test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Um, Linux 2.0.30 now have Alpha support, PPC, 68k (amiga), 386, Mips, <Sparc, Ataris. Linux is Unix kind which you can source unix source <code to it by freely available complier and make 'em. I rememberd that after I sent the message. Old brain cells. Allison

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by jrkeys＠concentric.net

I would vote to leave it alone, as this is a real classic untouched. John At 08:40 AM 11/16/97 -0800, you wrote: >You know, I always hate these moral dilemmas... > >In the last few days the collection received an AT&T UNIX PC (aka 7300, >3b1) in extremely good condition. It arrived with all of the original >docs, software, and mouse. The docs were unwrapped , and the mouse was in >its original foam packing. "Kind of nice when someone packs things away >properly" I thought. > >Well, its been a bit busy around the garage the last couple of weeks, so I >put the unit and its associated stuff on the shelf and covered it up for a >time. > >Last night, while I was working on a notebook (yes, one of those 'modern' >things) for one of my wife's friends, I decided to have another look at the >UNIX PC while I was waiting for a disk scan to finish... > >Found a spot for it on the bench, made a cursory check of the unit (nothing >loose, nothing rattling...) and powered it up. It hummed and beeped >happily and started drawing little boxes on the screen as I recalled it >doing when it was starting up... > >However, about 3-4 minutes and 4-5 lines of little boxes later, it starts >to dawn on me that it should not be taking quite this long to get a prompt >of some kind. So, I move the keyboard to have a look at the floppy drive >(it hides behind the keyboard you see) and sure enough the machine is >looking for a floppy. > >Fine... so, I grab the binder containing the software distribution, open it >up... > >All of the disks are still sealed! At this point it starts to dawn on me, >that this machine has never been run! A comment flashes back to mind; made >by the person who gave me the machine... "My father bought it for his >company, read the manuals and realized that he had no idea what he was >doing..." > >I find myself wondering... Back around 1985 when this thing was released >(and about $10k+), who could have afforded to buy one of these things, open >the manuals, decide that they were in over their heads, and just put it on >the shelf without even loading the software??? EEK! > >And so, the dilemma... do I open the disks and crank this critter up? Or >just pack it all away as another classic 'artifact'? (or leave it until I >have a fair amount of time to spend with it) > >No flame wars please, just the random philosophical question... > >-jim > >--- >jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com >The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw >Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174 > > > >

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

Along the same lines.... While digging through one of my boxes of stuff for a part I found a partial S100 Jade Double density disk controller kit unassembled. Of course I remember why I had it, the person that gave it to me back in '82 wasn't up for the assembly task, raided it for parts and gave me the remains. At the time I wasn't interested in getting a 1793 based controller going as I was getting 765As for free and all the assistance >from it's designers I could use. Well guess what. I'm 98% of the way through assembling it. Then I have to assemble the source code as there are no disks but lots of listings in the manuals. It's z80 based in that it has its own CPU as a bus slave. Should be interesting to get going. Oh, all the missing parts are from my collection and a few are date coded before the board! It was all I had of some parts. Allison

