>
>Actually, very little. Most of the AI researchers in the 70's/early
80's
>were working on one of the following:
>
>1. PDP-10's running a very advanced operating system such as TOPS-20,
What do you mean by "advanced"?
>2. Things such as the Symbolics LISP machine, specifically designed
for
> AI research and with all sorts of spiffy hardware features that
make
> it automatic to do some really nice things (such as actual
machine-level
> "objects" that aren't just locations in memory but are real data
types.
I HATE object oriented stuff. Hate it, hate it, hate it. At least in
C++, Java, and Visual Basic, which have been my only expoures to it.
>Unfortunately, now if you go to a CS department it's rare to see people
>using anything other than generic Unix boxes. This is a crying shame,
as
>Unix was a pretty poor choice of OS's in 1972 (when it was started) and
>on today's big computers it's a much, much poorer choice compared to
>all the OS's developed by advanced research groups in the 70's and
80's.
Well, would any "advanced" OS like TOPS be suitable for modern
machines? Anyone want to be the second Linus Torvalds?
>
>To get a feel of what life was like in a AI lab, you ought to read one
>(or both) of the following:
>
>_The Hacker's Dictionary_, compiled by Eric S. Raymond. (Yes, it is
mainly
>just the jargon file, but there's also essays by Raymond and others
which
>nicely illustrate the AI researcher's "state of mind" in the book.)
>
>_The UNIX-Hater's Handbook_, discusses many OS's developed in the 70's
>and 80's which are far superior to Unix, but never caught on because
they
>weren't "lowest-common-denominator" OS's.
Ironic that now it's the other way around -- we're pushing UNIX-like
stuff like Linux, BeOS and Rhapsody, against DOS, Windows, NT, and
MacOS
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At the risk of getting incinerated, I would like to put in my two bits on
the great MS debate.
You fellows tend to resemble a lot of Grand Prix drivers running down
Fords and Chevvies. What it comes right down to is that there are a whole
bunch of people who are doing useful things with computers who would not be
if they had to depend on the equipment and software that was available
before PC's, Mac's, MS-Dos and Windows.
I saw the same thing with the introduction of self threading 16mm
projectors about twenty five years ago. The National Film Board of Canada
banned them because they chewed up film, but they made it possible for
thousands of teachers to use film in their classes.
Someday possibly we can run our modern computers with an operating system
that comes on one single sided floppy, but until then lets appreciate what
we have.
Cheers
Charlie Fox
>> So STAY ON TOPIC...THE
>> RESTORATION, REAPIR AND USE OF OLD COMPUTERS.
Unless that HTML is running on a Z80 or an F8 I'm not interested
either.
On topic....someone once did an S-100 memory board for Seeq
52B13 EEPROMs (2Kx8, 5v only, 6116 pinout), I think it was a
16KB board, made in the early 1980s. Does anyone have any info
on this board, I don't remember the manufacturer. I have two
hundred 52B13s I just found in the junk closet, thought it would
be neat to have a solid state disk on the old IMSAI. These are
not flash parts, each byte can be individually programmed and
erased.
Jack Peacock
<Text. If the e-mail that you wish to respond to's in plain text, that's
<what it'll send. The problem is that if M$ supports it, the WHOLE WORLD
<suddenly has to all have HTML-ized e-mail readers. It's nice if you hav
<it, but a pain in the A** if you don't.
There is the little matter of some several million (or more) unix(linux,
and related cuzins) systems out there where HTML is far from a standard.
For me and many of the hybrid users HTML means slow, slower and special
utilities to handle it and for what? What a waste of bandwidth.
Allison
A few years ago, I got a Practical Peripherals thing which was
supposed to be a modem. The model number is PM2400SA. It is external.
It dials out, but for some reason, does not connect when the carrier
on the other end starts. Could someone tell me what this thing is?
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>A few years ago, I got a Practical Peripherals thing which was
>supposed to be a modem. The model number is PM2400SA. It is
external.
>It dials out, but for some reason, does not connect when the
carrier
>on the other end starts. Could someone tell me what this thing
is?
>
I think that's a 2400 baud async modem (I had one, sounds like
the same model). If it doesn''t connect, maybe whatever you are
calling doesn't support 2400 anymore, or it's looking for an
error correcting protocol. Make sure you are on factory default
(AT&F if memory serves me right).
Jack Peacock
On 1998-03-14 classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu said to lisard(a)zetnet.co.uk
:I'm almost certain that IE4/outlook express HTMLizes email you send
:from it. there is a way to turn it off, but i dont remember how one
:does it. i'm staying far away from IE4 myself!
make sure you set the "send mail as text only" property somewhere
obscure in the settings.
--
Communa (together) we remember... we'll see you falling
you know soft spoken changes nothing to sing within her...
Very interesting. Please elaborate. My reasons for disliking OOP
stems from the fact that a Windows app in C++ is much harder to
understand than one in plain non-oop code. Who started oop anyway?
>I'be not tried VB, and almost zero Java, but I had to use Ada for three
years.
> Ada 95 has a lot of OO features (though you needn't use it that way).
It is
>my most unfavourite language. Some of us have described Ada as a
read-only
>language (cf. C as a write-only language).
>
>--
>
>Pete Peter Turnbull
> Dept. of Computer Science
> University of York
>
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>> make sure you set the "send mail as text only" property somewhere
>> obscure in the settings.
>
>Doesn't that shut down HTML for ALL mail though? You'd think a person could
>specify what type messages (easily) to each person individually instead of
>as a whole.--
You CAN. The IE bashing is ill-informed. It's a great product. However,
in specific response to the above, you simply select that mail is responded
to in the format it was sent. Quite simple and obvious.
