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

by geoffrob＠stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au

-----Original Message----- From: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis(a)freegate.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Tuesday, 1 December 1998 10:17 Subject: VAX collectors attention > (Oh and an HSC50 whatever the heck that is!) Hierarchical Storage Controller. Waist high filing cabinet sized box, HEAVY too. Basically, it's a PDP8 I think, running a little o/s called CRONIC (Colorado Rudimentary Operating Nucleus for Intelligent Controllers) Bots off a pair of TU58 mini tape cassette drives. It's a controller/manager for SDI and STI (+ optional 3rd party SCSI tape) drives. You can do backups, and a few other things, just using the HSC without the host Vax. Talk to it with a VT100 or whatever terminal, or over the CI with the SET HOST /HSC command >from VMS, assuming the Vax has the CI hardware installed. Normally part of a VAXcluster, it serves drives to several machines over a proprietary 70mbs (I think) thick cable network called the CI (Computer Interconnect). Needs another box called a Star Coupler (strange transformer gizmo, acts much like a hub, but passive) as well. Works with RAxx and TAxx series tape drives. Though ours had an Emulex SCSI adapter that drove two HP 4mm 5Gb DAT drives through a special interface, emulating a TA78 tape system to the HSC/VAX. (The card's still in the HSC, but the interface box with the drives in it died, and is no longer supported by Emulex.) I've now got a VS4000-90 hosting one of the HP DAT drives, clustered to the 6320, so I can at least access stuff I had saved on it. It's currently feeding our Vax 6320, plus I have another complete one for spares. Uses about 600w IIRC. BI and XMI adapters were/are available for various Vaxen to allow them to connect over the CI bus. Decnet will also run across it, so it made for fairly high cluster performance. Pretty much obsolete now. There was a slightly more sophisticated version called a HSC70 that used RX floppys instead of the tapes, and could handle more drives, etc. I think there were a couple of models after that too. I've seen a HSC70 at a scrap dealer recently. Not a lot of use unless you have a big (82xx 83xx 85xx 86xx 6000-xxx etc) Vax that needs one to talk to it's drives. Allison or one of the other Master Decologists will doubtless correct any mistakes in the above. :^) Cheers Geoff Roberts Computer Systems Manager Saint Marks College Port Pirie South Australia. My ICQ# is 1970476 Ph. 61-411-623-978 (Mobile) 61-8-8633-0619 (Home) 61-8-8633-8834 (Work-Direct) 61-8-8633-0104 (Fax)

27 years, 7 months

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VAX collectors attention

by cmcmanis＠freegate.com

Argh, >Hierarchical Storage Controller. Waist high filing cabinet sized box, HEAVY too. >Basically, it's a PDP8 I think ... You mean I missed a chance to pick up another PDP-8? Probably an 8a though. --Chuck

27 years, 7 months

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VAX collectors attention

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>Hierarchical Storage Controller. >Waist high filing cabinet sized box, HEAVY too. >Basically, it's a PDP8 I think, running a little o/s called CRONIC It's an -11, actually, supplemented with a largish chunk of dedicated logic for moving data around. Tim.

27 years, 7 months

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DG Aviion video

by red＠bears.org

Hi. I've picked up a Data General Aviion 310CD and was informed it can use a straight AT keyboard. I am skeptical, as the keyboard port is a DIN8. Also, the colour video output is on 3 BNC connectors. Can I use 3 segments of ethernet coax to carry the video signal or is the impedance wrong? I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but this'll do for now. Actually, I've had a hard time locating info on this machine. I understand it uses a Motorola 88k processor at 20 MHz, but I don't know which one. I looked inside and found three chips it could be.. an 88100 (88010?) and two 88200 (88020?)s. I assume the single chip is the CPU but then what are the other two? I would be really surprised if this were a multiprocessing box. ok r.

27 years, 7 months

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Audio Cassette formats; Copy protection?

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> Someone mentioned that there are copy protection schemes for cassette tape, >> and I was curious what these might be and how they might interfere with >> recording the tape onto my HD. > > Some machines (the BBC micro is one IIRC) have a bit in the cassette > block header that when set prevents you listing or saving the BASIC > program. That's one trivial form of copy protection. I don't recall that one on the BBC. You could do that on the ZX81 due to very strange operating system features. The BBC had a header on each tape _block_ that said where the file would be stored in memory, how long it was and an execution address. One simple scheme rested on the fact that the parameters the machine used were taken >from the first block of the file and those it told the user were taken from the last block... I also saw a program which, when listed or saved, gave "bad program", but would run OK. Don't know how that was done... Philip.

27 years, 7 months

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ID these DEC floppy disks?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 30, 10:03, Christian Fandt wrote: > Now I have got to hunt for a decent reader of .ps files which works under > windoze95 . . . You can get Ghostview/Ghostscript for Windows -- I don't know *where* we got it, but we have it on the NT machines at work. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 7 months

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Triumph of the Nerds 2.0.1

by jfoust＠threedee.com

I viewed perhaps 45 minutes from the middle of one episode. I found myself playing "Mystery Science Theater", that is, yelling and heckling at the screen. What always strikes me about these sorts of shows is that they're not useful as history. Cringely drives around in micro-bus, talks with talking head, TH gives his sugar-coated personal view of history from his particular corner office, and Cringely rarely fact-checks or points out the blatant lies or evidence of sugar-coating. Cringely's retrospective documentary in the year 2025 will be much more interesting, after most of these companies or TH's are dead and won't be offended by sharper analysis. - John

27 years, 7 months

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PS/1 model

by SUPRDAVE＠aol.com

not knowing the model number, it's hard to say what you saw. it's probably an early 1990 model ps1 type 2011 or 2121. could be either a 286 or 386. the machine requires the matching monitor as it actually contains the computer's power supply. machine also has dos in rom. david In a message dated 98-11-30 18:06:20 EST, you write: << I saw an odd machine in a thrift store today, a machine labelled a PS/1, but it looked nothing like the PS/1 valuepoints, or any other PC I've ever seen. It looked like a cross between a PCjr and a soap dish. One 3.5" floppy drive, huge ugly vents and IBM logo on the front, on the back are ports for mouse, keyboard, VGA, 2400 bps modem, and parallel printer. It also has a little fan and some sort of slot cover that fell out. Where is the power switch? Where does the power connect to? >>

27 years, 7 months

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Audio Cassette formats; what about ADAM?

