- test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org - classiccmp.org

by fernande＠internet1.net

Last time I went to the surplus electronic shop that I visit. I saw what was labeled as being a System 36. It was basically a really over grown full tower, with a few other peripherals. Did I see the whole unit, or just a small part? Would this be something I could do something with? Does any freeware exist? How about the OS.... is it around, and attainable? What kind of processing horsepower does it have? I didn't really look at it, while I was there. I knew they are the ancestor to the AS400, and the AS400 is sort of a white elephant for the hobbyist. Chad Fernandez Michigan, USA

25 years, 4 months

1
1
0 0

Xenix/286-Any hints?

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 3/7/01 1:52:14 PM Central Standard Time, mapr0003(a)stud.uni-sb.de writes: << Hi, I am interested in old computers especially in i286 (PC/AT)class computers. I am looking for a multitasking OS which uses the capabilities of this CPU like memory protection, 16MB address space, etc. I only found Xenix/286 which take advantage of this 286 features or are there other ones as well? Is it still possible to find copies for this version of Xenix? Thanks in advance >> not sure of xenix, but why not try OS/2? Version 1.3 can still be found and will run on as little as 2 meg I believe. david, OS/2 user

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

L40SX questions

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

In a message dated 3/7/01 1:07:48 PM Central Standard Time, gehrich(a)tampabay.rr.com writes: << I received my AC Adaptor for my L40SX and the screen does not come on. Can anybody tell me what the lights and switches mean on the console. I have some symbols showing in some of the little windows. With power on from left to right they show: dark dark right arrow underlined % sign vertical bar up arrow up arrow box which could be a screen symbol dark With power off the right arrow shows a battery and all of the others are dark On the right of the screen there are two slide bars one labeled with a shining sun the other like a half moon. Neither seems to do anything >> does your hard drive spin up? any flicker from the LCD? does the floppy seek? what if the battery is removed? Since you have a mono LCD those slider bars just adjust the brightness and contrast. I forgot what the switches do as my L40 is put away. One thing you might want to check is to make sure the computer hasnt been in any environmental extremes. It will not turn on if temperature or humidity is excessive. Once it acclimates to room temp it would function normally. see one of hundreds of computers, or a hot rod pinto at: www.nothingtodo.org

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Us vs. Museums

by jerryjh＠imt.net

On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said: >> have our personal preferences. But let's also determine (at least >> for ourselves) a general principle or two that points to the value >> of classic computers -- more specifically -- their purpose and our >> realistic expectations of them beyond mere entertainment value. >First and foremost : Education. Excellent. Now that we have a general principle with which to begin, how could we expand on it? One thing that comes to my own mind are the lessons we can learn from how our earlier computer and software engineers worked so cleverly with such meager resources, which forced them to create more efficient code and creative shortcuts to avoid wastefulness... >Secondly : Preserving some of the forgotten areas of computing. >Either as examples of what not to do in the future, or as examples >of things that should be tried again (either because the technology >to implement them was not really available years ago and is now, or >because, although there was a suitable replacement, the older >method with newer technology is even better). Wonderful! In this matter, we see eye to eye. I'm all for the idea of constructing new computers built upon the tried and true principles of "frugal" designs. Our classic computers could serve as the inspiration for such possible endeavors. Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered

25 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

new/old computers in radiology (Long)

by steven_j_robertson＠hotmail.com

Like any other engineering project, the first logical step is to compile a complete system requirement. Once you really understand what the project expectations are, it's pretty easy to decide on an architecture to support those expectations. To arbitrarily decide what's important to the customer, will certainly lead to failure. For instance: You state that one of the reasons that you would recommend VMS is that there are no known viruses. If viruses are really not a concern for the customer, that should NOT be a factor in the decision making process. After all, they may already have a very secure LAN and experienced administrators. To make architectural decisions based on areas that you perceive as important is a path to disaster. Don't assume that you know what the customer wants and just as importantly, don't assume that the customer knows what they want! On the other hand, if "usability" is one of the primary factors, they may be stuck with NT. As much as we may detest the OS for it's poor reliability, far more people are comfortable with the WIN interface than any other OS. In some environments, it may actually be more acceptible to reboot the system every day or have unexpected failures than to retrain the people that will use the system. Actually, NT used only for data presentation is not all that bad. Once again, that's a business decision that should be addressed in the requirements. My guess: NT for the presentation layer, LINUX or a derivitive with strong device support in the backend. Just my $.02 Steve Robertson >One of the Radiologist's I work with asked me the following question. > >Which computer would you buy if you were only going to do file transfers >and >archiving? I answered a VAX/Alpha running VMS since there were no known >viruses and that system security was good. My answer was predicated on the >fact that he needed storage for medical images and that he needed to >maintain complete medical confidentiality. He is totally frustrated with >the lack of reliability on Windows NT and is favoring SUN based systems. >The trend in radiology is to move toward Windows NT platforms because the >companies can't get support staff that can handle anything else. Our >biggest problem, since we are a children's hospital is that we must >maintain >the data for 25 years. Actually 7 years once the child turns 18. In >practice we plan never to get rid of any data. > >Examples of systems in Radiology > >CT scanner using SGI computer >CT workstation using SUN running Solaris >Vitrea 3D workstation using Windows NT on HP Kayak computer >Laser film printer network running MS-DOS >Laser film printer network running LINUX >MRI scanner using SUN >Film digitizer running on PC using Windows NT >Nuclear medicine system with Windows NT, Mac G4, and Linux on PC >VME systems embedded in film printers > >I have 8" floppies from old CT scanners, QIC tapes, DAT tapes, MO disks, 5 >1/4 floppies, 3 1/2 floppies, 9 track tapes > >I was offered from a major US company a radiology image management system >the other day that had the following systems. >Windows NT display stations >Apple Macintosh image archive server >Sun webserver and image server >I don't think anybody could support and troubleshoot such a system. Their >answer is that they support the system today and will provide an upgrade >path when they change every 3-4 years. > >woe-is-me >Mike >mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

new/old computers in radiology (Long)