A
On Mar 16, 9:10, Max Eskin wrote:
> >2. Things such as the Symbolics LISP machine, specifically designed for
> > AI research and with all sorts of spiffy hardware features that make
> > it automatic to do some really nice things (such as actual machine-level
> > "objects" that aren't just locations in memory but are real data types.
> I HATE object oriented stuff. Hate it, hate it, hate it. At least in
> C++, Java, and Visual Basic, which have been my only expoures to it.
I'be not tried VB, and almost zero Java, but I had to use Ada for three years.
Ada 95 has a lot of OO features (though you needn't use it that way). It is
my most unfavourite language. Some of us have described Ada as a read-only
language (cf. C as a write-only language).
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
>>Early MS products were extremely good quality software,
>>particularly compared to their competitors at the time. Tight,
largely
>>bug-free and with well thought-out interfaces (exclude Multiplan, but
>>highlight MS Decathlon).
What is Decathlon? Is there a list of all these products somewhere?
>I have a copy of Microsoft Word for DOS 4.0; looks a lot like
>Multiplan. (A pity!)
I prefer the Word interface to Word Perfect. Less memorizing of strange
function keys
>Barry Peterson bmpete(a)swbell.net
>Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
>Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
>
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>>If you believe Turing, there's nothing an analog computer can comput
>>a digital one can't. A brain is many things: it's wet, it's analog,
>>it's massively parallel. I don't think anybody believes that it's w
>>or analogness that matters, but clearly a high degree of parallel
>>processing seems important to solving perception problems quickly.
This
>>is the basic inspiration that drove Danny Hillis to create the Conne
>>Machine, with 64,000 simple processors working in parallel.
>Perhaps incredibly, Turing _did_ believe that there was something
>special about the brain (in particular he could/would not rule out ES
>and so I don't think he would ever have claimed that a Turing Machine
>could do anything that a human brain could. The TM was designed to
>solve a specific problem in mathematical theory, rather than as a
>theoretical ultimate brain.
>
>But now you've got me trying to think of something that an analog(ue)
>computer can do that a digital one can't. Reversibility might be one
>thing. I guess it's reasonable to argue that digital computers are a
>subset of analogue computers, as transistors are analogue.
>
>I'm going to stop thinking about this before I recurse.
a)If you think about it, a neuron in the brain is very much like an
AND gate or a transistor. It has multiple inputs and needs a certain
amount of electricty across them for its single output to go high.
b)I heard that people are working on computers with transistors so
small, they would be affected by quantum laws, and thus be analog
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After long hoping to get one someday, this weekend I found an
Teletype ASR-33 in a dumpster at the UW-Madison surplus center.
It appears to be working in most respects. In local mode, I was able
to type characters although the ribbon was a bit dry. However, when
it reached the right margin, it would not "return". Line feed works.
The geared belt is tight, and pressing additional characters strains
it and sometimes makes it "chunk" as if it were trying to jump a tooth.
I tinkered with the L-shaped catch on the belt that appears to engage
a lever when the carriage reaches the right side. Right now, this
L-catch is to the left of the lever, which gives me the impression
that it didn't catch the way it was supposed to, and now the machine
is stuck in a position that I need to learn how to free. Any ideas?
The data cable has nine wires to an HP-labelled edge-card connector.
Is this 20 ma current loop? I thought that was just four wires.
How difficult is it to get a service manual for one of these?
Is there a date-code some where on it? Will it read a five-level
Baudot paper tape as well as seven-bit, assuming I can translate
Baudot to ASCII?
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
>
>And I just learned that it was safe to tuch motherboard/cards when your
>computers on! (BTW, any one know aout DIMM stuff?)
> Ciao,
>
>Tim D. Hotze
Actually, I find most precautions such as anti-static and so forth to
be baloney. I must have done every illegal thing in the book, and the
only things I haven't gotten away with was plugging chips in
backwards (by accident). When I was upgrading RAM in the machines in
my school's MacLab, the person in charge of it constantly looked over
my shoulder and bleated, "Touch the case again, Max. I want to SEE you
touch the case. OK, now gently, gently, now. Oooh! Yeesh! DON'T touch
those chips!",etc.etc. I didn't damage anything, but he thinks there
is a problem even with touching the actual plastic case of the chip.
I don't discharge static all over chips, mind you, I just think most
precautions are waay overblown. Or have I just been lucky?
Also, have chips gotten more static-sensitive, or less? Should I be
more careful with a 64 MB DIMM or a 16K chip (cost aside)?
>>Same here but some of the kids may never have heard of a propane
torch!
I'm insulted...
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You know Bruce, it's offensive unthinking tirades like yours that make me
want to unsubscribe from this list and throw my classic computers in the
dumpster just so I would no longer have to count myself among your company.
Please give me an insight as to _your_ life's work so that I may call it a
steaming pile of horseshit as well.
Kai
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Lane [SMTP:kyrrin@jps.net]
> Sent: Sunday, March 15, 1998 8:36 AM
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
> Subject: Arrrgh! Micro$h*t again....
>
> First, Tim Shoppa noted...
>
> >contains a plaintext version of the message AND the HTML-ified version,
> >which is what your plaintext email reader is seeing while Eudora and
> >Netscape can pick out the plaintext version.
>
> Then Kip Crosby added...
>
> >That's it. MIME-enabled clients read the MIME part; MSIE4 reads the HTML
> >part; MS-Outlook and Outlook Express I _think_ offer the choice between
> the
> >two. Microsoft no longer considers flat-ASCII mail to be an important
> >fraction of the traffic.
