At 12:14 AM 12/6/97 -0500, William Donzelli wrote:
>Yes, portable Unix machines do exist! The SPARCstation Voyager is somewhat
>like what you describe. It is a luggable monster, and was replaced by the
>SPARCbooks some time ago.
There was a neat Sony? MIPS based Unix portable that I played with about 7
years ago. Large B&W LCD display, 500Mb disk in a box not much bigger than
a Toshiba 5200. Really neat and really expensive. I had one on evaluation
for a week or so and it was cool running X at home (of course, these days X
is just run of the mill).
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies(a)latrobe.edu.au
Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
La Trobe University | "My Alfas keep me poor in a monetary
Melbourne Australia 3083 | sense, but rich in so many other ways"
<everybody expects to figure everything out from little hieroglyphs.
<That don't work for me -- I read and use a command line. Intuitive?
<Intuition is for illiterate women (NOT ALLISON -- don't hit me!)
That is sexist.... ;-) I prefer "pets and small children" in place of
women in that sentence. As to hitting you, never. I've trained old dogs
and I don't hit them either. ;)
<Intuition is for illiterate pets and small children.
Here's a historical quote....
"Unix is snake oil"
Tee shirt seen at the mill: owner remains:
Front:
The NO circle with the word unix in lower case.
the digital logo (the "keys")
"Unix the unsystem, never had it never will".
Allison
Off-topic part of post, please ignore.
Here's the way I remember these things:
BeeGee = 70's pop music group memeber
GeeBee = 30's racing aircraft
Meantime, back to the computers;
1) I vote strongly in favor of keeping the 10-year rule. It's simple, it's
hard to start an argument over, and it has worked wonderfully so far. It is
a "moving window", but that's appropriate. Time is moving on...
2) On whether to mothball or use a system: if it's your second one,
mothball. If it's your first one of that type, follow Tony's good
suggestions regarding PS testing and then *use it*. Keep the packing
material, keep the manuals pristine, but get some time on it. Why? Nobody
is going to get passionate about a box in the closet. Five years from now
when the rest of your family needs more room in the closet, that box will
hit the streets or the dumpster if it's just a box. ("But you *never use
it!*") Worse, 5 years from now Tony may have been hit by a truck (er...
lorry. and no offense intended, Tony!) and no one will be able to help you
debug the power supply if you decide to fire it up and it fails its test.
On the other hand, if it's the system you spend your nights hacking
on to try to port Mosaic or bring up a Mandelbrot-set displayer on, it's
*safe*. Your family will hit the streets instead :-). And if it's got an
infant-mortality problem, better to flush it out while this group is around
to help you.
Just my humble opnion. I play Tetris on my Rainbow and am planning to (real
soon now (TM) ) write a Mandelbrot set program on it. I use my Mac Plus for
the family finances and all sorts of games (it's getting flaky though.
needs work.). My NeXT is at my office and web-surfs and runs Mathematica
analyses for my job, in exchange for its IP address. (urk! wasn't I just
advocating the 10-year rule? Sorry. We'll be there soon!)
- Mark
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu, photze(a)batelco.com.bh
Subj: Re: Interest In Unix
Tim D. Hotze wrote:
>------=_NextPart_000_0006_01BD01A6.0C8FEE00
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
>Season's greetings! I have just gotten interested in Linux, (so, it's =
>not truly classic content, but it's implementations are); and I was =
>wondering if anyone here has experience with this kind of thing.... any =
>Linux experience at all. (Sorry for the decipful headline)
> And I know that it makes me look like an idiot; but possilby if =
>someone could transmit some good newsgroups. People have said time and =
>time again that there are betternewsgroups where we can put all of our =
>"modern" questions. Possibly, that could be included in the FAQ. (Or =
>NAQ)
> Thanks,
>
> Tim D. Hotze
>
I was under the impression that Linus started with the minix code - early
versions of which are certainly approaching the 10 year classical limit.
Here is some other help:
% newsgroups | grep linux
comp.os.linux.admin
comp.os.linux.advocacy
comp.os.linux.announce
comp.os.linux.answers
comp.os.linux.development
comp.os.linux.development.apps
comp.os.linux.development.system
comp.os.linux.hardware
comp.os.linux.help
comp.os.linux.m68k
comp.os.linux.misc
comp.os.linux.networking
comp.os.linux.setup
comp.os.linux.x
have fun.