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> I can't imagine why 8 bits wouldn't be sufficient, given the >> frequency range of a cheap cassette player. I recently acquired >Considering that most (all?) home computers feed the cassette input into >a schmitt trigger (essentially 1-bit sampling), and that the level of the >input signal is set by twidding the recorder's volume control until it >loads, so it's not that critical, I would think 8-bit sampling was easily >good enough. 8-bits ought to work just fine. One fine point, which won't hit you until you try to do some decoding: some tape formats are polarity sensitive (they use a variant of Manchester encoding). If at all possible, you should try to figure out whether your tape player/digitizer/ recorder/player chain inverts are not. Tarbell-format tapes are (speaking from experience!) polarity-sensitive. Apple ][ tapes aren't. Kansas-City format tapes aren't. Tim. (shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com)

27 years, 7 months

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PC-3 (PC-1251)

by ckaiser＠oa.ptloma.edu

A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text Size: 510 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/attachments/19981130/05f0e380/at…

27 years, 7 months

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PS/1 model

by kurtkilgor＠geocities.com

I saw an odd machine in a thrift store today, a machine labelled a PS/1, but it looked nothing like the PS/1 valuepoints, or any other PC I've ever seen. It looked like a cross between a PCjr and a soap dish. One 3.5" floppy drive, huge ugly vents and IBM logo on the front, on the back are ports for mouse, keyboard, VGA, 2400 bps modem, and parallel printer. It also has a little fan and some sort of slot cover that fell out. Where is the power switch? Where does the power connect to?

27 years, 7 months

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pinouts/hacks URL change

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

Just a note that the URL of my pinouts section has changed. Sorry for any inconvenience, this one will be permanent. http://www.prinsol.com/~aaron/classiccmp/ I am working to put up the pinouts I've received from Pete and Sam (actually, Sam's may already be up...) and have also added an "incoming" directory for people who are feeling philanthropic (and a little bored). Incoming pinouts can go to: ftp://ftp.prinsol.com/ user: pinouts password: pinouts In addition to pinouts, I'm slowly adding my collection of different hardware "hacks" and some general repair information. I've been trolling through the classiccmp archives at Kevin Heydon's page as well and plan to organize and archive the tons of useful repair info there too, from what cleaners to use for removing sharpie-written prices on plastic to Tony's latest AT keyboard repair. The last thing I plan to add is a single directory with nothing but FAQ's, for all kinds of machines, concentrated in one place. As some have pointed out lately, many of the questions that are asked here are easily answered by the appropriate FAQ; it's just a matter of digging it up. After I get all the FAQ's I can carry online, I'll tie them to a search script for convenience. Aaron

27 years, 7 months

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What's a Lisp Machine?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

Whilst reading around, I've come across quite a few refrences to the LispM, or the Lisp Machine. What's a Lisp Machine? Was it a mini? Was it a micro? Do any still run? Just curious... -------

27 years, 7 months

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What's a Lisp Machine?

by hhacker＠gte.net

There were two lisp machine manufacturers that evolved from an MIT lab, one was Symbolics (a company in which I owned stock, and for which a high school buddy worked for several years, and which was based in Chatsworth California for about 8 years) and Lisp Machines Inc, about which I know very little except to say that these companies were constantly at eachothers throats, and who's corporate heads were both former co-workers at MIT. If you want more details, I can accomodate by asking this old high school buddy. As for if any such machines remain, I imagine so, since for one, a Mac compatible version from Symbolics (an single board micro, plugged into the Mac backplane/motherboard) was available up to a few years ago >from Symbolics. The name of the product now escapes me but, when I recall it, I will post an additional message. As a side note, the mathematics processor known as Macsyma (the original product - reverse engineered by Stephen Wolfram to produce Mathematica) was a lisp based product, and sold by Symbolics. As I understand, it is really Macsyma that gave birth to Symbolics, for their lisp machines were originally designed to support Macsyma applications. William R. Buckley -----Original Message----- From: Mike <dogas(a)leading.net> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, November 30, 1998 1:59 PM Subject: Re: What's a Lisp Machine? >> >>Well, I don't know what other "LISP machines" exist, but a couple >> > >There was a TI Expolorer that was also a Lisp Machine. I used to drool over >their ads in Scientific American... alas... >- Mike: dogas(a)leading.net > > >

27 years, 7 months

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What's a Lisp Machine?

by dogas＠leading.net

> >Well, I don't know what other "LISP machines" exist, but a couple > There was a TI Expolorer that was also a Lisp Machine. I used to drool over their ads in Scientific American... alas... - Mike: dogas(a)leading.net

27 years, 7 months

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PET Video (was: Replacing 6550s) & 128

