On Oct 26, 2011, at 4:48 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
>
> Absolutely agreed, I was just getting tetchy about the juxtaposition of the
> talk about little RTOSes for PICs and then Unix on the PIC32. It's a
> nervous tic I have from working with too many customers whose only
> experience with micros is the PIC (because they're too lazy to try anything
> else) and insist on upgrading to a PIC32 because they think it'll be
> compatible with their existing software base.
>
Though I've overcome it now (mostly), I had a very strong bias against PIC
for many years mainly because of the technologically inbred nature of many
of their fans.
A few years back I started a new job to work on a project to replace an
aging PIC-based door access control module. The new platform had already
been selected by the time I started: ColdFire running an RTOS. This was
driven mainly by the fact that the new parent company had a commercial line
of HVAC controllers based on that processor. Not a bad choice but the
dreams of code re-use were mostly unfounded.
Interestingly, it turns out one of the reasons I was hired was to backfill
the fan-boy who resigned in a huff because a PIC-32 wasn't selected.
Amardeep
On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:03:45 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
>> > I was referring to holding the faceplate on the CRT, not supporting the CRT=
>> > . I plan to replace the metal band, padding with e.g. strapping tape if ne=
>> > cessary. Does that make more sense? - Ian
> It wworries me, I can tell you that. That metal band is fixed ot the
> glass, it's also deliverately very tight. Somehow it supports the screen
> glass during an implosion, protectggn the viewer. It's not just a mouting
> band for the CRT.
Do *NOT* remove the band!! It protects the CRT from implosion by putting
compressive stresses on the faceplate, thereby counteracting the tensile
stresses produced by the force of the air on it and thus allowing it to
stand more stress.
The same idea as pre-stressed concrete in other words. If you remove the
band you will seriously weaken the CRT.
/Jonas
Hello all,
I recall a while back a thread on dealing with screen rot on ADM-3a terminals - surprising to me, because I have several of them and have had no such issue. But I do have nasty looking spots on a HP 9845A screen. Does anyone have specific experience with addressing this problem on this machine? Just to be clear, it looks like round mold colonies around the edges of the screen. It's likely that there's an anti-glare coating and something colonized underneath it. Again, I'm looking for specific details regarding this machine or another machine of the era using the same screen technology, and how you eliminated the colonies. :-) Thanks -- Ian
At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Fred wrote:
>In many cases, "REAL" (actually "floating point") numbers are
>inappropriate. For MONEY, I tried to get my students to use ints (and
>calculate the pennies not the dollars), and then just move the PERIOD
>when they display the results.
How will they ever get rich moving the rounded-down fractional
pennies into their own accounts?
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:
Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
I think I have 6. Teal and Purple Impact 10000s. If you want one, make some kind of offer. I'd be willing to part out pieces too I guess if that's what people need I guess.
Dave McGuire said:
> Kinda like the "what constitutes a minicomputer" debate.
> Nobody disagrees that, say, PDP-11s are minis,
Sadly, I've heard many people call PDP-11s mainframes, and go as far as saying DEC was a mainframe company.
> but nobody can coherently tell
you why.
I was thinking about this recently and I can't come up with a definition either. Maybe anything smaller than the smallest mainframe and bigger than the biggest PC?
> People who know about this stuff just "know".
Agreed.
I aplogize for the crudity of this post's formatting (but not the content). Best I can do at the moment, posting as I am from an embedded (mobile) computer that is neither PC, mini, nor mainframe.
As an alternative to the hot wire approach, I placed my moldy PDP-12 CRT+faceplate
into a tub of PROSOCO Dicone NC9 "silicone sealand & adhesive remover."
After about a week, the silicone seal had separated and was easily removed.
I'm not sure how best to remount the CRT with the glass faceplate and metal surrounding rim
without reapplying a RTV/PVA layer and re-bonding it all with silicone again.
- Robert
p.s. If you're in the Bay Area: there's a gallon jug of leftover Dicone NC9 for the asking.
On Oct 20, 2011, at 7:34 AM, cctech-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
> Message: 25
> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:28:56 +0100
> From: "Rod Smallwood" <rodsmallwood at btconnect.com>
> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only'"
> <cctech at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: RE: HP screen screen rot
> Message-ID: <AA472F3C2B81454EAD4B734855D4D4EE at dorsetsweets.local>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I have fixed a few Rainbow monitors suffering from screen mould.
> It may be crude but I just removed the outer glass by breaking it into parts
> and then peeled off the offending plastic layer.
