In a message dated 1/10/99 8:04:23 AM EST, tim(a)thereviewguide.com writes:
<< I recently got an Apple II+. OK, it's not the most exciting
system in the world, but very cool in it's own respect. It's totally
FULL of all kinds of add-in cards (including a AD/DA converter),
and has 64K RAM. (48K+16K Pocket Rocket), etc. So basically,
it's a nice II+, but more important to me is the add on cards, which
probably hold tons of interesting secrets. There's a problem.
MACHINE WILL NOT BOOT. >>
does it beep when you turn it on? try removing most or all of the i/o cards
and try it again. if it was shipped to you, it probably got beat to heck.
reseat/replug everything component on the board and try that.
david
NorthStar (founded by 2 Berkeley professors) made one of the earliest S-100
5.25" disk sub-systems. IIRC, it sold for $699 which was cheaper than than
the 8" systems available, and made it a popular add-on for IMSAI and other
early S-100 machines. It always included NorthStar DOS and BASIC, but CP/M
was eventually adapted for it (by Lifeboat Associates I think). The Horizon
was a farily well-designed 4 MHz Z-80 S-100 box supplied with N*'s own 16K
(and later 32K, 48K, and 64K) dynamic RAM cards. The floppy controller was
designed to use 10 hole hard sectored diskettes (which are still available
>from California Digital for $10 a box!) in formats ranging from SSSD (90K)
to DSQD (800K). They also made one of the earliest floating point processor
boards (which I believe only their own BASIC supported, in precisions from 8
to 14 digits). They eventually added a range of HDs and continued with
their own operating system development including a multi-user environment,
though they also officially offered CP/M. I was one of the founding members
(along with John Dvorak, who at one time published a Software Review and
sold N* software out of his home!) of INSUA, the International NorthStar
User's Association which published a very good newsletter for many years.
NorthStar made the transistion past the introduction of the PC by offering
an all-in-one SBC system with graphics (the Advantage) and even had a
dual-processor (Z-80 / 8088) model. Despite attempting to expand their
marketing by linking up with General Bindery Corporation (spiral-bound and
other binding equipment) to sell NorthStars through business equipment
suppliers, they eventually went the way of all S-100 manufacturers - R.I.P.
Bob Stek
bobstek(a)ix.netcom.com
Saver of Lost SOLs
On Jan 10, 11:10, Andrew Davie wrote:
> First question: there are two drives, and each has a set of jumper pins.
> The pins are labeled..
>
> DS 0
> 1
> 2
> 3
> MX
> MS
> H M
> H C
>
> The top drive, on which the red LED lights when I power the drive, has
> jumpers across DS1 and HC. I am guessing that this drive is the second
> drive, and that the two jumpers that fell out of the casing belong on the
> second drive. That should be, I'm guessing, DS0 and mmmh... HM? Can
> anybody enlighten me on this?
Probably DS0 (Drive Select 0) and all other links the same as the other
drive (so HC, rather than HM -- that determines the behaviour of head
loading w.r.t. drive select/motor on/some other condition)
> Second question: Powering the Sorcerer (I thought I didn't have a
monitor,
> but the VIDEO IN on my VCR works nicely - it shows up well on my TV)
exibits
> some strange behaviour. What's trying to come up on screen is "EXIDY
> STANDARD MONITOR" and a few lines after that. But it simply stops after
the
> second or third character. Repeated efforts see it stop in different
> places - sometimes you see the whole lot, and it's actually usable for a
few
[...]
> I found a homebrew cartridge for this machine, and when its plugged in,
the
> wordprocessor it contains appears to work fine - everytime - with no
> apparent problems.
> So, the question is, what's wrong with the monitor?
Did you have a BASIC cartidge plugged in? If that were so, and it were
faulty, it might well interfere with what happens after a cold start.
If not, it could be a faulty monitor PROM. I can't remeber at what point
the monitor checks for a cartridge and hands over control, but it could be
that one of the monitor PROMs is faulty. That might only be visible when
no other cartridge ius fitted, and the CLI part of the monitor is executed.
> Third question: Assuming I actually get the machine powering up
correctly,
> and that the drive I have isn't missing some vital component - it will be
> time to insert a disk. Can anybody tell me how to actually use a drive
with
> the Sorcerer system? I'm afraid it's going to be some arcane "GO C800"
or
> something like that, from the monitor. I think I might need someone with
> documentation!
That's how they usually work, but there are lots of different Sorcerer disk
formats/systems. We'd need to know more about the specific disk system you
have. Usually the bootstrap is quite small, and in the area you mention;
you could probably find the start of the bootstrap code just by DUmping
memory and looking for it.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
>> Graphics we know were not going to happen on PDP11 or most other
>> 16bit cpus as they don't address enough space. OSs were driven by
>> the environment and it's tasks plus space needs.
>>
>> Allison
>
>Jerome Fine replies:
>
>While I realize that it would not have been possible to make
>their graphics part of the standard OS for a PDP-11, I
>was led to believe that the PR0 350/380 had access to
>their bit mapped screen displays. While doing such
>manipulations was likely discouraged, is that a true
>statement of the situation and in a few lines, how was
>it done? I may have a working PRO 350/380 and
>it would be interesting.