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

One of the Radiologist's I work with asked me the following question. Which computer would you buy if you were only going to do file transfers and archiving? I answered a VAX/Alpha running VMS since there were no known viruses and that system security was good. My answer was predicated on the fact that he needed storage for medical images and that he needed to maintain complete medical confidentiality. He is totally frustrated with the lack of reliability on Windows NT and is favoring SUN based systems. The trend in radiology is to move toward Windows NT platforms because the companies can't get support staff that can handle anything else. Our biggest problem, since we are a children's hospital is that we must maintain the data for 25 years. Actually 7 years once the child turns 18. In practice we plan never to get rid of any data. Examples of systems in Radiology CT scanner using SGI computer CT workstation using SUN running Solaris Vitrea 3D workstation using Windows NT on HP Kayak computer Laser film printer network running MS-DOS Laser film printer network running LINUX MRI scanner using SUN Film digitizer running on PC using Windows NT Nuclear medicine system with Windows NT, Mac G4, and Linux on PC VME systems embedded in film printers I have 8" floppies from old CT scanners, QIC tapes, DAT tapes, MO disks, 5 1/4 floppies, 3 1/2 floppies, 9 track tapes I was offered from a major US company a radiology image management system the other day that had the following systems. Windows NT display stations Apple Macintosh image archive server Sun webserver and image server I don't think anybody could support and troubleshoot such a system. Their answer is that they support the system today and will provide an upgrade path when they change every 3-4 years. woe-is-me Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu

25 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

NeXT MO disks (cleaning)

by mtapley＠swri.edu

Mark K. said: >Cleaning the disk surface is easy (remember, with disk side A up, the surface >for side A is underneath), so you may as well try that before attempting to >open the drive. If you don't want to buy a purpose-designed disk cleaning kit >you can use a lint-free cloth. Breathe on the disk and carefully wipe >radially, rotate the disk slightly and repeat. Preferably wear some plastic >gloves to prevent skin oils from touching the disk. I once in an optics lab *suggested* (lucky me) breathing on a component to moisten it before wiping. The instructor *yelled* at me (only time) to make sure I didn't carry through. (CO2 + water in your breath = dilute carbonic acid? He didn't amplify on what all is in breath, but he made sure I used IPA or de-ionized water or something after that.) Not knowing the proper solvent, I'd tentatively suggest iso-propyl alcohol, but would avoid breathing on optics (or media) if at all possible. It may be MO disks are sufficiently rugged it makes no difference, but that formative experience has convinced me it's not a good habit to be in. - Mark T.

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

makefile/embedded sql

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

What in the world made you think this group is a C and SQL support resource? Many of us work with both but this is not the place. Allison ------Original Message------ From: J4430(a)aol.com To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Sent: March 7, 2001 8:39:30 AM GMT Subject: makefile/embedded sql Hello i'm trying to write a embedded Sql program in C but i don't know how to compile,link and run it. I know you have to write a makefile but i have never done that before and i've looked in books in the store and there is nothing that i've seen to show you or describe how to create the makefile, and run the sql embedded program. Can you help or point me in the right direction to get some help. Thanks, Craig

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Vax and Dec Need Help!

by LFessen106＠aol.com

Is there someone on the list who would be willing to send me an MMJ serial cable in an effort to get a Vax and a couple Decstations working? For some reason I can't find any local or even semi-local resources for MMJ cables or connectors.. Thanks! -Linc Fessenden. (BTW, I live in Eastern PA)

25 years, 4 months

1
0
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New here :-)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 7, 10:32, Geoff Roberts wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)conman.org> > > It was thus said that the Great FBA once stated: > > > > > > >Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and > is > > > >where the basic units came from. > > > > > > 1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side. > > > > At 4 degrees Celcius at sea level, don't forget. Since we're getting all accurate again, .. The kilogram was defined in a way intended to represent the mass of one cubic decimetre of water at its maximum density, and to this end a suitable platinum-iridium cylinder was constructed to be "the standard". But it was later found to be slightly inaccurate, so the definition of the standard was redifined to be the mass of the cylinder. Thus 1 litre doesn't *quite* fit into a cube 10cm a side, being 28 ppm too large :-) In 1964 the litre was redefined for practical purposes to equal a cubic decimetre, but not for work of high precision. An imperial gallon is defined in terms of a mass of water (weighing 10 pounds at a density of 0.988859 grams per cc, ie at 20C, in air at a certain density, against weight of a certain density, all stated in metric units!). > > -spc (Atmospheric presure is measured in millibars, right?) > > Correct. The ISA (International Standard Atmosphere) is 1013.2 > hectopascals (equiv - millibars) @ 20C (hmm or is it 15? been a while > since I did Met.) 15C. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

makefile/embedded sql

by J4430＠aol.com

Hello i'm trying to write a embedded Sql program in C but i don't know how to compile,link and run it. I know you have to write a makefile but i have never done that before and i've looked in books in the store and there is nothing that i've seen to show you or describe how to create the makefile, and run the sql embedded program. Can you help or point me in the right direction to get some help. Thanks, Craig

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Us vs. Museums

by jerryjh＠imt.net

On 2001-03-04 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org said: >The Museums clearly serve several useful purposes, such >that I think the "us vs. them" label is inappropriate. Oh well. At least it got some attention. ;-) The "vs." might just as well be thought of as "private collectors" in *contrast* to "museum collections". >1. They are higher profile that individual enthusiats >and therefore a magnet for systems that might otherwise >end up in the dumpster or with scrappers. What do you mean by "higher profile"? There are some private collectors, no doubt, with noble and intelligent motives rivaling that of some museum staffs. >2. They tend to be open to the general public making >the machines accessible to anyone who wants to see >them. What would you suggest is the foremost reason for "seeing" them? >3. They educate the public about the value of >preserving old computers, and introduce new people to >the hobby. (I know some may not think this is >necessarily a good thing.) Would you suppose that there are other causes even more significant than encouraging computers as a hobby through museum displays? >4. The curators tend to be schooled in preservation, >and while they may not operate their machines, they >usually keep them safe, dry, etc. Private collectors can do the same, if they wish, although I doubt that many private collectors would enjoy "dead" machines as well as "live" ones. >5. They can usually accommodate the very large >machines that many collectors don't have the room for. Yes, I have seen such a museum, which has ambitious plans for doing just that. >6. Museums can sometimes undertake restoration >projects that require the coordination of people and >resources that individuals would unlikely be able to >accomplish on their own, such as those undertaken by >The Computer Museum History Center located at Moffett >Airfield. Is there a URL for it? >7. Museums don't sell on eBay (or sell at all for that >matter); a number of "us" do. Personally, I prefer to see what I'm buying first -- especially when it's something like an old computer that I'd want to examine closely for condition, etc.. Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered

25 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

New here :-)

by fauradon＠mn.mediaone.net

>Essentially, this means that 1 Litre of pure water weighs 1Kg and is >where the basic units came from. 1 Litre will also fit quite nicely in a cube 10cm a side. For a person whom has used the metric for 2/3 of my life I still find it very clear and precise. I hate to have to remember all those weird numbers 5280 feet in a mile, 16 ounces to a can oh wait that's beer here... It took me a while to get used to the units on this side of the pond and I still strugglt when I need a pint and all I have to measure is a cup. And I found the most people here don't even know all those psychoweirdo stuff. Hey the Nasdaq just dropped the fractional notation. That's another funky stuff I had to deal with adding 3/32 of an inch to 3/8 of an inch does not look like fun to me when I could be adding mm or cm. Look what happened when one bonehead uses Imperial measurements instead of the standard metric system for the mars smasher ^H^H^H^H^H^H lander. I don't think the US will ever make it to the metric system. It is always presented as a difficult system in schools. some kids always ooh aah when I mention the metric stuff to them. Wake up people of the United states it's 2001 and we don't need to know the lenght of the thumb or foot or whatever appendage from some long dead ruler of an old island. Francois

25 years, 4 months

5
6
0 0

HLL Computers

by sguthery＠rcn.com

I'm making a list of the processors and computers that in one way or another tried to directly execute a high-level programming language. Here's what I have so far. Algol60 - Burroughs 5500 Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others Ada - Intel 432 Java - picoJava Modula M-Code - Lilith Additions and corrections are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Cheers, Scott ************************* Mobile-Mind, Inc ************************* Scott Guthery sguthery(a)mobile-mind.com Voice:+1 617 926 6888 Mobile:+1 617 230 1346 FAX:+1 617 926 1611 ******************** http://www.mobile-mind.com ********************

25 years, 4 months

10
10
0 0

Tape images and exporting

by rcini＠optonline.net

Hello, all: I have an odd question. A chap from the Netherlands contacted me last week based on an old posting to the list that he found through an Internet search (from the list archives). He's restoring an LPS11 and would like to have copies of the paper tapes I have for his project. Several years ago, I picked-up several blue-boxes of PDP11 paper tapes, mostly diagnostic tapes. Since I can't make tape images, I was going to ship them to him and let him use them and then return them to me. I'm a bit concerned about the trans-Atlantic trip, plus any stupid stuff, like export restrictions. Any opinions? I would love to keep these things on this side of the Atlantic if I could and just deliver to him image files and scans of the tape ID label. Rich Collector of Classic Computers Build Master for the Altair32 Emulator Project Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ /*****************************************/

25 years, 4 months

1
0
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Us vs. Museums

by jerryjh＠imt.net

On 2001-03-06 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said: >However, both private collectors and museums often have space >limitations. I can't save everything I would like (although IMHO I >certainly try). And as somebody said yesterday, %computer_museum no >longer accepts donations of 'common' machines, for all they could >be used as spare parts, or to allow others to learn about them, or >whatever. I would asseme the reason they no longer accept such >donations is lack of space. Agreed. >> I'm not an authority on distinctions, just a visitor offering my >> concern to preserve what's best for learning purposes. >OK, in your opinion, what machines are important to preserve for >learning purposes (or for any other purpose you'd care to suggest). >I am seriously interested.... If we could say that classic computers have a valuable *object lesson* for future generations, I wouldn't be quick to label this or that machine as the best example. There are several categories of machines for various services, personal, desktop, portable, scientific, etc., and to elevate this or that one above the other might needlessly bait others into unproductive discussion of personal preferences. Let's have our personal preferences. But let's also determine (at least for ourselves) a general principle or two that points to the value of classic computers -- more specifically -- their purpose and our realistic expectations of them beyond mere entertainment value. >Of course, both groups might get a machine that is original and >which still works. In which case both enthusiasts and musuems will >preserve it in much the same state. I completely agree. Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered

25 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

New here :-)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 5, 18:51, Tony Duell wrote: > > If you think all that's bad, I still haven't figured out the measurements > > for cooking...like how many tablespoons in a cup, and how many cups in a > > quart and all that nonsense. Who came up with this crap anyway? > > I knew the HP49G was useful for something :-). It has all those units in > the unit management system.. > > According to that machine : > > 1 cup = 16 tablespoons > > 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons Except that, traditionally, there are two teaspoons in a dessertspoon and two dessertspoons in a tablespoon. It doesn't add up :-) > 1 cup = 8 fluid ounces > > 1 quart = 4 cups > > 1 cup = 236.5882365 ml And those are U.S. measures, I think. A cup is half a pint; an imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces, not 16. An imperial quart = 2 imperial pints = 1.136523 litres (1136 ml); 4 U.S. cups = 946 ml. A tablespoon is supposedly 15ml (mine aren't but that's another story :-)) So 16 tbsp (1 U.S. cup) would be 240ml. Close enough for cookery, I suppose. And of course that only applies to liquid measure. When you're measuring dry materials, you're supposed to use a rounded (not heaped! that's different) spoonful -- an allowance for the hypothetical meniscus, of course. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 4 months

11
12
0 0

NeXT MO disks

by mark_k＠iname.com

On Mon, 5 Mar 2001 Jeff Hellige wrote: > I actually found a couple of Sony EDM-1DA1 MO disks with >512-byte sectors and are formatted out to approximately 281meg/side. >Connected to 3 different Mac's, they will all read the disks fine but >they all error out when I attempt to reformat the disks, either using >the Pinnacle-supplied software or using FWB HDtoolbox. This version >of HDtoolbox states that it supports this drive too. The drive acts >like thier's a SCSI-bus problem at times but changing terminators and >such have had no effect on it. Hmm. What error messages does the software give when you try to format the disks? Can you successfully write data to the already-formatted disks? Try disabling blind reads and writes and enabling write verification, if possible (the Pinnacle software has per-partition options for that). Also, if you want to try formatting using Hard Disk Toolbox (say), don't power up the Mac with a Pinnacle-formatted disk in the drive. Insert the disk after booting; that way, the FWB driver will be used to access the disk, not whatever driver happens to be on the disk at the moment. Using a SCSI utility/diagnostic program, see how many sectors are in the primary and secondary defect lists. If there are many more in the secondary, that suggests that the drive lens and/or disk surface may be dirty. Cleaning the disk surface is easy (remember, with disk side A up, the surface for side A is underneath), so you may as well try that before attempting to open the drive. If you don't want to buy a purpose-designed disk cleaning kit you can use a lint-free cloth. Breathe on the disk and carefully wipe radially, rotate the disk slightly and repeat. Preferably wear some plastic gloves to prevent skin oils from touching the disk. For what it's worth, the Pinnacle Micro Mac driver is one of the few Mac SCSI packages that works on my Amiga with the ShapeShifter Mac emulator (even with ShapeShifter's I-can't-believe-the-bugs-in-that SCSI emulation). -- Mark