Peter Prymmer
At 01:41 PM 12/4/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Th PX-8 can wake up, do something and go to sleep automajikally.
I noticed that in the docs t'other day too.
Which brings me to the changed subject... With the receipt of a PX-8 (with
matching P-80 Portable printer!) I kinda feel like I've got a pretty decent
collection of portable computers going. What I've got so far is:
Altima 2
Amstrad PPC640
Amstrad PDA 600 "PenPad"
Apple Macintosh Portable
Atari Portfolio
Bondwell B310plus.
Casio FA-10 Docking Station
Compaq Portable 386
Data General One
Epson HX-20 Laptop
Epson PX-8 Laptop
Grid GridCase3
Grid GridPad 1910
Hewlett-Packard 75D
Hewlett-Packard Vectra LS/12
Hewlett-Packard Portable Vectra CS
Iasis Computer in a Book
IBM PC Radio
IBM PS/2 Model 70 Lunchbox
Interactive Network
NEC MultiSpeed
NEC PC8201A
NEC PC8401A "Starlet"
Osborne 01
Osborne Executive
Outbound Laptop
Panasonic HHC (HandHeld Computer)
Radio Shack Model 100.
Sharp PC-7000 with printer
Sharp PC-7100
Seequa Chameleon
Sharp PC-4
Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40,
Type-O-Graph
Zenith ZP-150
Zenith ZF-161
Zenith Z-170
Zenith Supersport 286
Not all of these are working 100% (yet), and a couple are still enroute
(Outbound & Portfolio).
So anyway, I sorta feel like I could not add another machine and still have
a collection of portables that covers the important ones, plus a bunch that
were kinda weird or personally significant.
But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for?
Thanks! (And sorry for the longness(? Length)!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
Over the last couple of years my PX-8 has suffered a slow degredation of
its quality of life. Firstly the old batteries gave out, but when these
were replaced with a set from Tauber Electronics of 4901 Morena Blvd,
San Diego, Ca., the replacement set took a looooong time to charge up,
and in the process burnt out a transistor - GRB - R6 in the attached
Multi-unit (64) board. Nothing would work. So I detached the multi unit
and limped on with the original 12kb of memory. However, the tape drive
also stopped writing correctly. If I wrote to it I could no longer
access any thing from it.
But still we limped along for over 2 years, by downloading through the
serial port via a VT200 cable to the Unix system at work using the Term
program, each time we'd written four pages of text.
But finaly the it is also not powering up, and all the advise I read in
the archives of this list - particularly:
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Epson PX-8, no power up
From: Paul E Coad <pcoad(a)crl.com>
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 00:16:23 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <33DB9664.7DF771DF(a)rain.org>
AND
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Epson PX-8, no power up
From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 11:41:40 -0700
References: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970727103047.2032L-100000(a)crl3.crl.com>
Etc. has been to no avail. All the ROMS are in, the batteries are
connected, the Power units work etc. etc...
Is it time to turn the unit into a boat anchor? It has served us so
well for so long it seems there should be a more fitting way of saying
goodbye. I'd be willing to mail it anyhere, but it was repairable when
it left Israel, I doubt it would be by the time it got to where it is
going.
Now I'm left with an orphaned P-80X printer - I guess I may as will
ditch it as well.
Pity...
regards,
Bryn Deamer
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: bryn(a)bwc.org : Bryn and Sherna Deamer
URL : www.poboxes.com/bryn : P.O. Box 155, 31001
Ph: 972-4-8358457 fx: 8358591 : Haifa, Israel
---------------------------------END--------------------------------
this weekend brought me several interesting items. someone from south carolina
noticed my name was on the classic computer mailing list and emailed me about
some machines he wanted to give me so i met him halfway and picked up a
truckload of items. i got:
2 xycom cpm workstations which are big old one piece units, complete with 8
inch floppy drives.
an external 10 meg hard drive unit.
add on floppy unit for a total of 3 drives
a giant and extremely heavy box full of original documentation and cpm 1.1
system disks/wordstar/spellstar/business software. ~200 disks total, and some
are still blank and never used!