>
> <grrrrrr!>
>
> The more I hear about Billy-boy, and the more I see of his company's
> "products" and arrogant attitudes, the less I like either one! Is there no
> amount of bandwidth waste or code-bloat that Micro$quat won't stoop to?!
>
> I knew there was a reason I'd started to get into Unix boxes.
> Thanks, guys!
>
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
> (Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net)
> "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our
> own
> human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
On this subject, I'm interested in where CYC fits in. Hasn't the cyc "baby"
been running for a number of years? I really should look this up myself,
shouldn't I? I will.
Cheers
A
>So, the connectionists tried to create machines and structures modeled
>after the brain, but they didn't get too far. Let's say that you build
>an OS and a programming language that allows you to accurately model a
>brain. If you stick a human brain in front of a newspaper, you get
>nothing. So add some input devices and actuators. Now you stick a baby
>in front of a newspaper -- still nothing. So let the baby run for a
>while, experience a variety of sensations, make a whole bunch of
>associations, stick it in front of many newpapers and many non-newspapers
>for many years, and finally you get a pretty good character recognizer.
At 01:31 AM 3/16/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>I just finished watching that Discovery program on Robots and was
>wondering if anyone involved in the list has previously/is currently
>working in that field
>
>Also, does anyone know how much of an influence the use of computer
>systems by all of those AI reasearches in the late 70's/early 80's had on
>system designs? I'd be interested to hear any opinions/anecdotes/etc on
>this stuff.
>
>
>
>Aaron
I just caught the end of that special. I didn't realize that interest in AI
had expired.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to Prolog? I had always planned to
pick up Borland's Prolog and learn it, but I guess it's too late for that now.
Was there just no demand for AI, or has the market just taken the useful
aspects and abandoned the remainder? Isn't the Neural Net technology being
used in various pattern recognition applications (i.e. OCR) descended from
the AI research of the the 70's and 80's?
--
David Wollmann |
dwollmann(a)ibmhelp.com | Support for legacy IBM products.
DST ibmhelp.com Technical Support | Data, document and file conversion for
IBM http://www.ibmhelp.com/ | legacy file and media formats.
Tim Shoppa <shoppa(a)alph02.triumf.ca> wrote:
>I know some folks who work at Microsoft and everything they send me from
their
>"work" address is a several-hundred-line MS-Word document that is, of
>course, MIME-encoded. Typically I can decode it and dump the file to
>find the single line of real text that they thought they were sending me.
For those few of us who might also check their Word documents in
binary, you'll find that Word also stores quite a bit of its undo
buffers in the saved document. Yes, no kidding. I've received
letters and contracts from people who didn't realize this.
By studying the binary, you can see their last few revisions. :-)
People often create a "new" letter by revising an old document.
- John
Jefferson Computer Museum <http://www.threedee.com/jcm>
I need to unload a lot of things that are taking up way too much room.
In many cases I'm willing to part with large quantities of my items in
exchange for just a single little thing I might need:
Available
---------
1 - Complete working systems and lots of accessories and software for:
Apple II (no systems, just boards, drives, s/w)
Atari 8 bits
Atari 520ST/1040ST (including monitors)
Commodore Vic-20, 64, 128 (including monitors)
TI-99/4A
Tandy TRS-80 CoCo II and III
(Just let me know of anything specific you are looking for)
2 - Commodore SX-64. Missing the carry handle, the keyboard cable
(should be easy to make, I'll pinout the one I have), and the sound is
not working. Picture is good though and other than sound it works fine.
3 - Fairly dirty little Tandy MC-10. Has a substitute 6VDC adapter and
works fine.
4 - Several external SCSI HD (20, 65, 80 Mb models) and SCSI Syquest-44
compatible drive (PLI Infinity). These are all tested and work fine
with my Macs.
5 - Lots of older MPU, MCU, Peripheral, RAM, EPROM chips--some NOS, some
pulls--just inquire.
6 - Some non-classiccmp stuff but closely related:
Classic Video game systems and carts (2600, 5200, Colco, Intv, etc.)
Compaq DeskPro 4/33 w/DX4-100 CPU upgrd, 12Mb RAM, 1Gb HD (have 3)
Compaq ProSignia server 486-66
Wanted
------
1 - Disk Drives w/cables for CBM PET
2 - Modem and cassette cables, ROM upgrades, expansion items for Tandy
100/102
3 - CP/M cart for C64/128
4 - SpartaDos cart for Atari 8 bit
5 - Keyboard w/cable and DOS for HP 150A
6 - RGB DB-25 cable for Sony SMC-70
7 - Intel 8224 and 8228 peripheral chips
8 - Good battery packs for TI calcs: SR-50, SR-52, and TI-58C
9 - Systems: RCA Cosmac, AdventureVision game console, Exidy Sorcerer,
Magnavox Odyssey, Vector Graphics (anything but MZ), P.T. SOL-20... er
Apple 1, III, Lisa...
I'll consider just about any condition item from the last section above,
and would also consider most any working system or good drives, boards,
terminals, etc. from pre-1980, that I don't already have. Just let me
know what you've got...
BTW, I'm in California, about 20 minutes north of SF.
--
mor(a)crl.com
http://www.crl.com/~mor/tps/
Actually, I got my own copy of the "NAQ" when I subscribed; I don't
need another. I was just pointing out to Sam that the official
classiccmp web page has been out of reach for quite a long time
now, so there is no point in referring people to it.