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

National Industries CPM computer ???

by rigdonj＠intellistar.net

Has anyone ever heard of a CPM computer made by National Industries Inc of Montgomery Alabama? I found one recently. It looks similar to a Morrow MD-2 and has two 5 1/4" floppy drives. It also has a Z-80A CPU. There were a couple of floppy disks in the drives. I tried to read them using 22disk but no luck. I haven't checked it beyond that. Joe

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

Us vs. Museums

by jerryjh＠imt.net

On 2001-03-05 classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <Tony Duell> said: >>Museums should ideally have the at least a few of the best >>preserved specimens of chosen categories, especially the rarer >>categories... >Is it more important to preserve rare machines or 'important' >machines? ... >I can make arguements for either, BTW. Let's just say I'd be pleased to see nothing significant go to waste. I'm not an authority on distinctions, just a visitor offering my concern to preserve what's best for learning purposes. >>both working and nonworking condition: working order for >>preservation; nonworking for learning. Of course, any of us >>should be allowed to... >Have you got that the right way round? Alright. Both working and nonworking systems have their use. That's what I'd suggest. My apologies for not "writing straightly". >>have private collections for learning or whatever else -- but not >>the liberty to deliberately destroy history that could be >>beneficial to mankind. >Are you suggesting that scrap dealers should be turned into >criminals ? (I don't agree with this). No. My use of *deliberately* implies *knowingly*, which I would say certain individuals might do to hide the value of "old technology" in order to turn attention to some selfish, lucrative scheme. This is not on the same level as "scrap dealers", as you might suggest. I would like to emphasize that I value classic computer history more for its lessons than the methods of its material preservation. Of course, the former depends on the latter -- but you can surely appreciate my elevation of principle above all else. Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered

25 years, 4 months

3
2
0 0

HLL Computers

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

The B5500 doesn't run Algol 60, technically speaking. It runs Burroughs Extended Algol, which is based on Algol 60. For example, BEA (cuz I don't wanna type out the whole name), doesn't include all of the characters used in Algol 60, it has a different replacement operator, uses a different symbol for exponents, and powers of ten in numbers are written out differently. Another major difference is that Algol 60 doesn't have reserved words, and BEA does. There are some other details too.. If anyone is wondering, I'm getting this from my "ALGOL Programming ...A Basic Approach" which was written by 2 guys from Burroughs and one from Marathon Oil, who was big into the B5000. Will J _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

HLL Computers

by fmc＠reanimators.org

"Lee Courtney" <leec(a)slip.net> wrote: > "Computers in the 1980s" by Turn (1974) also has a brief, but interesting, > take on HLL hardware. There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery track down: "Advances in Computer Architecture" by Glenford J. Myers. There are at least two editions of this book (both published by Wiley): (1st) 1978, ISBN 0-471-83475-4 (2nd) 1982, ISBN 0-471-07878-6 IIRC, between editions he had moved from IBM to Intel and the 2nd edition has an additional chapter on the IAPX 432. "High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu. Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8. > Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one in on display at > the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.). One, or part of one? I'm pretty sure that both of the above books include some discussion of the SYMBOL machine. Predictably, I don't have either at hand to look; they're both in storage and storage is a mess right now. -Frank McConnell

25 years, 4 months

2
1
0 0

HLL Computers

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Mark Tapley <mtapley(a)swri.edu> > There's another category of machines like the "Basic stamp" that >have an HLL in firmware "on chip" (either in ROM on the CPU chip, or in >another chip on the same IC). From an architectural point of view, I think >this is a lot different from what you are talking about, but you may want >to make a list for that category as well, for completeness. I'll bet you'll >find some processors that are right on the edge between categories, too. Add to that... machines where the cpus had internal rom with... National NSC8073 with tinybasic on internal rom Intel 8052 (8051 serios with 8k basic). 8051 with Forth in internal rom An assortment of small handhelds with a chip containing basic Then there were the machines with internal rom or microcode that ran some hll... Didn't Wang have a small micro with basic on rom? Allison

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

HLL Computers

by lcourtney＠mvista.com

> Original Message: > ----------------- > From: Frank McConnell fmc(a)reanimators.org > Date: 05 Mar 2001 23:17:34 -0800 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: HLL Computers > > There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery > track down: > > "High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu. > Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8. Another good one. I'll check for references to SYMBOL in this book when I get home tonight. > > Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one > in on display at > > the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.). > > One, or part of one? I believe TCMHC only has the CPU. Its the box on display between the PDP10 and the Meiko supercomputer. BTW, David Ditzel of Transmeta worked on SYMBOL (at Iowa?) and recently rediscovered the machine on display during a recent visit. When I was in college in the 75-79 timeframe HLL architectures were the subject of considerable interest and research (and I believe this was the case for the previous 20 years). I was originally drawn to working at HP by the work they had done providing microcode support for an incremental APL compiler on the HP3000 (which was the subject of a lawsuit HP lost before withdrawing the product, but that's another thread). I thought it was a fascinating field, but the tidal wave of RISC architectures in the early-80s I think pretty much killed off HLL architectures (which I believe was the right thing). Lee Courtney Engineering Manager Phone: (408) 328-9238 MontaVista Software, Inc. Fax: (408) 328-9204 1237 East Arques Avenue Web: www.hardhatlinux.com Sunnyvale, CA 94085 Email: lcourtney(a)mvista.com Check out the embedded Linux experts at http://www.hardhatlinux.com

25 years, 4 months

1
0
0 0

New here :-) (& OT :)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Iggy Drougge <optimus(a)canit.se> >anglophony, since they are archaic beyond reason. I wonder why there hasn't >been a revolution in America, isn't the people tired of using all that inch >and oz stuff? ;) Yep. - I own a toyota... metric tools. - I did many years ago work on british morotcycles decimal inches. - I have a full tool crib, fractional inches, however, drills are number, letter, fractional inch and decimal inch. The verniers and micrometers are in thousandths of an inch. - However, my us standard snow blower uses the US common 14mm spark plug. - I fly a plane and use knots not MPH or KPH. My altimiter is in inches but weather is in millibars. - I cook, grams, oz, drams, pinches, "abit of" and so on. An all I wanted to do was drill an eigth inch hole for a number six screw to mount the capacitor (condensor) in my 10m reciever. I ponder this over a cup of Coffee. ;) Allison