That depends on the extent of the graphics you want on PDP11.
I am thinking of the VS11 and the VSV21 board sets. They work
quite nicely - I have a few VS11's and my VSV21 is on loan at a
customer site. I also have full docs on them if anyone need info on them.
Dan
Having spent the last several hours plowing through the boxes of
doc that came (thank you thank you thank you) with the system.. it
seems that I have either a 250-II or a 550-II; I have to drag the
CPU out to tell which.
The Mag Tape susbsystem has some very interesting conversion
routines... not like DECworld... much simpler.
I am *really* curious to see what's on the 'Games' reel.
Cheerz
John
If so, I have some old copies of the ORA books if you
want them. Yes, X11 is well over 10 years old!
-Miles, loves X but still misses Sun's original graphics
system
> Hi (from the list owner). :)
Hi yerself.
> I usually tell people to stop eventually, though I am rather lazy about it.
> Generally, I come down harder on the poltiical discussions.
I acknowledge that I'm jumping in without the benefit of a lurking period,
and that what I've seen so far may not be statistically significant, but
I'd like to offer a little perspective. I subscribe to a pretty varied
assortment of lists (ranging from old Ramblers to new music), and this is
by far the highest volume, with each digest in the 3000-4500 line range.
This, folks, is a lot of mail. In the case of at least one of the other
lists I subscribe to, the list owner borders on tyrannical in keeping the
discussion on-topic. We like it this way. Otherwise the S/N just drops
off too hard, and the list becomes more burden than useful.
> The Altair-price discussions are generally considered to be on topic,
> not just because they deal with classic computers, but because they deal
> with changes in the hobby of _collecting_ classic computers. If you've been
> looking at prices and available machines for any length of time, you can
> probably tell that it just isn't easy to pick up machines that used to be
> fairly readily available. (PDP-8's and -11's, for example.)
Understood. Me, I'm interested in the exchange of technical information,
and as I suggested above, it might be argued that the volume and variety
of discussion is going to make the list a less-than-satisfying thing for
people with specific interests.
Might I respectfully suggest that, in the absence of aggressive subject
management by the owner, the list would be better broken into four, say:
classiccmp-historical
classiccmp-technical
classiccmp-overblown_prices_collector_scum_die_die_die
classiccmp-more_about_television_licensing_really
> Maybe I should start keeping a list of subjects that are on-topic by
> consensus, and those that are off-topic by consensus.
That's admirably democratic of you, but impossible in practice. It's
really just a job for one individual's discretion, and I have no reason
to not trust yours.
Jonathan
I have various & sundry HP/UX 6.2 manuals, such as a Systems
Administrator manual. These went with the HP 9000 Series
300 systems, circa 1988. Still in the binders, mostly.
Anyone need them?
I have a set of Beta diskettes for the Sun Roadrunner (i386).
I have what appears to be the complete OS, and the diagnostics
diskette. I have part of the dev. tools (should have all, I
will keep looking).
Anyone have a Roadrunner and need software?
-Miles
At 12:10 AM 1/7/99 GMT, you wrote:
>Outlook? I can assure you that it is possible to configure Microsoft
>mailers to send formatted HTML (which IMHO should not be allowed at all) or
>RTF in such a way that normal mailers simply see a plain text plus an
>attachment.
Which, I might add, is a pita. I end up with a directory full of files
like "remessag" and "quantel" and such because of these stupid attachments.
Overworks my hard drive, uses up disk space, and hides legitimate,
important files.
I dunno, but if you can't describe something adequately with plain text
plus attachements (as in included when necessary) perhaps you don't
understand your subject well enough. If you need to include formatting
(such as Word files or data or even code) it can be sent as an attachment
(which, I might add, is more useable than trying to cut and paste from an
e-mail message.)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
Just so everyone knows,
Hayes is gone. They closed down for good yesterday.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
Max Eskin | kurtkilgor(a)bigfoot.com | AOL: kurtkilgor
Can anyone help me with this issue?
When I download my mail in Linux, the mail has a line in the header
called 'X-Status:' followed by a blank line. I have found that if I get
rid of this and the blank line, pine properly detects the Subject: and
From: of the letter. However, if I leave it in, it doesn't. I wrote a very
inefficient shell script to get rid of these lines, using a loop with grep
and sed. Does anyone know a better way?
Thanks.
----------------------------------------------------
Max Eskin | kurtkilgor(a)bigfoot.com | AOL: kurtkilgor
<be happy to send you a box of assorted unreliable S-100 DRAM boards that
<will keep you busy well into your retirement.
A good example! Also their very design sloppyness may be significant as
some were "of the time".
<Maybe that's the primary philosophical divergence here: I consider few
<obsolete machines to be inherently interesting, when there are so many
<others that are merely _thought_ to be obsolete but are still utterly
<useful given a current, robust OS.
Or some already have a robust OS that works even if it's not the current
vogue.
Allison
the list (which is supposed to be very single-minded) contains a number of
<people who actually are single-minded (Tony Duell, Allison Parent, Megan
<Gantry, Pete Turnbull, maybe others). This is good! Don't misunderstand
<me. It's the way it's supposed to be.
