> I am of the school of thought that figures the only reason for quoting
> previous content is to provide context so the new message will make
> sense. Following this reasoning, the context should be established
> first. HOWEVER, it is very important to trim the quote so that it
> only provides enough context and doesn't go overboard and turn into
> spam. Ever seen the TV program "The West Wing"? They start most
> programs with a short "previously on The West Wing..."-bit. It comes
> first (so the following program will make sense) and it is shorter
> than the new program (even though it covers more territory--the idea
> is that it be the new stuff that is important).
I hate to be such a ditto-head, but... what Kent said.
-dq
Any fine metal cleaner should work, just apply with a Q-Tip
and rinse well with water.
IBM uses a dilute phosphoric acid solution, as does HP.
I normally use 00 or finer steel wool, and just a little.
I've also used commercial jewelery cleaner, and above
mentioned Q-Tip..
Jim
On Wednesday, August 15, 2001 1:30 AM, Chad Fernandez
[SMTP:fernande@internet1.net] wrote:
> pull
> the socketed ram chips and clean them. I have heard of some Apple //
> guys using some sort of cleaner on chips.... I think it was something
> like TarnX, or something found at the grocery store. Maybe Tony
> could
> recommend something, too.
>
> Chad Fernandez
> Michigan, USA
>
>
> Matt Wilda wrote:
> > > I sold the PC on Ebay after I was tired of it.
> >
> > Yeah, I'm the guy that bought it :-) This is your old PC. BTW, a
> > friend of mine was able to get me another monitor for it.
> >
> > I'll try messing with it a little more this afternoon. Thanks to
> > everyone for the suggestions.
Hi,
I've got a PS/2 keyboard (IBM keyboards were the best thing to happen to
PC keyboard IMHO, apart from the first one) but unfortunatly the cable is
going on this one. I was wondering if anyone would have such a thing as a
replacement cable (silly flat connector at one end to PS2 at the
other) :&)
-- Matt
---
E-mail:
matt(a)pkl.net, matt(a)knm.yi.org, matt(a)printf.net
matt(a)m-techdiagnostics.ltd.uk, matthew.london(a)stud.umist.ac.uk
mattl(a)vcd.student.utwente.nl, mlondon(a)mail.talk-101.com
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
Heh.. I once personally passed 7,000 sheets per day through a
III for four days straight. One jam, one swap of the cartridge, and
a quick swipe with a cleaning cloth to kill the dust.
Greatest, most bullet-proof printer I've ever used, with a slight
exception for an old Pitney Bowes laser.. I still prefer them, to the
point of refusing a HP4 in trade for it..
Jim
On Wednesday, August 15, 2001 11:14 PM, Richard Erlacher
[SMTP:edick@idcomm.com] wrote:
>
> passes self
> test and also prints cleanly. It has 85k sheets through it, though.
> My two
> 10-year old (got 'em new) LJIII's have about 15k sheets through them,
> combined.
> > > Most assemblers haven't got a PRINT statement, so, no, I don't think so.
>
> > Depends upon the environment. Under AmigaOS you have RawDoFmt(), which
is
> > part of Exec and available to Assembly language programmers (and it works
> > similar to C's printf()). Under MS-DOS you have INT 21h, funtion 9, which
> > prints a text string (ended by a `$'). But all you really need is a way
to
> > print out characters, leaving printing of numeric values as a programming
> > exercise.
>
> Besides, why not steal such stuff from BASIC ROM? On the C64, print a string
> from memory by setting A/Y to the localtion and jsr $ab1e, and use the
routine
> at $bdcd that LIST uses to print line numbers for 16-bit unsigned int.
This is the kind of thing on the PC that I was ranting about...
C64, my dog ain't in that fight...
Oh well...
-dq
One PC to fill the buffer, print bridge from a pair of AS/400.
One secretary watching over it, then the night IS guy.
Y2K BS, we were printing every line of in-house code on
the machines.
Really got off on telling the IS veep we had three million lines
of legacy code tho.. Thought he was about to soil his Brooks
Brothers..
Jim
On Thursday, August 16, 2001 12:27 AM, Richard Erlacher
[SMTP:edick@idcomm.com] wrote:
> It's good to know that some LJ3's hold up that well. If you pass the
> rated 8
> ppm through them you only have time time for 11520 sheets in 24
hours.
>
> 7000/11520 is pretty busy, representing over 14.5 hours of constantly
> full
> utilization. Somebody must have stood there to refill the tray while
> 3-4
> computers kept the buffer full. I'd say you were geting your money's
> worth
> during that timespan.
>
> I don't like the later laser printers either, though they don't cost
> as much as
> they once did. I have an Okidata OL-1200 which emulates an HP4
pretty
> well, and
> prints a genuine 12 ppm at 600 DPI, and somewhat faster in text-only.
> It has
> the advantage that you can refill the toner reservoir yourself.
>
> Dick
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jim Tuck" <technos(a)crosswinds.net>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 9:55 PM
> Subject: RE: ancient laserjets
>
>
> > Heh.. I once personally passed 7,000 sheets per day through a
> > III for four days straight. One jam, one swap of the cartridge, and
> > a quick swipe with a cleaning cloth to kill the dust.
> >
> > Greatest, most bullet-proof printer I've ever used, with a slight
> > exception for an old Pitney Bowes laser.. I still prefer them, to
> > the
> > point of refusing a HP4 in trade for it..
> >
> > Jim
On August 15, Bob Stek wrote:
> If it's a Calera board, it was designed by our own Jim Battle (come on
> out and take a bow, Jim!).
Kick ass! Great job, Jim! I was really impressed with that board.
It did a wonderful job, and seemed very well-designed.