also got a decwriter on casters and all the cables to hook everything up.
i have not powered up the machines yet, as i'm letting them acclimate for 24
hours since they had to ride in the back of the truck in 20 degree weather.
at a radio rally the same day i got:
mac se fdhd
ibm basic primer handbook still in shrinkwrap.
mca modem <?> card
apple //c power supply in original plastic wrap. ( i didnt know it was
supposed to be so white!)
some C= 64 stuff, including some manuals, a print interface and a modem in the
original box with a price tag of over $100. i even got the quantumlink
software in a never opened box.
and my best find, a tandy 102! complete with owner's guide, ps, and matching
battery operated cassette recorder. the guy wanted $30 for it, but my
girlfriend's smile got the computer for $20 lol.
david
On Sat, 6 Dec 1997 11:34:40 +0000 (GMT), Tony Duell
<ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Well done!!!
Thanks! This has been a long time in coming (since October).
Unfortunately, I have to go down there again because the guy there e-mailed
me and said that he "found the right-hand panel for the rack." Dooooh!
>>If you ever need to change the heads on an RK05 you need to get an
>>alignment disk. I'm rather too far away to pop round with mine.
Is there a way to make a copy of that disk pack, or is it a factory-made
item>
>>Have you clamped the RK05 heads (remove the top covers and there's a 'L'
>>shaped clamp on top of the positioner. Use that to hold the voice coil in
>>the rearmost position)? If not, do it now. There's a battery pack (4 off
>>1/2AA NiCds) on top of the RK05 PSU that's supposed to keep the heads
>>retracted (and to retract them if there's a power failure with a pack
>>mounted), but it's probably decayed by now.
I don't recall seeing a battery pack when I opened the RK05's, but yes,
I did lock the servos before moving the computer.
I also, looked at the specs for the computer -- I definitely have to
drop a new electrical service to my shop. Start-up current on the two RK05's
alone is 20a at 125v.
>>I'd advise you to take all the units out of the rack to move it. With 2
>>people helping, you can carry an RK05 or PDP11/34 CPU box fully
>>assembled, but I'd not want to carry more than 1 at a time. You should be
>>able to move the rack with all the slide rails still in place, I think
The PDP is in my garage right now. What a trip it was trying to tilt it
up while getting it out of the van. It took 3 people to make sure that no
one got crushed!
>>Enjoy your new toy - it's a great machine
I can't wait to get it up and running. Thanks for the tips!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
<A 68040 -based machine is not that old, maybe a bit under 10 years. What I
<was wondering is whether or not there is any objective advantage of old
<machines to new ones. F.E. one could get an old IBM mini (System/3X) for
<little or no money, but is there anything doable on it that is impossible t
<do on a W****** 95 machine?
It would be rare to say that a late W95 box isn't more capable. The only
thing it cant do is support more than one user! Though I've seen PDP-8s
that can. Now a late model PC running something other than w95 like
linux can support multiple users, not that common though. Most older
machines that was an expectation. After all they were expensive. ;-)
There is something that is possible on older machine that is close to
impossible on a win95 box. I can completely document my entire s100
machine right down to sources for CP/M, a significant number of
applications and the circuits for all the cards, backplane and power
supply. Some of my PDP-11 stuff I can do near as well. In other words
I have all the resources to understand it and even copy it or improve it,
something I have done.
Allison
>The military once procured a bunch of XT-like machines that were portable
>and keyboardless. Everything was done thru a touchscreen, including a
>virtual keyboard. About five years ago, there were a bunch floating around
>the hamfests in the Chicago area.
That would be _so_ cool to see.... can anyone tell me what they looked like?
Hi,
I found today a Dyna Micro. This is all I know about the thingy.
It is apparently a learning system or a prototping system. Unfortunately
the board was completely nude (only sockets).
Does anybody have any info on it, is it worth salvaging?
It has a 4x4 keypad on the bottom right corner and a vero style
prototyping area on the left side, the circuitry is above there is a row
of 24 LEDs room for a processor (whaterver it might be) and a couple
ROMS the rest might be RAM and glue.