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

Foxnhare (who are you anyway? I've seen the address before. You're not Larry Anderson by any chance are you? :-) ) wrote: >> From: Doug Spence <ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca> >> Subject: Re: Replacing 6550s > >> (I especially find it cool that they list various part numbers for the >> connector. :) ) > > Digikey is the best source for inexpensive PET compatible connectors. > (1-800-DIGI-KEY) along with a ton of other cool parts. Many thanks for that. I know where to turn next time I'm looking... >> I just noticed for the first time (!) that the "PARALLEL USER PORT" has >> pins labeled "T.V. Video", "T.V. Vertical", and "T.V. Horizontal"! Has >> anyone actually connectd a TV or external monitor to a PET? > > There are plans for a composite video converter using those pins in Nick > Hampshire's PET Revealed, I think it only works on the older 9" screen pets > and not the 12" ones. The reason for it being on the user port was for deaier > diagnostic testing. I thought the video signals were there on later machines too, but I can well believe it might not work on the 12 inch screen models. My experience is that Nick Hampshire's circuit doesn't work at all. Using the same two chips, 4011 and 4066, the correct procedure (sorry. The procedure that worked when I tried it) is to combine the two syncs with the 4011, invert (I think - not sure about this one) with another 4011 gate, and use that to gate the video using the 4066. Works a treat. They tried it at school, too (don't know what circuit tho'), and got a grey background for the white text. I imagine a series capacitor might help, but I've not tried it. Philip.

27 years, 7 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> Worse still if you're using an audio CD. The CD player will be filtering >> according to what's best for the human ear, not what's best for the >> computer. > > Does this matter? Most tape recorders used back in the day were also > optimized for use with the human ear, so I would imagine the computers > that utilized them as storage were designed with that in mind. Kick me if > I am wrong but it just seems logical to me that a CD today would work just > as well (if not better) than a cassette recorder of yesteryear. Were the > specialized "data" recorders any different from a standard cassette > player? Possibly. But I distinctly recall that when we recorded tapes for sale using the tape deck from my Sanyo stereo (not on a PET BTW - this was a BBC micro) we found that Dolby noise reduction had to be disabled for it to work... Philip

27 years, 7 months

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PDP-8/L - cards missing?

by tomowad＠earthlink.net

I've been having troubles getting '5' on the switch regiester of my PDP-8/L to show up in the memory address. Upon checking to make sure all the modules were in place, I found that, according to the PDP-8/L Mode Utilization Sheet in the PDP-8/L Maitenance Manual Vol II, the below listed cards are missing. I'm under the impression the M903's are not needed, but what about the rest of them? Are these cards I need? A B 15 M162 M119 16 M162 M162 34 M903 35 M903 36 M903 C D 10 M216 11 M113 16 M111 34 M903 35 M903 M903 36 M903 M903 Tom Owad -- Sysop of Caesarville Online Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>

27 years, 7 months

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Getting rid of background programs in System 7.1.1

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Hi! I have yet another Mac question. When ever I boot, before the Finder comes up, there's about 5 icons In the lower left-hand corner. I know that one is MS Mail, and the other is for a network. I'm not sure what the other icons are for. I'd like to get rid of these programs (extensions?) that are running in the background, since all they do is eat up memory. I can't access them after Finder opens, and nothing happens when I click on them before it opens. Any suggestions? -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

27 years, 7 months

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Intro msg: Teraks, emulators, reviving cassette data

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Why, I thought I'd get a few replies about my Terak computer collection, as described in my intro message on 11/18. Anyone out there have any experience with these? - John www.threedee.com/jcm

27 years, 8 months

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World Power Systems scam

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Hmm, a quick Hotbot search reveals a $250K real estate transaction in Aspen, CO to a Perry Pollock, and that name is listed as the "Foreign Shipping Coordinator" for an overpriced herb/vitamin scam at <http://www.putpeel.com/healthy/>. Think the couple in that picture are the same ones in the 1979 Byte picture at <http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/wps/byte197904-068.gif>? Hard to tell. :-) - John

27 years, 8 months

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Audio Cassette formats

by jfoust＠threedee.com

Yes, there are/were many different formats for recording digital data on audio cassettes. Some used frequency, some used phase info, and some recorded to the tape using something other than conventional voice-style recording. Think of them as modems at speeds of 120 to 2400 baud. I've found a number of decoders that were developed for the emulator scene. Most are quite crude and unforgiving. I concluded that I wanted to store absolutely uncompressed digitized audio until I confirmed that any of today's various compression methods wouldn't obliterate the encoded data. Given the dozens of encoders and compression schemes out there, how do you know if a particular scheme won't wipe out the data by simplifying waveforms, fudging phase relationships, etc.? Storage is cheap. You don't need stereo. If the waveforms use audio in the range 1200 to 2400 Hz, for example, then Nyquist tells you to oversample by 2 to 8 times, meaning even 8 Khz, 8-bit might be overkill with roughly 8 K/sec storage, and 22 Khz sampling is certainly adequate. As someone pointed out earlier in the thread, being able to tweak the azimuth on the tape head makes all the difference with some tapes. - John

27 years, 8 months

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Recent Finds & Thoughts

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> PS PET and many later C= machines have one more problem: they didn't use >> standard audio cassette machine, but one with a special Commie board in it >> and a custom interface. > > My knowledge of the PETs is limited. What would this setup do that would > inhibit recording to CD? Not so much inhibit, but make it less useable. I understood the idea as: instead of plugging your home computer into a tape deck, how about a CD player? Surely just the lead will be different? In which case, let's archive all those tapes at a dozen C10 tapes to a CD... With the PET and VIC families, it's not just a different lead, it's an (admittedly llittle) circuit... Philip.

