Tony writes:
>> On 12/14/2011 08:14 PM, Mouse wrote:
>> > On the other, I'm considering an AGC circuit that doesn't use a bulb,
>> > but instead uses a FET as a variable resistor, and trying to figure out
>> > where it's got anything nonlinear in it (assuming the amplifier is
>> > running class A).
>>
>> Jim Williams (RIP) did a LOT of research on this. The bulb
>> outperformed the FET by a gigantic margin. (just sayin'..)
> I thoguht in the end he amanged ot get the FET cirucit to be better than
> the light bulb, but it took a lot of work (and probably wasn't worth it).
Good reference: AN-43: http://cds.linear.com/docs/Application%20Note/an43f.pdf
I'm sure Jim Williams thought it was worth it and I really enjoyed reading about it so it was worth it to me for sure :-)
A highlight was Note 5: "What else should be expected when trying to replace a single light bulb with a bunch of electronic components? I can hear Figure 39?s #327 lamp laughing."
I had previously met Sir Denys Wilkinson and he had mentioned something to me about his pioneering days in nuclear instrumentation (including pinball machine multichannel analyzers). When he had told me that he had invented the D/A converter I didn't really believe him but kinda nodded along. Then I read it in Jim Williams' application note - with an actual reference - I felt a little sheepish in retrospect!
Tim.
---- Original Message:
Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2011 10:18:55 -0500
From: "TeoZ" <teoz at neo.rr.com>
> Before ewaste was cheaper to ship overseas I am sure quite a bit of it
> ended up in US landfills. Sooner or later those landfills will be dug up
> and recycled since it will be cheaper then digging 5 miles into the earth
> looking for it, plus anything currently junked will go straight to be
> recycled and reused.
Your optimism is truly refreshing!
m
Hi All.
sorry about the quoting - only just re-enabled emails from the list;
pasting this out of the web archive:
Back in October Kelly Leavitt wrote:
>>>In July of 1983 Tandy announced the "Tandy Videotex and Office
Information System" that ran under Xenix. It was an early attempt at a
hypertext system. It used dialup lines and was hosted on Tandy Model 16b
(and later 6000) computers.
An 8 port and 16 port multiplexor (that's how they spelled it) were
announced. I don't know if either ever shipped.
There is some information available in the July 25, 1983 issue of
InfoWorld. There is also an article in "TRS-80 Microcomputer News" V5,I
11 (#54 ).
I used to run one of these for a local company (that I still work for).
Does anyone have the manuals or software from one of these systems? I
still have the hardware (not the mux, just the 16b and hard drive).
Kelly
<<<<
One of my standard searches on eBay brought up item 270408833511
"Tandy TRS-80 - Model 2000 - Videotex Plus (1983)"
Looks like a complete set - manual in binder and software diskette.
I'veNo connection to seller, etc..
I'm now firmly into collecting Prestel/Videdata/Videotex hardware and
software, which is fairly easy on the pocket as not much exists, and
nobody else seams interested in it. This one is borderline, but way
too expensive for me! oh, I also run www.videdata.org.uk. (Hi Tony!)
Rob.
I'm dusting off my Quadra 950 and thought it might be good to try and
upgrade it a bit if I can.
I have a fairly slow TrueColour graphics card installed at the moment, so
I'm looking for a better quality/faster NuBus card.
I'd also like to put in a PowerPC upgrade if I can find one. I used to have
one of these years ago, and it used to work pretty well. The Quadra has
a PDS type slot.
Anyway - anything considered. I'm in the UK - but shipping this weight of
item from overseas wouldnt be too much I think.
Contact me off list if you have anything.
Thanks Ian. :)
I looked at the wikipedia entry for the Honeywell H200 series today,
and when I came to the "Pupular Culture" section I remembered that
when I was in High School (and our Computer Club got to use my school
district's H1200 stand alone one night every week) Lily Tomlin did a
"We don't care, we don't have to, we're the phone company" bit that I
could swear included an H200 series system.