So, once again, I'd like to urge everyone to participate in building
a classiccmp distributed web page. Take a look at this URL,
http://www.cs.unc.edu/~yakowenk/classiccmp/dwp.html
and then go add those meta-tags to your pages. Okay, now I'll stop
pushing this once and for all.
Cheers,
Bill.
] From dastar(a)wco.com Sun Mar 15 10:33:26 1998
]
] On Sat, 14 Mar 1998, Bill Yakowenko wrote:
] > As near as I can tell, the classiccmp web site has been down for
] > months now. I've tried probably fifty times since I-don't-know-when,
] > but haven't got it to come up. Do you have the inside scoop on that?
] > Without that, referring people to the FAQ isn't going to help much.
]
] Oh, sorry. That does tend to be a big problem. And yes, that web site
] has been flaky as hell for months now. I believe there is a mirror site
] somewhere that carries the FAQ.
]
] Can someone help Bill out? Anyone have a copy of the FAQ lying around?
]
] Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
] Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
]
] Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
] See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
On Mar 15, 19:46, Thorhallur Ragnarsson wrote:
> Subject: Re: Getting bent (ON topic if not thread)
>
> [ plain text
> Encoded with "quoted-printable" ] :
Hooray!
At 07:26 15.03.1998 PST, Max Eskin wrote:
>
> >Actually, I find most precautions such as anti-static and so forth to
> >be baloney.......
I've spent a lot of my working life repairing boards that have been blown up,
so I can't agree.
> No, unfortunately this can be a real problem, some years ago when working
> as test engineer for DNG Electronics, we suddenly had skyrocketing failure
> rates in assembly of equipment containing CMOS logic. Everybody involved
> was grounded with a 1Mohm wrist strap so this was quite a mystery until we
> noticed that when carrying the boards from the test bench to the final
> assembly, the lead from the strap was too short and the carrier had to
> disconnect it for the 6 feet trip across the floor, this zapped approx. 30%
> of the boards. His shoes must have been something!!
>
> >...................... When I was upgrading RAM in the machines in
> >my school's MacLab, the person in charge of it constantly looked over
> >my shoulder and bleated, "Touch the case again, Max. I want to SEE you
> >touch the case. OK, now gently, gently, now. Oooh! Yeesh! DON'T touch
> >those chips!",etc.etc. I didn't damage anything, ......
>
> Well, we have no way of knowing that. Static damage may just weaken the
> chips so they fail later.
That's quite a common effect. One of the big electronics companies published
some figures on it a ten years or so ago. Often, it may alter a device's
response to high frequencies as well. But I don't agree with those who say you
must never touch a chip, or must hold it by the ends without touching the pins.
If I have to carry an EPROM or similar without antistatic foam, I make a point
of ensuring that all the pins are touching my finger, on the grounds that my
slightly-conductive skin is keeping all the pins at the same potential.
> Yes, I hope we are lucky. I do not normally wear an antistatic wrist strap,
> I just try to wear cotton clothes, "touch the case" often and avoid rubbing
> against all those synthetic surfaces (table, chair, carpet etc.).
> When dealing with old equipment I try to be even more careful as it may be
> more static sensitive and spares harder to find.
I once (mid-80s) had several calls from a school that had refitted a computer
room; machines kept crashing, usually at the start of a class. I only remember
one permanent fault, but when I eventually asked the right question, it turned
out they had a new carpet with a high nylon content. I suggested they spray
the carpet with very dilute carpet cleaner in one of those mister bottles that
plant lovers always seem to have, and to repeat that once a week or so. The
problems went, and never came back.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Mar 15, 8:33, Tim Shoppa wrote:
> Subject: Re: What's with the raw HTML?
> [ snip ] but to me
> the real standard is:
>
> Flat text should be sent as flat text.
I couldn't agree more :-)
> The number of MIME-encoded flat text documents I receive every day is
> just plain silly.
And with this. That's why I don't even bother to read a lot of that stuff,
unless the Subject: line and/or From: makes me think I need to.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
On Mar 15, 10:09, Dan Stephans II wrote:
> Subject: Re: What's with the raw HTML?
> Umm, HTML is pretty much a standard no matter what platform you are on as it
> is most certainly not platform dependent. The standard for 1.1 is specified
> in RFC 2068 and for 1.0 in RFC 1945.
Sure, but that's not really the issue. In any case, M$ blatantly ignore those
standards.
> If you mean that there are not standard
> tools to read html'ized mail under unix/linux, I say Netscape is available
> for almost any linux and most other unices running on sparc/intel/alpha
> hardware.
HTML is a markup language designed for web pages. Netscape is primarily
designed for web pages, not mail. It is a very inefficient tool for mail. And
what if you're not running X Windows? I completely agree with Allison and
others, that HTML has no place in textual mail. It is completely unneccessary,
and wastes both bandwidth and time. I suspect you agree, at least in part,
with that.
> I don't argue that HTML rich text is fine for mailing lists,
> however if you are going to argue that it is not you should formulate a
> proper argument.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dan
>
> Allison J Parent wrote:
>
> > <Text. If the e-mail that you wish to respond to's in plain text, that's
> > <what it'll send. The problem is that if M$ supports it, the WHOLE WORLD
> > <suddenly has to all have HTML-ized e-mail readers. It's nice if you hav
> > <it, but a pain in the A** if you don't.
> >
> > There is the little matter of some several million (or more) unix(linux,
> > and related cuzins) systems out there where HTML is far from a standard.
> > For me and many of the hybrid users HTML means slow, slower and special
> > utilities to handle it and for what? What a waste of bandwidth.