I resent that! I go off topic when the mood or whatever suits, like now. ;)
Allison
Well, I just got done winching the CDC 9766 drive down off my
truck, and boy are my arms tired...
The system is CPU, 32M of ram, 16 I/O ports, a Century 300M 10"
drive, a Seagate Sabre attached to a SCSI PORT!! (yay!) a Kennedy
9100 in Prime livery, and the usual load of cables and Stuff.
Also: I got the OS (PrimeOS 7.0 rev 20.2.8), a bunch of other
tapes, including a 7" reel marked 'games'. and several boxes of
docs and manuals. I have no idea how to tell what overall 'model'
the system is.. if the Primes went by models, like DEC PDP11, etc.
I was not all that interested in this machine, since I am *trying*
to stick to DEC and only DEC, but now that it's here I think it
might be fun to play with.
Oh, yeah, it has a Decwriter IV for a console... even came with
several boxes of spare ribbons.
It was heading for the dumpster.. I *had* to save it. The machine
was running when taken out of service and was de-commissioned by the
person who bought and operated it, so every thing was marked and
stored properly.
Cool... **another** project. ;}
And, other than the Seagate drive ('91), it's On Topic.
Cheers
John
Hi Doug and all,
Sorry, I only know the answer to this one:
At 03:48 PM 1/9/99 -0600, you wrote:
>Hey, any industrial controller collectors out there? I didn't think so.
>There are three fans inside the box, but it's sealed. I always thought
>that fans worked by exchanging hot air for cooler air. What good are
>fans inside a sealed box?
>
The black case itself is the heatsink. The fans only couple the heat sources
to the inside of the case. Sounds pretty neat.
-Dave
> But anyway, it *CAN'T* be much of a challange, as X.25 is that old
> (1), and, perhaps more imporantly, the Iraqi's aren't too bright when
> it comes to computer technology.
Who says? It's when you _don't_ have a lot of technology when you learn to
use what you _do_ have. Like how much more one can learn from an Apple ][
than from a Pentium system. A lot of Russian immigrants to the USA are much
better programmers, sysadmins, etc. than americans, because when they were
in Russia, they used old, well designed, systems intended for people who
knew what they were doing. They are likely to know how to make a 10K
program do the work of a 2M program which is what an american would likely
write (no offense intened). Plus, who knows? Maybe they modified the
protocol...
On Sat, 9 Jan 1999 ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote:
> Incidentally, I find the diversity on this list a good thing. Hearing
> about machines that I don't know about, or that I thought 'those are a
> poor design' (or worse) about is very interesting to me. So keep on
> talking about them....
I'm actually very surprised and disappointed by this newfound fascism.
We're _collectors_ or _hobbyists_ who are dealing with classic computers,
as well as hanging out on this list for _fun_. The people who shut others
up whenever we go mildly off topic, or when a machine they don't like is
brought up. Maybe there should be a contract for list subscribers. If you
were seeing people discussing something face to face at a party or
club meeting or conference that you didn't like, would you tell them to
shut up? I hope not, though the internet attracts socially inept
creatures. I expect the same level of politeness on the internet, in a
civilized discussion which I define this to be. I will not allow
technology to take humanity away from people, to the extent that I can.
----------------------------------------------------
Max Eskin | kurtkilgor(a)bigfoot.com | AOL: kurtkilgor
On Sat, 9 Jan 1999 dpeschel(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
> became. If they had just ripped off a better OS, that might have been nice
> as well. Something with long file names, or multitasking, or whatever.
> And OSs of the time DID have long file names. I don't know about
> multitasking (maybe OS/9 or FLEX were around when DOS was born?).
Interestingly, there were a number of attempts over the years to make a
better OS than DOS. An example is TSX-Lite, a multitasking, 32-bit version
of DOS that was shareware last time I looked. It had the right ideas but
worked very poorly. Caldera DR-DOS supposedly has multitasking but it
hardly works. OS/2 is very resource-intensive, worse than Windows 95.
Which makes me wonder; maybe something good could have been done before
Linux came about, but everyone was too lazy?
----------------------------------------------------
Max Eskin | kurtkilgor(a)bigfoot.com | AOL: kurtkilgor
Anyone in the US or APO/FPO in need of a good working Tandy CM-5 CGA
color monitor? $10 plus shipping and it's yours. It's not really heavy,
about 18 or so in weight. Good condition and all cables attached.
I live in zip 40144 in case someone needs to speculate the shipping
using the parcel calulator at http://www.usps.com/
Okay, okay, so a DECstation 5000/125 isn't very "vintage". But I did manage
to save one from certain death from my grad school (Carnegie Mellon), and it
has a nice big 21" monitor, two big 5 1/4" SCSI drives (each around 1/2 a
GB)... and no bootable OS.
It used to run Mach (I was on the Mach project at CMU), but I'd really like
to run VMS on the thing.
Does anyone know how/where/if I can get VMS loaded onto this guy?
