I don't remember that foam as being conductive. Most conductive foams
tend to shred, those bits are not kind to the electronics.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Pete Turnbull <pete(a)dunnington.u-net.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 7:49 PM
Subject: PDP-8 case
>I've been cleaning up my recently-acquired PDP-8/E, and I've had to
remove
>the plastic foam from the inside of the lid, which was fairly horrible.
> I'm not sure what best to replace it with, as the foam was in two
parts.
>
>The square(ish) area above the rear Omnibus section was ordinary brown
>high-density plastic foam, about 3/8" thick, but most of the area above
the
>front section was black conductive foam. Is this original? Was it
>supposed to protect the boards that have H851 over-the-top connectors
from
>static that might have been carried by ordinary foam? I'd have thought
the
>leakage through the conductive foam might upset some circuits.
>
>So, should I use ordinary high-density foam, or conductive?
>
>--
>Pete Peter Turnbull
> Network Manager
> University of York
I've been cleaning up my recently-acquired PDP-8/E, and I've had to remove
the plastic foam from the inside of the lid, which was fairly horrible.
I'm not sure what best to replace it with, as the foam was in two parts.
The square(ish) area above the rear Omnibus section was ordinary brown
high-density plastic foam, about 3/8" thick, but most of the area above the
front section was black conductive foam. Is this original? Was it
supposed to protect the boards that have H851 over-the-top connectors from
static that might have been carried by ordinary foam? I'd have thought the
leakage through the conductive foam might upset some circuits.
So, should I use ordinary high-density foam, or conductive?
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> There's a program (somewhere) called "FINDER," though I'm not
> convinced it's for
> the purpose of finding something. What I need to find out is
> how to find the
> FINDER. Then, of course, I have to figure out how to drive
> it ... <sigh> will
> it ever end ...
Ahh yes. :) Having been employed as a Mac-only programmer for a while,
let me assure you that there is a program called "Finder," which, in fact,
is not for finding things at all.
Finder is the Macintosh shell. Best not to confuse the users with terms
like "file manager," "shell," "interface," "front-end," "button two" or the
like. ;)
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
>Well, I hope it's documented. At least there's a NETSCRAPE for DUMMIES
>book I
>can give someone for Christmas. How difficult is it to learn this iCab? I
>don't want to have to learn it in order to teach someone else. Is it pretty
>intuitive? (that way I can answer questions on the phone and have some
>chance
>of guessing right.)
If you can browse the web, you can operate iCab. You probably will never
find a book on iCab, because it doesn't need one... it works, and it
works in the most obvious of ways (type in a url, or choose one from the
hotlist menu). It doesn't suffer from bloatware, so there is nothing to
get lost or confused with. If you can read, you can work iCab (and you
need not have to read a specific language, as it is available in a bunch
of them).
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> If your recorded "backup" is a bit-for-bit image of the disk contents,
> transferred to and from tape, there's no interpretation of
> the contents into
> files that can take place, is there?
That's an interesting way to phrase this particular question, since the
contents are already in the form of "files" -- that is, if you ask the set
of drivers that got them to the disk in the first place. :)
I believe it's possible (though it would be slow) to interpret a bit-for-bit
image directly on a tape and extract any given file, along with attributes,
etc. In fact, any operation that would be possible on a disk, in this case,
could be handled on a tape. The clincher is that it would involve a lot of
seek/rewind/seek/etc/etc..
The underlying O/S need not even know the difference between the disk and
tape, except to know that the tape is removable (...that's not absolutely
required), and perhaps that it's incredibly slow.
The worst that would be required is a device abstraction layer or the like.
You could write one yourself which would make the tape device "look" like a
disk device, for systems which don't have such a thing, and that would be
enough.
How would you like to be able to mount your backup tape, and use a
file-manager on it? ;)
> The Microsoft Backup that came with DOS, (a) never really was
> a backup, but,
> rather, was just a copy, and (b) never worked together with
> its "restore"
> function. Under DOS, copies were adequate, since the context
> didn't matter.
If you mean that it didn't store attributes, or that sort of thing, you may
be right (never paid attention.) On the other hand, you're also right to
say that it wouldn't particularly matter under MS-DOS.
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
Anyone know of a source for data sheets and app notes for
the SCB68430 DMA
controller? I couldn't find anything via Google.
It's available on http:\\www.freetradezone.com . There are two versions
of the sheet, D0194930.pdf is the 1988 version, D0191623.pdf is the
earlier 1996 version.
Lee.
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> On the other hand, wearing a name tag that says "John Galt"
> in a room full of techies is an unpardonably cheesy offense.
What would Bob the Lizard say? "...more gin..."
--
No Tourbots
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> I'm concerned mainly about Win9x. There were numerous backup
> packages that
> worked VERY well under [DOS6.22/Win3.11]. Since the release
> of Win9x, I've
> bought several backup packages, and a couple of releases of
> each, yet not seen
> one that even barely worked on any sort of consistent basis.
Ahh, well if you allow third-parties into the picture, it changes somewhat.
[Backup utility problems snipped]
> There's something about the OS that interferes with a backup.
> The Microsoft
> Backup for Win98 seems to work ...sorta... but it only works
> ...sorta... and
> falls down many times, misinterpreting a drive that the OS
> recognizes correctly
> to be a 2GB partition to be 300+ Terabytes. Naturally it
> falls down later
> because of that problem. <sigh>
Since it's a microsoft utility, you can bet that the moment you upgrade
windows, the backups will be unusable, since the new, improved version will
be completely incompatible.
> An OS without a real backup utility is of little use because
> you have to have
> backup ... not just copies of things, but a real backup,
> context and all, that
Bingo. Windows is not an enterprise class system, nor, IMNSHO, is it even
worthy of being used in a production context. ... but back to the topic at
hand. :)
> enables you to get back to where you were. DOS didn't have
In a single utility? Perhaps not, but how much "context" do you expect from
DOS? :) The built-in backup program would copy files onto some other
medium, and a recovery disk could at least be made relatively simply. Maybe
I'm misunderstanding your complaint, though.
My problem with the DOS backup utility was that every time somebody at m$
re-compiled something, your old backups were useless.
I assume a third-party add-on would fix that.
> that, UNIX doesn't
> have it (though it does have TAR, which makes copies to
I find that TAR gives me useable backups in general. Again, there's no such
thing as a "standalone tar," so you'll need a recovery disk/tape/something.
It also has CPIO if you're into that sort of thing, and several third-party
things.
> tape), OS/2 doesn't have
> it, LINUX doesn't have it ... I don't know what a guy's to
See unix above... also note that TAR may be available for OS/2.
It is slightly harder to build an OS/2 recovery disk.
> do. I guess
> image-copying the disk to tape, empty space and all, is the
> only solution. Of
> course that means the files are replaceable only on an all or
> nothing basis.
Well, do you consider that space part of your "context?" Where is the line
drawn? Also note that the empty space isn't exactly empty in most cases.
