocessor-based MicoNova. Someone suggested you may be able to help. Can you? John Conklin (312) 616-5600

27 years, 12 months

Jump to page:

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

test-drb