27 years, 8 months

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Audio Cassette formats; what about ADAM?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

< What about the ADAM computer from Coleco??? It uses a digital tape that < holds (around) 256K or so... (Never set mine up yet). < < Is there any way you could run that thang thru an audio player and have < PC routine re-digitalize it, or are you stuck with read a thing and < serial-send it over to another PC? No! It's digital saturation like a floppy and the encoding is to the flux reversal timing. Adam is digital stauration recording like a floppy only slower, audio tape is audio frequency/phase change and the medium is the linear portion of the BH curve. They are very different from each other. Allison

27 years, 8 months

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ID these DEC floppy disks?

by emu＠ecubics.com

Hi Christian, ---------- > From: Christian Fandt <cfandt(a)netsync.net> > To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> > Subject: Re: ID these DEC floppy disks? > Date: Monday, November 30, 1998 8:03 AM > > At 23:18 11/28/98 +0000, you wrote: > >On Nov 28, 21:23, Pete Turnbull wrote: > Now I have got to hunt for a decent reader of .ps files which works under > windoze95 . . . Have a look at: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ I'm using gsview for years ... cheers, emanuel

27 years, 8 months

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ID these DEC floppy disks?

by pete＠dunnington.u-net.com

On Nov 28, 21:23, Pete Turnbull wrote: > If I can find the source files, I'll put machine-readable notes on my web > pages (probablyt as PostScript). That is mostly XXDP V2 stuff. I *might* > have some machine-readble XXDP+ notes; if I can find any I put them up too. > I'll post a note to the list if and when... Well, that turned out to be easier to find than I expected. Anyone interested can take a look at http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/XXDP.ps which has notes relevant to both XXDP+ and XXDP Version 2. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Dept. of Computer Science University of York

27 years, 8 months

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VT102 info found.

by cfandt＠netsync.net

There are at least two of you folks I recall that are soliciting ClassicCmp-relavant URLs to put into your webpages (Sam's VCF site is one) for use as a reference resource. Here's one to add to your lists which is DEC-related that I literally stumbled onto. Other DEC folks here may need to bookmark this too: http://www.celigne.co.uk/terminal/ Naturally, during all my previous hours of searching for VT102 info from before I posted an inquiry last week, all the search engines I used could not see this page. This is the one that answers all my VT100/102 questions. An example of if we find a resource like this, please post it for others (don't forget I'm still looking for *any* HP250 and IBM 9370 info!! ;) ) Regards, Chris -- -- Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net Member of Antique Wireless Association URL: http://www.ggw.org/freenet/a/awa/

27 years, 8 months

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ebay suggestion: auto-extended time limit

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>I'm a disgruntled ebay bidder. >Why? Because I had an item picked off by a bargain hunter >in the last 10 seconds of the bidding. Why should you be disgruntled? The price went over what you wanted to pay for the item, didn't it? Tim.

27 years, 8 months

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ebay suggestion: auto-extended time limit

by ss＠allegro.com

Hi, I'm a disgruntled ebay bidder. Why? Because I had an item picked off by a bargain hunter in the last 10 seconds of the bidding. I have a simple suggestion that would fix this...an easy-to-implement suggestion: The act of placing a bid should automatically extend the auction by 5 minutes. Thus, if the auction is supposed to end at 15:00, and I sneak in a bid at 14:59, the auction is automatically extended until 15:04. If someone else then bids at 15:02, the auction is extended until 15:07. If you like this idea, send a note to: suggest(a)ebay.com If you don't like the idea, you must not have bid on anything at ebay :) BTW, no...increasing my original bid isn't an acceptable solution, for a wide variety of reasons ... bargain hunting not included. thanks, Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com

27 years, 8 months

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Santa Ana ACP Store

by manney＠lrbcg.com

Hmm. Probably can't make the 26th, as I only go out there once every 5 years or so. Later in the week, perhaps? manney(a)lrbcg.com >PG Manney wrote: >> >> I'm gonna be in Orange County over Christmas. What's the address of that >> place? > >ACP is located on E. Edinger, and IIRC, it is located at 1310 E. Edinger in >Santa Ana. > >> btw, anyone in O.C. who wants to meet and talk about old computers? > >Unless something unexpected happens, both John and I will be at the TRW swap >meet on December 26th. It starts at 7:00 am and is over at 11:00 (no >transactions permitted after 11:30am.) Weather permitting, I usually go on >the transmitter hunt there starting about 11:45 or so, and then out to >brunch about 12:15 or so. Aaron joined us yesterday, and provided a good >chance to talk about the older computers! >

27 years, 8 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by yakowenk＠cs.unc.edu

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 16:35:53 -0500 (EST) From: Ethan Dicks <erd(a)infinet.com> To: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Call for final Elf99 design input Message-ID: <199811252135.QAA10978(a)user2.infinet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wrote: > So to me, being 1802-based and being cheap/easy > would be the big attractions. If I could populate the entire board > for under $20, that would probably be enough to pull me off the > fence entirely. To which Ethan Dicks replied: ] $20 in total parts cost is not feasible. The CPU is under $10, the RAM ] can be scavenged, the 4xxx parts scavenged or bought for <$1 each, but there ] will be at least 8 to 10 of them. The displays are between $15 and $20 for ] the pair. Switches are another expense - 12 toggle switches and a pushbutton. ] ] Cheap it will be, but not quite that cheap. Okay, I was only thinking about the cost of chips. And $20 is not any sort of magic number, just something that seemed possibly doable. Mainly, I would just ask you not to require any hard-to-find $10 parts in the name of authenticity, if an easy-to-find $0.10 part will do as well or better. The only really important bit to me, as a software geek, is the 1802. Of course, this is just my vote. I'll be more likely to buy if the cost is low, and authenicity doesn't mean much to me in this case. Cheers, Bill.