> Semi-OT Small World Dept. - In 1987 I used a Palantir OCR unit (5 68000
> CPU's and 2MB ROM code) to convert all 60 Sherlock Holmes stories into
> machine readable ASCII format (sold several hundred copies of 'An
> Electronic Holmes Companion.') Soon after, Palantir was bought by
> Calera, and Jim Battle designed the ASIC for their board. Nearly 10
> years later I hook up with Jim Battle when I send him a copy of the Sol
> User's Manual, and he remembers having heard about this guy who used the
> Palantir to scan the Holmes stories!
Interesting...the Calera board and software that I used created
".pda" files...for "Palantir Document Architecture".
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
Gee, I dunno-- From the archetecture, it looks like it was built in the
early 20th
century, but that's just a guess.
OB Classic:
WHen I lived in Baltimore (in 1980), I used to be a field service droid
for a local
business machine company (now defunct). We were totally floored when
we unpacked the first 'Winchester' drive we ever sold to one of our CADO
customers.
A whopping 10Mb on an 18-inch platter. "Ten MILLION bytes!" by boss
exclaimed,
in sheer disbelief.
Those *were* the days . . . .
On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 15:19:35 -0400 Eric Chomko <chomko(a)greenbelt.com>
writes:
Yes, yes, you can see the Bromo Seltzer tower from Camden Yards as well.
But what year was it built?
Eric
Hello, all:
Does anyone have a pointer to an on-line version of the Intel 8080
datasheet? Before I begin to scan mine for posting, I thought that I'd
check. Thanks.
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
If it's a Calera board, it was designed by our own Jim Battle (come on
out and take a bow, Jim!).
Semi-OT Small World Dept. - In 1987 I used a Palantir OCR unit (5 68000
CPU's and 2MB ROM code) to convert all 60 Sherlock Holmes stories into
machine readable ASCII format (sold several hundred copies of 'An
Electronic Holmes Companion.') Soon after, Palantir was bought by
Calera, and Jim Battle designed the ASIC for their board. Nearly 10
years later I hook up with Jim Battle when I send him a copy of the Sol
User's Manual, and he remembers having heard about this guy who used the
Palantir to scan the Holmes stories!
Bob Stek
Saver of Lost Sols
> Douglas Quebbeman skrev:
>
> >Seriously, what's a demo programmer? A programmer who writes
> >only demo software? As in mock-ups? Prototypes?
>
> A demo is a demonstration, showing off your programming/gfx/music talent.
> The demo crews arrange demo parties where they display their demos and win
> prices. It's all about pushing the limits of what's possible on a computer.
> Still, I doubt that Doug would like demo programmers. They're usually all
> quick'n'dirty, not a trace of the kind of academic programming practices
which
> Doug seems to prefer.
What I don't like is dog-and-pony shows, too much sturm und drang.
I *have* developed prototypes, and told the boss to keep the client
as far away from seeing it as humanly possible. Let the marketing
people suck the money out of the vulture capitalists, no felching for me.
Maybe you're talking about programming contests? If so, you're right,
I never liked them; and like multiple-choice tests, which basically
test your ability to take tests, programming contests basically
demonstrate your ability to demonstrate and to participate in contests,
neither of which interest me.
Regards,
-doug q
My First 'Nix box was a 16..... :)
At 12:27 PM 8/15/01 -0400, you wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Claude.W wrote:
>
> > I have fanilly gotten around to checking this model II/expansion box that
> > was saved from garbage truck.
> >
> > Very clean, no crt burn and a missing keyboard problem that was solved by
> > Hans Franke sending one he had all the way from Germany!
> >
> > Id like to show this thing off a bit more then just turning it on and
> seeing
> > ask for a disk....I dont think Ill be able to boot this from 5.25" 1.2M
> > drives connected to this...
> >
> > The unit came with a single 8" diskette that does not boot (written
> > "accounts receivable"). I dont know if its the floppy drive that is bad or
> > its not a bootable diskette or....internal 8" floppy drive looks "alive"
> > anyways...
> >
> > So I am asking if anyone as a easy way of making an 8" boot disk in this
> > situation or would be nice enough to provide me with one.
> >
> > Id like to get at least one. Better would be one of each OS this thing ran
> > and a few softs.
> >
> > I have a fairly large "for trade/giveaway" list of witch you could pick
> > something to thank you for the troubles...
> >
> > Thanks
> > Claude
> > http://www.members.tripod.com/computer_collector
>
>Well, I'm hurt. :-)
>
>You should have come to me first. I have a Model 16 (two actually, but
>one is jsut for parts.) I have TRSDOS, TRSDOS-II, TRSDOS-16 (which you
>can't run) and both the Z80 and 68K versions of UCSDPascal. Come to
>think of it, I also have Pickles & Trout CPM around here somewhere.
>Oh wait, I also have Xenix for the Model-16. What a collection.
>
>So, you want a couple of Model-16's with all the stuff that goes with them??
>One of these days the list will get big enough for you to make the trip
>down here to pick this stuff up. :-)
>
>bill
>
>--
>Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
>bill(a)cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
>University of Scranton |
>Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
They left the desktop market (IDE, some scsi) and are retaining the
"Enterprise" market
'At 08:27 AM 8/15/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Didn't Fujitsu just (within the last week) exit the hard disk market? Or
>was it just desktop (IDE) drives?
> On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
> >
> > Where on earth are LARTs illegal?!? And how did this come to pass?!?
>
> At the time of writing, I was thinking of a thermonuclear LART...
Fussion tends to eradicate the memory of the pain, so I stick
with bamboo LARTs... when not in LART mode, it's backscratcher,
so no one realizes the potential....
-dq
> On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
> >
> > And as to lusers with a little too much knowledge... yeah, they can be
> > a problem, and a LART's not always at hand...
