In a message dated 97-11-14 23:20:56 EST, you write:
> > I was using a WD Caviar 2.0 GB, and it was
> > LOUD!!!
>
> If you think that was loud, you've never heard a RP05 spinning up :-).
>
> 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.
>
> Tim. (shoppa(a)triumf.ca)
>
off-topic again:
speaking of loud, i worked in a small computer room back in 1992 and when i
came in one afternoon, it was quieter than normal. turns out the ac units
werent running so those units themselves make plenty of noise. even louder
was the IBM 3380/3880 (cant remember which) DASD units of which there were 4
rows of them. quite impressive for their size and noisy, probably due to the
belt drive mechanism. later they were replaced with one small row of hitachi
drives which were mcuh quieter and had almost 2x the capacity, I was told.
david
At 10:29 AM 11/15/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I mean, we have a house rule of "No computers in the living room or
>dining room, unless they're laptops or they're leaving,"
Hmmm... What a silly rule! 8^) (As for me, there is currently (at least
before I left for a weekend holiday) a Data General One & a Mac Plus in the
dining room, At least an Apple IIe, M100, Dash 030, and probably a couple of
others in the living room, Atari Falcon in the laundry room... Nothing
(yet) in the kitchen or bathroom...
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
sinasohn(a)ricochet.net that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/
<years old machines now. Rainbow machine is very quirky demanding
<weird hardware and quirky disks in both format and hardsectored. :(
Huh? Rainbot uses the somewhat unique format for the hard disk but sos did
many other of the time. The floppy is a soft sector single sided 96tpi
at 10 sectors per track that can be formatted on a PC with a good 1.2m
drive in 360k speed and with the correct formatter. OR a system with an
RX50 drive and a 1793 floppy controller (CP/M-80 boxen).
<> 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. ;-)
Allison
<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 and crak it up. make full copies and backups. Save all packaging
by sliting the edges or whatever so that any making is preserved. Exploit
and document the machine to the world as I have no clue what a 3b1 is or
the cpu it used. Though I do remember the ads.
Allison
>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.
>
Actually after 20 years an automobile is considered a Classic, I think it's
40 - 50 years to be considered an Antique. With the frequency that new
computers are introduced 10 - 15 years is probably a good definition for
classic and 20 - 25 for antique.
-- Kirk
Hello. Does anyone have any systems that are not "high" on the price
list of classics that they could give me? (I could have my relatives in
the states get them via UPS, then they could mail 'em to me as a
Christmas present..... it would make me very happy!)
Thanks,
Tim D. Hotze
<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
Classic, like the 14 year old washing machine I have. Most post 286 PCs
are appliances just like a washer dryer only built worse.
<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"
To me most VAXen are still used and sold for commercial use, though many
are still over 10. Try and buy some of the PDP-8s that are in commercial
service. Age does not make a computer significant alone though, it's a
distinct factor. Another factor is unique design in a technical sense or
esthetic (or the lack of) style. Rarity is an impact too. I can name
several machines of the altair imsai time frame that are far more scarce.
For example, I still have not found or seen an IMSAI IMP48 other than my
own.
<but I'm not sure how to include that while still acknowledging 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...
Wang played to to narrow a market (word processing and document management)
that was invaded by all the micros at far lower price and in some cases
a product that was more stylish or appealed to the user more. With
shrinking market space and a but if empire building by Ahn Wang the
business costs exceeded revenue... then rest is not news or unexpected.
The layoffs were amoung the most brutal in the industry.
Allison
On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Mr. Seagraves inquired of the assembled masses
thusly:
> I've noticed all this time that DECwindows is on this MV3100.
> What is it? It it like Macro$oft's windows, or Xwindows?
> And when it says "display device", what is it expecting, a Tek
> terminal, or VT of some sort, or some special adapter?
DECwindows is an X-window system workalike that runs on both VAXen
and DEC's RISC platforms. It's merely a way for a client program
running on one machine to display its graphics on a server running
on another machine (Warning: in X terminology, "server" and "client"
seem reversed - you sit in front of the server while the client shoves
graphics data at you; the "client" does the applications processing).
The two are somewhat compatible. I have a pal in Providence who
has a VAX-11/750 and DECwindows, I have a Linux box at home running
an X server. We were able to get an X session set up with a client
running on his VAX to display on my machine; the network transport
was CMU/IP for the VAX, standard TCP/IP at the Linux end. Yes, it
was slow as a dog, especially as I have a 14.4 kbps modem, but it
_did_ work. Fun stuff.