I found the video at:
http://vimeo.com/16175616http://www.movieweb.com/tv/TEbXhcfhdjEkec/HUOVvPTWha0QSW
It still looks like a Honeywell to me. Can any one make a solid
identifcation of what model?
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76aphonecompany.phtml
says the skit aired 9/18/76.
H200's were over ten years old at the time..
That's 5 computer generations these days!
The wikipedia page has some H200 photos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_200
And more at:
http://www.feb-patrimoine.com/PROJET/honeywell200/h-200.htmhttp://starringthecomputer.com/computer.php?c=48 says H200's appeared
in several movies, including the original Casino Royale! There's a
good still of the programmer's panel from the "Billion Dollar Brain".
I still remember the boot sequence:
4 4 BOOTSTRAP RUN
Has anyone successfully migrated a ZFS-hosted Solaris 10 sparc host
>from one arch (sun4u) to another (sun4v)? I have found all kinds of
docs on how to do it, if your source is UFS-rooted, but nothing, if
you're ZFS-rooted. This seems like a _huge_ oversight, to me, but I
lost my faith in Oracle, a long time ago.
I've tried:
1) root pool regeneration from "zfs send -r" snapshot backups
2) flar/jumpstart (add sun4v arch to flar, when creating)
3) liveupgrade
4) ldomp2v tool
None of these have been successful. The closest that I have gotten
was by doing a ZFS root pool restore, on the new host, and then
manually installing the ".v" versions of all of the missing packages.
That got the system booting, but there were a _lot_ of broken
libraries.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
- Alex
When I bought my TRS-80 Model I Expansion Interface, I worked for Radio Shack and had put the unit on layaway.
I bought the RAM mail-order because it was MUCH cheaper than what Radio Shack charged. The day before I was going to pay it off and take it home for good, I brought the unit home, cracked the case, installed the RAM, tested it, and then brought it back to the store.
I paid it off the following day, and brought it home.
I'm the only person I know who voided their warranty before it went into effect.
>> In both cases, I WAITED UNTIL I GOT HOME before I opened the computer
>> case.? (I'm not a hardware person)
>>
>
> Err, yes... I think I've only ever once dismantled a computer on the way
> home, and that was a DECmate II (whcih cna be taken apart without tools...)
Al
Hello,
We have a MV-2000 Mod II that we still use to manage our business. As time goes by, more and more of our tapes (DC-1000 21mb cartridges) are failing. I do have a copy of microcode (ver 10) from tape that has been saved to a hard drive as a disk image. As tapes fail, I've been able to make "new" copies, but I'm running out of tape cartridges.
Would anyone know where I could find microcode for our MV-2000 mod II on 5.25 floppies? Our MV has an internal 5.25 (720kb) diskette dive that could load microcode at boot time. I've already tried copying the tape image to floppy, but it appears not to be enough. I'm guessing DG organized microcode on floppy a little differently then on tape. Does anyone have any ideas?? Thanks for your time.
Tom
jtpinch-treiff at usa.net
I thought I had posted this, perhaps not.
Anyhow,
I have what's purported to be the "First" computer on the internet,
the one that joined the pieces together and I guess you could say "made" the internet,
or conversely, the "last" node, as it were (depending how you count).
It's also the system where E-Mail was first created.
It's a Sun SLC workstation, owned by Einar Steffard.
I have the original box (very slightly torn),
and the workstation itself is in very good shape except one cosmetic crack, which I believe can be fixed very easily.
I tried the smithsonian, and other computer museums, but basically was told they already had too many of this model,
never mind the significance of this particular unit.
it still runs, last I checked, and has all the original data still intact on it, such as it is.
now, I find myself with a severe lack of space, and need to part with it.
I would like a little bit of money for it, it wasn't a donation to me, and shipping maybe expensive.
or I would be willing to trade it for a vaxstation 4000, or perhaps a 3100 or two.
(I have a need for 2 working vaxen you see)
so anyhow, that's how it is, this piece of history sitting in the corner of my office, collecting dust,
and not doing much else.