Thanks all,
- Joe
Roger Merchberger <zmerch(a)30below.com> trashed my theory with:
> For the same reason some (many?) people here like their Commodore 64's &
> VIC-20's. _Personally_, I have no use for them (save a couple from the
> dumpster, but not even powered 'em up -- will be up for trade fodder soon)
> but for a lot of people on this list, they were their first computer.
> Sentimentality goes a *long* way on this list (which is his reason for
> owning the computer you don't want, BTW). Believe me, many folks are just
> as turned off by my RS/Tandys & Ataris & whatnot... but that's o.k. too.
Ya-but...
Look, just like everything else, there's "old good" and "old shit". Lots
of mediocre music was written two hundred years ago, which is why I refuse
to acknowledge "classical" music as a genre than has any inherent value in
defining the music. Just because it's old, it isn't by definition good.
Thus, I don't recognize anything particularly interesting in machines that
were badly-designed landfill-before-their-time any more than I do in mass-
market machines like the Radio Shacks and Ataris you mentioned. I see a
historical preserve (such as this) as being one better dominated by systems
that were examples of true innovation, and those tend to be the ones below
the radar of the consumer market. Do I have a problem with people who want
to fill their garages with original chiclet-keyboard-and-internal-cassette
Commodore PET 2001s? Hell, no. Enjoy 'em; start your own list dedicated
to 'em; stay outa my receding hair. I came here to find someone as serious
as me who can help me program 1702s.
This thread was about Compucolors. I ran a service bench when they first
came out, maintained them, and they were living, breathing junk. That
notwithstanding, I held onto a board set and a bunch of parts for many
years in hope of making it into my first machine with a color display.
When I discovered old SGIs, you can only guess how fast the Compucolor
parts hit the dumpster that they so richly deserved.
> Hang in there, find the delete key, and I guarantee you you *will* learn a
> lot while being on this list. I have.
Wish it was that easy, old son. On an average day I get about 200 pieces
of "real" (ie non-list) mail. That's why I insist on receiving ANY list
via digest - I can't afford to have a single list double the number of
messages I receive per day. So reading a 4500-line, 150-message digest is
a considerable amount of work, and not one that the "delete" key helps with.
Of course I want to learn. But not at the expense of endless dreary
discussions in the overpriced-collector-scum vein, or dreary Merka vs.
Euro drooling. I'm in Canadia - I'd have to throw rocks at both sides.
Jonathan
Victor the Cleaner said...
|
|classiccmp-historical
|classiccmp-technical
|classiccmp-overblown_prices_collector_scum_die_die_die
|classiccmp-more_about_television_licensing_really
That's only the beginning.
classiccmp-make-money-fast
classiccmp-bill-gates-sucks
classiccmp-bill-gates-rulez
classiccmp-religious-arguments
The list really isn't that high volume. I've seen
much worse. But mailing lists are why God invented
the "D" key.
-Miles
Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com> intoned:
> Oh sure, just drop on in and casually mention your MCS-4, the most
> desirable SBC on the planet. Do you need docs? Hans P. might know where
> to find them. And Hans F. has a few SC/MP SBC's. And we all have
> handheld PDP-8's, so the Intersil is dull stuff. :-)
Gee, wasn't just looking to brag or anything... I've actually been curious
rare the Intel is. I'd be interested in knowing how many are out there.
I'm okay on docs, but there's missing silicon, including the monitor proms.
Help!
Jonathan
On Sat, 9 Jan 1999 yowza(a)yowza.com wrote:
> Amiga to have happened in 1975, but if Bill Gates had stayed home and
> Linus Torvalds had been born a little earlier, man what a cool world we'd
> have today, 25 years later.
To tell you the truth, if Bill Gates had stayed home and Linus Torvalds
had never been born, we would have been even better off. I'm using Linux
right now, so I have Linus to thank. But then, I'm using a crappy Compaq
laptop which would never have been made (or made but not this crappy) if
not for Bill Gates. Linux is a solution to a problem that should not have
come about in the first place. I'd much rather be using some version of
the Dynabook, or an Amiga, or something totally different.
----------------------------------------------------
Max Eskin | kurtkilgor(a)bigfoot.com | AOL: kurtkilgor
In a message dated 1/9/99 8:06:42 AM EST, gram(a)cnct.com writes:
<<
By the way, whover was making the threat to someone else, I'd love
to have an RT myself. Second best keyboard ever made.
-- >>
i finally got my RT going after an individual from the RT newsgroup sent me a
keyboard since mine didnt come with one when i got it for $10. Seems to be a
standard corporate IBM buckling spring keyboard like i use everyday, except
the keyboard connector is shaped like the PCjr model! a standard keyboard
could probably be hacked to fit an RT. it seems the machine wont boot all the
way without the keyboard. now my RT boots AIX 2.1.2 i think and although i can
login as root thanks to the password taped to the side of the machine when i
got it, i have no idea what it can do. anyone know the location of some kind
of AIX tutorial. I found a
dos<->AIX command ref on the net, and although i did find a AIX FAQ, it's over
my head. I need something a little simpler.
>You guessed it the COSMAC Elf! And IIRC, the article was "Build a COSMAC
>Elf for Less than $100"
>Anyone got the issue date?