>
> ...or worth the resulting jail time! :-)
Where on earth are LARTs illegal?!? And how did this come to pass?!?
> > Well, you won't get much disagreement from me here... but I've seen
> > COBOL code that was more spaghetti'd out than the worst BASIC I've
> > seen...
>
> BASIC is an OK starting point for someone who's destined to be a good
> programmer. Its problem is that it doesn't do enough to weed out the bad
> ones, who will then progress furthur into the trade on the false
> assumption that they have what it takes. I reference my previous post
> about assembly language... ;-D
Total agreement...
-dq
Hi,
I am looking for X11R5 source code for the IMSB020 (aka "Bozo")
graphics motherboard (contains a IMSG330) OR any other transputer-based
X11 source code. Either that, or at least an implementation of an X11
server
for the IMSG3xx chipset. I have the source code to the Helios OS for
the transputer,
but not the source to their X11R4 implementation. So, I want to port
the X11R6.6
code over, but I also want an XServer as well. I believe John Honniball
said he had it,
but he never responds to me emails :-(
Any help would help every transputer user. Thanks for your respond...
Ram
PS: I think the Amiga Visiona used the IMSG33x chipset, so that might
help. But
I couldnt find anything on the net....
--
,,,,
/'^'\
( o o )
-oOOO--(_)--OOOo-------------------------------------
| Ram Meenakshisundaram |
| Senior Software Engineer |
| OpenLink Financial Inc |
| .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 |
| ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com |
---\ (----( )--------------------------------------
\_) ) /
(_/
On Wed, 15 Aug 2001 09:16:13 -0700 (PDT) "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)"
<cisin(a)xenosoft.com> writes:
> Historical? trivia: Coming into Baltimore from the south (on the
> parkway,
> long after passing GSFC and NSA), just as you reached Baltimore,
> there was
> a big clock tower. What did that clock have instead of numbers?
O
R M
B O
S R
E E
L Z
T
I love Baltimore. It's my favourite city.
OK,
How the hell do you tell if the thing is negative or positive bus? I need to
know this before I go and buy some peripherals...
Thanks,
Will J
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
> I'd tend to agree, in general. However, I think something like MIPS
> assembly (such as that taught in CS courses at UIUC) might work well as a
> "learners" language, and doesn't require knowing TOO much of the hardware
> (aside from the registers / memory distinction, which could be taught using
> a "file cabinet / cubbyholes" analogy).
Was the MIPS a true 3-address machine (or do I mean 3-operand?)? Or
am I thinking of the NS32000 family?
> But, yeah, I'd say BASIC is still a pretty good language to see if someone
> can "get" programming -- provided that someone moves to a structured
> language quickly if he or she wishes, instead of getting into bad
> programming habits (as I did for a while).
I grudgingly agree.
Niklaus Wirth thought that BASIC hopelessly polluted a mind from
every being a good programmer. I, too, think that's harsh, probably
because I also started with (a superset of) BASIC, and wrote journal
articles for two years for The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft BASIC
and Inside Quickbasic. And every time I think I've finally put it
behind me, it creeps back into my life. Most recently, TOPS-10 BASIC
running on a simulated DECSYSTEM-2020 (KS-10) (fixing MONPLY.BAS).
-dq
Just a brief report I'm passing on from Hans Franke who is wending his way
Westward on his cross-country motorcycle journey to VCF 5.0.
He reports he's been having a great time so far after he'd picked up the
bike at the Baltimore seaport around a week or so ago. He came up through
the York, PA area up to the North-Central PA area, thence Westward towards
Jamestown. Stayed in our front yard in his rather interesting camper
arrangement over Friday and Saturday night. He's got a small AutoCamp
folding tent bolted to the top of the cargo box. The neighborhood up and
down our dead end street was certainly curious about such an odd looking
rig not to say the other motorcycle riders who had seen him riding through
town. They seemed to drive off the side of the road while studying Hans' rig.
Bev and I took him to his first live rodeo on Saturday night which is a
fairly major Eastern rodeo on the PRCA professional circuit
(http://gerryrodeo.org/). Always a good time there for all -especially the
barbecue beef dinners the rodeo organizers put on. Personally, I like the
pretty cowgirls in their Wrangler jeans ;-) Hans really had fun that day.
We got him a Sprint PCS cellphone on my own SS and drivers license numbers
(silly outfit couldn't take his German passport number for ID after he
arrived in NYC). Seemingly the best coverage across the USA plus a rather
reasonable deal for what he's going to use it. So now he's got
communication when that Russian-made three-wheel cycle breaks down out at
the head of nowhere ;-) We got the rear door hinge welded properly by one
of my friends after it broke during the sea trip over. Hans figures the
welder in the Ural factory had too much vodka that day.
He should be down towards Columbus, OH at this time if he was able to get
in contact with Ethan.
Watch out Sellam and gang! The mad Bavarian is on his way West if that
underpowered Ural engine can pull itself over the Rockys and if all the
bolts don't rattle out of it!
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
I have fanilly gotten around to checking this model II/expansion box that
was saved from garbage truck.
Very clean, no crt burn and a missing keyboard problem that was solved by
Hans Franke sending one he had all the way from Germany!
Id like to show this thing off a bit more then just turning it on and seeing
ask for a disk....I dont think Ill be able to boot this from 5.25" 1.2M
drives connected to this...
The unit came with a single 8" diskette that does not boot (written
"accounts receivable"). I dont know if its the floppy drive that is bad or
its not a bootable diskette or....internal 8" floppy drive looks "alive"
anyways...
So I am asking if anyone as a easy way of making an 8" boot disk in this
situation or would be nice enough to provide me with one.
Id like to get at least one. Better would be one of each OS this thing ran
and a few softs.
I have a fairly large "for trade/giveaway" list of witch you could pick
something to thank you for the troubles...