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by fmc＠reanimators.org

HOTZE <photze(a)batelco.com.bh> wrote: > [...] if you remember, in the "welcome" message, it > said that it was hard to state the definiton of a classic... but 10 > years or older would do. I do not wish to offend the owner, but they > are one person, and they can make mistakes... and together, as a group, > the chances of making an accurate definiton are smaller with us. Right. Not too many people are going to agree on this. There's probably a few people out there who think the Atari Portfolio is a classic and I think it's under 10 years old. The IBM PC/AT is 13 years old now but I have difficulty thinking of it as a classic and I really couldn't care less. But the 10 year rule is simple and not without precedent (it's roughly the way other things are judged "antique" -- if I remember correctly the "magic number" is 100 years for furniture and housewares and 20 years for automobiles). That's why we have it, we know it's not perfect but it does provide a clear cutoff. (Aside to You Know Who You Are: knock it off, OK?) > Possibly (out for MUCH revision...) is the definition "Any computer > which has aged sufficently to be considered "outdated" by the computer > market and has historic signifiance, OR is 10 years old or older." The > one evedeint place that requires revsion is the "historical signifiacne" Does it? The problem is that inside 10 years it's very difficult to judge historical significance. And just because it's older than 10 years doesn't make finding the historical significance any easier. I'm hard pressed to think of what was significant about the PC/AT, as near as I could tell at the time it was put to work as a bigger faster IBM PC, still running all the same old MS-DOS applications, still one at a time. And from conversations I've had with folks who were doing Unix stuff on the 80286 then, they didn't think 80286 protected mode was progress w/r/t the PDP-11. Well, what did the PC/AT have that the PC/XT didn't? 1.2MB minifloppies (although I saw those retrofit onto XT-class PCs), 16-bit slots, a cascaded interrupt controller to handle the additional interrupt request lines...and the A20 gate that let you get at another little chunk of RAM up above the 1MB boundary while still in real mode. Hmm. How many of these things do we consider historically significant now, and how many will we still consider significant in 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 years? -Frank McConnell

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton/ Vaporware lives still!

by carl.friend＠stoneweb.com

On Mon, 17 Nov 1997, Allison remarked to us: > You have three choices [for an Alpha OS] that I know of, OpenVMS > (my favorite), Digital Unix, or NT. I don't know that anyone has > done a UNIX port outside of digital. Linux has been successfully ported to the Alpha architecture. ______________________________________________________________________ | | | | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | | | http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum/ | ICBM: N42:21 W71:46 | |________________________________________________|_____________________|

28 years, 5 months

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

Hey all. I think its about time I de-lurk and introduce myself. My name is Bill, and I'm very interested in SwTPC and SSB stuff. We had a couple SwTPC 6800 systems in my high school way back when, and I'd love to see one again (or own one!). After signing up for the Classic Computer Rescue Squad, I started thinking, if a big old machine actually needed a rescue, what would we do? I mean, maybe we should collect info on how big these old things are, in terms of floor-space, tonnage, time to dismantle, and so on. Then, when a rescue call comes in, we could maybe decide if we can feasibly deal with it, and if anyone actually wants the thing. If only three guys show up to dismantle 200 tons of vacuum tubes, it isn't gonna happen on-schedule. And it's one thing to keep a mini in a corner, but not all of us can arrange space for, say, a 360. So there are legitimate (if sad) reasons that we might have to pass up a find. Also, would it be good to have a rescue checklist? I can think of a dozen things that might be good to do during a rescue, but I'll bet I wouldn't think of half of it in the excitement of rescue-day. I guess I'm volunteering to collect this, if you all think it's a good idea and want to suggest things. Okay, I'll close with the obligatory lists: Want: SwTPC 6800, CT-64, CT-VM, MF-68 EPROM burner Have (willing to trade away): DecScope terminal (ie: vt52), works DecMate-III (don't yet know if it works) Apple //c with monochrome monitor, some manuals, works Radio Shack CoCo 2's, work Defaced (ie: no faceplate) Amiga something-or-other, with no monitor, keyboard, docs, or anything, probably doesn't work Have (and will keep!): Radio Shack CoCo 1's and a CoCo 3, tech manual IBM PC-XT clone SwTPC S/09 (down with disk problems) Lear-Seigler ADM-31 terminal (bought today!) Of course, some of this stuff would have significant shipping costs associated with it, unless you live nearby (central NC). Cheers, Bill.

28 years, 5 months

Found on AuctionWeb...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<Also, a trackstar E for use with Tandy/IBM compatibles (Apple //e emulator Trackstar 128 Funny I have one of them, haven't figured out what to do with it yet. Not being an apple user it's an odd item in my collection. Allison

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by manney＠nwohio.com

> another weird feature on Wyse 286 that can show time and >date, mhz display like 8mhz, 12mhz and backlighted! :) Hey, I just had one of those come in for repair! The hard drive table aldo has double digit numbers, something I've never seen before.