25 years, 4 months

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HLL Computers

by lcourtney＠mvista.com

> Original Message: > ----------------- > From: Frank McConnell fmc(a)reanimators.org > Date: 05 Mar 2001 23:17:34 -0800 > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: HLL Computers > > There are another couple of books I would recommend Scott Guthery > track down: > > "High-Level Language Computer Architecture" edited by Yaohan Chu. > Published by Academic Press, 1975, ISBN 0-12-174150-8. Yup, another good one. WHen I get home I'll look to see if it discusses the SYMBOL machine. BTW, David Ditzel of Transmeta worked on SYMBOL (at Iowa) and recently rediscovered the machine when he saw the one on display at MOffett. When I was in college in the mid-70s HLL architectures were an area of considerable interest and research. I was originally attracted to work at HP because of work they had done creating an incremental APL compiler with microcode support on the HP3000. The RISC tidal wave seems to have extinguished most efforts in this area. > > Has the SYMBOL machine machine been mentioned? (There's one > in on display at > > the Computer Museum History Center in Mtn. View CA.). > > One, or part of one? > I believe only the CPU is in the collection.

25 years, 4 months

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Us vs. Museums

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

The artificially inflated valuation of a donation to a museum is exactly how many paintings ended up in museums. The IRS cracked down of paintings created to be donations for tax fraud purposes. The same scheme has been tried with, property, cars, clothing, furniture, horses, and boats. The main issue is FMV, fair market value. You can't claim it's worth $100,000 if nobody will pay that. It's especially difficult without comparable sales of the item to value your item. There have been cases of dealers trading items among themselves to establish an artificial market value. No money changed hands just paperwork. Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu

25 years, 4 months

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HLL Computers

by mtapley＠swri.edu

Scott, >I'm making a list of the processors and computers >that in one way or another tried to directly execute >a high-level programming language. Here's what I have >so far. ... There's another category of machines like the "Basic stamp" that have an HLL in firmware "on chip" (either in ROM on the CPU chip, or in another chip on the same IC). From an architectural point of view, I think this is a lot different from what you are talking about, but you may want to make a list for that category as well, for completeness. I'll bet you'll find some processors that are right on the edge between categories, too. - Mark

25 years, 4 months

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HP 2392A Terminals free for pickup or cost of shipping

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

Hmm...the person at the contact number said this messages is *months* old, and those terminals are long gone. -Dave McGuire On December 13, Bill Dawson wrote: > HP 2392A Terminals free for pickup or cost of shipping, pickup > preferred. > > 7 are located in Philadelphia, PA and 7 are in Tampa, FL. All are still > operational and include the original boxes. > > Please contact Lisa Flores at Abtech Systems by phone or email to make > arrangements: > > (800)474-7397 (Carlsbad, CA) or lisax.flores(a)xabtechsys.com (remove the > x's) > > Arrangements should be made ASAP. There may be much more HP equipment > available in the future for free if this goes well. Abtech has HP and > Sun equipment, along with other things such as Netservers, PC's and > peripherals, etc. that are not worth shipping back to Carlsbad and may > become available to listmembers in the future. > > > Bill

25 years, 4 months

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New here :-)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 5, 22:17, Tony Duell wrote: > Pete wrote: > > Tony wrote: > > > 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons > > > > Except that, traditionally, there are two teaspoons in a dessertspoon and > > two dessertspoons in a tablespoon. It doesn't add up :-) > > I believe the 3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon is right in America. We have > slightly different spoons over here. Well, that was a bit tongue-in-cheek :-) "Officially" (whose office, I don't know) a teaspoon here is 5ml and a tablespoon is 15ml, so it's now 1:3 here too. Like Dick, though, I know mine don't work out that way :-) > When you consider that most recipies include such reproducable standards > as '1 egg' or 'a pinch of salt', you come to realise that measuring > _anything_ accurately is probably a total waste of time :-) And if you do, it probably won't come out right anyway -- your flour will be a different grade, or your eggs a different size, than those of the person who wrote the recipe. Or they do it by eye too, and just wrote down what they *thought* they used :-) I started to learn to cook when I was quite young, and I still remember the occasion when I read a recipe that called for a teaspoon of vanilla essence. "Mum! Is that a level or a heaped teaspoon?" She had to think about it for a moment... -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 4 months

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New here :-)

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 5, 17:22, Will Jennings wrote: > Uhh, why are they being called "American" units? It's the English system of > measurement, even if America is (or is close to being) its last user.. 'cos many of the units (especially liquids) are different sizes from the English ones :-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 4 months

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My old posts just now appearing on the list

by whdawson＠mlynk.com

Anyone have any idea what's going on? I sent these two emails to the list on December 13, but they just appeared on March 5th. Am I reading these headers correctly if I state that these emails have been at mlynk.com since the December 13th, and were just yesterday sent to the list? I've copied the headers and subject lines here: RE: CRT Problems was:(no subject) Return-Path: <owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Received: from opal.tseinc.com (opal.tseinc.com [209.83.143.19]) by mlynk.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA06239 for <whdawson(a)mlynk.com>; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 20:08:49 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by opal.tseinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id RAA95442 for classiccmp-classiccmp-org-outgoing; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 17:48:37 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org) X-Authentication-Warning: opal.tseinc.com: majordom set sender to owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org using -f Received: from mlynk.com (IDENT:root@[209.114.158.2]) by opal.tseinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA95436 for <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 17:48:36 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from whdawson(a)mlynk.com) Received: from whdawson.cobweb.net (ip136.wpic.com [209.114.158.136]) by mlynk.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id NAA27718 for <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 13:47:27 -0500 From: "Bill Dawson" <whdawson(a)mlynk.com> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Subject: RE: CRT Problems was:(no subject) Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 12:36:08 -0500 Message-ID: <000701c0652b$2d91c1a0$889e72d1(a)cobweb.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2232.26 In-Reply-To: <3A371F55.E4E0625D(a)ipom.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Importance: Normal Sender: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Status: AND this one: Return-Path: <owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Received: from opal.tseinc.com (opal.tseinc.com [209.83.143.19]) by mlynk.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA04103 for <whdawson(a)mlynk.com>; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 19:13:03 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by opal.tseinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id QAA94070 for classiccmp-classiccmp-org-outgoing; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:52:05 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org) X-Authentication-Warning: opal.tseinc.com: majordom set sender to owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org using -f Received: from mlynk.com (IDENT:root@[209.114.158.2]) by opal.tseinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id QAA94065 for <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>; Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:52:04 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from whdawson(a)mlynk.com) Received: from whdawson.cobweb.net (ip247.wpic.com.158.114.209.IN-ADDR.ARPA [209.114.158.247] (may be forged)) by mlynk.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA30847 for <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>; Wed, 13 Dec 2000 15:41:20 -0500 From: "Bill Dawson" <whdawson(a)mlynk.com> To: "Classiccmp@Classiccmp. Org" <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Subject: HP 2392A Terminals free for pickup or cost of shipping Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2000 14:30:01 -0500 Message-ID: <000001c0653b$16532f00$f79e72d1(a)cobweb.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2232.26 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2919.6600 Sender: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Precedence: bulk Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Status:

25 years, 4 months

1
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Vermin

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Uhh, I think I'll pass on Australia, thanks!!! But now I'm more justified in clobbering every spider I see in the house/garage/basement; some of them I literally have no clue what they are.. and the other night I went to take my bath and there was a spider in my bathroom that was quite odd, particularly after applying my accounting textbook to it. I kill all other insects I find indoors too, apart from crickets, so don't think I hate spiders.. I really don't, I just have lots of valuable things are that are vulnerable to insect damage, not to mention that I'm often barefoot, and have bad luck to boot. For example, when I brought home my Commodore 128 from my uncle's house, I also brought home 4 brown recluses... I practically tossed the things across the room. The worst I've experienced, however, has to be the Sinclair ZX81 I got, which, when opened, was full of *live* cockroaches! BARF! That went straight to the dumpster, after the Denver cockroach massacre... My worst non-computer experience was a 1965 Pontiac Catalina 2+2 I helped my friend restore.. mice had inhabited it for 15+ years.. Whole car reeked of mouse piss.. (Yes I was wearing a mask, ugh). They had eaten the inside of the interior, so after taking out the seats, there was mouse shizzat and car interior shreds 5 inches deep, and since the trunk latch was busted and drilling it out failed, guess who got to crawl through the hole in the frame thats behind the backseat into the truck? Me of course! I don't think I've ever been so glad to leave a place. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

1
0
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HLL Computers

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

FYI, all Varian V70 series machines are microcoded... that's the main difference between them and the Varian 620's... That and they have more registers, and I think my dad said semiconductor memory too, but that could be incorrect. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

1
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Packaging service recommendations?

by frustum＠pacbell.net

I know a couple weeks back there was a thread where everybody took a turn describing what horrors a particular shipper had committed to something they sent. I didn't pay much attention to it then, but perhaps I should have. At any rate, my question is somewhat different. I've been collecting computers for only two years, but at the top of my wish list has been to get a Wang 2200, one of the older models. It is the machine I learned to program on, and it left a strong impression. My coding style still suffers because of it. :-) Well, I finally found somebody who will ship me one for the cost of shipping. It is in Portland, OR, and I'm in San Jose, CA. The estimated weight is 200-300 pounds including accessories and docs. [ The early 2200's had a power supply box, a suitcase-sized box that contained the TTL CPU, then a separate keyboard/monitor. The setup I'm hoping to get also has three external tape drives and a modified selectric as a printing device. ] Because the guy who has it is essentially giving it away, I want to make it as easy for him as possible, and at the same time I want to get it packed really well because I don't want anything to happen to it. I guess I'm afraid that he'd just put it in a cardboard box stuffed with newspapers. A scan through the yellow pages under "Packaging Materials" and "Packaging Services" showed quite a few people who package things for a price, but I've never used one. Does anybody have any tips on how to choose one? Should I insist on a wood crate, or foam-fill, or something else? As another data point, I tried the rate estimator on FedEx and it wouldn't accept a box that weighed 300 lbs. I tried 100 lbs and it said $50, which seems quite reasonable to me. So as another data point, I'd have to split the lot into two or three crates in order to send it. Thanks for any experience you can share. ----- Jim Battle == frustum(a)pacbell.net

25 years, 4 months

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Paging: John Lawson

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

John, it's obvious to me that either panix.com's mail system is configured weird, or there's something strange about my firewall. It keeps treating panix connection attempts as an SMTP attack, for some strange reason. Please contact me at my backup address: wd6eos (a-t) hamsnet.net Thanks. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com // E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio: WD6EOS since Dec. '77 (Extra class as of June-2K) "I'll get a life when someone demonstrates to me that it would be superior to what I have now..." (Gym Z. Quirk, aka Taki Kogoma).

25 years, 4 months

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New here :-)

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

Uhh, why are they being called "American" units? It's the English system of measurement, even if America is (or is close to being) its last user.. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