Thanks
Claude
http://www.members.tripod.com/computer_collector
"Messick, Gary" <Gary.Messick(a)itt.com>@classiccmp.org on 08/15/2001
08:27:07 AM
Please respond to classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Sent by: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
To: "'classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org'" <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
cc:
Subject: RE: Fujitsu drives (was Re: Service does still exist....)
Didn't Fujitsu just (within the last week) exit the hard disk market? Or
was it just desktop (IDE) drives?
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Master of all that Sucks [mailto:vance@ikickass.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 10:48 PM
> To: Glenatacme(a)aol.com
> Cc: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Fujitsu drives (was Re: Service does still exist....)
>
>
>
> Well, it usually the large-capacity (4.5+ GB) older
> workstation drives.
> One good way to find out is to ask Fujitsu. It's the path I normally
> take.
>
> Peace... Sridhar
>
> On Tue, 14 Aug 2001 Glenatacme(a)aol.com wrote:
>
> > More information about this, please? If I find a Fujitsu
> drive how can I
> > tell if the lifetime warranty applies to that drive?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Glen
> > 0/0
> >
>
===========================================================================
Yup - The Register (A British IT mag) just had an article on it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/20799.html
"Fujitsu bows out of desktop hard drive fight
By Robert Blincoe
Posted: 02/08/2001 at 14:37 GMT
Fujitsu is ditching the desktop hard disk market to concentrate on
the notebook and server sectors where it believes it can make more
money.
The company will quit making desktop hard drives later this year.
Mike Chenery, VP of Fujitsu Computer Products of America,
acknowledged things had been difficult because of low margins, the
markets' slow growth, and because Fujitsu hadn't been one of the
first players competing in the sector.
Fujitsu's competitors are IBM, Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital,
and Samsung in the desktop drive market. Interestingly, back in May,
Paul Griffin, IBM's EMEA VP for its Technology Group, predicted it
would be Samsung and Western Digital which would bow out of the
sector first.
He felt Fujitsu had deep enough pockets and technology ownership
to last out the margin fight.
Fujitsu had lost market share in the first half of 2001, and was in fifth
place with to nine per cent. ? "
> > I've always thought that one of the more simple assembly languages would
> > be a great 'first language' for someone wanting to learn how to program.
> > Who's with me?
>
> I think S/360-S/370 assembler would work quite well. It starts out
> exceedingly simple, then moves to variable length opcodes, variable word
> length, four-level indirection, etc. Doesn't require it to do useful
> stuff though. But I am a bit biased towards mainframes.
Yeah, that was my first... in fact, at quitting time, I sometimes
think "time to BALR *,HOME" or something like that...
-dq
On Tue, 14 Aug 2001 23:56:50 -0500 (CDT) "Jeffrey S. Sharp"
<jss(a)subatomix.com> writes:
> Funny... I haven't seen very many people announcing their use of
> Micro$oft Virus Transfer Utility Express
>
> I guess the magic eight-ball was right when it told me
> "Outlook not so good"
Hm, that's funny . . . mine says . . . LookOut!!
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
> > I used to feel the same way when I was running a TRS-80 Model
> > 2000 and I'd see caching SCSI controllers that used the same 80186 as
> > a coprocessor on the board. There's something humbling about seeing
> > your main CPU relegated to coprocessor status!
>
> Remember when the Apple Laserwriter was more powerful than any of the
> computers that they sold to connect it to?
Yes, I found that highly amusing at the time...
-dq
> Funny... I haven't seen very many people announcing their use of
> Micro$oft Virus Transfer Utility Express
>
> I guess the magic eight-ball was right when it told me
> "Outlook not so good"
>
> Sorry for the recycled jokes.
Ok, Jeff... that one made me split my sides, and I *hurt*..
-dq
> On Tue, 14 Aug 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
> >
> > And I would not consider people writing in assembly language to be at
> > the bottom rungs
>
> Right! I've always wondered why so many of the other programmers I have
> met have held assembly language in such low esteem. Depending on the
> particular make/model of processor you're dealing with, it can be
> downright elegant.
Was it for assembly language programmers that the phrase "high priests
of a low cult" was coined? or was that for mainframe guys in general?
> I've always thought that one of the more simple assembly languages would
> be a great 'first language' for someone wanting to learn how to program.
> Who's with me?
Many schools (I.U. included) had courses that used assembly language
for a hypothetical machine as the first language taught.
Regards,
-dq
Sergio
Well, I had a BA23 box in which I put the CPU and the memory of the 11/84.
And I had an RQDX3 disk interface and a Seagate ST-251 disk. The hard part
is the cabinet kit. It should be possible to use parts of the 11/84 cabinet
kit and make it fit with some soldering, but happily I could avoid that.
The cabinet kit is for setting the serial line speed and to connect the
serial line. Someone (Thanks again Wanderer!!) offered me an original 11/83
cabinet kit so that finished it.
Wim
----------
> From: SP <SPEDRAJA(a)mail.ono.es>
> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
> Subject: RE: PDP 11/84's - any interest?
> Date: Tuesday, August 14, 2001 12:38 AM
>
> Hello. Could you be more explicit ? It's possible
> I could obtain one (with CPU and Memory of the 84,
> of course) but I'd like to knoe the form to convert
> one 84 in one 83, of course.
>
> Regards
>
> Sergio
>
> >
> > Jerome,
> >
> > I converted an 11/84 to an 11/83 myself. The memory works fine on a
Q-bus.
> > It is connected to the CPU board via overhead flatcable. I converted an
> > 11/84 to an 11/83 myself.
> >
> > Wim
>
>
>
Can anyone help our good friend Bob Supnik out?