August 1976 "for about $80"
CDP1802
64K addressable
On chip DMA
16X16 matrix of registers
Flexible I/O
Francois
>
>--Chuck
>
D. Peschel said...
|
|What _I_ want to know is the relationship between OSF/1, a.k.a. Digital
|UNIX, and AIX. The manual entry for stanza(4) on our DEC system is the same
|as OSF/1 1.0, and it's SO badly written that only IBM could have done it.
|Plus stanzas are an IBM-ism anyway. I bet the entry is pretty much the same
|on AIX systems, too. (I just checked and our AIX doesn't have it. So I
|don't know -- it's just a guess.)
DEC first seriously attacked the UNIX market with Ultrix, which
was almost a pure BSD port. Over time they added a bunch of stuff
to it. They had a few really cool things, like they dxdiff, easily
the best GUI-based diff I've used.
Then along came OSF, a hodgepodge of UNIX vendors scared of the
idea of Sun and AT&T getting together and taking over the world.
So they put together OSF/1. This included people from a whole
mess of computer vendors, but DEC and IBM wre probably the biggest
contributors. The reference platform was a DECStation ?000 (I
forget which one).
By the time OSF/1 actually came out, it was obvious that it was
a fair example of design by committee, and the AT&T/Sun alliance
had pretty well faded away. So DEC, for who knows what reason,
oter than that they had the goods, decided to swap Ultrix out and
OSF/1 in. And everyone else went back to whatever they had been
doing before - AIX, HP/UX, whatever.
OSF actually did some cool stuff, but they had some real problems,
too. I was working at SecureWare, who was doing the security stuff
for OSF/1, and I remember new sandbox drops every day, and bugs
that had been fixed reappearing over and over in their original
form, and just general mayhem.
My favorite part, though, was when we built the kernel and X11
fully debugged, to track down a really nasty problem. Just booting
the OS ate up 70 or 80 MB of the 128MB in our DECStation, and
adding X11 on the hi-res screen ate up the rest of the RAM and a
fair bit of swap space. Then I tried to log in, which took almost
an hour exactly, beating the snot out of the disk drive, until it
finally came up - having used over 100MB of swap space. Starting
a Motif app ate the rest of our 256MB of swap space over the course
of two hours or so, at which time the system just rolled over and
stuck its little feet up in the air.
We never found the bug.
Three or four builds later, it was gone, somehow. Nobody at
OSF knew where it came from, where it went, or why. Oh, well.
My desktop machine at the time was the last of the Tektronix
68K-based systems running a BSD variant. It was slower than
their ill-fated 88K systems, but those ran SVR4, and mine was
fast enoug for me. It was a spiffy machine for the time. Of
course, I was just glad I wasn't running A/UX on really slow
Apples like most of my co-workers!
-Miles
<Zane H. Healy wrote:
<
<> Number 7?!?!?!? Give me a break, there is no better coffee table than a
<> BA123, unless it's perhaps some of the IBM RS/6000's (and that's all
<> they're good for)
<
<Zane, where do you live? Bill Donzelli and I need to make an
<appointment to come out and hurt you.
It would appear education is best attained with the extended use of 2x4
technology. IE: SMACK!, Listen up!
:) :) :)
Allison
<On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Chuck and Francois wrote:
<
<> >You guessed it the COSMAC Elf! And IIRC, the article was "Build a COSMA
<> >Elf for Less than $100"
<
<Are you guys sure? I'm almost positive that was in Popular Electronics,
<and not Popular Science!
<
<I still say it was the ZX81. What do I win, Alex?
The ELF was introduced in Popular Electronics. the Sinclair was introduced
in Popular Science.
Allison
<Can someone tell me the CP/M command to copy a single file or program
<on my Kaypro from drive B: to drive A:
<I do not want to copy the whole disk just a single file or two..
<Thanks, Phil...
Your gonna hate this...
> PIP B:=A:file.foo
Allison
Yes it was in Popular Electronics that the Cosmac Elf was described.
I would give my vote to the ZX81, THe price is right $99 and I know that it
came as a kit (i built mine in 1982) actually it was my first computer.
-----Original Message-----
From: Miles O'Neal <meo(a)netads.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, January 09, 1999 1:33 AM
Subject: Re: Computer collector on Jeopardy!
>Doug Yowza said...
>|
>|I still say it was the ZX81. What do I win, Alex?
>
>I never saw that in a kit form...
>
In a message dated 1/9/99 8:47:47 AM EST, gene(a)ehrich.com writes:
<< It works real well.
My Aptiva 133 failed auto rollover to 2000 test but passed the rest.
It's worth getting a copy.
Don't know if the list carries it but I have attached a copy to this message.
It's a self extracting ZIP file that must be run from DOS. >>
uh, file attachments are a no-no...
www.pc.ibm.com/year2000
is another place to go to download a test program and also a driver that will
autochange the century byte for lazy computer users that wont issue the date
command.
david
Doug's "Ten Reasons Why I Collect Computers" inspired me to start compiling
the Pearls of Wisdom of our list members.