>
> The tube then goes back into the case and you end up with a narrow gap
> between the bezel and the tube.
>
> If you are not used to working with glass and CRT's then this way is not for
> you
>
>
> Regards
> Rod Smallwood
--- On Mon, 10/17/11, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> From: Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org>
> Subject: Re: HP screen screen rot
> To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
> Date: Monday, October 17, 2011, 8:33 PM
> On 10/17/11 5:06 PM, Ian King wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> Does anyone have specific experience with addressing
>> this problem on this machine?
>
> The procedure is removal of the RTV between the safety
> glass and CRT separating the two by
> cutting through the RTV with a hot wire, then reattachment
> at the corners.
>
> There are some examples on the web.
Would anyone on this list be interested in acquiring a working XT? I picked
one up a few years back and just haven't had a whole lot of use for it, so
perhaps there's someone here who would. It's in excellent condition (both
cosmetically and functionally), and I can take pics if anyone has interest.
General specs:
- 640 KB RAM
- 20 MB hard drive
- 5.25" floppy
- Currently running DOS 3.3a
- Includes IBM 5151 TTL monitor (solid picture without burn-in)
Thanks!
James
> Wasn't the 11/70 in a class of machines called "supermini"
> computers...machines that were based on the architecture of
> minicomputers, but with CPU extensions(e.g., multiple CPU modes[kernel,
> supervisor, user]), larger memory capacity(including virtual memory
> capabilities), and significantly improved I/O architectures and
> bandwidth? I wonder if the poster of the auction on eBay misread
> "supermini" and thought "supercomputer"?
A complete 11/70 installation almost certainly included line printers, many terminals on multiplexers, timesharing software, a medium to large farm of massbus disks and tapes, etc. This meant it was usually in a room with a raised floor.
Just a few years later (or even overlapping) the same departmental computer market was being sold 11/780's with very similar or identical peripheral complement.
Contrast this with the (to me) more traditional -11 market of a computer that went into a lab with some custom and simple Unibus peripherals for data acquisition.
To me at least the "supermini" concept was almost closer to a personal workstation (although e.g. Encores/SEL's are certainly superminis) but these often became departmental superminis well outfitted with high performance Japanese (Fujitsu) peripherals not the crufty old Massbus-hose type stuff.
While I have a lot of respect for a complete 11/70 installation... at the same time all that Massbus stuff was pretty crufty compared to the new much smaller peripherals coming in from the low end by the early 80's.
Classic computer collectors (including the E-bay seller) often focus too much on the CPU as defining the environment.
Tim.
Steven Hirsch wrote:
> All,
>
> I very much need to sell off my workstation collection. There has been
> essentially zero interest in my posting from last week on the subject.
> I'm trying to figure out why. [...]
> It cannot be price, since I didn't post any and am quite flexible in terms
> of negotation.
On the issue of price... you might be surprised. If you listed it on E-bay at 10 times what the stuff cost new describing it as the biggest and most historically important mainframe ever, you'd probably stroke more egos and raise more interest than if you continue trying to honestly find a good home for it.
Responding to myself and Rich:
I said:
>> If somebody was actually a sysprog *at the time in an IBM shop* and
>> can tell what was released and when they started copyrighting things,
>> then great.
Rich said:
> I *know* what I'm talking about, with regard to access to IBM sources. I
> was at SHARE in San Francisco when the great OCO debate heated up again,
> and still have my button reading "When source is outlawed, only outlaws
> will have source" in my collection. I remember the discussions of the
> changes in US copyright law, including court cases, which allowed program
> sources to be copyrighted and have the copyrights stand up, in
> _ComputerWorld_ and _Datamation_ and other trade rags.
So, since you were, what was the last release that was not copyrighted and
what was the first release that was?
And when was the change to OCO?
Thank you.
15$ each plus shippage. Both work well. CGA (Microway or something like that) may need a convergence adjustment though, not egregious, it's easy to do on big monitors, I'm sure it will be on this unit too.