"Bob Supnik" <bsupnik(a)us.inter.net> wrote in message
news:<et3dnt44ib8ves29sklh73733afl5o6714(a)4ax.com>...
> SIMH for VAX has been hung up for more than two years now due to lack
> of documentation on I/O. (It ran the HCORE diagnostic in the spring
> of '99.) I would like to emulate a CVAX based Qbus system (eg, a
> MicroVAX 3000) so I need, in particular,
>
> - VMB code
> - specs for the system support chip (CSSC)
> - specs for the Qbus adapter chip (CQBIC)
> - specs for the disk controller (RQDX3 or generic MSCP controller)
> - specs for the Ethernet controller (DEQNA or first chip based
> controllers)
>
> The rest of the peripherals will be standard - LP(V)11 for line
> printer, DZ(V)11 for multiple terminals.
>
> Thanks,
>
> /Bob Supnik
> I think all of us have our own personal view on "when computing had it's
> golden age". For me, 1984 and the Sinclair QL was the peak of the
> microcomputer (as opposed to the IBM PC & clones). For you, it must have
> been around 197<mumble>.
Hard to say... Actually, 1979-1983, my Pr1me Days...
> >The beginning of the end. I knew it then, and I was
> >proved right.
>
> I dispute that: Computers and computing go from strength to strength.
> There's more than just PCs out there; the mighty mainframe still rules the
> roost in many places, there's Apple Macs, VAX minis, Crays, and probably
> many others I can't even think of. And, for the soldering-iron fans,
> embedded computing is probably stronger than it ever was - *everything's*
> got a computer or three in it...
Computing today is nothing if not diverse.
> >Again, it's nice to have fast, cheap
> >computers, but I for one would have been just as
> >happy for the next 20 years having fast, cheap TERMINALS
> >to hook to the mainframes. And the continued high cost of
> >entry would have kept from coming into existence an entire
> >generation of self-taught (and poorly so) programmers who
> >have and continue to crank out some of the worst software
> >imaginable. In the halcyon days, most of the bad code was
> >writtwn by the lusers themselves...
>
> That's a bit elitist, isn't it? Besides, most of the self-taught
> programmers of whom you speak are not really programmers; they're merely
> users with enough knowledge to be dangerous. Besides, if it wasn't for the
> microprocessor and all that it begat, this list wouldn't even be here..
No; I have worked with these people. Most of them learned how to
program before they had a chance to take a college course with
rigor; I know this is anecdotal, but take one young man I worked
with. He'd learned to program in high school, a combination of
some fragmentary knowledge on the part of the math teacher and
self-taught the rest of the way. Then got to college, where they
tried to teach him structured programming. He dismissed structured
programming completely because "it slows down both the program and
the programmer". While this is potentially true, it ignores the
truth (at the time, less so now) that more labor is spent on maintaining
code than initially writing it.
And as to lusers with a little too much knowledge... yeah,
they can be a problem, and a LART's not always at hand...
But as this list is dedicated to hardware that ranges from a
Imlac-1 (I think that was the oldest reported here recently)
to something like a Mac IIci (1991), it might have a smaller
readership sans micros, but I'd bet there'd be sufficient
interest to have the list.
And if you meant we'd not have the Internet if the micro hadn't
come about, I'd have to dispute that. It would simply be a
slower, and less saturated Internet...
> >Easy access to fast, cheap computers drove the genesis of
> >an entire generation of self-taught programmers who didn't
> >give a whit for structured programming or anything else that
> >resembles a methodology, and who single-handedly changed the
> >expectations that managers have about how quickly things
> >get done. Sure RAD helped speed programming along, but not
> >nearly as much just cutting corners... which the PC made
> >easier... damn, I feel a song coming on again:
>
> It wasn't the PC that made cutting corners easy; it was the near-universal
> use of BASIC - a fundamentally unstructured language - that is responsible
> for the bulk of the "bad programmers"; and I say that as a professional
> programmer who uses BASIC....!
Well, you won't get much disagreement from me here... but I've seen
COBOL code that was more spaghetti'd out than the worst BASIC I've
seen...
> Maybe if PASCAL had been the language de jour, today's self-taught
> programmers would be better at it...
Overall, yes, but to paraphrase my Data Structures, Pascal sucks
when you limit yourself to the FORTRAN subset...
> >No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to
> >find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.
>
> IMHO, no. The PC had to happen; it was just a case of who got lucky (or had
> the best marketing). At the end of the day, the PC offered unrivalled
> expansion possibilities, a comparatively friendly OS (Gates did well to
> poach DOS), and good flexibility thanks to the lack of built
> in anything.
Actually, at that moment I saw the Apple II, my thought was:
"ten years too soon. we need ten years to figure out what we
can really do with these damn things..." Ten years to develop
real operating systems, job control languages, interfaces, etc.
> Personally, I'd have liked to have seen a MC68000 based machine become
> today's PC (mainly because I'd already learned assembler on the QL). No
> doubt Commodore fans would have preferred the C128 or Amiga to "grow up"
> into the PC.
Might have been a marginal improvement... it's a nicely orthogonal
processor...
> Well, I'm off to dabble with my CBM PET, or maybe the MZ-80K. They're fun,
> but I wouldn't like to have to use them every day, day in day out...
Cool, don't let my rant effect your fun!
-dq
On page 81 of the March/April 1981 issue of Sync Magazine there is a ad for a
board which connects two ZX81, TS1000 or TS1500 computers, using one as the
display processor and one for all other computations. The company name is
Interface Design, in Rexford NY.
Any info out there?
Thanks,
Glen
0/0
In a message dated 8/13/01 5:03:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
vance(a)ikickass.org writes:
<< Yeah. Two hard disk manufacturers I've never had trouble with are IBM and
Fujitsu. The reason I mention Fujitsu is that their highest-end drives,
and most of their oldest drives all come/came with a lifetime warranty.