I'll be culling these from our daily e-mail, but if anyone wants to
contribute directly, e-mail me privately. Once I have a page or two, I'll
post it to my Web site for all to read (and laugh at, hopefully).
[ Rich Cini/WUGNET
[ ClubWin!/CW7
[ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
[ Collector of "classic" computers
[ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
[ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/pdp11/
<================ reply separator =================>
At 12:48 PM 1/8/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Jim Strickland wrote:
>
>> > > Shure, today they are no longer produced with typewriters and
>> > > Spiritusumdrucker (sorry missing word - a copyingdevice using
>> > > special sheets and spirit for duplication), but rather on PCs
>> > > or high class DTP stations, but thats just the tool.
>> >
>> > Spiritusumdrucker! What a fantastic word! I think that would be a
>> > mimeograph?
>>
>> I always heard them called ditto machines. Print in blue ink that wipes
off.
>
>Sure but I think the actual latin name for them is mimeograph.
>
>> We had them in grade school. We did NOT have a photocopier - they were
>
>Me too. I used to have ditto duty making copies for the teacher. I also
>used to make up mazes and got to use the machine to make copies for the
>classmates.
>
>> apparently monstrously expensive to purchase and maintain at the time.
>> By the time I got to high school inexpesive photocopiers were readily
>> available, although we used the ditto machines even then. The
>> photocopier was fine for short runs or things where copy quality was
>> important. The ditto machine was faster and much cheaper per copy.
>> Of course I'm sure the ink on the master and the solvent on the
>> machine are carcinogens... (just kidding)
>
>By the time I was in high school dittos were a distant memory. To put it
>in (classiccmp) perspective, by that time inkjets were still on the
>horizon and dot matrix printers were still the shit.
>
>Sellam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>Always being hassled by the man.
>
> Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
> See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
> [Last web site update: 12/27/98]
>
>
The Mimeograph (an Edison invention) used ink, as did the Gestetner (sp?)
while the Ditto used alcohol.
I still have a 1909 Mimeograph in my collection.
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
At 10:10 AM 1/8/1999 -0800, you wrote:
>On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Hans Franke wrote:
>
>> Shure, today they are no longer produced with typewriters and
>> Spiritusumdrucker (sorry missing word - a copyingdevice using
>> special sheets and spirit for duplication), but rather on PCs
>> or high class DTP stations, but thats just the tool.
>
>Spiritusumdrucker! What a fantastic word! I think that would be a
>mimeograph?
>
>Sellam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
>Always being hassled by the man.
>
> Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
> See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
> [Last web site update: 12/27/98]
>
>
That was a DITTO machine, at one time handled by Bell & Howell. They had
to pull them out of the schools around here because the alcohol fumes made
everyone squiffy.
Cheers
Charlie Fox
Charles E. Fox
Chas E. Fox Video Productions
793 Argyle Rd. Windsor N8Y 3J8 Ont. Canada
email foxvideo(a)wincom.net Homepage http://www.wincom.net/foxvideo
I keep reading little pieces of information about this chip. (Actually, it
could be a multi-chip set... I don't know.) Apparently, it's _public-domain
hardware_. What a concept! :) Has anyone actually seen a system based on
this thing?
What? Where did I read about it, you ask? I think it might have been in
_Life with UNIX_, but I really don't remember. And it's too late to do a
Web search. I should really be in bed.
I'm surprised the FSF hasn't bought PD-32 systems en masse. It would be the
perfect platform to run the HURD on.
-- Derek
-----Original Message-----
From: Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, 9 January 1999 9:36
Subject: Re: Y2K stuff
>At 05:33 PM 1/4/99 -0700, you wrote:
>snip<
>An unrelated but similar (and ironically timed) issue is that of the new US
>20 dollar bills. I have seen a lot of vending machines/gas pumps/etc. that
>indicate they cannot handle the new bills.
Are they polymer rather than paper like all ours are now?
>The problem is, bills typically last 18 months at most.
The plastic stuff lasts somewhat longer, one reason why they now use it
here.
To save money, the govt withdrew all coins below 5c, we now have $1 & $2
coins,
and notes for $5, $10, $20, $50 & $100, all plastic with fancy printing and
a transparent
window. Near impossible to counterfeit. (Which is the other reason it was
done)
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Room Internet Cafe
Port Pirie
South Australia.
netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au
Either in 1978 or around 1980 or 81, I recall reading
an article on AI-based image recognition with a micro
like the Altair or IMSAI. All in machine code, of course,
toggled in.
The guy called it Legion, because it was based on a
bunch of cells all making decisions. I think it may
have been a 5x5 grid of cells, each with its own algorithm
for voting yes or no. He would then show it a shape
(enter some data 8^), and Legion would, based on the
vote, tell him something (I forget what). Then he
would tell Legion the real answer. The cells that
voted correctly earned points, those that voted
incorrectly lost points.
As a cell lost points, it would eventually cross 0,
at which point it was a failure, and was cast out.
A different cell (algorithm) would take its place.
The idea was that hopefully, the cells would eventually
populate with algorithms with a high success rate.
He miscoded a test, though, and only the cells that
hit 0 exactly were cast out (into pigs, perhaps),
but those that jumped from +1 to -1 kept voting. A
program dump showd that some of these cells had
actually been performing a good service.