> >
> > Allison
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
Aaah, I see! When it comes to system stability, you Linux geeks come
>from all over saying how you can DEVELOP patches, but when we have
some software that you don't, where is that trusty gcc? huh? huh?
But seriously, is it so hard to patch Linux mail for HTML?
>There is the little matter of some several million (or more)
unix(linux,
>and related cuzins) systems out there where HTML is far from a
standard.
>For me and many of the hybrid users HTML means slow, slower and special
>utilities to handle it and for what? What a waste of bandwidth.
>
>Allison
>
>
______________________________________________________
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Well, I was finally able to make two QIC tapes (boot and install) using
NetBSD for x86. The tape drive ran fine, with no errors.
So then I hooked the shoebox up to the 3/50 that I have, and using the
monitor, issued "b st(0,6,0)" to boot from the tape. The 3/50 seems to
access the drive (I can see the heads move), but either aborts with a
"Device Not Found" error, or the following:
scsi getbyte failed
invalid status message = FFFFFFFF
st: sense key = 6 error = 29
I'm not able to get any further than this. Any thoughts??
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
[Viewing an attached word file on an HP-UX]
a)Most people working on PCs with Word have no idea what an HP-UX is
b)Most such people have no idea that there is a machine on the planet
not running word
c)Most such people don't even realize that they are running word or
attaching a word format file to email
It is a byproduct of things being easy to use. Same reason as many
americans have no idea where England is.
______________________________________________________
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<I mean it's "software for the the masses," everything's a black box. If t
<Win 95 registry gets hosed, re-install the whole OS (I've yet to remedy
It's why win3.1 is the windowing system on my dosbox. It's stable enough
for me and my standard is VAX/VMS (24x7x365 and it's no joke!). But I had
to work to get it that way.
<damaged registry by restoring a backup), then all your apps (10 or 15 in
<case); it's a full 10 hour project for me, even with Win95 and most apps
<CD, and any install diskettes loaded on a single Zip disk.
Windows(3.x, 95, ???) is the only OS that ever needed to reload to fix!
VMS files that are that critical can be protected to the stars if need be.
<Linux/Unix OTOH, if it's screwed up, just figure out which script to fix
While I'm not excited about linux yet, I've never seen it eat itself
either.
<I think if there were only one target to go after, Gates would have the
<"owners" of Linux in his board room tomorrow, trying to pressure them int
<selling out so he could eliminate the threat. I wonder if he's tried to
<romance Linus yet?
Wouldn't do him much as the OS is PD and even if successivve versions
weren't it would be hard to lock that market.
<>But AFAIK, Gates's BASIC
<>interpreter for the altair required a RAM add-on pack! Truly bloatware
<>from day one. Why Gates decided to flip the switches on the front
<>panel several thousand extra times mystifies me. Maybe that's why
<>you're all getting Altairs with worn out switches;)
HUH? What? The altairs needed 4k of ram to run 4k basic and 8k to run
8kbasic. Basic8k for altair was only about 6100 bytes. THere were
smaller basics but all of them gave up something, like floating point
or strings.
As to the switch flipping, that was due to the crummy MITS 88ACR that
would often require several tries to get a clean load. After it BASIC
loaded the switches were an artifact though to could input data via port
FFh under program control. To beat the need to pound switches I put a
small 64byte bootrom on a board and copied the loaded image to phase
encoded digital tape(home brew) to get from the slow error prone 300baud
to a zippy and I may add very reliable 4800. Don't blame the cow for
soggy cereal.
I would say that 8kbasic was the first decent software product from MS
though it was soon to change in the early 80s.
FYI the Extended BASIC interpreter for CP/M-80 and the BASCOM Compiler
for CP/M-80 were excellent products. Neither were bloatware by any
standard.
Allison
I don't want to be the skunk at the lawn party here, but it should be
pointed out that e-mail is fast becoming the communication medium of choice
for both business and pleasure. I suppose you could argue that there is no
need for a company to have a fancy letterhead, nor a mass mailer to have
colored brochures, nor ladies to have flowered and/or scented stationery,
yet we do have all these things, and more. Consider how boring text-only,
fixed-font mail would be. Or did Henry Ford have it right when he proclaimed
that all we really "needed" was black automobiles?
Yes, I understand the argument that in the case of snail mail, the sender
pays for all the frills, but in the case of e-mail, the recipient more than
likely pays with longer download times, disk clutter, etc. A very valid and
not trivial point. Nevertheless, technology marches on, and as cable modems
(or whatever) become the norm rather than the exception, "waste" of
bandwidth and its associated costs will cease to an issue with the computing
public at large. If my wife wants to embed scanned newspaper clippings or a
kid's picture in an email to her cousin across country, who am I (or anyone)
to object?
I don't disagree with much that has been said here on the subject. I don't
use HTML formatted e-mail, and don't especially like receiving it,
nonetheless I accept that sooner or later it will become the norm (I don't
like the term "standard") rather than the exception. Formatted email may
never be, nor probably should be, appropriate on a classic computer
mailing list; yet, who knows, in ten years or so the definition of "classic
computer" may change as well.
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Sunday, March 15, 1998 3:14 PM
Subject: Re: What's with the raw HTML?
>
>You missed the point. There is no argument. As far as I'm concerned,
>there's absolutely no point to sending e-mail as HTML.
>
>Allison said it best though...
>
>> What a waste of bandwidth.
>
>And how.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail:
dastar(a)siconic.com
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
>Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer,
Jackass
>
> Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
> See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
>
>
>> Also it was connected to an Apple IIe via a super serial port on the GS
and
>> an I/O controller on the IIe side. Is that some sort of "Networking"?
There
>> was no disk drive attached to the IIe.