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NeXT MO disks

by mark_k＠iname.com

Hi, Replying to a couple of messages here... On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 Jerome Fine wrote: >> I took a look at the Pinnacle drive today and it is a >> Pinnacle Micro Sierra Optical Hard Drive with a 1.3gig capacity on >> 5-1/4" removable media. Supposedly it is a double-sided cartridge >> capable of holding 650Mb per side. It appears to be a standard SCSI >> drive, but unfortunately I do not have any of the disks for it. > > As far as I know (or at least this is what I have always been told), the > MO drives which can use the larger capacity (NOT larger in physical > dimensions) media are also backward compatible with the lower > capacity media for both read and write at least downward one step. Yes, the only exception I know of being the Pinnacle Micro Vertex 2.6GB drive. Here's a summary of drive compatibility. 1x means 600 & 650MB, 2x means 1.2/1.3GB, 4x means 2.3/2.6GB, 8x means 4.1/4.8/5.2GB and 14x means 8.6/9.1GB. Maxoptix -------- Basically any Maxoptix drive can read and write to all previous generations of media, plus Maxoptix-specific 1GB disks (possibly read-only) and maybe 1.7/2.0GB disks. Sony ---- 2x drives (SMO-F521, SMO-F531) can read and write 1x and 2x media. All 4x, 8x and 14x drives can read all previous capacities. Most 4x drives (SMO-F541, SMO-F544) can write to 2x and 4x media. They cannot write to 1x. However, there is a model which *can* write to 1x media, the SMO-F541/SD. Most 8x drives (SMO-F551) can write to 4x and 8x media. There are models which can write to 2x (SMO-F551/DD) and 1x & 2x (SMO-F551/SD). The 14x drive (SMO-F561) can write to 4x, 8x, and 14x media. Pinnacle Micro -------------- The 2x Sierra drive can read and write to 1x and 2x media. The 4x Vertex drive can only read and write to 4x media. The reason for this is that Vertex drives were Apex drives which did not meet the spec for 4.6GB operation. The 4.6GB Apex drive can read and write 4.2/4.6GB and 4x media. It is not compatible with 1x or 2x media. > There are now 5 GByte media and these drives can still read the > 650 MByte original media for 5 1/4" drives, but are not able to > write to the original media. (One version of the Sony 5.2GB drive can write to all older media, as can all Maxoptix 5.2GB drives.) Sony recently introduced 9.1GB drives and media, see http://www.sony-cp.com/ There are actually full technical and SCSI spec manuals for the new SMO-F561 drive on the Sony web site, which makes a very welcome change. The SMO-F561 supports an "emulation mode", whereby 9.1GB disks (whose physical sector size is 4K) appear to have 512-byte or 1024-byte sectors. So even computers that require 512-byte sectors can use the higher capacity disks. Of course write performance will be relatively poor when using emulated sectors. > NOTE: The marketing hype produced by the drive manufactures > always stated (from what I can remember) that an MO drive had > a capacity equal the the capacity of the media rather than what the > drive could read on just one side of the media before it was flipped. Yes, though as far as marketing disks (as opposed to drives) is concerned that is usual. It's similar to audio cassettes (C60, C90). At least it's better than the stupid "assuming 2x compression" capacity figures quoted for tape drives. On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 Jeff Hellige wrote: > Has me thinking about trying to put the Pinnacle to good use, if it is > functional. It would be easy enough to use it with my Mac's, but I wonder > how hard it would be to get it working with the NeXT. The drive should appear as a direct access removable device on the SCSI bus. There may be a jumper to make it appear non-removable, if the NeXT does not like removable media. The NeXT native filesystem probably needs 512-byte sectors, so try using it with a 600MB or 1.2GB disk first. Using, say, tar to write directly to the drive may work with 650MB or 1.3GB disks. If removable media support is poor or non-existent on the NeXT, boot up with a disk in the drive. Then treat it like a hard disk, use the normal partitioning and formatting tools. Maybe you will be able to eject the disk after unmounting any partitions, then remount the partitions after inserting another disk. > I'm not sure about the ZIP disks, but somewhat related and > on-topic is a drive I used to have for the Atari ST. It was made by > Supra and was basically a 10meg 5-1/4" floppy. The head tracking was Interesting. Talking of wierd floppies... I saw an ad from 1983 for a drive which used a magazine of six 1.2MB 5.25" floppies. Does anyone know which company made that? -- Mark

25 years, 4 months

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Emulex UC14

by broth＠heathers.stdio.com

Does anyone have or know where I can find an info sheet on a Emulex UC14 Unibus SCSI controller? I was lucky enough to acquire one of these guys in a 11/750 that I just received. It has three rows of dips and a couple of jumper blocks to set. I'm sure it emulates a MSCP device but I need to know how to set the address. Thanks, Brian.

25 years, 4 months

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New here :-)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>> The howls of protest when anything new is metricated can probably be heard >> clear across the pond! Mind you, prosecuting a greengrocer for displaying >> his weights in pounds (as happend recently) was a bit over the top.... >> I've been metric since I was at school (late 50's - early '60s) so I can >> cope with either. My old 386 tower weighs about 1 1/2 stone.... > >I have no problems with either. There are plenty of approximate >conversions for everyday use, like : > >1 foot ~= 30cm (and FWIW, ~= 1 light-nanosecond ;-)), so "I've estimated >I need just over 9 feet of cable, so if I buy 3 metres it'll be enough) ;) Me, I could care less. I have mostly inch/pound instruments but metric are equally handy. Electronics is if anything biased to metric. I'm rather used to 10 meter band rather than the 10.9yard. Conversions are less the problem for the metric world. It still bugs me to convert Foot/pounds to Inch/oz. >Over here, second-hand imperial measuring tools, like micrometers, are >often a lot cheaper than metric ones. I have no problem using either, and >would rather save money (or spend the same money and get a better tool). Good tools transcend the units they measure. Allison

25 years, 4 months

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HLL Computers

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> >> >> I'm making a list of the processors and computers >> that in one way or another tried to directly execute >> a high-level programming language. Here's what I have >> so far. >> >> Algol60 - Burroughs 5500 CISIC machine, ALGOL compiles to efficiently. >> Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq WD runs P-code in hardware (microcode, yet another layer) but Pcode is not Pascal. >> Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others >> Ada - Intel 432 Fancy CISIC machine optimized for OOP. > >Are you sure? It may well have been designed/optimised to run ada I'm with you Tony. None of those machine ran HLL code directly. As Tony pointed out they were designed to run the optimized COMPILED code not the language directly. Lisp And Forth primitives however are suitable for direct implmentation but, the human readable versions would still be compiled. Allison

25 years, 4 months

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HLL Computers

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Mar 5, 16:20, Scott Guthery wrote: > I'm making a list of the processors and computers > that in one way or another tried to directly execute > a high-level programming language. Here's what I have > so far. > > Algol60 - Burroughs 5500 > Pascal P-Code - Western Digital Pascal Microengine, Perq > Lisp - Symbolics, Lisp Machine, and many others > Ada - Intel 432 > Java - picoJava > Modula M-Code - Lilith A transputer executes Occam more-or-less directly. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager Dept. of Computer Science University of York

25 years, 4 months

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Standalone transputer tram motherboard

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

Hi, I am currently working on a planetary robotic rover which I am going to use some of my transputers as the embedded controller. However, B008s and the rest of the bunch are just too big. Is there any standalone size-4 transputer motherboards that can be booted via EEPROM with external connectors for power? I dont need any bus interfaces (ISA, PCI, VME, SBus, etc). Does such a thing exist or does anyone have schematics on how to build something like this? It should be very simple me thinks... Ram

25 years, 4 months

2
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Us vs. Museums

by steven_j_robertson＠hotmail.com

> > > > Well, with a few caveats, it should be your marginal >tax rate (your > > 'bracket') times the valuation of the donation. For >example, your $1000 > > donation should bring you a $280 tax deduction if you >are in the 28% > > bracket. > > - don The "value" of a item donated to a museum is not mecessarily the market value. In many cases the numbers are vastly inflated in order to entice additional donations. Let's assume you are in a high tax bracket and looking for a little relief. You find a bargain on a very rare computer and pay $10,000 for it. You haul it down to the local technology museum, who is anxious to have the donation, and agree to give them the item. In exchange you ask them to provide a receipt for $100,000 for the machine. Since it's not costing them anything and the addition to the museum will entice additional visitors, they gladly agree to provide the receipt. You claim a $100,000 donation on your tax return and pay taxes on that much less of your income. That would probably be in the 30% - 40% range. Or a savings of $30,000 to $40,000!!! So... for your $10,000 investment you: 1.) Look like a real upstanding citizen for supporting the local museum. 2.) Get your name on a plaque in the museum (free advertising). 3.) Save $30,000 to $40,000 on your taxes. The museum gets a nice addition to it's collection at no cost. Next time you go to a museum, look around. Most of the really valuable things were not donated because someone felt particularily generous. They were donated because the owners got huge tax breaks by donating them. The whole thing is a SCAM! _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com

25 years, 4 months

6
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northstar stuff in UK?

by s.d.birchall＠pgr.salford.ac.uk

Hi all, was there much Northstar kit in the UK at any point? I seem to remember seeing a Northstar Horizon in the computer junk shop, widnes, many years ago (ten years ago at least). I wouldn't mind something like that now, or an Advantage, but would it be a wild goose chase? Regards, Stu

25 years, 4 months

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Dr Dobb's Journal CDROM Release 7 (Jan88 - Jun99) Online!