27 years, 8 months

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On topic? Mailing list humor...

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

I debated whether to post this; I'm sure some of you have seen it before. My apologies for wasted bandwidth and all... Q: How many classiccmp subscribers does it take to change a light bulb? A: 1,331: 1 to successfully change the light bulb and to post to the mail list that the light bulb has been changed 14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently. 7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs. 27 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs. 53 to flame the spell checkers 156 to write to the list administrator complaining about the light bulb discussion and its inappropriateness to this mail list. 41 to correct spelling in the spelling/grammar flames. 109 to post that this list is not about light bulbs and to please take this email exchange to alt.lite.bulb 203 to demand that cross posting to alt.grammar, alt.spelling and alt.punctuation about changing light bulbs be stopped. 111 to defend the posting to this list saying that we are all use light bulbs and therefore the posts **are** relevant to this mail list. 306 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique, and what brands are faulty. 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs 14 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs. 3 to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this list which makes light bulbs relevant to this list. 33 to concatenate all posts to date, then quote them including all headers and footers, and then add "Me Too." 12 to post to the list that they are unsubscribing because they cannot handle the light bulb controversey. 19 to quote the "Me Too's" to say, "Me Three." 4 to suggest that posters request the light bulb FAQ. 1 to propose new alt.change.lite.bulb newsgroup. 47 to say that [as long as the lightbulb or fixture is greater than ten years old] this is just what this mailing list was meant for, leave it here. 143 votes for a new list alt.lite.bulb. Aaron C. Finney Systems Administrator WFI Incorporated ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "UNIX is an exponential algorithm with a seductively small constant."

27 years, 8 months

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Kaypro help, again...

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

I'm hoping someone knows about this (Don?)... I got a parts-only Kaypro 4 from John Lawson yesterday, to try to cure the ills of my "nice" 4. However, the two machines are quite different: The one I got from John has the built in modem, a serial port, and both paralell and serial printer ports; my original one only has a paralell printer port and a serial port. Also, my old one has 2 eproms on the board, one labeled 81-146 in socket U43, and one with a label "Specialty Sys / STROKE.232 / Rev:1.5 08/84" in socket U47. Don Maslin hadn't heard of this configuration before, so I'm assuming that it's some kind of custom design. The one I got from John only has one eprom, labeled 81-292. The new machine also has a 3v battery on the mainboard. The drives are different too; the old machine has 2 full-height drives while the one from John has 1/2 height drives. Part number of my old unit (from the back of the case) is 81-004 and the part number of the one from John is 81-015. Now, I happen to like the nifty one with the build in modem better. But the video is fried (I said distorted yesterday, but there's nothing legible on the screen) - there's only a little "noise" in the center of the screen and an extremely high-pitched whine/screech coming from the general areal of the video P/S. So what I did, handling everything with [rubber] kid gloves, was swap the CRT and boards, while leaving everything connected in the process. And I got...nothing at all on the screen! I plugged the old mainboard in to the new powersupply and connected it to the video and viola - perfect! So, what gives? I noticed that some of the crystal frequencies are different between the boards - is this what's causing it? Is there something simple I can adjust to get the new machine to work with my original CRT components? Also, any history/explanation about the differences in the two machines would be much appreciated. Aaron

27 years, 8 months

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Original COSMAC Elf Articles On-line

by bill_r＠inetnebr.com

Thanks to the dedicated work of Kenneth W. Melvin, who has translated the first three original Popular Electronics ELF articles to HTML, the articles are now available via the "Classic Computer Simulator" link on my web site. Hopefully, he will be supplying the 4th installment to me in the future as well. Enjoy! -Bill Richman (bill_r(a)inetnebr.com) http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r - Home of the COSMAC Elf Microcomputer Simulator, Fun with Molten Metal, Orphaned Robots, and Technological Oddities.)

27 years, 8 months

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Windoze, anyone?

by kurtkilgor＠geocities.com

I saw two shrinkwrapped boxes of Windows 3.0 at a thrift store a couple of days ago, a WordStar training guide (a modern version), as well as some Gateway 2000 manuals. Anyone want any of this if it's still there?

27 years, 8 months

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Santa Ana ACP Store

by hhacker＠gte.net

That is, Edinger and Main, in Santa Ana. The best route to the place is to take the 55 freeway to Edinger, get off and head West for about 1 mile. There is an eatery on the corner (SW) called the Golden Basket (as I recall) and ACP is just a few hundred feet West. William R. Buckley -----Original Message----- From: Marvin <marvin(a)rain.org> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Sunday, November 29, 1998 12:01 PM Subject: Re: Santa Ana ACP Store >PG Manney wrote: >> >> I'm gonna be in Orange County over Christmas. What's the address of that >> place? > >ACP is located on E. Edinger, and IIRC, it is located at 1310 E. Edinger in >Santa Ana. > >> btw, anyone in O.C. who wants to meet and talk about old computers? > >Unless something unexpected happens, both John and I will be at the TRW swap >meet on December 26th. It starts at 7:00 am and is over at 11:00 (no >transactions permitted after 11:30am.) Weather permitting, I usually go on >the transmitter hunt there starting about 11:45 or so, and then out to >brunch about 12:15 or so. Aaron joined us yesterday, and provided a good >chance to talk about the older computers!