As for "all-or-nothing" replacement, that's not exactly the case. You
certainly could mount an image right from the backup device (very slowly for
tape ;) and read files out. It would be a larger problem if your backups
don't fit filesystem-for-cartrige.
I'm relatively convinced that as long as you can backup files and attributes
(including ACL, etc), treating special files as if they were (special, that
is...), you ought to be ok.
The only place you'd get bitten is in systems that need to know an exact
location of a bootable image, or other such special file. That can probably
be handled in the restore procedure, though.
So I think DOS and Unix can be backed up pretty well. Windows is a
different story, I guess. It would help, for windows, of course, if they'd
provide a decent, uniform, block-device access method. Don't hold your
breath, though.
> ^%$#@! ... what a bunch of crap!
What really makes it inexcusable is the fact that a backup utility shouldn't
be too difficult to cook up.
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
>I have yet to figure out why they couldn't have done the disk reads/writes
>in the background while you do some other things. I believe it's likely to
>be a "left-over" from early days.
Certain hardware could do background read/write starting with 7.5.3 (?
maybe .5). I used to do it with my Quarda 610. Also, as of OS 8.0,
read/write can be done in the background on all hardware that supports OS
8.0 (32 bit clean, 040's or better). I regularly put long file copies in
the background and continue doing other things.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
It was nowhere near that frequent. We used number like 1/10^6
device hours for occurance rates. Often they found minor burps
in the system were at fault.
As to the ceramic VS plastic you have to looks carefully at the
system as the two have different leadframes, operating temps,
likely timing and bus capacitance. All of those things for a given
system interact. The worst example was early intel ceramic
parts (8755, 8748, 8749 and 8751) where the lid was floating
(not attached to any pin), they were quite sensitive to small
static charges accumulating on the lid! People thought it was
radiation doing it! Simple ESD problem.
The reason it's less a problem is ECC is common as is error
scrubbing and fewer interconnects, packages and die. Then
again do we know that the last Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD)
was really a MS OS burp or some system data error? :-) Try
and buy memories larger than say 1Mbit in ceramic now.
In all the systems I've encountered denser memories went
hand in hand with better reliablity of that part of the system.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 2:13 PM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>Gee, Allison, that's not how I remember that stuff at all. We had a dozen
or
>more machines running a really thorough memory tests in the early '80's and
the
>purpose was to quantify the difference in error rates between ceramic and
>plastic parts. In order to do that, all you needed was a big enough DRAM
array,
>and you'd see them at a rate of about one or two per minute from among
those
>machines. Of course we'd be using about 8 boards measuring about 16" x 22"
with
>288 devices per board, then tracking the locations of the corrected errors.
If
>you used plastic parts, the error rate dropped, comparatively, by about
90%.
>That's the reason the problem was so widely discussed. It's odd that it
doesn't
>exist anymore, with the typcial home computer having about as much RAM
nowadays
>as all the computers in the world had when I was in college. BTW, that
entire
>problem went almost completely away once the DRAMs were redesigned with
that
>checkerboarding mod I mentioned.
>
>Dick
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Allison" <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net>
>To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:31 AM
>Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>
>
>> back then I was involved in that stuff and 99% of the Dram problems were
>> design
>> related and not alpha particle. To see the alpha particle in real apps
>> you'd need
>> a box that had thouands of them running 7x24 for weeks! S100 systems
that
>> ran
>> that well were prone to the power company failing to deliver before ram
>> failure was
>> a problem!
>>
>> Back in that time frame I used static ram due to the general flakyness I
>> preceived
>> of most S100 cards. The best S100 ram I'd used for that time frame
(1980)
>> had an 8202( Netronics DRAM using 16Ks).
>>
>That board (I've still got a couple, 1 still unbuilt) was very, Very, VERY
slow,
>and used somebody's rather lame DRAM controller IC. The boards from CCS
had
>timing adquate for use with 64K parts if you didn't mind making the mod's,
AND
>they worked. The stock and unmodified version of those boards ran in a set
of 8
>boards for one of my clients running something like Mmmost or whatever it
was
>called, for several years and, since they had a UPS, never experienced a
failure
>in the time I worked with them. The Systems Group stuff worked really
well, and
>I still like 'em, though the boards are 512K boards rather than the 128K
ones
>they were then, having been designed with the eventual emergence of 256K
parts
>in mind.
>
>The main problem with S-100 DRAM boards was that designers seldom
understood
>both the S-100 timing and the proper use of DRAMs. Frankly, since there
wasn't
>a standard, it is understandable that nobody could get complete
interoperability
>from DRAMs with reasonable timing, since the S-100 had been designed around
one
>CPU and then the most popular CPU was promptly replaced by another one with
>completely different timing.
>>
>> Allison
>>
>>
>> From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
>>
>> >> Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics were described
as
>> >having
>> >> too much radioactivity for use in high-density memories. I'm not sure
>> that
>> >was,
>> >> in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought so. Do you
suppose
>> >they
>> >> fixed that? Coors was a leader, in the '60's in porcelain tooling and
>> other
>> >> such oddities, not to mention having "perfected" the draw-and-iron
>> process
>> >for
>> >> making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.
>> >
>> >My 8k EconoRAM IV, one of the first S-100 boards to use DRAM, used the
>> >very chips that supposedly had that problem. I've been told mine are
>> >OK, but it used to be a bit flaky; however, I always blamed that on
>> >the state of the early S-100 systems and my soldering work on the SOL
>> >to which it was attached... I solder *much* better now... -dq
>> >
>>
>>
>
It was easy to buy into but, it wasn't supported by research.
I was with NEC at that time and Dram was one of the hot
products and they were pretty good at it. Tyrns out the gold
braze for the lid and the gold based eutectic for the die bond
were the real source and it was Alpha particles (most easily
stopped) as a primary source of "soft" errors. Since then tricks
like memory scrubbing in ECC systems and better controls
on charge refresh have burried the problem even though the
features are several orders smaller. That very smaller means
less charge and there for more problems but it also means
a smaller target meaning a more likely miss.
In 1981 it translated to you had to have a lot of chips, running
for a long time to get a radiation induced soft error and even then
parity or better yet ECC was the way out. In the end, not a
problem for most systems.
Really interesting if your into statistics and probability.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:57 PM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>I don't remember that explanation, though I guess it could be plausible.
What I
>remember reading was that, since western Colorado and eastern Utah, where
they
>were getting some of their materials was also an area of relatively high
>concentration of radioactive minerals, which certainly lines up with the
1950's
>activity in uranium prospecting/mining in that area. It was easy for me to
buy
>into during that period. The problem was found in almost all ceramic
packages
>made from materials acquired in that part of the country, so it seemed
>reasonable enough. It doesn't matter now, of course.
>
>Dick
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Allison" <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net>
>To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:24 AM
>Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>
>
>> Not quite true.