Datamaster -50$ plus shippage. It's going somewhere THIS WEEK, perhaps a dumpster if there's no interest. It weighs 95 lbs.It's dirty and has seen enough use to burn the screen
a box of Atari 800xl stuff, cpu doesn't work, that's all I know, there's also a disk drive and printer in box, mostly pretty clean w/Atari covers, but cords are dirty - 15$ +
also an atari 800xl in original box, not sure of details, could investigate
15$ +
NIB Atart printer, contemporary w/the 800xl, 5$ +
will combine shipping of course
Hyperion, very yellow (almost orange), small crack in upper left corner, DOESN'T WORK, it did a few years ago. Perhaps something simple 20$ +
I'll add more stuff tomorrow
I'm in New Jersey
I know I will regret dipping my toe in this argument, because I'll dump
some facts on very well established classiccmop groupthink, but hopeful
it will help the few listmember who aren't yet reality-immune on this
topic. I'm on my second decade as a hiring manager of one sort or
another, from Fortune 10 companies to startups, and I'm a non-degreed
candidate for these roles. And I was married to a IT recruiter for a
decade.
This is a US perspective, BTW...non US markets are more or less
different. In particular, the UK isn't so different.
It's the party line of course to blame HR in general and the recruiters
in particular for being "gatekeepers" and not realizing how amazing the
non-degreed candidate is. That's bullshit. The recruiters are *paid*
to place people, and since much first tier recruiting has been
outsourced, a placement is often the only source of compensation for
these folks. Recruiters are continually looking for ways to fit a
square peg in a round hole. The first thing a recruiter does when they
get a requirement is to say "what of this are you flexible on?". You
have no idea how far they will push this. "You want a programmer. My
candidate has a computer", "You need a security expert? My candidate
worked mall security for 5 years". "Project management? My candidate
managed a Pizza Hut." These are not exaggerations, they are personal
antidotes. Anyone who's ever signed up for a job search site knows how
wide a net the recruiters cast. Recruiters are sales people, often not
good ones, usually working on commission, trying to sell a hiring
manager on whatever they have in the queue, no matter how bad a match.
Period. Full stop.
Conversely, it's very rare that a hiring manager says "I don't care how
good a match the candidate is, if they don't have a degree, I don't want
them". It happens, usually with a junior manager who hasn't been around
the block a couple of times, but it's not the norm. Any of us who have
been around for a bit all know that there are good candidates in any
candidate pool. But there's a reason we all put "BS required" in those
ads, and it is because it's a filter. It's not a have/not have filter.
It's an asshole/not asshole filter. Hate to break it to folks, but
getting through HR without a degree isn't that hard (been there, done
that), but if your answer to "so you don't have a degree" is "let me
read you the riot act about how stupid you are to require a degree",
"degree requirements are bullshit and you should rely on the intangible
things I think make me awesome" or "degrees are a waste of time, and the
fact that most of your employees have one has no bearing on the fact
that I'm in a special category", then don't be surprised if the HR drone
says "I don't care how much I've got to make mortgage this month, I'm
not going to try and sell this assclown to the hiring manager. There's
a dozen other folks in the queue who can at least fake being a
reasonable human being".
So, bottom line, if you're "perfect" for the jobs, but you think you are
continually getting turned down because you don't have a degree, you're
wrong. You're either *really* not perfect, or you're toxic waste from a
personality/attitude standpoint. Usually the later. Yes, I
know...you're different/special/unique and none of this applies to you.
SOP for this list. I'm just telling you what I've learned from dozens
of HR orgs, a couple of hundred slots I've been responsible for filling
and several thousand candidates I've had to weed through. Not that that
matters.
At 2:20 -0500 10/25/11, Toby clarified:
>You can run Mathematica on a NeXT without any optical drive or media (I
>have a licence & have done so, on a slab).
Right! I'm running Mma 3.0.2.0 on my NeXT 040 Cube (NeXTStep 3.2)
right now. However I think it's significantly harder to find
Mathematica 3.0 for NeXTStep than NeXTStep 1.0, which is why I
suggested the latter route.
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:
Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
I am changing my opinion on Outlook.
I just experienced the State Farm Insurance "Secure Messaging Center".
In comparison, Outhouse is MAGNIFICENT!
For example, the State Farm system will not permit cc'ing an email address
outside of their system (my own!). What's so frigging secret about an
insurance claim??
The State Farm system times out after 15 minutes while composing a
message. When it times out, there is NO warning. No "1 minute until
doom". No "want to extend/continue?". No "want to save?" No automatic
save of compositions in progress! Their "systems programmers" have told
them that their hands are tied, and that it isn't possible to implement
those "features"!
When I first started using PINE, I wasn't completely satisfied. But each
"Modern" system that I've tried has made me appreciate it more. And this
State Farm system makes Outhouse look good.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
Dennis Ritchie, co-creator of C and heavily involved in the creation
of UNIX, has died. He was 70, and he was one of my heroes.