27 years, 8 months

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woohoo, stuff from my old vax tape!

by jim＠calico.litterbox.com

Okay, if anyone's interested, I got the data from my old tape back from Tim. Among other things, there are some interesting pieces of software, all of them about 10 years old, which some of you may be interested. If anyone is interested, please send me personal e-mail and I'll include the file you want, plus the appropriate archive/dearchive software. And btw, yes the descriptions are the ones that were on the BBS to describe each piece of software, so they do tend to be talking to beginners. I have for the pc: *******PC-VT******* This file is an archived vt100 full emulation system. It includes a terminal mode, xmodem and kermit uploads/downloads a help screen, and a readme file. You will need a blank 5 1/4 inch floppy (or about 360k free on a 3 1/2) and the PKXARC program found elsewhere on this board to dearc this program successfully. This program courtesy of Concordia Computer Services, along with the author or authors who chose to make it public domain. To start PC-VT, type PC-VT at the A> prompt. procomm 2.4.2 This program is another (and vastly superior) terminal emulator. It is window driven, supports most major upload/download protocals and has color. It also works more reliably for uploads and downloads than PC-VT. There is, of course, also full vt100 terminal emulation.This particular version is configured to run at 9600baud with all settings proper for this VAX system. Reconfiguration is done from the menus. ***********PKARC*********** This program is a public domain archiver. It crunches other programs with multiple modules into a single arc file, which is then simple to upload or download. It will be the standard arc protocal used on the IBM board of this BBS, so when you upload somthing, please pass it through this program first. This program itself is not archived, nor is it's companion de-arcing program, PKXARC, so that you will be able to de-arc the programs you receive. This program contains a help screen. *********PKXARC******** This program is the companion program to PKARC. It is unarchived, but you will need it to de-arc most of the files on the IBM board. It includes a help screen, and should be self explanitory. for the commodore 64: arc250 This program is a self-documented archiving and dearchiving program for the Commodore 64. It is slow, but it does work. vt100 This program is a self-contained vt100 emulator for the c=64. It uses the commodore key with the function and number keys to make symbols not on the 64 keyboard. Works only with TPU editor. (the one we use for the BBS) Origionally downloaded from Q-Link tm. macread This program is unarchived and allows the user to view .mac picture files on the c-64. for the commodore 128: vt-100v2a A real slick vt100 em for the c=128. Uses fast and burst modes. U/dloads. Supports EDT. This is a self dearcing file, load and run. Docs Follow. vt-100v2adocs These are the docs that go with vt-100v2a. This is a C=128 self dearcing file. -- Jim Strickland jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there? -----------------------------------------------------------------------

27 years, 8 months

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Call for final Elf99 design input

by amc358＠interserv.com

> On Thursday, November 26, 1998 9:42 AM, Allison J Parent wrote: > The VIP had a ram card, rom card, IO card and a sound effects > card. There is also a 2716 Eprom programmer card (I have one _somewhere_, along with a 'System Expansion Board') and a color video card. There were _two_ sound cards; 'Simple Sound' and 'Super Sound'. Now if I could only FIND my expansion and Eprom programmer cards... ;-) Al McCann amc358(a)interserv.com

27 years, 8 months

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Santa Ana ACP Store

by manney＠lrbcg.com

I'm gonna be in Orange County over Christmas. What's the address of that place? btw, anyone in O.C. who wants to meet and talk about old computers? manney >> > I took a trip down to Los Angeles today, and stopped by the Santa Ana ACP >> > store. As I looked around the store, there were some classics sitting on

27 years, 8 months

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How do I discharge a CRT again???

by kurtkilgor＠geocities.com

Would this be caused by an electrical surge through the device or an EMP kind of like in a nuclear explosion? >Worse still, it can damage >semiconductors all over the instrument! >-tony >

27 years, 8 months

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Who owns Kennedy 9-track Drives?

by museum＠techniche.com

Hi, I'm taking a quick survey of who among us uses (or at least owns) Kennedy 9x00 series tape drives. I do and I know that some others do (e.g. John <jpl15(a)netcom.com>). Anyone else fit this description? Jon

27 years, 8 months

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Debian Linux CD's

by rhblake＠bigfoot.com

I have a few excess, unopened, Debian LINUX cd's with LUG/nut5 on the disk. I haven't had time to examine these myself. They are marked as made by SSC with their website listed as http://www.ssc.com/ They are in a nice plastic jacket. I paid $1 for each so that's what I'd like to get from each, plus postage. I would post a flat postage rate but there may be a person that wants a few so we'll go on a case-by-case basis. Let me know if you might be interested by direct email.

27 years, 8 months

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Apple disk drive pin outs

by CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com

>> Dose any one have the pin outs for the disk drive port on the Apple II. >> I want this information in order to cerate a disk drive emulator. Also, >Here you are, at least for the 20 pin header on the original Disk ][. >Note that it's a pretty low-level interface, so you may find it >non-trivial to make something else that connects to it. For those who do want to make something that connects to it, I *heavily* recommend Don Worth's and Pieter Lehner's _Beneath Apple DOS_, still being published by Quality Software. Everything you might want to know about the Apple Disk ][ interface and format is documented here in wonderfully clear detail. Buy it! Tim. (shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com)