>>
>> The Dram problem was one of those "we knew it was comming" due
>> to shrinking geometry items. The source of the radiation was the Gold
>> eutectic braze. The specific radiation was alpha particles. FYI the
>> solution was organic based die overcoat. Testing for the phenomina was
>> undertaken to verify and analyze the phenomina by NEC,IBM and MOTO
>> (to name a few) using initally small geometry 16k single voltage (i2118
>> style) parts.
>>
>> FYI: the coors ceramic parts were morecostly due to the gold! They
>> however were better for hermetic performance than slab with glass frit
>> sealed packages.
>>
>> Allison
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
>> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>> Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:00 AM
>> Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>>
>>
>> >Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics were described
as
>> having
>> >too much radioactivity for use in high-density memories. I'm not sure
that
>> was,
>> >in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought so. Do you
suppose
>> they
>> >fixed that? Coors was a leader, in the '60's in porcelain tooling and
>> other
>> >such oddities, not to mention having "perfected" the draw-and-iron
process
>> for
>> >making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.
>> >
>> >Dick
>> >
>> >----- Original Message -----
>> >From: "Douglas Quebbeman" <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
>> >To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>> >Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 7:37 AM
>> >Subject: RE: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>> >
>> >
>> >> > It's very late run ceramic. Ceramic for chip substrates only comes
>> from a
>> >> > few vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far
east
>> and
>> >> > Europe.
>> >>
>> >> heh... actually, Adolph Coors spun-off its non-brewery assets in 1992
>> >> into ACX Technologies, and most recently, CoorsTek (formerly Coors
>> >> Ceramics) was spun-off into a wholly separate company on Jan 1, 2000.
>> >>
>> >> -dq
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> version of the OS. surely there's some way to determine what
> hardware the
> machine thinks it "sees," though.
No. It's one of the things that Apple decided to leave out in the name of
simplicity. You'll need to find a program to do it. "Apple System
Profiler" as suggested, will likely work. You may have to go find yourself
a copy. Have you checked Apple's web-page?
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
Newsgroups: mailinglist.classiccmp
Path: gateway
From: ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net (Allison)
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
Date: 19 Nov 01 13:38:45 GMT
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From: John Galt <gmphillips(a)earthlink.net>
>There's a rather small community of chip collectors.
>
>However, there are a few collectors who have been
>collecting for over 10 years now who have put togather
>pretty vast collections of literally thousands of chips.
My only concern is they may be collecting junk, IE: chips that
look good, may be rare but are DEAD/useless electronically.
>It would be the same as if suddenly someone found
>two Intelec bit slice 3002 computers dated 1975 in a closet or something.
>Sure, there might could be more, but if they were common, you guys would
>have already seen one.
These were quite common and the basic chipset on an experimentors board
was around $495 in 1977. Most were used then relagated to the engineering
junk box. So I'd presume when you say rare, your referring to actively
traded
survivors as SBC colltors like me may already have one (not yet!).
>As far as the color, chip collectors refer to that color
>chip as "purple". If you look at it next to a normal
>"gray" CerDIP, you can see the difference. Besides,
>it would not have mattered had it been black. The fact
>is, it's not the white/gold color of a normal Intel
>C8080A. The printing on the chip is also somewhat different. My guess is
>it's a late run C8080A that was
It's very late run ceramic. Ceramic for chip substrates only comes from a
few
vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far east and
Europe.
It was part of the reason why ceramic parts were more expensive and also
a near must if the part was required to pass tests for hermetic sealing
(military,
space or other high stress apps).
Ceramic aging/dating:
Starting with the 1960s ceramic was white.
early White
examples were
early military Flatpacks(RTL/DTL/TTL)
1101, 1103 ram
1702 eprom
first brown parts I'd seen were 2708s
brown (light)
later dark brown
Gray
Gray with brownish cast
Gray with purplish cast
Those were the most common. Eproms were generaltionally in the common
ceramic of the time.
Allison
back then I was involved in that stuff and 99% of the Dram problems were
design
related and not alpha particle. To see the alpha particle in real apps
you'd need
a box that had thouands of them running 7x24 for weeks! S100 systems that
ran
that well were prone to the power company failing to deliver before ram
failure was
a problem!
Back in that time frame I used static ram due to the general flakyness I
preceived
of most S100 cards. The best S100 ram I'd used for that time frame (1980)
had
an 8202( Netronics DRAM using 16Ks).
Allison
From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
>> Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics were described as
>having
>> too much radioactivity for use in high-density memories. I'm not sure
that
>was,
>> in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought so. Do you suppose
>they
>> fixed that? Coors was a leader, in the '60's in porcelain tooling and
other
>> such oddities, not to mention having "perfected" the draw-and-iron
process
>for
>> making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.
>
>My 8k EconoRAM IV, one of the first S-100 boards to use DRAM, used the
>very chips that supposedly had that problem. I've been told mine are
>OK, but it used to be a bit flaky; however, I always blamed that on
>the state of the early S-100 systems and my soldering work on the SOL
>to which it was attached... I solder *much* better now... -dq
>
Not quite true.
The Dram problem was one of those "we knew it was comming" due
to shrinking geometry items. The source of the radiation was the Gold
eutectic braze. The specific radiation was alpha particles. FYI the
solution was organic based die overcoat. Testing for the phenomina was
undertaken to verify and analyze the phenomina by NEC,IBM and MOTO
(to name a few) using initally small geometry 16k single voltage (i2118
style) parts.
FYI: the coors ceramic parts were morecostly due to the gold! They
however were better for hermetic performance than slab with glass frit
sealed packages.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 11:00 AM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics were described as
having
>too much radioactivity for use in high-density memories. I'm not sure that
was,
>in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought so. Do you suppose
they
>fixed that? Coors was a leader, in the '60's in porcelain tooling and
other
>such oddities, not to mention having "perfected" the draw-and-iron process
for
>making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.
>
>Dick
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Douglas Quebbeman" <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
>To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 7:37 AM
>Subject: RE: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>
>
>> > It's very late run ceramic. Ceramic for chip substrates only comes
>from a
>> > few vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far east
and
>> > Europe.
>>
>> heh... actually, Adolph Coors spun-off its non-brewery assets in 1992
>> into ACX Technologies, and most recently, CoorsTek (formerly Coors
>> Ceramics) was spun-off into a wholly separate company on Jan 1, 2000.
>>
>> -dq
>>
>>
>
>
All,
....and then there's the rest of the tape. Miles and miles of
9-track tapes are stacked in my office and I want my office back. I rescued
about 1/3 of the to-dispose pile, the rest went to the dumpster. If I'm
industrious, I may try ebaying this if you guys don't want it, but I'd
rather it go to a classic-comp-er. If I'm not industrious, I'll dumpster it
when I need my office bad enough.
Mostly Scotch Black Watch 700 or 777 tape, mostly 12-inch reels,
but lots of Memorex and smaller reels available too. Practically all is
6250 or 1600 cpi certified. A variety of closures, mostly the plastic rings
and hangers. Write-enable rings mostly in place. The first 2 orders will
get a bonus black 3-tape carrying case with nice webbing straps to hold it
closed and serve as a handle.