Anyone recall (much less have) this article? It was
very well written (a bit tongue in cheek)...
-Miles
OK, I give up! Since the list is no longer plain text,
will someone familiar with Eudora Pro 4.0 PLEASE tell me
how to configure Eudora it so that formatting like this:
****************** START PASTE *************************
------=_NextPart_000_0004_01BE3A7A.7073A200
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD W3 HTML//EN">
***************** END PASTE ****************************
Doesn't cause the rest of the digest to look like this:
***************** START PASTE **************************
------------------------------ Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 21:35:15 -0600 From:
"Paul Braun" To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Subject: RE: Kim-1 Computer
Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Date sent: Thu, 7 Jan 1999 06:57:41 -0600
(CST) Send reply to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu From: Doug Yowza To:
"Discussion re-collecting of classic computers" Subject: RE: Kim-1 Computer
Originally to: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers > Mine is a
late model S/N 6176, postage cancled on May 18, 1977. > >From the few data
points so far, I'd say we've got monotonically > increasing serial numbers
starting with 1. (Of course, if they were C > programmers, then the first
one is S/N 0.) > > -- Doug OK. I had to look. My second KIM is #1051 with a
Rev. A board. It has the white ceramic MOS chips. This one shows plenty of
wear, however. It's mounted on a piece of masonite with a socket for the
one edge connector, a little bracket for a couple of 1/8" phone plugs (tape
connections), an expansion port (Centronics-type, I assume this is where it
was cabled up to a modified Selectric) and a terminal strip for power. The
LED's have had sockets installed under them, since I assume the originals
burned out. The 6502 also is socketed. This KIM was used by Stan Ockers and
Jim Butterfield while writing the "First Book of KIM". Stan would take it,
in the little briefcase he gave me along with it, to a computer club
meeting in Chicago where a guy had an IBM Selectric that he had modified to
work as a printer. Stan would load the programs he, Jim, and their partner
(sorry -- don't have my FBOK in front of me and the other name escapes me)
had written, and then print them out on the Selectric. These printouts were
then cut and pasted into the layout for the book. Is the bottom numbe on
the die cover the date code? If so, my 6502 is dated 1576. The thing is,
regardless of how much they sell for on e-pay, it means so much more to me
that Stan sat down and talked to me for an hour and a half about the book
and computing in those days and then gave me his KIM that I couldn't think
about selling it. Paul Braun NerdWare -- The History of the PC and the
Nerds who brought it to you. nerdware(a)laidbak.com www.laidbak.com/nerdware
********************* END PASTE *******************
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
=========================================
Doug Coward
Press Start Inc.
Sunnyvale,CA
=========================================
-----Original Message-----
From: Miles O'Neal <meo(a)netads.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, 9 January 1999 18:42
Subject: Re: new to the list
>I've a good mind to send a gaggle of RTs to your door!
You can send them to mine if you like, I don't have one, and I'd love
geniune Big Blue RISC machine of my very own..... Do they come with an
O/S?
:^)
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Room Internet Cafe
Port Pirie
South Australia.
netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au
> > Well now that we are on the subject of Kaypro...What ever happened to
Alan Kay ?
> > Is this guy still around ?
> You mean Andy Kay? Yes, he is still around.
Alan Kay is also still around and quite active in the Squeak community,
Squeak being a portable revival of Smalltalk. He's now at Disney, believe it
or not.
Which leads to the question... anyone on this list have any Xerox Stars
(running Smalltalk, of course)?
Cheers,
- Joe
----- Original Message -----
From: Alan Kay <alank(a)wdi.disney.com>
To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 1999 4:51 PM
Subject: Re: How difficult is multiple inheritance?
>Folks --
>
>There is a cooler and most interesting way to approach all this. Much of
>the seminal work was done around the late 70s in PARC Smalltalk by Ira
>Goldstein and Danny Bobrow -- it was called PIE: Personal Information
>Environment -- and they have been written up as PARC Blue Books (as noted
>by Mike Klein previously to the Squeak list) ; *and* they can sometimes be
>obtained from PARC.
> The basic idea is to have an object made up of multiple perspectives
>e.g. a given object could have the perspectives of being an employer, an
>employee, a father, a son, etc., *and* the perspective of being an object.
>The internal representational strategy they used was to let a logical
>object be made of as many Smalltalk instances as were needed, especially if
>the perspectives were disjoint enough to give fits to simple-minded
>mulitple inheritance schemes.
>
>I have been a big fan of this general approach since Goldstein got it
>running. There are also a wealth of other terrific ideas in their papers.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Alan
jpero(a)pop.cgocable.net said...
|
|Is those RT's that bad? is there will be a problem if I tear it
|apart for its parts, the shipping and trying to selling would be a
|problem except no problem shipping parts except for case.
RTs were pretty bad. They were s l o o o o w w w...
And they had the most bastardized version of anything
daring to claim any kinship to UNIX that you can imagine.