I'd like to see it get to a good home, and never scrapped, I think it's too important for that.
so anyhow, anyone who wants this piece of history, drop me a note.
and yes, I have pics (including the shipping labels from Einar to me) for what it's worth...
Dan.
_________________________________________________________________
If you like crossword puzzles, then you'll love Flexicon, a game which combines four overlapping crossword puzzles into one!
http://g.msn.ca/ca55/208
Out of curiosity, what is there in the way of modern software that
can read Word Perfect 5.1 (probably some 5.2 as well) for DOS
documents? The good news is that I retrieved all these files at some
point in the past from the 3.5" floppy they were on. :-)
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
Here's a rather esoteric question that I suspect at least one person may be able to answer better than the collective urban legendry found on Google.
I have a Mac LC475 (same machine as Quadra 605), and I'm looking to max out the memory. None of Apple's tech notes mention anything about EDO memory, and people tend to generally think that it can handle it, but I've been bitten before. Does anyone have a good idea about whether the memory controller can handle it? Also whether it can actually take advantage of it? My gut feeling is yes to the first and no to the second.
Secondly, does anyone have experience with Micro Memory Bank? They seem to be offloading piles of newly-manufactured vintage-compatible (5V FPM and EDO) DIMMs and SIMMs on Ebay. The collective common wisdom for the LC475 is that 128MB SIMMs will work, but only if they're single-ranked. The salespeople for the vendor don't seem to know what I'm talking about when I ask, and I'm having a hard time getting photos of the board from them (which should at least let me look at the traces). Anyone know about their 128 MB EDO/FPM SIMMs?
Relevant auction number is 350478815002.
- Dave
Listen fellows...
I worked for two of the major hardware/software suppliers for the Radio Shack Color Computers. I have 10 of them in the next room, as well as a Tano Dragon 64k.
A stock Color Computer or Color Computer 2 has no Composite output. It only has an RF Modulator that tunes to channels 3 or 4 VHF (U.S. Models, I have no experience with other versions).
You cannot GET a composite signal without cracking the case and soldering a few wires to a simple circuit to clean up the signal. Several companies sold a tiny board with a few components that provided composite video and standard audio for use with a regular composite monitor (Mark Data Products, Dennis Bathory Kitsz, and a few others. I liked the MDP product best as it used little spring loaded clips and was basically solderless.). You can easily build one with parts in your junk box, or maybe $5 in parts from a local Radio Shack.
I will track down the schematic and find a way to post it.
The next best solution is the idea of using a VHS Player to capture the RF signal and convert it to Composite internally.
There are several Coco Emulators that one could just use on a PC and bypass the whole thing. Jeff Vavasour's (?http://www.vavasour.ca/jeff/trs80.html#coco2?) is supposed to be one of the best.
I really like the Coco system, and I wish I had room to set one of mine up.
I co-wrote The Coco Greeting Card Designer, which was similar to the greeting card version of Print Shop. I have the rights to sell the follow-on, The Coco Graphics Designer which has all the different things with a Mac-like GUI frontend. I just need to make the manuals up and duplicate the disks from my master copies.
I also have the rights to the Car Sign Designer on the IBM-PC (DOS), C-64, and Coco. I have the disks, manuals, and car sign holders but need a working C-64 to test the disks. I got a c64 AND 1541 in trade, but the 1541 doesn't work and I haven't fixed it yet.
Al
From: Josh Dersch
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:08 PM
> I just wish UNIX man pages were as well written and as
> all-encompassing as the online documentation available on my
> Lisp machine. Basically three or four feet worth of the
> printed manual set available at a keypress (or mouse click)
> or two, thoroughly indexed and cross-referenced, viewable
> directly at the command prompt (even while in the middle of
> typing a command -- invaluable when you've forgotten how
> something works halfway through) from within the editor, or
> inside the Document Examiner, with hypertext, formatting,
> diagrams, etc... a lovely system and well ahead of its time.
Yes, the Lisp Machines were, like the TOPS-20 operating system,
"a great improvement on [their] successors."