Cheers.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| 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 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
Ive found a guy locally who has a GS for sale, but hasnt set a price. ( i
hate that) what does everything think it's worth?
details are sketchy, but here's what he said
its a woz version
coupla megs of memory. (exp card?)
external cms hard drive (scsi?)
has a sound card. he says it's not the ensoniq sound chip, but an adaptor
card.
3.5 drive.
also has some books and sw.
what would be a decent price for this? he may be interested in a basic 486 i
have to barter with.
david
James Willing <jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> While wandering around one of my favourite surplus gear haunts today, I cam
> across a couple of HP 1000 F series minicomputers. While they look neat, I
> know just about nothing about them. Anyone out there familiar enough with
> them to give me the 'infamous 25 words or less' speech on their significance?
They're real-time control systems, based around the 21MX processor
family (which succeeded the 2100 (ca. 1972) and 211[456] (ca. 1967))
and running one of several flavors of HP's RTE operating system.
I've never actually used them.
> It might take a few $$ to break one or more of them loose, so I'd like to
> have a bit of info before I make a concerted effort to procure them...
If you have HP Measurement/Computation catalogs from 1980 or 1981 or
so, you could look in there. Else pester me and I'll try to FAX a
few relevant pages to you.
-Frank McConnell
I've noticed all this time that DECwindows is on this MV3100.
What is it? It it like Macro$oft's windows, or Xwindows?
And when it says "display device", what is it expecting, a Tek terminal,
or VT of some sort, or some special adapter?
At 23:03 11/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Ive found a guy locally who has a GS for sale, but hasnt set a price....
If the 486 has decent RAM and disk I would trade him level, but only if you
really want the IIGS.
>its a woz version
This is not the Good Thing it may sound like, apart from cool appearance.
The Woz sig on the front of the case implies Rev 00 ( = earliest) ROMs and
very limited expandability. AFAIK the released ROM versions were 00, 01,
and 03; 00 could be upgraded to 01 with a chipset, but 03 was a logic board
swap. There never was an 02; 04 existed, but the GS was killed before 04
went into production. Some of the 04 ROM code was written into GS/OS
instead, but beyond this I yield gracefully (I hope) since others here
surely know more than I do.
>coupla megs of memory. (exp card?)
>external cms hard drive (scsi?)
>has a sound card. he says it's not the ensoniq sound chip, but an adaptor
>card.
>3.5 drive.
>also has some books and sw.
oh....like I said, how bad do you want it?
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
I have seen them go from free to $30 with less extra's them the one you are
looking at.
At 11:03 PM 11/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>Ive found a guy locally who has a GS for sale, but hasnt set a price. ( i
>hate that) what does everything think it's worth?
>details are sketchy, but here's what he said
>
>its a woz version
>coupla megs of memory. (exp card?)
>external cms hard drive (scsi?)
>has a sound card. he says it's not the ensoniq sound chip, but an adaptor
>card.
>3.5 drive.
>also has some books and sw.
>
>what would be a decent price for this? he may be interested in a basic 486 i
>have to barter with.
>
>david
>
>
Can anyone tell me if Linux will run on the IBM Powerstation 7012/300 and
7011/200, these are both rs6000 machines. I got them at auction and the
aix/unix operating systems and everything else was removed from the
harddrives. I'm looking for some low cost operating system software to run
these machines with. Thanks in advance. John Keep on computing !!!
I dont have the exact same thing, but an old IBMer gave me something called a
videotrax, which is an 8bit isa board that connects to a vcr for backup
purposes. I got the complete thing, with box and sw. of course, this one only
holds 80meg per vcr tape.
david
In a message dated 97-11-15 12:53:59 EST, Bruce Lane put forth:
> Came across an interesting find recently. Manufactured by Digi-Data
> Corporation, out of Maryland (yes, they are still around), it's a
> Pertec-interface TBU that uses, of all things, a VHS cassette mechanism to
> back up as much as 2 gigabytes to a normal T120 VHS tape.
>
> Darndest thing I've seen this year! I've spoken to Digi-Data already, and
> it is still possible to get a manual for the thing (you better believe
I'll
> be doing so!), so I intend to put it to good use.
>
> I'm just curious if anyone else has crossed paths with this unit. It's
> called a 'Gigastore.'
On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Mr. Donzelli mentioned:
> Quite a few years ago, I scrapped out a big drive that had an arm
> with very fine brushes that would sweep the platters just after the
> thing came to speed.
DEC RP04s (Sperry drives, IIRC) had that as a feature. It was later
found that the brushes did more damage than good, and the brushes were
subsequently all tied back with wire-ties as per an ECO.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| 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 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Mr. Shoppa made this observation:
> 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.