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by manney＠nwohio.com

>Well, what did the PC/AT have that the PC/XT didn't? 1.2MB >minifloppies (although I saw those retrofit onto XT-class PCs), 16-bit >slots, a cascaded interrupt controller to handle the additional >interrupt request lines...and the A20 gate that let you get at another >little chunk of RAM up above the 1MB boundary while still in real >mode. ...and the hard drive info in ROM. But, you're right. The 286-386 jump was more significant than the 8088-286 jump, even though so of those 286 changes that you mentioned are still with us that Pentiums are "AT" (not 386) class machines.

28 years, 5 months

Classic Computer Accumulation Squad

by manney＠nwohio.com

>Hey, for years one of the standard excuses for getting a home computer >was "Hey, we can keep recipes on it". For that of course, you really >want a membrane keyboard -- pasta sauce in a Keytronics is fatal. I always _loved_ seeing the adverts of smiling Mom (no flour on her hands, natch!) booting up the family PC to get her recipes. Some of those early recipe programs would specify oddities such as "5/48 tsp chives". > >And _of course_ a similarly protected laptop belongs in the bathroom, >when you're setting down to do some serious Usenet reading. Hey, I used to program in the bath with my HP-71!

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by manney＠nwohio.com

>And so, the dilemma... do I open the disks and crank this critter up? Or >just pack it all away as another classic 'artifact'? (or leave it until I >have a fair amount of time to spend with it) Open it up -- play with it -- computers are meant to be _used_.

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by IVIE＠cc.usu.edu

> Rainbow machine is very quirky demanding > weird hardware and quirky disks in both format and hardsectored. :( Bear in mind that from the perspective of us CP/M folks, demanding absolutely rigid hardware compatibility is quirky... > IBM produced > excellent PS/2 '87 era series that can be ripped apart with bare > hands except for motherboard and PSU screws. FWIW, my absolute favorite box of all time is the VAXstation 4000/60 or /96; you can get everything out of the box quickly with no tools. In contrast, it's only been in the last few years that I've gotten coordinated enough to keep from mutilating my knuckles every time I go into a VAXstation 2000... Roger Ivie ivie(a)cc.usu.edu

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by engine＠chac.org

At 15:42 11/17/97 +0000, you wrote: >This is what I like about the Zip IDE drives it's a right design like >the floppy drive machism. But I wished Iomega sell one in SCSI >version as well which means we have to press for it! er....There are SCSI Zip drives, both int and ext. I've got an internal here, use it to store the techno and ambient I listen to through an AWE32. __________________________________________ Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org http://www.chac.org/index.html Computer History Association of California

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by IVIE＠cc.usu.edu

Allison wrote: > <> acceptable OS. Although CP/M running native on a Pentium 133 is pretty > <> cool, and fast! By collecting Non-PC's there a tons of OS's to play with > > CP/M-80 running on a 16mhz z180 is far more interesting. ;-) Bear in mind: - Z180s now do up to 33MHz - The average 128Kx8 15 ns SRAM - is fast enough to run at 33MHz with no wait states - contains enough on-board logic to do address decoding in a simple Z180 system Sigh; I see ads in Circuit Cellar for folks that take 68HC12s in surface-mount packages and mount them on an adapter board for folks that want through-hole parts. Anyone know of someone doing the same thing with either the Z182 (or, better yet, the Z195) or at least generic footprints of the appropriate size? Roger Ivie ivie(a)cc.usu.edu

28 years, 5 months

tape readers unique solution

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<A little bit of head banging and we realized that to read paper tape, all y <need is a hand scanner, dark background, some kind of rig to hold the scann <in position above a 1" channel and, well, programming as appropriate. smashing ants with atomic cannon. The simplest form of scanner is 9 photocells(photo transistor or diode) lined up under the tape, light above and the 9th (sproket hole connectd to the data available(or ack) of a parallel port such as the PC printer port. Tape movement, pull by hand. should be good for 300->3000 char sec easily. It's trivial hardware. Program: Copy LPT: file.tap Done. Allison

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton/ Vaporware lives still!