There has been many a time when I have found an old SCSI Fujitsu drive
lying around broken somewhere, I rescue it, and they fix it up for me. I
find that very impressive.
>>
More information about this, please? If I find a Fujitsu drive how can I
tell if the lifetime warranty applies to that drive?
Thanks,
Glen
0/0
A number of companies still make so-called scan accelerator
cards.. Kofax, Xerox, Canon.. Pretty much all they do is take
the scanned image over a SCSI connection and compress it
into a tiff or jpeg in hardware.. I've seen everything from
Phillips MIPS clones to AMD embedded processors for the
job. Never seen one based on a M68K tho.
Not too much demand for them these days. Well, considering
a PII 350 can handle 60ppm at 400dpi in software at a sane
level of system load.
Jim
On Tuesday, August 14, 2001 1:20 PM, Dave McGuire
[SMTP:mcguire@neurotica.com] wrote:
> On August 14, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> > IIRC, it's possible it's associated with scanner/OCR processes.
One
> > of my
> > colleagues had a set of three or four ISA cards, each of which had
> > four 68030's
> > on it, each with what I then saw as a significant amount of RAM for
> > its task.
> > He was using that together with a pretty fancy set of software for
a
> > MAJOR
> > automatic transcription task, and, from what I gathered, it did a
> > good job.
> >
> > I don't know about your board, but the ones I saw were fully packed
> > on both
> > sides. It was, for the time, VERY impressive to see. The results
> > were pretty
> > impressive, too, as he'd converted about 6000 pages of text into a
> > searchable
> > document on a set of CD's.
>
> This sounds like some boards made by Calera that I used back in '90
> or so. They were pretty impressive.
>
> -Dave
>
> --
> Dave McGuire
> Laurel, MD
On August 14, LUCAS J CASHDOLLAR wrote:
> My university used pine until about a year ago when they switched
> to mulberry a graphical bloat-wear email program. It takes 20 times
> longer to load, but its got grpahics and it likes to crash a hell of a
> lot. All hail the bloat-wear nazis and their inefficiency at making our
> lives easier.
Is it possible to bring in your own software? If pine is what you
prefer, why not use a local copy of it in your home directory?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
>
> > Simple solution, software people should unionize.
>
> And why should they be ionised in the first place?
Severe belly cramps are probably keeping anyone from
replying to this one, Tony...
Some bosses *should* be ionized... that way, sh*t _would_
stick to them...
-dq
Pete Rickard <pete.rickard(a)carlingtech.com> wrote:
> This is my first posting (I'm on SurvPC primarily).... I found the list
> during a google search for *HP-UX*, trying to find other HP9000
> series users.
There's a *very* quiet list for the 9000 series 500s at nvc.cc.ca.us.
(Last message was in March.) I think the subscription instructions
are to send an e-mail message as follows:
To: hp9000-500-request(a)nvc.cc.ca.us
Subject: subscribe hp9000-500
-Frank McConnell
> > I dispute that: Computers and computing go from strength to strength.
> > There's more than just PCs out there; the mighty mainframe still rules the
> > roost in many places, there's Apple Macs, VAX minis, Crays, and probably
> > many others I can't even think of. And, for the soldering-iron fans,
> > embedded computing is probably stronger than it ever was - *everything's*
> > got a computer or three in it...
>
> In many places? The mainframe rules the roost period. What do you think
> serves the databases that run the neato little things your PCs do on the
> internet? IBM DB2/390.
Hmmm... probably true for the commercial sites, of which I spend
virtually zero of my personal time. Unless Google uses the OBM iron...
> > That's a bit elitist, isn't it? Besides, most of the self-taught
> > programmers of whom you speak are not really programmers; they're merely
> > users with enough knowledge to be dangerous. Besides, if it wasn't for the
> > microprocessor and all that it begat, this list wouldn't even be here...
>
> I don't know if I necessarily think this anymore, but whenever I used to
> see droves of mindless PC zombies getting on the 'net, I used to think,
> "Hmmm. Fresh meat."
If Horace Greely was right about him, then P. T. Barnum would
love living in this age...
> > It wasn't the PC that made cutting corners easy; it was the near-universal
> > use of BASIC - a fundamentally unstructured language - that is responsible
> > for the bulk of the "bad programmers"; and I say that as a professional
> > programmer who uses BASIC....!
>
> That and all the stupid ass "crackers" who learned assembler just to get
> free shareware.
I dunno; I haven't run into too many of these people in the orkplace...
> > Maybe if PASCAL had been the language de jour, today's self-taught
> > programmers would be better at it...
>
> How about something like LISP or SML? Maybe Prolog (!)... I know I'm
> pushing it with that one.
Fine languages.
> > >No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to
> > >find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.
[..snip..]
> I would've loved to have seen the Atari computers take over. I still have
> a couple of Hades I use regularly.
>
> > Well, I'm off to dabble with my CBM PET, or maybe the MZ-80K. They're fun,
> > but I wouldn't like to have to use them every day, day in day out...
>
> I'll be off tinkering with my big-iron VAX and my S/390 G5 (ot).
Cool.
-dq
On August 14, Mike Ford wrote:
> Who reads their email the most Classically?
>
> I am not classic at all, running Eudora on a PowerMac, but somebody out
> there must be farther back than pine in the email evolution chain, who is
> it?
Surely this is a matter of opinion, and I'm not a Pine user myself,
but I haven't seen many mailers that I'd consider "further evolved"
than Pine.
Myself, I use VM under XEmacs.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
> Who reads their email the most Classically?
>
> I am not classic at all, running Eudora on a PowerMac, but somebody out
> there must be farther back than pine in the email evolution chain, who is
> it?