I have around 400 of these tapes, so please do not be shy about how
many you request, at least within the constraints of your shipping budget.
- Mark
All,
More interesting media to get rid of from San Antonio, Texas. This
is a stack of 4 DEC RA-60P disk packs, in their carrying cases, and one
extra carrying case (that pack is probably still in the drive, wherever it
is). Media look to be in OK shape physically, but may be dirty inside.
Contact me at mtapley(a)swri.edu or phone (210)-522-6025 to arrange
pack/ship.
- Mark
All,
I have a stack of Convex 9-track tapes for somebody to make
disappear by paying for boxing/shipping or by picking up, from San Antonio,
Texas. Included in the stack are:
7 inch diameter reels:
Convex Veclib USA V4.0 Dec 13 1988
Convex Veclib V5.0 Jan 31 1990
Convex COVUEdt V1.2 Aug 7 1990
Convex COVUEdt V1.1 Aug 22 1989
Convex CXbatch V1.1 Jun 12 1990
Convex C Compiler V4.0 Jul 19 1990
Convex C Compiler V3.0 Dec 28 1989
Convex OS PatchV8.0.1 Mar 6 1990
Convex OS V8.1 (C1) Jul 19 1990
Convex OS V8.0 (C1) Jan 31 1990
Convex CXBatch V2.0 Dec 22 1990
Convex Fortran V6.0 Jun 12 1990
Convex Fortran V5.1.1.0 Aug 22 1989
Convex 1990 User Group May 10 1990
Utilities v1.0 Jul 19 1990
user grp 1991 Jul 10 1991
tape hand-labelled "bind stuff"
tape hand-labelled "SNMP source"
tape hand-labelled "8.0 patches 3-15-90"
******
tape hand-labelled "Convex user group tape mh (v6.4)
perl v1.29 from lwall@devvax:jpl.nasa.gov."
******
11 inch diameter reel:
ConvexOS V8.0 Jan 31, 1990
Tapes are generally Memorex, all have the gold Convex label on
them. None have been tested probably for decades, and I'm pretty sure they
were stored in warehouses in San Antonio. They look to be in good physical
shape.
ATTENTION Convex computer representatives! If there is any reason I should
not make these tapes available, please notify me at the below addres and I
will comply with your wishes.
Any interested parties should contact me at mtapley(a)swri.edu, or by
phone at (210)-522-6025. Questions welcome, offers to ship more welcome. I
can't keep them for very long.
- Mark
Indeed, it may have been a mech sample.
I have DEC DCT-310s with ES written on them, they were actual
engineering samples for the VT240 team (near same time as Falcon
card develpoment). Mine came from when the Engineering junkbox.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Monday, November 19, 2001 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>I've got one pretty old MOTOROLA device, in a 40-pin DIP, the identity of
which
>is a complete mystery to me. In fact, I may have tossed it not long ago,
but
>all it said on it aside from a MOT date code was "Sample." Maybe it was a
>mechanincal ...
>
>Dick
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Allison" <ajp166(a)bellatlantic.net>
>To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
>Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 6:38 AM
>Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
>
>
>> From: John Galt <gmphillips(a)earthlink.net>
>>
>> >There's a rather small community of chip collectors.
>> >
>> >However, there are a few collectors who have been
>> >collecting for over 10 years now who have put togather
>> >pretty vast collections of literally thousands of chips.
>>
>>
>> My only concern is they may be collecting junk, IE: chips that
>> look good, may be rare but are DEAD/useless electronically.
>>
>> >It would be the same as if suddenly someone found
>> >two Intelec bit slice 3002 computers dated 1975 in a closet or
something.
>> >Sure, there might could be more, but if they were common, you guys
would
>> >have already seen one.
>>
>>
>> These were quite common and the basic chipset on an experimentors board
>> was around $495 in 1977. Most were used then relagated to the
engineering
>> junk box. So I'd presume when you say rare, your referring to actively
>> traded
>> survivors as SBC colltors like me may already have one (not yet!).
>>
>> >As far as the color, chip collectors refer to that color
>> >chip as "purple". If you look at it next to a normal
>> >"gray" CerDIP, you can see the difference. Besides,
>> >it would not have mattered had it been black. The fact
>> >is, it's not the white/gold color of a normal Intel
>> >C8080A. The printing on the chip is also somewhat different. My guess
is
>> >it's a late run C8080A that was
>>
>>
>> It's very late run ceramic. Ceramic for chip substrates only comes from
a
>> few
>> vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far east and
>> Europe.
>> It was part of the reason why ceramic parts were more expensive and also
>> a near must if the part was required to pass tests for hermetic sealing
>> (military,
>> space or other high stress apps).
>>
>> Ceramic aging/dating:
>>
>> Starting with the 1960s ceramic was white.
>>
>> early White
>>
>> examples were
>> early military Flatpacks(RTL/DTL/TTL)
>> 1101, 1103 ram
>> 1702 eprom
>>
>> first brown parts I'd seen were 2708s
>>
>> brown (light)
>> later dark brown
>> Gray
>> Gray with brownish cast
>> Gray with purplish cast
>>
>> Those were the most common. Eproms were generaltionally in the common
>> ceramic of the time.
>>
>> Allison
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>heh... actually, Adolph Coors spun-off its non-brewery assets in 1992
>into ACX Technologies, and most recently, CoorsTek (formerly Coors
>Ceramics) was spun-off into a wholly separate company on Jan 1, 2000.
>
>-dq
I know but, in reference to collectable chips it was true to the most part.
I just didn't want to wear out the list with minute details.
Allison
> Back in the early days of 64k DRAMs, the COORS ceramics were described as
having
> too much radioactivity for use in high-density memories. I'm not sure that
was,
> in fact, the case, but somebody seems to have thought so. Do you suppose
they
> fixed that? Coors was a leader, in the '60's in porcelain tooling and other
> such oddities, not to mention having "perfected" the draw-and-iron process
for
> making thin-walled aluminum beverage cans.
My 8k EconoRAM IV, one of the first S-100 boards to use DRAM, used the
very chips that supposedly had that problem. I've been told mine are
OK, but it used to be a bit flaky; however, I always blamed that on
the state of the early S-100 systems and my soldering work on the SOL
to which it was attached... I solder *much* better now... -dq
All,
SwRI is scrapping a big analog recorder rack. Top end contains a
reel-to-reel recorder with big (ie around 24" diameter) tape reels. Model
number looks like EB-3030 or EP-3030. Bottom end of the rack contains a row
of Ampex "Monitor Oscilloscope" devices, what looks like an
amplifier/signal conditioning box, labelled "Datum tape search and control
unit", and a "Datum Time code Generator" with day/hour/min/sec readout.
To go with this is a big *heavy* stack of the tapes it uses.
Yours for shipping or pickup from San Antonio, Texas. I have
digital pictures, 4 jpegs at about 500k each, if you want to see better or
want to web-host, and I can go check specifics if you have specific
questions.