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<being sold as "outdated". I know managers refusing to buy DEC Alpha's <because the Intel Merced chip is supposed to be available in a couple <of years - and the first Merced's will be only a bit slower than today's <currently available Alpha's. Talk about being blown away by vapor... Lessee, wait a few years to get what's available now. Excuse me I must be missing something here as doesn't business have to go on in the mean time??? Talk about pinning hopes on the sky. This is straight out of the early micro years when products would be hyped only for the company to go bust before anyone would see it or worse deliver it years late and working poorly(sorta like WIN95!). Allison

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< What do we do with that example? Leave it packed away? Fire it <up for the edification of the locals (worldwide)? This is a knotty <question, and one that harks somewhat to the same question asked by <those who restore, and fly, antique aircraft. If we fly it, there's <always the possibility that we might have a failure and the example <(artifact) may be destroyed - if we don't, we're ignoring the essential <beauty and function of the design. The classic example of this and a conter arguement is the BeeGee Racing aircraft. It was considered a widowmaker, as it nearly or did kill most of the pilots that flew it!. A replica was made and the plane has been flying for several years at airshows and doing remarkable acrobatics... guess what it hasn't killed the pilot. What was lost was that it took a healty respect and some knowledge of design and flight to figure out that it wasn't so much the plane as the pilots that were the problem and they have learned about the flight characteristics of a plane that was deemed unflyable. Not to mention seeing a piece of flying history debunked. < I, offhand, am tempted to say "park the craft" and find another one <that's a bit more beat up. Restore that one, and drive it to your <heart's content. But save the "factory original" one - like an old <Tucker. With some exception cars and place can be preserved where some parts of computers must be exercised or potentially fail. The other issue is this may not even be a working example at this time. It's one thing when it's the last one, another when there are more to see. Allison

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by ware＠xtal.pharm.nwu.edu

At 08:40 AM 11/16/97 -0800, James Willing wrote: (AT&T 3B1 found...) >However, about 3-4 minutes and 4-5 lines of little boxes later, it starts >to dawn on me that it should not be taking quite this long to get a prompt >of some kind. So, I move the keyboard to have a look at the floppy drive >(it hides behind the keyboard you see) and sure enough the machine is >looking for a floppy. Is the hard disk spinning up? I purchased two "new" (in the box with shrink-wrapped software) UNIX PCs about a year ago. One of the internal hard disks (a Micropolis 20 MB 1/2 height ST-506 interface MFM unit) did not spin up, presumably due to stiction or a relative thereof. The computer with this disk exhibited the behavior that you describe. The other machine started up a "Welcome to the UNIX PC" application that prompted me to insert the first disk of the installation media. On the systems that I have (1 MB RAM, 20 MB HD 7300s), the system software was not preinstalled, presumably to allow the version of the OS that was shipped with the machines to be changed easily. If you have opened the media, try booting the machine with the diagnostic disk. If this works, the hard disk is likely to be the culprit. As Ward Griffiths mentioned, the 3B1 uses ST-506 interface MFM disks, but it can only access 67 MB without hardware modifications. There are utilities on the diagnostic disk that you can use to test, format, partition, and make filesystems on the hard disk. If you can't get the hard disk working with these utilities, replacing it isn't too difficult. The ST-251-1 in my UNIX PC isn't original, but neither are the GNU utilities, csh, and Perl that I have installed on it. If you're fortunate enough to have the (somewhat rare) Ethernet card or the (somewhat more rare) TCP/IP software for it, be sure to check out the 3B1 FAQ before putting it on a network. There are some major security holes, especially in the windowing environment. Brian Stuart has a lot of good information (and the comp.sys.3b1 FAQ) on the Web at http://colossus.mathcs.rhodes.edu/~stuart/3b1/3b1.html . >I find myself wondering... Back around 1985 when this thing was released >(and about $10k+), who could have afforded to buy one of these things, open >the manuals, decide that they were in over their heads, and just put it on >the shelf without even loading the software??? EEK! I purchased mine from a guy in Chicago who had a warehouse full of them, new in the box. I doubt that many individuals buy computers and put them away without using them (except for collectors), but many businesses like to have spares on hand. Additionally, a lot of new "obsolete" machines get written off and sold as scrap. I don't know, but I suspect that this was the story of my machines. If you would like to try the diagnostics without opening the software, let me know, and I'll get you a copy of the diagnostics disk (from release 3.51). -- Scott Ware s-ware(a)nwu.edu