On the brighter side I also found two Osbone I in perfect condition with
one set of disks for $7 :) :)
------------------------------------------------------------
Francois Auradon
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
>But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
>missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
>an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
>Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for
I forgot one more - the Cambridge Z88. It's not significant because of what
it was (being very similar to the Amstrad Notepad, although I am not sure
just how similar as I failed to pick up the only one I have seen), but for
who made it. Cambridge Computers, I believe, was the computer company set
up by Sir Clive Sinclair after the collapse (and sale to Amstrad) of
Sinclair.
Adam.
>But, I'm certainly no expert, so there may very well be some that I'm
>missing that are important. I know I'd like to get a Z88 and a Poquet PC,
>an Original Compaq (I've got a Compac [sic] but that's not the same thing).
>Can anyone else think of some I should be looking for
I would have to suggest the Commodore SX-64 (I have one, and they are
pretty good) and the TRS-80 Model 4P (also one I have, and certainly worth
having). Also, although extremely unlikly to be found, there was a C64
laptop made that didn't go into production - I doubt there were many
prototypes, but I know they existed.
Someone else mentioned the Apricot Portable _ I am desperatly after one
myself, and figure it would be a wonderful find. Not a great computer, mind
you, but nevertheless a wonderful find. Very stylish.
Adam.
Unfortunatly, my good friend Daniel Seagraves (dseagrav) a
frequent contributer to this list is temporarily out of service due to the
death of his grandmother last night. He is expected back Tuesday. I feel
sorry for him being he is one of my closest friends. I don't reguraly post
to this list and this doesn't really fit in to classic computing other
than the fact that he's a collector and he's out of service for a few
days.
Slow begining but a few finds Friday and Saturday. My biggest find was a
Wang laptop with carrying case (black), 14.5 lbs, 512k ram, NICAD battery
(dead), 10mb HD, full size keyboard, full size supertwist LCD screen, RS-232
port, SCSI port for external floppy drives, MS-DOS 3.2 and DOS reloaded,
builtin modem, uses NEC V30 CPU, 8 Mhz clock rate. It's missing the ext
drives 3.5 and 5 1/4 and 18V power supply. This unit has a builtin printer
also. Other finds - Socrates infra-red keyboard do not have a base unit here
to test it with; 2 Mac Plus keyboards; Apple Personal LaserWriter NT $5 not
tested yet; Hitachi external CD-ROM drive (free) not tested yet; Laser128
with power brick not tested yet; a Amiga 500 with mouse, ext 3.5 FD, and
power brick not tested yet cost was .80 cents for all of it; HP Thinkjet
model 2225C not tested yet; a Zenith luggable model ZFA-138-42 not tested
yet $5; about 30 different manuals for many different products like Kennedy
model 1600 tape unit;VTech video painter; and last a Apple personal modem
model A9M0334. Well that's it for the week, will take a day off Sunday.
Still trying to setup the warehouse deal for BIG load of systems. - John
Keep computing !!
Hello. First post to this list:
I am looking for any and all info for the GRiD GRiDCASE 3 laptop. I know all
the specs, but I need info for the GRiD-OS and any software and it's
availability for the GRiD-OS.
As it stands now, I have MS-DOS 2.11 ROM installed, GRiD-OS ROM internal
daughter card with various apps installed, and an optional ROM that includes
a VT100 terminal.
I would really like to find out how to format a disk under GRiD-OS, and any
other system commands I can use besides the built-in menu.
I have no external (floppy) software for the GRiD-OS, but if anyone has it,
I'd pay for copies.
Also, if anyone is looking for specs and info for GRiD laptops, please
checkout this page I am slowly putting together:
http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD
- John Higginbotham
- limbo.netpath.net
--Original
So anyway, I sorta feel like I could not add another machine and still have
a collection of portables that covers the important ones, plus a bunch that
were kinda weird or personally significant.
---
Well, an interesting one was the Apricot portable, which I have no experience
with. I heard it had voice command, and ran off an 8088.
Today, my father and I drove to Philadelphia to pick-up an 11/34 system.
It has been used by the Univ. of Pennsylvania psychology department since
its original installation date. It was only decommissioned two months ago
because its "user" retired.
I haven't taken a complete inventory yet, but here's the haul: 11/34
processor, expansion box and two RK05s in a 6' rack (It's even configured as
shown on the cover of the 11/34 hardware book), engineering diagrams,
manuals, programming books, 4 disk packs, replacement drive heads, air
filters, one spare RK05, and loads of spare boards.