>
>Either someone's idea of a joke or thrift shop ignorance.
Well actaully the guy pointed to the IIe when I asked about the keyboard.
They probably thought the the IIe WAS the keyboard!
BTW what kind of problems can I expect with the ROM 01 (wich is the one I
have)?
-------------------------------------------------------------
Francois
Visit the Sanctuary at: http://home.att.net/~francois.auradon
<And in my experience, IC's are not that easy to damage by overheating.
<I've soldered and desoldered hundreds of chips and never once overheated
<one. Yes I do use a temperature controlled iron, etc.
FYI in the old days when people would salvage chips of old unmarked cards
a popular way to remove them was a propane torch and pliers! Obviously
the board would get toasted but you could get the chips off fairly clean
and fast. Though once I seriously over did it on the heat. The result
is a old 7400 that is bent some in the middle...it still worked!
I also made copper heads with the right shape for round, 16pin and even
40pin footprints that I would use a ungar element to heat and desolder
chips cleanly from the board. I've also lifted chips by passing the
board through the wave solder machine that put them down to start with.
No majik, just carefull application of heat. The trick is heating all of
the pins or finding a way that doesn't require all of them to be heated
at once.
Allison
Hello, all:
Does anyone have the jumper settings for a Maxtor XT4380S hard drive?
This thing is part of a Sun-clone "shoebox." The Maxtor Web site only has
information on the drive's geometry and not the jumpers. I can't seem to get
the SCSI address to show anything other than 4.
TIA!
Rich Cini/WUGNET
<nospam_rcini(a)msn.com> (remove nospam_ to use)
ClubWin! Charter Member (6)
MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking
============================================
I'd like to see less Microsoft bashing in my inbox; I'm on this list for
the discussion of classic computers, NOT the benefits of Linux vs Windows,
NOR the arguments about HTML. If the FAQ/guidelines for the mailing list
say NO HTML, thats all there need be said... "read the FAQ". Please, lets
cut down the traffic on these subjects and get back to the things we all
enjoy discussing!!!
A
First, Tim Shoppa noted...
>contains a plaintext version of the message AND the HTML-ified version,
>which is what your plaintext email reader is seeing while Eudora and
>Netscape can pick out the plaintext version.
Then Kip Crosby added...
>That's it. MIME-enabled clients read the MIME part; MSIE4 reads the HTML
>part; MS-Outlook and Outlook Express I _think_ offer the choice between the
>two. Microsoft no longer considers flat-ASCII mail to be an important
>fraction of the traffic.
<grrrrrr!>
The more I hear about Billy-boy, and the more I see of his company's
"products" and arrogant attitudes, the less I like either one! Is there no
amount of bandwidth waste or code-bloat that Micro$quat won't stoop to?!
I knew there was a reason I'd started to get into Unix boxes. Thanks, guys!
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
<> What HTML utility works on my pro350 under venix.
<>
<
<Lynx?
Venix does not have IP suite only uucp. A version is not installed nor
have I found one. It would however have to fit on the 10mb disk.
<> Same question for my PDP-11s running RT-11?
<> Or my ISP shell account (choice of ELM, PINE or MAIL)?
<
<Lynx? (which of course can be set up as a viewer for text/html mime types
<pine)
Keep in mind that the access in that mode is terminal(not a PC) so
graphics is out.
<> Then there is the matter of my laptop (EPSON PX-8 running CP/M-80)?
<
<You do a lot of mail reading from this machine then? I can list a bunch
<machines that don't have any tools or utilities that handle HTML too, but
<don't use them for reading mail.
I do if I need portability (on the road). I have a scripted modem tool
that interacts with ISPs shell and mail to download mail and send mail.
storage is critical (120k ramdisk!) so bloat is problematic.
<> How about my VS2000 tunning ultrix-4.2 off a 71meg disk?
<> Then there is the matter of my vaxen running VMS-5.5?
<
<Pine/lynx again.I think one of your problems is that you obviously read y
<mail on far too many different machines. :) How do you keep track of whe
<things are?
Your avoiding the question. If I were limited any of those I'd need
tools specific to them. As there are many people that do not or cannot
afford the latest and greatest it's not a moot point.
In reality my 486dx2/50 with 8meg of ram is the primary mailreader.
However I'm not about to drag up eudora or nyetscrape to read mail as
it's too slow for simple plain text. Of course if you sincerely believe
that using a 486 is stupid I'll gladly accept a P100 donation.
Allison
Sorry for any whitespace, folks...
When was this interview taken?
>advocated "Top 40" bloatware from day one. No one should be
surprised--I
>mean, Microshaft has always intended it's products to be "toasterware,"
as
>easy as plugging toast into a toaster--that is, if you want to write a
>letter to Aunt Minny or play Solitaire from 9am to 5pm every day.
I don't quite see what you mean..
I have concluded a while ago that he isn't quite sane. I mean, in
"Triumph of the Nerds", they said he gets up every day afraid of being
taken over...
>rethink his crapware strategy. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that
there
>is a dark corner in a sub-basement somewhere in Redmond where a small
team
>of hackers are already working on a potential Microsoft Linux
distribution,
>just in case. I'm taking bets on Netscape doing the same thing--a
complete
I'll bet Win95 is compiled on Linux! But AFAIK, Gates's BASIC
interpreter for the altair required a RAM add-on pack! Truly bloatware
>from day one. Why Gates decided to flip the switches on the front
panel several thousand extra times mystifies me. Maybe that's why
you're all getting Altairs with worn out switches;)
>--
>David Wollmann |
>dwollmann(a)ibmhelp.com | Support for legacy IBM products.