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

Hi, While surfing the web, I found this site that has the whole CD online! Check it out... http://www.egor.spb.ru/doc/BookCD/DrDobbs/ Ram

25 years, 4 months

1
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Us vs. Museums

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

Re: non profit orgs: starting a non profit org is certainly much more than $35 as listed below. >From reasearch I was doing, you have to draft up a statement of purpose or something like that, then there's a $500 fee payable to the govt as well as much more paperwork. doesnt seem too cost effective at first viewing. In a message dated 3/4/01 6:53:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, at258(a)osfn.org writes: << Uhhh... do you really have to ask... Why can't you execute the paper work for a non-profit yourself? In RI, it's $35. M. K. Peirce Rhode Island Computer Museum Shady Lea, Rhode Island >>

25 years, 4 months

3
3
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Us vs. Museums

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

From: Jeffrey S. Sharp <jss(a)ou.edu> > coerced into doing. I want to get as close as I can to the > *experience* of computing in these machines' era. If these > machines go to a museum, they're just pretty art, and they will > educate _no_one_. They will sit behind glass walls, no one > ever will touch them again, and no one will ever turn them on or > keep them in working order. They are effectively lost. That's > little better then scrapping them, and you _KNOW_ how you feel > about that! It's combative. I'd also say it's not absolutly true, though, it could be. Things to consider: Is it truly rare or uncommon. Does an institution actually want it. Who removes, moves and/or ships it for either case? A) museum may or may not... B) You can make points by also providing that service. Often the "impressive deduction" is not real and the cost to remove and move the system is up to the owner. If there is a goal, I'd say make it easiest for the system owner to give or sell to you. The impressive deduction point is that most machines are simply used computers in the eyes of the IRS and of limited value and in all serious consideration most are common enough to not be "collectable" even if useable. I got a truckload of small VAXen once because the owner could not accept cash nor ship and was off in the corner of Vermont. Cost to me was a day of my time to load it and the 400miles of travel. Allison

25 years, 4 months

5
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Us vs. Museums

by jss＠ou.edu

I don't know everyone's perspective on this issue, and it would be good to hear some alternate viewpoints. Basically, I am against people giving classic computers in working condition to museums. Instead, I believe that they should donate or sell their machines to enthusiasts who will play with them and learn things. A while back, I ran across a person that had some hardware I wanted. He was torn between selling it to me and giving it to a museum. I didn't have a lot of money available to give him, and donation to a museum (a nonprofit) would get him an impressive tax deduction. I did some research about what it takes to start a nonprofit organization, but it looked too expensive (lawyers) and time-consuming to be a viable option for me. I sent the following argument to him: > While I would love to establish a collection of these machines, > I'm definitely not a 'collector' as the term has come to mean > today; I'm not in it to get something rare, to make money, or > to have some pretty decorations in my house. While it would > certainly be nice to have a pretty system, my priority is to > get something that I can learn with. I want to *run* these > machines. I want to *explore* these machines. I want to *hack* > on these machines, to see what unexpected things they can be > coerced into doing. I want to get as close as I can to the > *experience* of computing in these machines' era. If these > machines go to a museum, they're just pretty art, and they will > educate _no_one_. They will sit behind glass walls, no one > ever will touch them again, and no one will ever turn them on or > keep them in working order. They are effectively lost. That's > little better then scrapping them, and you _KNOW_ how you feel > about that! What do you think about this? (BTW, if anyone wants to use the quoted paragraph, they are free to) -- Jeffrey S. Sharp jss(a)ou.edu -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version 3.12 GCS/MU d-@ s-:+ a-- C+++(++++) UB+++$> P+ L+(++) E> W++ N+(++) o? K? w++$ !O M(-) !V PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5 X(+) R++ tv+ b+ DI++(+++) D+ G++ e> h--- r+++ y+++ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

25 years, 4 months

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Sharp PC 4502 Battery Substitute?

by jerryjh＠imt.net

Hello, folks -- My first computer, a portable Sharp PC 4502, needs a substitute battery, now that its original Yuasa battery is no longer manufactured. Other batteries exist almost identical in power specifications, but not in dimensions. The Yuasa battery had the following specifications: NP4.2-6H 6V, 4.2Ah -- dimensions: 1 7/8" x 2" x 4 5/8"; sealed lead-acid. The AC adaptor (which still works fine, luckily) has the following specifications: IN: 120V AC 60Hz 23 W; OUT: 10V DC 1.2A. (The computer has two 720k floppy drives, no hard drive, a back-lighted 640x200 LCD screen, V20 CPU clocked at 7.11 MHz, and the only peripheral I've used with it is my Okidata ML 182 Turbo 9-pin printer that I still share with three other computers on a data switch. I bought this computer in 1989 through DAMARK when it was already close to being obsolete; it was manufactured around 1987.) I still have the original dead battery, and it's stamped with 8710281 on its side; the second (nearly identical) Yuasa battery is stamped with 9410211, and I'm barely able to keep it charged for any meaningful length of time anymore. Does anyone know of a suitable substitute battery that would satisfy the above specifications? This has been a very interesting machine from an important era in pioneer portable computers that I think would be worthwhile preserving in working condition. Although I can run the machine with its AC adaptor, it would be a pain to keep that constantly plugged in to avoid the setup screen that pops up when turned on without a battery (and always have to reset everything). And it would be odd, too, to have an oversized battery connected to it from outside of its case, and inconvenient (to say the least). Thank you for any suggestions! Jerry... on his IBM PC/AT 5170 Model 339 | My laptop computer's a ***** 9600kbps/30MB HD/512k RAM/8 MHz | Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 Net-Tamer V 1.11.2X - Registered

25 years, 4 months

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