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by photze＠batelco.com.bh

Okay.... recently, there's been lots of "off-topic" stuff going on here about computers... but I think that it's not "off-topic." In my mind, there is no doubt that the early mass-produced CD-ROM drives (not the origionals of 1984, but the ones that were made to be put into PCs, not servers) are classic componets, even though many are of this decade. In my opinion, the first 486 PCs (not servers) are classics... ones that are still used, but classics... even though most of 'em were made in like 1991-93... arguebly, early Pentiums (60, 66 Mhz) could be classics, as they steped into a new era (superscaler arceticture) for the mass-production market even though the Pentium chips wern't even on the market until mid-1993... if you remember, in the "welcome" message, it said that it was hard to state the definiton of a classic... but 10 years or older would do. I do not wish to offend the owner, but they are one person, and they can make mistakes... and together, as a group, the chances of making an accurate definiton are smaller with us. Possibly (out for MUCH revision...) is the definition "Any computer which has aged sufficently to be considered "outdated" by the computer market and has historic signifiance, OR is 10 years old or older." The one evedeint place that requires revsion is the "historical signifiacne" but I'm not sure how to include that while still aknowladgeing the presence of many of the best machines and componets that did indeed fail in the process... but at least Wang's did eventually fall.... I can't even rememeber all of the problems that they had... Openly, innocently, and waiting for improvement (on my quote, not the other stuff,), Tim D. Hotze

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by carl.friend＠stoneweb.com

On Sun, 16 Nov 1997 08:40:43 -0800, Mr. Willing made the following comments: > And so, the dilemma... do I open the disks and crank this critter up? > Or just pack it all away as another classic 'artifact'? (or leave it > until I have a fair amount of time to spend with it) Pack it away, sealed up, and find another 3B1 to work on. I know a chap "down under" who has a LINC-8 in its original ply- wood crate stashed in a storage locker. The thing has not seen the light of day since it came off the line in 1968. It is one of 142 ever built. What do we do with that example? Leave it packed away? Fire it up for the edification of the locals (worldwide)? This is a knotty question, and one that harks somewhat to the same question asked by those who restore, and fly, antique aircraft. If we fly it, there's always the possibility that we might have a failure and the example (artifact) may be destroyed - if we don't, we're ignoring the essential beauty and function of the design. I, offhand, am tempted to say "park the craft" and find another one that's a bit more beat up. Restore that one, and drive it to your heart's content. But save the "factory original" one - like an old Tucker. ______________________________________________________________________ | | | | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | | | http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum | ICBM: N42:22 W71:47 | |________________________________________________|_____________________|