I use the following, Eudora on a G4/450 PowerMac, Elm on my ISP's Linux shell
(sometimes telnet'd in from a PDP-11), and VMS Mail or Mailbox on VMS (I use
Mailbox when sending as it's got a good address book, and VMS mail for
reading and replying as it's got the better interface).
Zane
Hello, group-
This is my first posting (I'm on SurvPC primarily).... I found the list
during a google search for *HP-UX*, trying to find other HP9000
series users. Glad to have found this group, if for no other good reason
than to be able to point to someone else when *normal* people come to
my house and remark, "Gad! What a massive pile of old junk down here!"
My own HP model 540 still has *OLD* HP-UX 5.-something on it. It also
has compilers for Pascal, ForTran and 'c' (of course). It was the host
to an '80s GrafTek GMS CAD system, 12+ users, from which I also
saved a Meteor II workstation (including a Summagraphics Bit Pad 2 tablet
and a huge Hitachi HM4119, EIA RS-343A compatible monitor).
I've not much to offer except that I have quite a bit of mid-80's HP
docs on this system... anyway, most hardware that I saved is as follows:
HP 9050A - The basic unit, 8Mb RAM, 2x8 multiplexers, IOP (2) CPU's, etc.**
HP 9144A - DC cartridge drive, works as emergency boot system (if lucky)
HP 7914 - Hard disk drive, 128Mb, original in 1985
HP 7958 - Hard disk drive, 130+Mb "compact" (the root disk)
HP 7974A - 9 track tape drive (the 'Man from U.N.C.L.E.' drive,
as my big brother refers to it :-)
HP 2934 - Dot-matrix printer (HP-IB) on top of its original cabinet
HP 2392A - System console, green-on-black screen (saved 2 of these!)
**includes 27125A LAN card CIO 802.3 (10mbps) BNC (there were
two networked 9000's) and 28641A ThinLAN micro-MAU (RG58C/U),
IEEE 802.3 spec...(throwing all the specs in there to anticipate queries...)
-I could use an HP-IB floppy drive I suppose, if one happens along...
Oh, BTW- here at work I use an iMac connected to our DEC Alpha using
VersaTerm PRO terminal emulator. Login message includes this:
"OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V7.1-2"
Regards, -Pete
<jarkko.teppo(a)er-grp.com> wrote in part:
> A reasonable weekend:
> - - HP 9000/834 + 7959 disk with HP-UX 8.x.
> Interestingly the 834 case is the same as the 9000/550 case.
"640k ought to be enough for anybody." - Bill Gates, 1981
- - - - -
Pete Rickard
Product Engineer
Carling Technologies
Plainville CT USA
Going through my old Qbus and Unibus cards getting them ready to sell I found
a very interesting card with four Z80 based computers on a Qbus card. It
appears to me to be four complete 8 bit computers on a quad card, each with
CPU and memory but no I/O. It is all socketed chips with the only other large
chips being a pair of 2901 bit slicers.
It is copyrighted 1983 by Virtual Microsystems and called the Z-Board. Made
in the USA.
Any idea what it was and what it was used for? Google turned up nothing other
than VM was bought and sold several times.
Three pictures at http://members.aol.com/innfogra/zboard.jpg
A single one at http://members.aol.com/innfogra/zboard2.jpg
If interested in purchase please contact me off list, here or at
whoagiii(a)aol.com.
Paxton
Astoria
> >> I know that the PC turns 20 this month,
> >> but does anyone know the actual date of introduction?
> >>
> >> It's tough going through August without a holiday, so
> >> I'm looking for something to celebrate :-)
Sorry I waited so long on this one, but...
For me, it should be a date to *mourn*, not to celebrate.
Now in fairness, the PC has brought us high-speed
commodity computers. However, it has also dumbed-down
a signficant portion of the field of computing.
Inasmuch as the PC was created as a reaction to the
Apple II, I must tell this story.
I cow orker and I had been fixing the various cold solder
joints on an IMSAI 8080 construction attempt done by the
head of the Physics Department (and soon to be D-I-T).
We'd run it successfully for a few weeks, and had begun
using it in a Psych experiment involving reaction times.
Then the 8212 went to heaven.
We took it to the recently-opened Computerland, wherein
a guy I mistook for an electronics technician (he was an MBA)
rolled up his sleeves, heated up the iron, clipped off the
fried 8212, soldered in a socket, plugged in a new chip...
But I digress. While he was doing this, I was looking
around the store, and saw the Doom of Computing in the
form of a computer that didn't require a soldering iron
to build and use- namely, an Apple II.
The beginning of the end. I knew it then, and I was
proved right. Again, it's nice to have fast, cheap
computers, but I for one would have been just as
happy for the next 20 years having fast, cheap TERMINALS
to hook to the mainframes. And the continued high cost of
entry would have kept from coming into existence an entire
generation of self-taught (and poorly so) programmers who
have and continue to crank out some of the worst software
imaginable. In the halcyon days, most of the bad code was
writtwn by the lusers themselves...
Easy access to fast, cheap computers drove the genesis of
an entire generation of self-taught programmers who didn't
give a whit for structured programming or anything else that
resembles a methodology, and who single-handedly changed the
expectations that managers have about how quickly things
get done. Sure RAD helped speed programming along, but not
nearly as much just cutting corners... which the PC made
easier... damn, I feel a song coming on again:
--
obSimpsonSongLyric:
Shary: If there's a task that must be done,
Don't turn your tail and run,
Don't pout, don't sob,
Just do a half-assed job!
If... you... cut every corner
It is really not so bad,
Everybody does it,
Even mom and dad.
If nobody sees it,
Then nobody gets mad,
Bart: It's the American way!
Shary: The policeman on the beat
Needs some time to rest his feet.