I need a commitment this week if you want it, though, as we need
the space, else we have to trash/recycle.
Please contact me off-list, I'm way behind on reading my digests.
I'm at mtapley(a)swri.edu, or phone (210)-522-6025.
- Mark
"Curt Vendel" <curt(a)atari-history.com> wrote:
(Re: Corvus floppy disk controllers)
> If you run across the schematic I would be willing to pay for any copying
> and postage, thanks again Frank.
Take a look at:
http://www.reanimators.org/tmp/corvus-fdc.d300.tiffhttp://www.reanimators.org/tmp/corvus-fdc.d600.tiff
Both are TIFF class F group 4 scans, one is at 300 DPI, one is at 600
DPI. The "original" that I have is a crappy photocopy so, well, good
luck reading them. I'll talk to Al and see if he wants to adopt these
or point me to a better scan.
The 8" floppy controller also has a space on the board for a
34-pin connector, but it's not stuffed.
I got this controller and schematic from an advertisement in Computer
Shopper in the mid-to-late 1980s, offering an 8" floppy controller for
the Apple ][. Sadly, at the time I didn't have a WDC 1793 data sheet
so my efforts at programming the thing were frustrated and I got
distracted by other things.
Then there's the 5.25" floppy drive. I got that out too and had
a look at it.
The drive is a Corvus model FLP-5, Rev C, s/n 404-G1018-. It's a
metal upright case screwed together and to a half-height 5.25" floppy
drive, in this case a TEC FB504 (which is a double-sided "quad
density" 720KB drive, so I'm guessing 96 tracks per inch) strapped for
DS0 and with terminating resistor pack installed.
The 5.25" drive is connected to a different controller. The
silkscreen on the board calls it a "BUFFERED FLOPPY CONTROLLER", and
there's a handwritten part number, "8010-10149 REV A". It's laid out
differently and is clearly a different design: it's got a NEC D765AC
FDC, and also has a power connector through which the controller card
supplies power to the drive; the power cable and a 34-pin flat cable are
bundled together in a sort of plastic zip-lock wrapper.
I've no idea what this 5.25" drive was used with. Along about 1996
there were some cleanouts of cupboards and storage rooms at The
Wollongong Group (where I worked at the time), and there was this
drive and controller (which I got) and a Corvus hard disk (which I
didn't get). I didn't see a Concept there. I do know that several
folks came from Corvus to Wollongong in the mid-1980s (before I got
there) and guess that they brought this stuff with them.
-Frank McConnell
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> Not to create an issue, but under Windows, that doesn't often
> happen, though
> it's possible, I guess. <ducks to avoid flames> What could
> be going on?
You do realize that you ought to be comparing Mac system 7.x with Windows
3.1? Granted, the OS was frozen in that state for a very long time, but
originally, that was its primary alternative.
Windows 3.1 is not famous for being a real-time system, either ;)
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com]
> however. I tried to
> initialize a diskette, and had to wait about 5 minutes after
> the process ended
> before it would let me do anything else, though it did
> eventually let me back at
> it.
That's pretty normal. It will take it a while to flush buffers and wake
back up -- rather, that's what I assume it's doing... :)
> Funny thing, though, is that I remember people claiming that
> MAC OS was
> multitasking. Windows allows me to play a game or whatever
> when I start off on
> a time-consuming task. This guy doesn't seem to want to do
> that. I had to try
> it on the second machine just to verify that the thing was
> not just bum
> hardware. It worked the same on the second box as well.
This gets really tangled right about now. What's your deffinition of
multitasking? Is the hardware capable of it? Yes. The software? Well,
It's co-operative. If you'd asked microsoft about their definition before
Abomination '95, they'd have told you that co-operative multitasking is
still multitasking too...
I have yet to figure out why they couldn't have done the disk reads/writes
in the background while you do some other things. I believe it's likely to
be a "left-over" from early days.
Funny thing is that if you can find a file-manager or the like that will
format disks/copy files, it's pretty likely that you can work around this
particular problem.
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gwynp(a)artware.qc.ca [mailto:gwynp@artware.qc.ca]
> You're best bet is to buy a Mac Addict or other magazine that
> has a CD-ROM
> (you do have a CD drive?). Older Macs don't "boot-strap"
> very well. Yes,
> you can get a SEA (self-extracting archive) of Stuffit, but
> it won't do
> you much good. Mac OS has 2 forks per file. One for data, the other
> for code. When you download a file or when you copy a file from a PC
> formated disk everything goes into the data fork. Doing something
> equivalent to "chmod +x file.sea" is impossible on Mac OS without an
> external program, like say Stuffit. *sigh* If you are
> lucky, you'll have
> a recent version of Mac OS which includes Stuffit.
Well, if you'd like a home-baked solution (possibly home half-baked. :), you
can write Macintosh 1.4 meg disks on a peesee type machine (or unix box).
I can possibly provide code for an hfs loadable module for linux, and a
rather generic set of c programs that will read/write mac filesystems.
With that software, and an archive that you can extract the stuffit binary
from, you'd be able to write the proper resource fork to the disk as well,
and have the macintosh know what to do with your program.
> I find this to be one of the most incredible "features" of
> Mac OS. Apart
> from that, as long as you have a real computer nearby, using
> a Mac isn't
> that bad.
I feel the need to defend this "feature." In so much as this allows you to
separate data from code, this is a wonderful idea. The problem, really, is
that apple left their o/s unfinished, and didn't include the proper
utilities to manipulate these things that the system depends so heavily
upon.
Regards,
Chris
Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL
/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
> It's very late run ceramic. Ceramic for chip substrates only comes from a
> few vendors one being a beer maker in the rockies a few in the far east and
> Europe.
heh... actually, Adolph Coors spun-off its non-brewery assets in 1992
into ACX Technologies, and most recently, CoorsTek (formerly Coors
Ceramics) was spun-off into a wholly separate company on Jan 1, 2000.
-dq
Guangzhou Panyu Hengli Resort of Agriculture is going to be wholly auctioned
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In a message dated 11/18/2001 9:37:31 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com writes:
<< At 08:50 PM 11/18/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Where can I purchase Mattell football 2 1978?
for what platform? >>
I'm sure he's talking a handheld game.
Newsgroups: mailinglist.classiccmp
Path: gateway
From: allain(a)panix.com (John Allain)
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
Date: 19 Nov 01 14:05:09 GMT
Sender: Steve Kostecke <steve(a)kostecke.net>
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>Why are chip collectors so frowned upon on this mailing list?
One respondant doesn't represent the whole list, as you are
now learning. If you are new here then welcome.
John A.
If you aren't, then my apologies.
Newsgroups: mailinglist.classiccmp
Path: gateway
From: gmphillips(a)earthlink.net (John Galt)
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
Date: 19 Nov 01 12:34:44 GMT
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There's a rather small community of chip collectors.
However, there are a few collectors who have been
collecting for over 10 years now who have put togather
pretty vast collections of literally thousands of chips.
These collectors have pretty much seen everything.