I'll start inventorying this week. Also, I have to tear the rack down in
order to move it to the basement (it's in my garage now). At 450 lbs., it
was too heavy to move downstairs. I'll probably remove the RK05s to move it.
Then, I have to drop a 120v/30a line into the shop.
More to come...
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
Is this a list? Hoping this won't show up to a bunch of subscribers... Want
to see if I can join the list, and all I have is this obscure e-mail address
reference...
Didn't mean to piss anyone off if I did by posting this message through the
"wrong" channels... Prease Excuse.
- John Higginbotham
- limbo.netpath.net
<"tuner wash" would be bad for the connectors, PC board, plastic IC
<sockets, silk screening, solder mask, etc. I considered rubbing
<alcohol, but I don't know what the effect of that would be either. I
<checked the FAQs that I know of, and about all I came up with was
<someone's technique of "giving the circuit board a good scrubbing"
<with dish soap and swinging it on the end of a string to dry it. As
<this technique strikes me as possibly dangerous, to myself, the
Remove the front panel circuit board. Insure any dress items like the front
pannel overlay are not on it and put it in the dish washer with the usual
cleaner (any dishes too). This will do a very good job and is not caustic.
It dry it well, if it come out with water in the switches don't panic.
Put it in an oven set real low (you want 140 degrees) and bake it
dry. Lubricate the switches with a contact leaner that has some low
residue lubricant in it. Drying is a no rush thing. FYI soap with
plenty of clean water rinse is the least damaging thing you can use.
I've done this many, many times (whole production runs!) using this
approach.
Any switches once dries that are failed/flaky can be replaced easily as
they are common parts.
Allison
At 02:36 PM 12/5/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Hmm. Just thinking about portables in my own collection....
>
>Convergent Workslate
Yep, definitely very cool. Gotta add it to my wish list. (Hey, christmas
is coming! 8^)
>Gavilan
I know the name, but little else. I'd love to hear more when you get
through all the docs & such.
>HP 110 (Portable)
>HP Portable Plus
Y'know, I donated a couple of these to CHAC back when I thought I could get
away without actually collecting computers myself... But I'm an HP lover
too, so these go on the wish list... (P.S., do you know about the 918DX offer?)
>HP Integral PC
> - Unix in ROM
Oh yeah. Saw yours at the VCF. <drool, drool, lust, lust> I *definitely*
want one of these.
>Osborne 3
> - Somebody please tell me I don't have the *only* one in the world!
>Osborne 4 (Vixen)
> - Hey, if you're interested in collecting the whole set....
I wouldn't mind having the whole set at all. 8^)
Thanks!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
At 04:36 PM 12/5/97 EST, you wrote:
>What exactly is a PX-8? BTW, I have a Mac Portable, which I got because it
The PX-8 is a small laptop, kinda similar to the HX-20 or the m100/NEC/m10
crowd, but more in the same class as the NEC Starlet. It's a CP/M machine
with an 8(?) line flip-up display and built-in micro-cassette drive.
>wasn't working. After connecting the battery directly to the AC power for a
>few seconds, it worked. The battery is dead now, though. I use another AC
The Mac Portable is an odd critter. It seems it runs off the battery, and
the power supply is only there to charge the battery. I'm learning a lot
about them right now, in fact. My current idea is to make a doohickey that
will feed power in from an external power source to the battery contacts so
you don't need the regular power supply at all.
Basically, if you don't have a working battery (or something to fool the mac
portable into thinking you do) then it won't work. The battery is a 6v
lead-acid battery.
>adapter for the battery, as well as the normal one. That thing eats power! Why
>your battery is alive and mine died, god only knows.
The PX-8 runs (iirc -- I only got mine on Wednesday and spent yesterday at a
funeral so I haven't played with it much) on AA batteries. It has no floppy
or hard drive, and the small LCD screen probably doesn't use much juice.
Hence, all you need power for is the RAM and CPU/electronics.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.crl.com/~sinasohn/
I have an HHC in perfect working order and was just wondering what it might be worth to a collector.
Just curious,
Dave Dales
Ddales(a)cts.com
San Diego, CA