Chief Wiggum: Fighting crime is not my cup of tea!
Shary: And the clerk who runs the store
Can charge a little more
For meat!
Apu: For meat!
Shary: And milk!
Apu: And milk!
Both: From 1984!
Shary: If... you... cut every corner,
You'll have more time for play,
Shary & OFF: It's the American waaaaay!
--
No, not only will I not celebrate it, but I need to
find a black armband to wear the rest of the month.
> And I'll bet you they could do it cheaper with a single IBM mainframe than
> thousands of PCs. The power savings alone would be tremendous. A 9672 G7
> xSeries can run hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Linux images in
> LPARs or under VM, all at speeds comparable to quick PCs.
Sadly, and many years after I left the local public school corp that
brought me together with my first Prime, they replaced a power-hungry
Prime 9950 with a *much* (read: no more dedicated transformer outside)
less hungry model 4450.
Which, I understand, they kept for two years before succumbing to the
PeeCee disease.... oh sh*t, new lyrics for Dire Straights' Industrial
Disease are coming to mind ***ClassicCmp SONG LYRIC FILTER INVOKED***
"I took the shot, there was no danger..."
-Dave
On August 14, mjsnodgr(a)rockwellcollins.com wrote:
>
> Have one of our distinguished assembly programmers write you a program to
> randomly pick names. <grin>
>
> - M.S.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "Rich Beaudry" <r_beaudry(a)hotmail.com>@classiccmp.org on 08/14/2001
> 08:24:38 AM
>
> Please respond to classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>
> Sent by: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
>
>
> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
> cc:
>
> Subject: Commodore Stuff For Sale
>
>
> Hello all,
>
> I posted some Commodore stuff to my website, for sale. 99% of the items
> are
> $2.00 or $5.00, so no outrageous pricing (you also pay shipping, of
> course).
>
> http://members.tripod.com/glhturbo/commo.html (Apologies for the annoying
> Tripod banner).
>
> All the details are there...
>
> One important note is that this is NOT a "first come, first served" sale.
> In order to have some fairness to the international and digest members of
> the list, if I get more people interested in an item than I have on hand, I
> will throw names into a hat and pick randomly.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Rich B.
>
>
>
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
On August 14, Richard Erlacher wrote:
> IIRC, it's possible it's associated with scanner/OCR processes. One of my
> colleagues had a set of three or four ISA cards, each of which had four 68030's
> on it, each with what I then saw as a significant amount of RAM for its task.
> He was using that together with a pretty fancy set of software for a MAJOR
> automatic transcription task, and, from what I gathered, it did a good job.
>
> I don't know about your board, but the ones I saw were fully packed on both
> sides. It was, for the time, VERY impressive to see. The results were pretty
> impressive, too, as he'd converted about 6000 pages of text into a searchable
> document on a set of CD's.
This sounds like some boards made by Calera that I used back in '90
or so. They were pretty impressive.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD
Found an interesting card in the trays of a small computer shop. It's an 8-bit
card with a 68020 on it. The card is full-length, with a piece sandwiched onto
it at one end. It's by a Xerox company with a German name; Kurzweil?
Any leads as to what this might be?
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
[E]xcept in the works of Gunnar Asplund, architect of the Stockholm Exhibition
of 1930 and the Stockholm crematorium, Sweden has never contributed much to
the revolutionary developments through which modern architecture made its
initial impact on the world.
J.M. Richards, Modern Architecture
At 10:40 AM 8/14/01 -0500, Messick, Gary wrote:
>I think Xerox bought Kurzweil's speech recognition unit. So it might be
>some sort of speech recognition board (probably coupled with other software
>of course!)
See http://www.kurzweiltech.com/aboutray.html . They made a
number of other unique products, hardware and software.
- John
Support and information for the older Data I/O programmers is available from
Memory & Logic Programming Services. Data I/O sold the rights to this equipment
to so they could direct all there support to there newer products. You can
contact them via email at mlps(a)together.net. Promlink & Device lists are
available for free but copies of the manuals are available for sale. Service,
calibration and updates are also available.
Al Marin.
I think Xerox bought Kurzweil's speech recognition unit. So it might be
some sort of speech recognition board (probably coupled with other software
of course!)
Gary
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Iggy Drougge [mailto:optimus@canit.se]
> Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 7:45 PM
> To: Classic computing
> Subject: 68020 ISA card
>
>
> Found an interesting card in the trays of a small computer
> shop. It's an 8-bit
> card with a 68020 on it. The card is full-length, with a
> piece sandwiched onto
> it at one end. It's by a Xerox company with a German name; Kurzweil?
> Any leads as to what this might be?
>
> --
> En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
>
> [E]xcept in the works of Gunnar Asplund, architect of the
> Stockholm Exhibition
> of 1930 and the Stockholm crematorium, Sweden has never
> contributed much to
> the revolutionary developments through which modern
> architecture made its
> initial impact on the world.
> J.M. Richards, Modern Architecture
>
Have one of our distinguished assembly programmers write you a program to
randomly pick names. <grin>
- M.S.
"Rich Beaudry" <r_beaudry(a)hotmail.com>@classiccmp.org on 08/14/2001
08:24:38 AM
Please respond to classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
Sent by: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
cc:
Subject: Commodore Stuff For Sale
Hello all,
I posted some Commodore stuff to my website, for sale. 99% of the items
are
$2.00 or $5.00, so no outrageous pricing (you also pay shipping, of
course).
http://members.tripod.com/glhturbo/commo.html (Apologies for the annoying
Tripod banner).
All the details are there...
One important note is that this is NOT a "first come, first served" sale.
In order to have some fairness to the international and digest members of
the list, if I get more people interested in an item than I have on hand, I
will throw names into a hat and pick randomly.
Thanks!
Rich B.