Its pretty rare now that something shows up that these
collectors have never seen before and the fact that
they have never seen it, by definiton makes it rare.
It would be the same as if suddenly someone found
two Intelec bit slice 3002 computers dated 1975 in a closet or something.
Sure, there might could be more, but if they were common, you guys would
have already seen one.
As far as the color, chip collectors refer to that color
chip as "purple". If you look at it next to a normal
"gray" CerDIP, you can see the difference. Besides,
it would not have mattered had it been black. The fact
is, it's not the white/gold color of a normal Intel
C8080A. The printing on the chip is also somewhat different. My guess is
it's a late run C8080A that was
put in the same package they used for some of the later
C8085AH's.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sellam Ismail" <foo(a)siconic.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 1:23 AM
Subject: Re: Intel C8080A chip brings $565 on EBAY
> On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, John Galt wrote:
>
> > Well, it was one of only two known rare purple Intel C8080A's
>
> Do you care to explain this?
>
> It certainly doesn't look purple in the photo.
>
> How do you know it is only one of two? Known by whom? Where do they come
> from? If it is purple, why? What's the significance?
>
> > If you have any old Intel 4004, 8008, 4040, or 8080 microprocessors
> > laying around, I want them.
>
> Sorry, I'm keeping mine. If I wanted them to end up on eBay I'd put them
> there myself.
>
> Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer
Festival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
> International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
>
>
All three tape drives (both 9-trackers and the Giagstore) have been spoken for. My thanks to all those who mailed in about them, and to the list participants for bearing with my ad(s).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy,
Blue Feather Technologies -- http://www.bluefeathertech.com
ARS KC7GR (Formerly WD6EOS) since 12-77 -- kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com
"I'll get a life when someone demonstrates that it would be superior
to what I have now..." (Taki Kogoma, aka Gym Z. Quirk)
> Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 11:13:51 -0700
> From: "Richard Erlacher" <edick(a)idcomm.com>
> Subject: Re: OT: paging MAC expert(s) --- What's a Performa?
>
> Right now, I'm pretty concerned about how to crack open the box without
> breaking
> it, so I can inspect the hard disk to see what it is, physically. Does
> anybody
> have a recipe for doing that?
I think I saw someone offer you the service manual. If not, contact me
off-line for a copy (pdf).
In short, on the underside of the front bezel are two tabs. You need to use
a large flat screwdriver, in a twistint motion, to release them. At that
point, the whole front should come off.
The hard drive is behind a shield under the floppy drive. IIRC, you need to
remove one screw to remove the shield. The drive is on a sled with a release
tab.
> Moreover, I imagine I'll use one of the considerably larger IDE types I've set
> aside from PC use to replace the drives now in the machines. It's safe to
> assume, however, that NOT any IDE drive will work, since Apple Computers, Inc.
> didn't like folks buying hardware at a resonable price from someone else
> rather
> than allowing Apple to gouge them. (part of the MAC culture, I guess)
True for SCSI drives. Oddly enough, Apple's Drive Setup will deal with
pretty much any IDE drive.
I
> note,
> also, that the CDROM is SCSI. That being the case, I'd like to see whether
> there's room for a SCSI HDD in the box. There certainly is room in the system
> (logically). That would work even better, since I have lots of extra SCSI
> drives.
The problem is, that in the 630 series, the only internal connectors to the
SCSI chain are in the CD-ROM bay. Better to stay with IDE drives internally
(nothing to stop you from an external SCSI drive).
> Have any of you MAC gurus got experience with replacing MAC IDE
> drives?
You're limited to PIO mode 3 (max). Also, Western Digital drives over about
1.2GB don't seem to work correctly. Mine has a 3GB Seagate drive, though it
came to me with a 600mb WD drive and I briefly installed a 500mb Quantum.
The big thing you need is a copy of Drive Setup.
> It looks as though the drives in the boxes are 250 MB or so, which might be
> adequate for some things, but I doubt it would be adequate for internet
> activity.
Hmm... I think that's a matter of perspective. MacOS and a browser will fit
well enough. Just not a lot of room left for downloads, etc.
<<<John>>>
Hi,
I have a big pile of DEC BC16D-25 cable. It has one Centronics
like connector on each end. The connectors have 36 pins. I have
absolutely no clue what these cables are for. They came with
my recent VAX treck that included a VAX6000 cluster and a
DEC Server 90.
If you know what this cable is used for or if you want it,
please let me know. I have at least one or 2 dozen of those.
If nobody wants it I'll probably have to throw it out.
regards
-Gunther
--
Gunther Schadow, M.D., Ph.D. gschadow(a)regenstrief.org
Medical Information Scientist Regenstrief Institute for Health Care
Adjunct Assistant Professor Indiana University School of Medicine
tel:1(317)630-7960 http://aurora.regenstrief.org
Ed -
I think I may be able to help. I have several units - a Type 'N Talk
and a Personal Speech System. Which model do you have? If it's the
TNT, here is an online manual:
http://members.tripod.com/werdav/txtospm1.html If it's the PSS, I'll
need a few days to dig it out.
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols
Would you be willing to post a digital pic or two? I know someone who
may be able to use these as spares for his system, if they're from
the right equipment.
-dq
> Speaking of CDC, among the junk I'm cleaning out of my basement there's a
> partial backplane out
> of an old CDC something-or-other, connected to a panel with 2
> AC outlets
> (Monitor & Data Set), a fuse and a DB25 for the Data Set.
> There's also an
> acoustic delay line and a large resistor/diode
> matrix board which I think came from the same piece. Maybe a 60's era
> terminal???
>
> 3 rows of cards; the two top rows A & B have 25 slots for 4
> 1/2x6", double
> sided 31 edge
> connectors cards, some with 10 test points along the edge and each
> populated with one or two
> dozen gold 10 pin TO5 cans marked M (as in Motorola) 115,
> 116, 117, 118
> with what I assume are
> date codes like 6624, 6644, and 6636.
>
> The bottom row, C, 32 slots, contains a few smaller cards with pin
> connectors that appear to be
> some kind of programming cards, just containing jumper wires.
>
> Anybody recognize these and maybe even have a use for a card
> or two, or can
> I throw them out
> without feeling guilty?
>
> mike
>
>
>
> as long as you have a real computer nearby
BWAAAA-HAAA-HAA-HAAA!!!
>What's the use of a Mac of that vintage (ie, old and slow but not
>classic)?
The list goes on and on. Check www.lowendmac.com for some pointers... but
basically, it can do pretty much everything a "regular" home user would
want. Internet, basic office work, graphics, games (albeit, if you want
REAL gaming, buy a console or a "toy" computer that uses Windows).
>I have a Centris 660av that I use for testing web pages on
>older macintosh versions of Netscape and MSIE.
The 660AV will also allow you to do video in/out, and some video editing
(with the right software).