>DST ibmhelp.com Technical Support | Data, document and file conversion
for
>IBM http://www.ibmhelp.com/ | legacy file and media formats.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
Just in case someone has missed their advertising blitz, the Discovery
Channel is showing a special called Robots Rising tonight at 9pm ET. From
the little preview on the Discovery web site (what I can see of it with
lynx) it looks like there should be a lot of shots of classic machines in
action....
Aaron
Sorry, I don't keep e-mail addresses handy.
> Sorry , I missed the previous parts to this thread , but I do have a
> copy of the 3-part FAQ. Where should I forward it ?
Could the one who was asking please e-mail Larry Walker at:
lwalkerN0spaM(a)interlog.com
...removing the anti-spam features of his e-mail address of course.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
<But seriously, is it so hard to patch Linux mail for HTML?
<>There is the little matter of some several million (or more)
<>unix(linux, and related cuzins) systems out there where HTML is
<>far from a standard.
First off Standard in this case refers to established and present on
every system.
My reference to cusins referes to the non-public source unixes like Venix
and also the non-unix, non-DOS, non-NT OSs that exist. Since I'll never
run nyetscrape on the z80, 8088 or PDP-11.
Sure it's possible (trivial) to write your own handler to strip the
excess baggage, but I personally feel its rude to impose it on the reader.
ALlison
<That said, it is certainly very possible to damage individual chips and/o
<subassemblies with static electricity, and precautions such as anti-stati
<bags, tubes, and workplaces make perfect economic sense to the
<manufacturers, distributors, and professional installers of this
<equipment. In other words, not the entire industry is a scam - they're
<quite satisfied that ordinary affordable measures and work practices
<are important.
The basic wrist strap safety ground is usually adaquate. More often some
basic care is all that is needed to insure nothing bad happens.
However, The last day or so in eastern MA, I've been able to draw sparks
over 0.25" with ease and there is no question that can be damaging.
Allison
<> Umm, HTML is pretty much a standard no matter what platform you are on
<> is most certainly not platform dependent. The standard for 1.1 is spec
<> in RFC 2068 and for 1.0 in RFC 1945. If you mean that there are not st
<> tools to read html'ized mail under unix/linux, I say Netscape is availa
<> for almost any linux and most other unices running on sparc/intel/alph
<> hardware. I don't argue that HTML rich text is fine for mailing lists
<> however if you are going to argue that it is not you should formulate
<> proper argument.
OK,
What HTML utility works on my pro350 under venix.
Same question for my PDP-11s running RT-11?
Or my ISP shell account (choice of ELM, PINE or MAIL)?
Then there is the matter of my laptop (EPSON PX-8 running CP/M-80)?
How about my VS2000 tunning ultrix-4.2 off a 71meg disk?
Then there is the matter of my vaxen running VMS-5.5?
The assumption of HTML standard, is modern CPU, lot's of ram, fast modem
big disk and bandwidth to waste when the message doesn't warrent any of
the above. This is particulary true when in some cases the message is
repeated twice in clear text and HTML. Myself I find ti analogous of a
ham firing up a full kilowatt to talk to the guy across the street,
excessive and burdening to others.
Both RFCs are not retro specification and do not make HTML required.
They do make clear what HTML is and hwo to deal with it.
Allison
<Actually, I find most precautions such as anti-static and so forth to
<be baloney. I must have done every illegal thing in the book, and the
<only things I haven't gotten away with was plugging chips in
Well it's really pay me now or later. While at DEC we (participated) did
and ESD study and we found even TTL was susceptable. It accounted for a
very significant number of boards that shipped good and failed on install
or very shortly afterwards. ESD can damage devices without immediately
failing them. It contributed to many burned in and tested at the facory
only to fail in the field boards and made for a high incidence of failures
in chips associted with interconnects (edge connectors and plugs/sockets).
When a program of ESD grounding was instituted the failures drom 20% over
a year and would continue to drop for several years and habits were
broken.
The problem is difference in charge so try to maintain contact to keep the
static charges equalized/dissipated especially on the
cold dry days were have up north here.
Also handling edge connectors is long term not good. Oils and salts from
the hands are not good even for gold plated connectors.
Allison
First, Uncle Roger declared...
>I have [music] CD's going back to the mid-80's. They all work fine.
>(P.S., never buy an Aiwa CD player.)
Max responded with...
>Why do you say this? I found an AIWA all-in-one thing (radio,tape,
>phono,cd) in the trash a few years ago, and it has worked fine. Does
>it damage CDs or something?
I think I know what Roger may be referring to, Max. About a year and
something ago, I bought my mate an Aiwa 3-disc CD player/changer that also
sported a SCSI port for the benefit of using data CDs.
The thing was new, still in the box. After about a month, it died. I sent
it off to Aiwa, they repaired it under warranty. It came back, lasted for
about another year, then the mechanicals in the transport died. Permanently.
Needless to say, I'm not impressed with Aiwa's later stuff (after 1993 or
so).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Bruce Lane, Sysop, The Dragon's Cave BBS (Fidonet 1:343/272)
(Hamateur: WD6EOS) (E-mail: kyrrin(a)jps.net)
"Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own
human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."
I am right now sitting in a room containing a few interesting parts...
There's an 11/70 here, and 11/44, and 11/83.
And that's not all.
Lining the back wall are VAX 7650, 8530, 11/785...
There's other DEC stuff around... There's apparently a RSX/11M
distrib RL02 pack around, but it's been lost in a sea of XXDP+ packs...
Numbersome MicroVAXen...