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Server Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.orghttp://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
BBC News - Apple founding papers sold at auction for nearly $1.6m
Apple's founding papers have been sold at auction for $1,594,500 (?1.03m).
Sotheby's had estimated the three typed partnership agreements would sell
for between $100,000 and $150,000.
_http://bbc.in/rJJ3q5_ (http://bbc.in/rJJ3q5)
Source: _http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16170953_
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16170953)
See if people are clicking on this link: _http://bbc.in/rJJ3q5+_
(http://bbc.in/rJJ3q5+)
Try the _bitly.com_ (http://bitly.com/) sidebar to see who is talking
about a page on the web: _http://bitly.com/pages/sidebar_
(http://bitly.com/pages/sidebar)
Thanks,
Ed Sharpe, Archivist for SMECC
See the Museum's Web Site at _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)
Ok, I dug up the schematic. This is for the Video Only. You'll have to get a copy of the Coco Schematics to find out where to tap the audio (Probably at the input to the RF Modulator, but I don' t know what you'd have to do to make it sound good)...
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/8801/23fa5940.gif
(The "New Board" mentioned in the GIF means the Coco 2 logic board)
Here is a link to a repository that has the service manuals:
http://goyim.dyndns.org:8080/coco/Documents/Manuals/Hardware/
That's the best I can do now, as my Cocos are on a top shelf I can't reach anymore and can't pull one down to look at the installed adapter.
Hope this helps.
Al
big box but cheap via media mail.
Philip expressed interest in the tech manual. I'll joyfully send it to him if he still wants it. Let me know Phillip. I'll just chuck the rest I guess. Have the Wordstar manual/s too, but no disks.
Looking for NeXT mono cables (DB19 -> DB19 ) and Y cables (13W3 ->
13W3 and DB-19) as well as NeXT Mice (broken or working).
Anyone got any for sale or swap?
--
Gary G. Sparkes Jr.
KB3HAG
>> > In my experience, "solderless breadboard" is the usual term, at
>> least
>> > if you're talking about the things I suspect you are.
>> Occasionally a
>> > brand name gets used to refer to them.
>>
>> That's what I've always heard them called. I know they're generally
>> considered terrible, but I've had lots of luck with them for
>> low-speed
>> projects (especially power supplies for tube amps; I've got one
>> that's
>> covered with capacitor juice from various electrolytics exploding
>> and
>> has some melted-out holes resulting from diodes installed backwards
>> but
>> still manages to work just fine).
>
> They're probaly fine if used within their limitations. That is that
> stray
> capacitance doesn't matter too much (and be warned it can matter even
> when the system appears to be low-speed) and if the odd poor
> connection
> won't cause too many problems.
>
> That said, I don't think they save much tiem. The time taken to form
> component leads to fit into one of these breadboards, or to strip a
> piece
> of isulated wire to go in, is not much less than soldering the
> components
> to stripboard (assuming your iron is already hot). And doing the
> latter
> will at least eliminate poor conenctions.
>
> -tony
Around 1980-1981 I was working for Volvo Cars. At one time I was given
the task of evaluating the optimum location for a knock sensor. I had an
engine fitted with a number of knock sensors in various locations on a
dynamometer test bench, and a device connected to the ignition which
allowed me to advance the ignition from TDC in increments of a few
degrees. This thing was provided as an official test device from a large
US manufacturer, I have forgotten which one - RCA? GE? GM? It was built
with CMOS 4000-series ICs IIRC, and constructed on - solderless
plugboard... Changing the amount of ignition advance was done by moving
a wire between different holes in the plugboard.
Using this kind of thing in an engine test cell, with an engine running
under heavy load close by and me standing next to it, struck me as
rather shaky to say the least. Especially as a bad connection, or
plugging the wire in the wrong hole, could make the engine produce
"interesting" noises. Had something serious happened to the engine there
might well have suddenly been large parts of metal flying around and
plenty of hot oil and water spraying about. It did actually work OK
though.
/Jonas