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
Hi guys,
I've got a Cypher F880 tape drive here, and I was wondering if the docs
made it onto the net anywhere :&)
As an aside - I don't have any tapes - so if there's anyone in the UK
with some tapes I could have, I'd be most grateful :&)
Thanks,
-- Matt
---
Web Page:
http://knm.yi.org/http://pkl.net/~matt/
PGP Key fingerprint = 00BF 19FE D5F5 8EAD 2FD5 D102 260E 8BA7 EEE4 8D7F
PGP Key http://knm.yi.org/matt-pgp.html
>This box has been at it (rebuilding desktop file) since 2:30 this
>afternoon and
>hasn't yet finished booting. I suspect there's a problem, as it
>previously took
>only a minute or two. It won't let me do anything other than shut down.
>I've
>rebooted it once, and it simply went back to what is was doing, which doesn't
>seem to be leading anywhere.
Are you actually seeing a message "Rebuilding desktop on drive ---"?
You shouldn't get that just at boot time unless the desktop database is
corrupt (or unless you instructed it to rebuild by holding command and
option before the desktop was shown).
If it is hung while trying to rebuild (you should hear the hard drive
clicking, and the progress bar should be moving... may be slowly, but it
should move... a 250mb drive, even fully loaded on a 68k machine
shouldn't take more than 10 minutes to rebuild).
So... if it is hung, and you rebooted the machine, and it hung AGAIN...
then chances are REALLY REALLY good your drive format is damaged. The
best bet here, reformat the drive (and run the test on it to verify the
drive itself is not bad). Or, since you want to upgrade the drive... just
do that and don't worry about the 250 at all.
If on the other hand, you are just hung during boot (little icons going
across the bottom of the screen, Welcome to Macintosh splash screen is
still showing)... then you probably have a bad extension. Reboot the
computer, and right after you hear the BONG, hold down the shift key
until you see "Welcome To Macintosh Extensions Disabled" on the screen
(the extensions disabled will be written below the welcome to mac). Then
it should finish booting normally. You can try doing a restart after that
(special menu, choose Restart), but it might hang again. Better choice,
go to the Apple menu, go to Control Panels, go to Extension Manager,
choose "Base" from the popup. Again, this problem will go away if you
reformat and reinstall the OS. (I really really think you should just do
that before you mess with the machines anymore... it will save you a
bundle of heartache... at the VERY least, run Disk First Aid, and let it
repair the disk if needed... and then do a clean install of the OS)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
>No offense, but I have no plan to become "MAC-Literate" beyond the point of
>ensuring the basic health of these two computers before I give them away
>to some
>poor, unsuspecting person who has access to MAC help and less such access to
>competent PC help.
hehe, yeah, but that mac is so damn easy to learn, you may become
"mac-literate" by accident just in your quick use.
>Since one of the people to whom I'm planning to give one of
>these is a single woman who volunteers at the women's shelter where I have
>been
>a volunteer for about a decade, I don't want her to be tying up my phone, or,
>worse, getting the wrong impression about my intentions, as she also works at
>the school where my boys went a few years back, which is the first place I
>met
>her. Though it's no secret I'm not married, I've already got all the women I
>need, plus about 10% (exactly one).
Definitly just reformat and start from scratch then. If you are giving
them away, no sense even messing around trying to get the software
working as it. Reformat, reinstall, and hand them off knowing they will
work fine when YOU give them away.
>While it's a generous offer, I'll try to get by with the CD's I've got on
>hand
>for now, as those are accompanied with the registrations, documentation that
>comes with these boxes, etc, and I'd like everything at least to appear to
>be on
>the up-and-up, copyright-law-wise. Whereas I may sometimes play things
>fast-and-loose with "borrowed" software, etc, I'd prefer not to promulgate
>those
>attitudes and practices into the new-user community where they might be seen
>differently than I see them.
Actually, System 7.5.5 is freely available from Apple's web site. So if
you have the tools, you can make a bootable OS install disk yourself, and
distribute it with the Mac, safely, and legally. I assume you DON'T have
the tools (like another Mac with a CD burner and a copy of Toast), so if
you want one, I will make one for you and mail it over to you (free of
charge, since it will really only cost me less than a buck a disk with
postage).
>BTW, what does the "Backup" function do? It seems to want to copy things to
>floppies, but can it also copy things to an external SCSI drive? How
>about to a
>SCSI tape?
UGH... no, that means the machines probably didn't come with a restore
CD. To cut costs with the performa line, apple stopped shipping them with
install disks. Instead, they made a little "Backup" program, and you were
supposed to purchase a box (a big box, since it needs like 25 or 50) of
disks, and run the backup program. It would then create the install disks
for you, to hang on to until the day you needed to reinstall. Annoying to
say the least. Unfortuantly, the backup program will ONLY write to
floppies, so you can't hook up a scsi tape drive and go to that (besides,
the Mac has no built in drivers for a tape drive, so you would need
software like Retrospect to access it anyway).
I can probably hunt down a set of install disks for the Performa 630 (I
might actually have such already, I have to see if I got the original
software with one of them that I recovered) if you need them. Sounds like
you might already have the original software CDs. If one is called
Software Restore, then you are good to go, but that backup program makes
me think you don't have it (I think I have one for a Performa 638CD,
which is basically the same machine, slightly different bundle). If I
have it, I can always make you two copies of it (again, since you have
the machine they go to, there should be nothing legally wrong with
getting copies from me).
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
On Nov 9, 20:42, Sipke de Wal wrote:
> Marmite is a kinda fermented soya molasses that
> you can spread on a cheese-sandwich.
I suppose it has a consistency something like molasses (certainly more like
that than like pate) but it contains neither molasses nor soya. It's
almost all yeast extract (leftover from brewing, originally).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
> With a
>half-GB HDD, which was "stock" with the '630,
Actually the 630 came stock with a 250mb drive. The 631 had the 500mb.
Others in the 63x series had either 250's or 350's.
>I've got to say this was a
>MINIMALLY equipped computer, though the popular functions all seem to be
>there.
>I'm not at all certain how they (Apple) got all that functionality out of the
>clearly limited resources.
That is because, up until OS 8, the Mac OS needed very little to run.
When compared to Windows, the MacOS was AMAZINGLY fast, stable, and
compact. OS 8 changed the RAM requirements because it moved the Mac ROM
>from the logic board, to the hard drive (and thus, into RAM when the OS
was running). This caused a spike in the OS RAM requirements. (7.5.5 can
run in 4mb, 7.6 in 8mb but 8.0 jumps to 32mb)
>I do believe
>the typical PC of the time had a larger (14") monitor
IIRC, the entire performa color screen line came a 14" monitor (various
revision, but all were 14... the 630 was probably the Performa Plus
display). So the larger monitor point isn't really valid.
>yet overall system cost
>was about 20% less than this model.
Yup.. ok, ya got me there. This was during the fairly obvious days of
Mac's being more expensive for what you got out of it (20% ?, you are
being nice)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
>Right now, one of the two boxes is sitting, and has been for several hours,
>trying to reconstruct the work surface, or whatever it's called. It doesn't
>look as though it needs that service, but the machine won't go beyond that
>point. It's about 4:45 now and it's been at it since about 2:30. I'm
>inclined
>to try a backup on the other machine, if that's possible.