27 years, 8 months

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Dulmont Magnum

by guerney＠uq.net.au

Andrew - maybe we can form a (very limited membership!) Dulmont Magnum users group! [To the group as a whole as this early Australian (& world) laptop maybe of interest] Perhaps my D~M~ is not quite the same as yours. Mine is black, runs on 7VAC 3A (SN #10630) and to make sure everyone knows it was made in Australia it has the label "Kookaburra" in black on silver on the outer lid. The SN plate says "Dulmont Electronic Systems Pty Ltd" and the inbuilt software (see below) is dated 1984. It runs DOS 2.11 but is like nothing I have seen in most other ways. This one has no built-in storage, but has a large connector with two closely-spaced rows of 30 pins on the back which I guess was for a floppy. There are also two mini-D 15-pin female plugs that have been hand-labelled "printer" and "serial". At the top of the keyboard are two large green keys, one labelled OFF ON and the other RESET, but there is a trick - to get them to work you have to press them with the SHIFT key. Perhaps this is why they are rare; unless you know this trick you would think the machine was dead by just pressing the green ON key! There is no ALT key, and there are separate LF and RETURN keys. There are 12 function keys and a HELP key and these are used with the built-in menu program (type menu from dos). The only software with this machine are two little cartridges, one each of which plug into slots on either side of the hinged lid under a fairly hard to remove section of plastic that forms part of the case. The cartridges here are MAG CALC and MAG WORD, each accessible from the menu program. I haven't actually played around with these yet. BASIC would be on a cartridge like this, but it did not come with this unit. I can not find anything on the net other than a German equivalent of the French list referred to by others. Phil Guerney Brisbane, Australia. -----Original Message----- From: Andrew Davie <adavie(a)mad.scientist.com> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu> Date: Monday, 23 November 1998 14:48 Subject: Dulmont Magnum >I've just obtained an unusual laptop circa 1983, a Dulmot Magnum. >Garbage-bin green body, quite heavy. Runs on 6V, MS-DOS 2.11 Very strange >flip-up LCD display, about 8 lines x 80 characters. Actually, this thing is >pretty well designed for its day. >Does anybody know about the history of this machine, and where it fits in >relative to other laptops of the era (ie: what was the first genuine laptop, >when, etc) ? > >-- >Andrew Davie >www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/calculator/soviet.html >adavie(a)mad.scientist.com >ICQ# 3297382 > >

27 years, 8 months

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Apple disk drive pin outs

by charlesii＠nwonline.net

Dose any one have the pin outs for the disk drive port on the Apple II. I want this information in order to cerate a disk drive emulator. Also, is there an eqivlent of Fast Hack 'Em for the Atari 800. This is needed to make disk images for backup pourpouses. Charles

27 years, 8 months

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Thanks to the following...

by dastar＠ncal.verio.com

R. Stricklin (1,2,*) John Lawson (1,2,3) Mike O'Malley (1,2) (1) ...the box arrived (2) ...thanks! (*) ...thanks a lot! (3) ...e-mail me please Sorry for the public posting, I don't have e-mail addresses for you guys. 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: 11/02/98]

27 years, 8 months

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Commodore 128 stuff (was:St. Vincent DePaul Finds)

by foxnhare＠goldrush.com

> From: Phil Clayton <handyman(a)sprintmail.com> > Subject: St. Vincent DePaul Finds > > Interesting find at the local Thrift store. A large box of 3-1/2 > diskettes > for the Amiga 500 computer.. There must be over 500 different programs > all neatly labeled and neatly packed in a nice box.. I did'nt know so > many > programs even existed for the Amiga. Should be fun looking at all this > stuff. It was pretty popular with games and graphics designers before IBM developers got a clue and Gould/Ali really milked thier cash cow... Sure wish some of those games were made for the Mac, but alas, it didn't have the potential then either. > Now I have to unpack my old Amiga and see what treasures I have found.. > > Also inculded in the find was 6 books for the Amiga and 6 books for the > Commodore 128 computer, including a large Tech Reference manual.. I'll say. > Best was a book on C/PM for the C-128 (Really like that one).. That's the one you got with the newer version of CP/M when you sent in the $20.00 with the card in the users guide. All in all 20.00 for that book, the newer CP/M (which finally supported the 1581) and CP/M utilities was a great bargain. > ------------------------------ > From: Phil Clayton <handyman(a)sprintmail.com> > Subject: Uknown Cartridge found.. > > Forgot to mention in my find was a cartridge titled > "Mach 128" its by Access software inc.. > Obviously for the C-128, but don't know what it does.. > Has a switch on top and a reset button? on it.. > Anyone ever seen this Cart before ? It's a fast-loader for the 128 (that's where the Mach comes in , the 64 version was called Mach 5) It might also be a program freezer/utility. Put it in your 128 and push the reset button, some of these will present a menu (for save options and such). The switch is probably to select whether the cart is active or not. Best not to switch it while the computer is on. -- -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (300-2400bd) (209) 754-1363 Visit my Commodore 8-Bit web page at: http://www.goldrush.com/~foxnhare/commodore.html -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-