28 years, 5 months

Powells Bookstore (was: Anyone have a copy of this book) & VIC Kernel

by rcini＠email.msn.com

Thanks for the suggestions re: Powell's Bookstore. They had the book for $60, a $23 savings over Amazon. Granted, it is a used copy, but if my used books are a guide, I should get a quality book. Highly recommended store for tech books. I'd like to visit it someday. Also, for those interested, I finished my VIC-20 Kernel documentation project. Right now, I have completely recompilable source code for the Commodore VIC-20 kernel ROM. It took me over 2 years, part time, but it works. Anyone who is interested in finding out more, send me a private e-mail. Rich Cini/WUGNET <rcini(a)msn.com> - ClubWin! Charter Member (6) - MCP Windows 95/Networking

28 years, 5 months

Classic Computer Rescue Squad

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> The most amazing thing is being in a real computer room (i.e. dozens <> of 14" drives) when the power suddenly goes *off*. The silence is <> astonishing. I was in a computer room at dec when a power failure hit. Imagine 30 RA81s and 82s plus two 8650s going silent. The lastime I heard that deafining silence the engine on my plane stopped in the air! It's not the loud but the sudden lack of it. Allison

28 years, 5 months

Classic Computer Accumulation Squad

by carl.friend＠stoneweb.com

On Sun, 16 Nov 1997 11:59:57 -0600, "Uncle Roger" remarked in our collective presence: > As for me, there is currently [...] a Data General One & a Mac Plus > in the dining room, [and a list to be envious of if you collect > microcomputers!] It looks like it's confession time here. The "no computers in the dining room" is silly, at best. At this moment, I'm typing away on my Linux box in the dining-room looking at least 10 computers, not counting the micro I'm writing this on. There are another 4 in the kitchen behind me, two of which have seen power this weekend. (6 of the dining-room ones saw power over the weekend.) Rules are made to be broken. Computers, of course, fit anywhere you can find space for them. Even big ones. The bathroom, though, is straight out. Too humid. Before some wise-$@# decides to have at me for typing on a "modern" machine, let me remind him that even I have to pay the electric utility >from time to time. ______________________________________________________________________ | | | | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | | | http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum | ICBM: N42:22 W71:47 | |________________________________________________|_____________________|

28 years, 5 months

New Definiton REQUIRED

by carl.friend＠stoneweb.com

On Sun, 16 Nov 1997 19:26:14, Mr. Hotze remarked to us: > Possibly (out for MUCH revision...) is the definition "Any computer > which has aged sufficently to be considered "outdated" by the computer > market and has historic signifiance, OR is 10 years old or older." Given the marketplace today for "commodity" computers, what you buy today is, by definition, obsolete as there'll be something "better" along tomorrow. In a word - "why bother?". Age, also, alone, does not make a classic. I doubt that the standard run-of-the-mill '386 PeeCee will ever amount to anything except to, perhaps, archaeologists who dig one out of a landfill. There were too many of them made, and they were (are) regarded as "disposable". Look at the construction - modern machines aren't made to be repaired any more than a disposable cigarette lighter is made to be refilled. They burn out, you toss' em, and buy another one. Such was not always the case. Pre-PeeCee, machines were usually constructed very carefully. I don't doubt for a minute that engineers in the early '60s envisioned their creations happily hummimg away in the year 2000 - the boxes were built to last. Pop the hood on the latest thing to come down the 'pike - it's all ASICs, custom silicon, and surface mount stuff on wafer-thin boards. In short - not built to last. Nor is it designed to. That, of course, is just my opinion. And a cynical one, too. ______________________________________________________________________ | | | | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:carl.friend@stoneweb.com | | | http://www.ultranet.com/~engelbrt/carl/museum | ICBM: N42:22 W71:47 | |________________________________________________|_____________________|

28 years, 5 months

One from the 'believe it or not' file...

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<67MB stock, and no expansion was possible 67MB (1024 cyl by 8 head) was <ever supported -- the users came up with ways to add a second and/or <larger hard disk, but most of the components needed have long been <discontinued. disk maximum 1024x8x17 is easily twice (140) the 67mb! A second drive should be a latter of connectors and cables, all still available. Shouldn't be that much majik. Allison

28 years, 5 months

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test-drb