Sounds like you may have a problem with the OS. Unless you know the
direct history of these machines (ie: you know everything that has been
run and installed on them), I would recommend you reformat and reinstall
the OS from scratch. Sitting waiting for the Finder do come up is
definatly NOT normal. You mentioned in a previous post that you had
problems with the mouse cursor freezing for a while, and then coming
back... that shouldn't happen, and the fact that it does really tells me
you have something wrong. Could be an extension conflict, could be a
virus, could be a corrupt file. But since you aren't a very mac literate
person (yet... once you start using it, you will catch on fast), you are
best off just wiping the drive and installing the OS from scratch.
You can download System 7.5.5 from Apple's web site, or if you want it on
a bootable CD, let me know, I will be happy to send you one. If you have
the CD that came with the Mac, it should let you totally restore the
drive to factory settings... unfortunatly, I don't recall if the Performa
630 came with a restore CD or not (I know earlier performa's did not, I
am just not sure if apple started supplying it when they started shipping
ones with internal CDs). If you DO have a restore CD for that machine,
then I would recommend you just run it. That will put you back to a
fresh, stable environment, with some basic applications that you can use.
>From there, you can move to more advanced stuff.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
In a message dated 11/17/2001 10:36:49 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gwynp(a)artware.qc.ca writes:
<< What's the use of a Mac of that vintage (ie, old and slow but not
classic)? I have a Centris 660av that I use for testing web pages on
older macintosh versions of Netscape and MSIE. Of course, finding a 68k
version of MSIE is something of a challenge.
-Philip >>
What's the use of an old mac? I guess you haven't played crystal quest on a
mac plus yet! heh.
I figure with the "stuff" people in this group latch onto someone might have
one of these. I presently have a WangDAT 3200 (2/4gb DDS1 tape) drive with
the narrow faceplate and I want to put it into the external SCSI case I have
now with my other 3200. Problem being that it's the 3.5" mount and that it
won't really go into a 5.25 to 3.5" adapter as it's as tall as a 5.25" half
height drive desoite it being only 3.5" wide. That basically makes it 1.5x
as tall as a normal 3.5" floppy drive - no go for a regular adapter.
Both Mountain and WangDAT made an adapter for 5.25" for these 2 drives
specifically consisting of a 5.25" faceplate and two 3.5" to 5.25" side
brackets (about the same as a standard adapter has). If anyone has a JUNK
3100 or 3200 drive around they want to get rid of, parts or left overs from
one or even a spare good drive (3100 or 3200) they want to sell cjeap then
drop me a direct note or on the list. I will contact you direct. If you have
a drive with the 5.25" face and want to swap to the smaller 3.5" then that
works too as I have an extra 3.5" faceplate I can mail out in advance.
Thanks in advance.
>Right now, I'm pretty concerned about how to crack open the box without
>breaking
>it, so I can inspect the hard disk to see what it is, physically. Does
>anybody
>have a recipe for doing that?
This is going off memory of upgrading a 6360 (same case design)... if you
want exact, I can email again on Monday when I am in front of a 630.
To remove the logic board: On the back, there are two plastic tabs, push
them lightly, remove the plastic face plate. Remove the two screws on
either side under the face plate. Pull on the handle, the board will
slide out.
To remove drives: Flip the unit over, look at the front, you will see two
push tabs holding the front face plate on. Push the tabs, remove the
plate. The drives are on sleds, to remove a drive, push the locking tab
on the sled, remove sled and drive.
>Moreover, I imagine I'll use one of the considerably larger IDE types I've
>set
>aside from PC use to replace the drives now in the machines. It's safe to
>assume, however, that NOT any IDE drive will work, since Apple Computers,
>Inc.
>didn't like folks buying hardware at a resonable price from someone else
>rather
>than allowing Apple to gouge them. (part of the MAC culture, I guess) I
>note,
>also, that the CDROM is SCSI. That being the case, I'd like to see whether
>there's room for a SCSI HDD in the box. There certainly is room in the
>system
>(logically). That would work even better, since I have lots of extra SCSI
>drives. Have any of you MAC gurus got experience with replacing MAC IDE
>drives?
There is no room in the case to add a 2nd internal drive, and running
cables to replace the IDE with SCSI will be a bitch. Also, if you use
SCSI, you are limited to using Apple approved drives, or you need 3rd
party formating software (or a hacked version of apple's software). If
you stick with IDE, you can use any drive you want, of any size you want
(I am almost 100% positive apple has no problems using drives larger than
8gig on 68k machines... but you might want to double check before buying
a 40 gig and hoping to use it... of course there are OS limitations on
the size of a partition on older versions of the OS, don't remember
details right now). Either way, you are safe to stick an older multi gig
IDE drive into the 630 without a problem. Apple's software will recognize
it just fine. Just remember that 68k machines can't use HFS+ formatting,
so keep your drive partitions under 4 gig, or you will be wasting TONS of
space on the drive.
>It looks as though the drives in the boxes are 250 MB or so, which might be
>adequate for some things, but I doubt it would be adequate for internet
>activity.
Actually, internet activity is probably what will be happiest on the
250mb drive. I think you are thinking Windows size applications. For
Email you can use Eudora or Emailer (both about 3mb), Web can be iCab
(about 3mb and actively under development). Fetch 3.0 has a 68k version
that is about 2mb for FTP. And a plethora of other 68k friendly internet
software (check www.macorchard.com).
Throw in a copy of AppleWorks 5, and you have decent office apps. (or go
all out with things like Nisus Writer, FileMaker Pro 3 or 4, not sure on
spreadsheet but there are good options). If you make a mild attempt to
lead a Microsoft free life, you will be AMAZED at the stability, small
size, and speed of applications out there... all that are just as good
(and in most cases BETTER). If you need to talk to MS documents, just
grab a copy of MacLink Plus (although, the latest versions are PPC only,
so getting access to the latest MS doc formats on a 68k machine can be a
bit trickier... but still doable without too much effort).
If you have 1 or 2 gig IDE drives sitting around anyway, why not use
them. More important than upgrading the drive in my book would be to deck
out the 630 with RAM by adding a 32mb chip. Once you have the ram, you
can run OS 8.1 if you would like (in my opinion, it runs smoother and
faster than 7.6.1, and is more stable than 7.5.5... but YMMV). OS 8.1
opens you up to even more good 68k software.
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>
On Nov 17, 16:51, Dave McGuire wrote:
> Well, as long as "dead" can be defined as "salespeople don't want to
> sell you a new one". For me, it can't. I can pick up the phone and
> buy PDP8 equipment from a commercial vendor. How long ago was THAT
> architecture discontinued?
Real Soon Now, according to people who still have them on support. Or
about 1995, (yes, that's two '9's there) according to the copyright on the
PCB etch of the memory board in the PDP-8/E I recently acquired :-)
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York