RIP, Dennis Ritchie.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
On Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:09:01 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
> Interesting. This is not at all well-known (I know people who use Excel
> and who need complex numbers who haven't found this...)
>
> I must look into this and see just what it does. In particular, is a
> complex number something that's sotred in oen cell or two (if the
> latter, it's a kludge!)? Do the normal arithmetic operators work with
> them or do you have special functions (written in prefix as opposed to
> infix notation) to do this?
I'm not really sure since I found this by Googling, but it seems as if
you have to enter complex numbers by entering a function. You can't just
type "5+j8" into a cell, you have to go via a dialog box. The number
will be displayed as "5+8j" (you can use anything you like instead of
"j", it is an argument to the function and presumably[hopefully] does
not take part in any calculations. What happens if you use "j" for one
number and "i" for another, and then add them, is open to speculation.
Could be interesting...)
Any arithmetic operators have to be expressed via functions.
In other words, clumsy to say the least, but it may actually work.
Excel functions and macros, of course, are another subject. IMHO the
designer of that functionality must have been an evil, embittered sadist
who probably grew up pulling the wings off insects and attaching
firecrackers to the tails of cats.
/Jonas
Hi Etienne and all
I remember Leon's name from Stellenbosch days.
I recently managed to sign back onto the list -- thanks to whoever was
responsible for that.
I'm also in Cape Town, and I have some hardware I want to play with and
some hardware I realise I will never get around to. The latter includes
some Acorn RISC PC stuff, and a vast stash of BBC stuff. Two actual
computers, and lots and lots of software and a few books.
The only HP I have is an HP-85.
Anybody else here from South Africa?
Hi,
I discovered some more QBUS PDP 11 machines in an old storage unit I'm emptying.
These machines are the rack mount style QBUS PDP 11's, and appear to be intact, although
their disk drives have been removed.
They all have CPU and memory.
These are collection only from Yorkshire - but free of charge. I have 3 machines available and
possibly some spare cards.
These need to be collected next week unfortunately. Any interest email me directly.
Thanks
Ian.
At 3:22 -0500 10/24/11, Tony wrote:
>There probably is a need for an 'engineer's spreadsheet' with proper
>complex number support, but I guess the market is much less than for
>'business' applicatiosn which only need real numbers.
Mathematica can do that functionality, but probably not
cost-effectively and not (current versions) on legacy hardware. (Mma
v. 1 is included in NeXTStep 1.0, so if you can get that optical
media together with a working optical drive (good luck there!) you
are set).
I have not tried MathCad, Maple, macsyma, etc., and at least
the last one of those is on-topic and should run on the classes of
machines (VAX-11/780, etc.) that might be found around Casa Duell.
I have got (but sadly have not tried yet) a copy of muMath
which might be able to do it on a DEC Rainbow.
muMath's successor Derive (DOS/Windows) became the basis for
the TI Nspire CAS, and early versions of that might also serve in
this context.
Has anyone got experience with doing complex arithmetic in
any of these?
--
- Mark 210-379-4635
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Large Asteroids headed toward planets
inhabited by beings that don't have
technology adequate to stop them:
Think of it as Evolution in Fast-Forward.
I've bought a copy of LocoScript 4 (or so) to run on my PCW9512+.
However, I'd also like to get it running under the Joyce emulator on
my PC.
How might I read a PCW floppy into a PC disk image? It's a 3.5" 720 DD
disk. My PC does have a 3?" drive and runs Windows 7/64 and Ubuntu
11.10/64.
I possibly have an ancient copy of 22copy somewhere, but it runs under
DOS which at the mo' my PC is not configured to boot... :(
--
Liam Proven ? Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
AIM/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven ? MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? ICQ: 73187508
On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:42:03 +0100 (BST), ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony
Duell) wrote:
> Did/does any spreadsheet, on any platform, allow you to put complex
> numbers in the cells and operate on them?
>
> Yes, of course you can treat a complex numner as 2 real numbers and
> define the appropriate operations -- any spreadsheet will do that. I did
> it in Visicalc. But as I use complex numbers a lot in AC circuit
> analysis, and I know others who do too, I am suprised no spreadsheet
> handles them as well as my HP calculators.
Surprise surprise, apparently Excel will let you work with complex
numbers. It seems you have to install the "Analysis Pak" (which
apparently is supplied with Excel, see e.g.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/load-the-analysis-toolpak-HP00…
for the 2003 version).
That of course doesn't mean that it handles them as well as your HP
calculators :-)
/Jonas