In an installation that size, the environmental A/C makes a sub-
stantial amount of noise as well.
The eeriest moments I've even encountered were at my first employer
who had a _monster_ UPS supplying a pair of 5000 sq. ft. computer rooms
and the power failed. The UPS held the computers up, but the A/C spun
down and the lights all went off (save the battery-operated ones). It
was, shall we say, strange. The backup generator (a big old V-16 diesel
in the parking lot) came on about 20 seconds later and the A/C and
lights came back on. Oddly enough, the A/C made more noise than the
computer gear.
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| 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 |
|________________________________________________|_____________________|
While wandering around one of my favourite surplus gear haunts today, I cam
across a couple of HP 1000 F series minicomputers. While they look neat, I
know just about nothing about them. Anyone out there familiar enough with
them to give me the 'infamous 25 words or less' speech on their significance?
It might take a few $$ to break one or more of them loose, so I'd like to
have a bit of info before I make a concerted effort to procure them...
-jim
---
jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com
The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw
Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174
Thanks for the input John
At 02:05 PM 11/15/97 -0500, you wrote:
>John R. Keys Jr. wrote:
>>
>> Can anyone tell me if Linux will run on the IBM Powerstation 7012/300 and
>> 7011/200, these are both rs6000 machines. I got them at auction and the
>> aix/unix operating systems and everything else was removed from the
>> harddrives. I'm looking for some low cost operating system software to run
>> these machines with. Thanks in advance. John Keep on computing !!!
>
>To the best of my knowledge, probably not now and likely not soon. As I
>recall, those machines are old Power (or maybe Power2) architecture (Bill
>Donzelli knows which models are which better than I do) and the closest
>Linux porting project is for the PowerPC, which is less closely related
>than the similar names might imply.
>--
>Ward Griffiths
>"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails
>of the last priest." [Denis Diderot, "Dithyrambe sur la fete de rois"]
>
>
Hi:
I was in contact with someone through the group who was looking for an
intro manual to RSX-11.
I lost your street address (and email message)!!!
Please repeat, and reply to me directly!
Kevin
---
Kevin McQuiggin VE7ZD
mcquiggi(a)sfu.ca
I have been sitting here for the past 3 hours trying to make **** BSDi see
a Digiboard that MS-DOG swears is there and BSD swears is not. If this
were my PDP I could just drop in another DZ11, but no, Intel has to make
the machines, and they have to use some bass-ackwards IBM BIOS which
limits the normal amount of serials to 4... And, since this is work, I
can't leave at 5 because the CUSTOMERS are down, and they get to call me
with their whiny little voices and say "The Internet is down, and it's
your fault I didn't read the mail saying this was scheduled...", and worst
of all I'll be here till 6 because this doesn't work, and I could be
getting an RL02, controller, and terminator for $20 at 5:00, but no, the
CUSTOMERS are down, so I have to put myself last *AGAIN*...
Oh, that feels better. Now, off to rebuild BSD again...
I just noticed in poking around this goverment auction stuff, a lot
of the computer stuff is marked with codes F# or H#, which can mean
it is radioactive. Yikes! Read the fine print before bidding!
But that Encore system is listed as A1 - in good working order,
etc. And another list showed it's original list price as something
like 2.4 megabucks. Pretty picture, too.
Bill.
At 09:52 11/15/97 -0800, you wrote:
>Came across an interesting find recently....a
>Pertec-interface TBU that uses, of all things, a VHS cassette mechanism to
>back up as much as 2 gigabytes to a normal T120 VHS tape.
>
> I'm just curious if anyone else has crossed paths with this unit. It's
>called a 'Gigastore.'
Such a device, maybe not this particular make, was the standard OEM backup
for Alpha Micro minicomputers. Mid-eighties. Not madly reliable.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
OK... now that I've -finally- gotten hold of a CD burner, I can start
thinking about preserving all the old software I have. What I'd like from
the group is some pointers on ways that I can preserve things like RX50
floppies on CD. EPROMs and PROMs I can already deal with.
What kind (if any) of binary or bit-copy utilities are available to help
me in this regard? FTP sites, anyone? My primary workstation is Windoof NT,
though I will be setting up an ESIX (Unix) system in the near future, or
possibly Linux (haven't decided yet).
I know about CoComp's SCSI Toolkit, but I'm not quite ready to spend
another $500 just yet! ;-)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin2(a)wizards.net)
http://www.wizards.net/technoid
"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..."