The manuals were terrible. I suspect that if you were from
an IBM mainframe world, being forced at gunpoint to consider
PCs and UNIX and such, they were heaven-sent. But to
those of us already working with workstations and micros,
they were the Red Menace that Senator McCarthy warned the
world about - they just happened to be Blue.
|If you're really using the classics and using it as tables or
|something, protect them from spills, bumps etc..
Quick vignettes...
1) I contracted for IBM here in Austin for a while. There
was an RT on the austin.ibm.com network named "doorstop".
AFAIK, about all it was being used for was to answer the
pings for "doorstop".
2) At PSW, Frank King (the IBM upper manager who more or
less built the IBM workstation division) had just been
installed as president when we took him on a tour of the
premises. As we escorted him into the secure lab, his
eyes lit up as he saw an RT.
``An RT! Wonderful! What do you use this for?''
Tom Stewart pushed it in front of the door to hold it open.
``A doorstop? What else?''
3) During the time I was at IBM (14 months) I saw rooms and
rooms full of RTs. I kinda have to laugh, thinking about
what they were paying for space. One of the graphics labs
had about 30 linear feet of wall space, 10 feet high, just
stacked with the processor boxes, because they were running
out of other places to put them. I never figured out what
they were doing with them - whether they couldn't give them
away, or were afraid to, or what.
If I had one, I would probably protect it. If I had two, I
would protect one. For the other, I would have an auction.
The high bidder would get to step out back onto the rifle range
(why have 5 acre sin Texas without a rifle range?), and put a
7.62mm bullet into the RT's evil, beating heart.
And in Austin, there would be *lots* of bidders. I might not
make $6,818.00, but I'd make enough to pay my ISDN bill for
a while...
-Miles
Nah, I'm sure there are 3rd world countries that would take them.
But after they had them a while, they'd be even more pissed at
the US than they are now... 8^/
At 07:10 PM 1/8/99 -0800, you wrote:
> ... he said it was the first one he ever
>owned, which was a kit he bought thru Popular Science for $99. His name
>was Dennis. Is there a Dennis lurking on this list?? :)
And the computer was ....
You guessed it the COSMAC Elf! And IIRC, the article was "Build a COSMAC
Elf for Less than $100"
Anyone got the issue date?
--Chuck
At 11:48 PM 1/4/99 -0500, you wrote:
> o *DATA* - what about all those data files which have been
> recorded over the years? What form was date stored?
Working on a work-around at the moment wherein we need to store 5 digit
numbers, but the database (deployed at nearly 400 stores around the western
US) has only 2 bytes for this field. Unfortunately, COBOL only allows
values up to 9999 to be stored in a two byte field, even though 2 bytes can
(in theory) hold numbers from 0 to 65535 (or -32766 to 32767 or so).
So we need 4 bytes for COBOL to be able to deal with the new data. But, to
roll out a database change like that to the stores would take 5-6 months
(can't just muck around with live production systems, you know, and you
can't do anything while the stores are open (i.e., taking in $$$).)
Interestingly, the numbers we need to deal with are all less than 32000, so
they will fit in 2 bytes. So the work-around will be to store the data as
two character bytes and convert that within the program into a temporary 4
byte field. So what happens when the numbers get bigger than 32K? Well,
I'm sure the system will have been replaced by then... 8^)
(Actually, it will have; the new, replacement system was supposed to have
been finished by now. We're just patching the old system until it's done.)
>There are going to be more and more failures as we get closer. Last
>year, there was a report that an insurance company which normally
>issued 3-year policies could only do two-year. If they haven't
>fixed the problem, they're probably down to one year now...
In the late 1980's, I worked with a company that wrote software for leasing
companies. Companies that leased big computers and heavy equipment. In
addition to getting to know amortization tables intimately (I used to know
the formula to compute payments/periods/rates/etc. by heart!) I got to know
the y2k bug pretty well -- most of the leases were 10 year leases. We had
a y2k version out by '90 or so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
Hey, check this out! KayPro is still in business:
www.kaycomputers.com
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
Janet Morehouse in Baltimore has a Kaypro II that she is willing to give
away to whoever wants to come and pick it up. Whoever's local, give her a
jingle at MorehouseJ(a)dhmh.state.md.us.
Richard Schauer
rws(a)ais.net
-----Original Message-----
From: Charles E. Fox <foxvideo(a)wincom.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Saturday, 9 January 1999 0:50
Subject: Re: Americans (was: Re: Message formats)
>At 01:12 PM 1/7/1999 +0000, you wrote:
> The country is fine, but we always manage to elect nincompoops to govern
it.
You don't have a monopoly on that. We seem to have the same problem.
It's probably due to the fact that mostly nincompoops run for office.
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Room Internet Cafe
Port Pirie
South Australia.
netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au
Hey, check this out! I was just watching Jeopardy and the first
contestant said he was a collector of antique computers! Alex asked him
what his oldest computer was and he said it was the first one he ever
owned, which was a kit he bought thru Popular Science for $99. His name
was Dennis. Is there a Dennis lurking on this list?? :)
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
Seth, Doug,
Thanks, you're right, I'm confused. Looks like I'll track down NetBSD for my
DECstation, and look into buying a VAXstation 3100 at some point.
Thanks again,
- Joe