I am talking to you right now from the 785! Truly impressive!
The room also holds an AlphaServer 7100, and a lot of Windoze boxen.
This is ATS's lab, where they test things!
Already scored a lot of manuals, PDP-11, VAX, and PDP-8 stuff.
Maybe I can talk them out of this 785, or maybe a DELUA or something... :)
See ya later, I'm gonna see what else I can find!
PS: NONE of this is trash! They actually USE all this stuff to test equipment!
-------
On Sat, 14 Mar 1998, Bill Yakowenko wrote:
> As near as I can tell, the classiccmp web site has been down for
> months now. I've tried probably fifty times since I-don't-know-when,
> but haven't got it to come up. Do you have the inside scoop on that?
> Without that, referring people to the FAQ isn't going to help much.
Oh, sorry. That does tend to be a big problem. And yes, that web site
has been flaky as hell for months now. I believe there is a mirror site
somewhere that carries the FAQ.
Can someone help Bill out? Anyone have a copy of the FAQ lying around?
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
On Mar 13, 16:54, Keith Whitehead wrote:
> Ok...here's the problem
> The machine come up with garbage on the screen.It would also seem that the
> video is inverted, I can see the retrace lines etc, so the horizontal
> blanking is not working either by the looks of it.
>
> What I suspect is wrong is that either U42 (the 6845 labeled in my machine
> as a motorola SC80757P) or U102 (the 4.3 video support chip) is faulty (or
> both?).
The 6845 isn't much more than a programmable video timing generator. Since you
have *some* video, it's unlikely to be at fault.
It could be a memory-addressing problem, or a bad connection, or... My first
suggestion would be to *gently* prise each socketed chip from it's socket, and
reseat them all. This helps clean any oxidation off the pins at the point of
contact. Used to be a favourite problem with Apple ]['s, but it's a
widely-applicable technique.
I don't wish to teach my granny to suck eggs, but I'd also suggest you take
care that *all* the pins go back in the socket when you reseat anything; it's
not hard to bend a pin underneath sometimes. For many years I was a
component-level repair technician for an education authority, and I once had
someone bring me a malfunctioning machine which had that problem. When I
pointed it out, the response was "but NEARLY all the pins are in, and it
doesn't work AT ALL".
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
In a message dated 98-03-13 21:22:35 EST, you write:
<< <And in my experience, IC's are not that easy to damage by overheating.
<I've soldered and desoldered hundreds of chips and never once overheated
<one. Yes I do use a temperature controlled iron, etc. >>
with all this talk of soldering and desoldering, is it possible for a layman
to do this with just a regular low wattage soldering iron? any tips from the
pros?
david
] From: Wirehead Prime <wirehead(a)retrocomputing.com>
]
] In repairing the SWTPC 6800 MP-A CPU board, I've discovered I THINK that
] a 7474 which is used to generate NOT HALT to the CPU (and to halt it
] under certain circumstances) is keeping the CPU halted all the time even
] though the bus says there's no reason for it to be halted.
]
...deletia
]
] Thanks...
]
] Anthony Clifton - Wirehead
> From: "Jack Peacock" <peacock(a)simconv.com>
>
> considering the low speed of a 6800, an LS (or even an HCT)
> should work...but, are you sure it isn't the case of a fast
> pulse on the D input when CLK is hit (on the falling edge if
> memory is correct)? and you aren't seeing it (using a logic
> probe or a triggered scope)? did you check the voltage in to D?
> maybe it's in no mans land (i.e. around 2v). Maybe its the IC
> driving the flip flop D input thats bad, or a fast pulse is
> hitting the R* input
>
> Anyway, I'd take it out and put in a socket if you think its
> most likely cause
> Jack Peacock
Do you have anything funky plugged into that box? Later SWTPC systems
had disk controllers doing DMA, but I'm not sure about the 6800.
Does it lock up all the time? If so, can you yank everything except
the MP-A and an MP-C or MP-S in port 1, and see if it still happens?
In that case, there should be nothing wanting to do DMA, so the HALT*
line should be permanently high - no possibility of sneaky fast pulses
on the HALT line that you might overlook. Then everything is simple:
If HALT* is still high on the SS-50 and low on the output of that
7474, then that 7474 is definitely ill. If the problem goes away
when you do this, then maybe the 7474 is okay and maybe you've got
some board doing spurious HALTs.
OTOH, to keep the CPU halted, you'd have to be getting one of those
sneaky pulses on the HALT line in every clock cycle; just one here
and there wouldn't keep the CPU totally halted. Just on that basis
alone, I'd say it's almost certain that the 7474's flip-flopping
days are over.
As for 7474 vs. 74LS74, since the output of this is only driving the
one CPU input, I expect it should be okay. I think the main concern
would be whether or not the replacement chip can drive as many inputs
as the chip it is replacing, and an LS output can certainly drive one
standard input. (Experts are welcome to correct me here!)
Cheers,
Bill.
At 06:53 PM 3/14/98 -0800, Sam Ismail wrote:
>On Sat, 14 Mar 1998, Max Eskin wrote:
>
>[In response to Uncle Roger's spontaneous anti-AIWA quip...]
>
>> Why do you say this? I found an AIWA all-in-one thing (radio,tape,
>> phono,cd) in the trash a few years ago, and it has worked fine. Does
>> it damage CDs or something?
>> >
>> >I have [music] CD's going back to the mid-80's. They all work fine.
>> >(P.S., never buy an Aiwa CD player.)
>
>This is an example of the kind of message that should go to private
>e-mail. Thanks.
>
>Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So is this.
No, Thank YOU
Les