27 years, 8 months

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Replacing 6550s

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> Hi all! >> >> Thanks to everyone who supplied information regarding the differences >> between the 6550 and 2114 (especially Ethan who supplied pinouts). > > You're welcome. > >> I'm wondering if it would be possible to replace the RAM in an old PET >> with a modern SRAM by use of some kind of plug-in adapter. > > Sure thing. > >> An example of what I'm thinking of is the SIMMfonie or AmiFast Zip-to-SIMM >> adapters for the Amiga 3000. Could something like this be built that >> would plug into the 16 22-pin sockets on the PET motherboard, and lead to >> a single modern SRAM? Possibly with the addition of a couple of clip-on >> leads to get two more address lines to the RAM adapter so that the PET >> could have 32K. > > There is that big edge connector on the side of the static PETs (it was > two seperate pin connectors on later PETs). All the signals you need for > RAM expansion are there. For maximum preservation, I'd consider pulling > all the 6550's out of the board and sticking them in a bag. Then, wire > up a 6264 (or 62256!) to a small board after finding a suitable connector. > I expect the pinout to be on ftp.funet.fi, but if it isn't, I can dig > out my PET schematics. If I still had my old 4K PET, I'd build one, too. > > You shouldn't have to build a clip-on, but if you did, there's nothing > to keep it from working. You can get all the data bits from two sockets, > and all the address bits from one socket, plus the additional bits > from somewhere else. Remember that part of the logic in the PETs decodes > the A8-A11 lines to chip selects. You need the original address bits, > not the decoded ones. Right. Here goes. Answers to one or two other people's questions may be embedded here... The original PET came with four different motherboard variations, viz: RAM = 6550, ROM = 6540 RAM = 6550, ROM = 2316 RAM = 2114, ROM = 6540 RAM = 2114, ROM = 2316 My own is the third of those, a 1978 revision (a pity in a way - the case has the old tape deck, the blue screen surround and serial number 1000035, one of the very first) I have circuits for all four, if you need help. All had the "chicklet" keyboard. Not rubber keys in this case, Cameron. Square plastic keys in a very small qwerty-but-no-offsets arrangement. Little helical springs for key return; conductive rubber pads onto interdigitated PCB tracks for contacts. All but the last few machines of the production run had blue-white phosphor for the screens. BTW, all those of you who never used number pads for lack of comma keys, on the small keyboard PETs the numbers were ONLY on the number pad. Top row was punctuation only... But I digress. The top 4 address lines are decoded on the mobo by a 74154 to give block select lines. The block select lines 0 (bottom 4K of RAM), 8 (screen memory) C, D, E (I think) and F do _not_ appear on the expansion connector. All others do. The rest of the address lines (0 to 11) are also present. It is quite easy to re-encode these for addressing a large RAM chip (62256). You need three 4-input NAND gates - two 7420 chips will do it. (NB you are actually ORing block selects, but these are active low, so you use NAND.) (Also NB it is a long time since I looked at this. You may want to use AND gates to keep things active low when you do chip select with the 4th gate) The 4th NAND gate can combine chip select and clock and things - copy a circuit from the motherboard (yes I'll send you the schematics if you want - e-mail me privately). If you're only attaching 8K, you need merely combine 2 block selects to get chip select (a single AND gate), and use one of those for the top address line A12. When I added a 62256 to my 8K PET, I encoded the block select lines for 24K of RAM space and 8K of expansion ROM space (blocks 9 and A). Beware - POKE also fails here, not just PEEK, if you're accessing this RAM from BASIC. If you've got an 8K PET with some dud 6550s, try and swap them around until you have 4K of good memory, and remove the second 4K. Then map 28K of RAM space and 4K of ROM space to your memory expansion chip. If you've got a 4K PET with some dud 6550s, you'll have to find block select 0 from somewhere on the mobo. WARNING. +5V does NOT appear on the expansion connector. Most people get it from the second cassette port, but it won't drive anything big. 62256 + a little TTL is fine though. Hope this helps. My explanations tend to confuse people... Philip.

27 years, 8 months

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How do I discharge a CRT again???

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

And no, I don't mean the "work your finger under the suction cup" method. Kaypro-specific would be nice (what's a good ground point in there?) but general help would be fine. The last time I had to do this was when I replaced the P/S in my Mac plus, about 7 years ago, so a quick refresh would be good. Also, I think there was something about this on the list a little while back but I can't find it in the archives. What would some possible causes be for a high-pitched screech/whine and a distorted display (um, for a computer display, that is...)? Thanks, Aaron

27 years, 8 months

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HP3000 help needed

by A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com

Well, I finally got around to ripping apart the HP3000 rack I got from John Lawson a couple of months ago. And desperately need some pointers... I've read the HP3000-L FAQ and searched most of the day for info, but there isn't much geared toward the Classic HP3000 home-hobbyist. What I've got is this: 9144 tape drive - I've already deduced that it's a low-density, 16-track capable of 67/134 megs and the tapes have to be purchased pre-formatted. 2563A Printer - with a modular connector. 9123 3 1/2" dual floppy - picked up after-the-fact at a yard sale. It's HP-IB, but has a weird DIN power connector cord. No P/S. (2) 7914 drives - one of these may be a non-op, having suffered some damage during transit. (2)HP3000 series 37's - these are piggy-backed, is this the usual configuration? . Here's where I need some info: The "top" unit has a DB-25F in slot one, and an HP-IB in slot 4, as well as those DE-3F (correct terminology?) connectors in ports 0-5. The "bottom" unit has the DB-25F in slot one, the HP-IB in slot 4, and an AUI (ethernet? Is this a Lanic board?) in slot 5, as well as the 3-pin deals in ports 0-5. Above the ports is a female Centronics-50 which connected to what I believe is a terminal splitter, p/n 40290-60003. Above that is a *very* high-density 99-pin male connector, this is attached to the board with the HP-IB connector. The two units are connected vi an HP-IB cable on port 4 of each. Also, the top has the keyed power switch for both. What I need is *really* basic info on the system and some pointers to information sources. Some quick ones: 1) How in the heck do the two 3000/37 units come apart? 2) How do I wire a terminal to this? 3) Is the AUI connector an ethernet card? A lanic card? 4) Could someone please ID all the rest of the ports? 5) Is there a graphical display capability on this machine? As an add-on? 6) What kind of Pertec tape interface is available for this machine? 7) If my 2nd drive is damaged, how might I go about getting an OS for it? I apologize for such a long post and my absolute lack of knowledge here. I had a buddy who was supposed to help me out (3000 guru) but he's just gone overseas for work indefinitely. It's such a cool system, the way it's put together, and there's a bunch of neat freeware that I'd love to use too. Any help at all would really be appreciated. Thanks, Aaron

27 years, 8 months

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