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

Microsoft ICE for compositing scans: a success story

by legalize＠xmission.com

On my final trip to The Black Hole, I picked up some more Tektronix documentation. One of these was a photocopy of the manual for the 4953/4954 Graphics Tablet. This manual combines the instruction and service manual in one with circuit diagrams and descriptions in the back of the manual. However, since this was a photocopy and not an original, the circuit diagrams were not available in their original size. The person who photocopied the manual had attempted to cover the diagrams with multiple photocopies of different parts of the oversize page. It was difficult to manually match up the different pages, if only just to identify the order in which they should appear in a scanned PDF of the manual. Instead I just fed the scans into Microsoft ICE, available as a free download: Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) <http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/> The results speak for themselves. See the last three pages of the resulting PDF: <http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/49xx/070-1791-01_4953_4954…> You can see that the person who photocopied the manual did miss a few bits of the schematics, but for the most part the schematic is now legible as a single diagram. Due to the blending that occurs at the edges of the individual images, Microsoft ICE will sometimes produce a grayscale image from the bilevel scans I use for making PDFs of manuals. So a little post processing in ImageMagick reduced the bit depth back down to 1 bit per pixel and converted the image to PDF for combining with the rest of the pages via pdftk. The command stream went roughly like this: convert composite.tif -monochrome -compression Group4 page.tif convert page.tif -density 600x600 page.pdf The -density argument tells the PDF file that the image was scanned at 600 dpi so that the composite page is shown at the same relative size to the other pages in a PDF viewer. It may be possible to combine these two commands into a single invocation of ImageMagick with identical results; I haven't tried that. I had previously used hugin, an open source image compositing program that has tutorials for compositing multiple scans like this. However, using hugin to do the same job was a very tedious, laborious and lengthy process. With MS ICE, it was a simple matter of drag-n-drop of the image files onto the application which it processed automatically to find the resulting composite. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

13 years, 8 months

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Microsoft ICE for compositing scans: a success story

by legalize＠xmission.com

On my final trip to The Black Hole, I picked up some more Tektronix documentation. One of these was a photocopy of the manual for the 4953/4954 Graphics Tablet. This manual combines the instruction and service manual in one with circuit diagrams and descriptions in the back of the manual. However, since this was a photocopy and not an original, the circuit diagrams were not available in their original size. The person who photocopied the manual had attempted to cover the diagrams with multiple photocopies of different parts of the oversize page. It was difficult to manually match up the different pages, if only just to identify the order in which they should appear in a scanned PDF of the manual. Instead I just fed the scans into Microsoft ICE, available as a free download: Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) <http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ice/> The results speak for themselves. See the last three pages of the resulting PDF: <http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/49xx/070-1791-01_4953_4954…> You can see that the person who photocopied the manual did miss a few bits of the schematics, but for the most part the schematic is now legible as a single diagram. Due to the blending that occurs at the edges of the individual images, Microsoft ICE will sometimes produce a grayscale image from the bilevel scans I use for making PDFs of manuals. So a little post processing in ImageMagick reduced the bit depth back down to 1 bit per pixel and converted the image to PDF for combining with the rest of the pages via pdftk. The command stream went roughly like this: convert composite.tif -monochrome -compression Group4 -density 600x600 page.pdf The -density argument tells the PDF file that the image was scanned at 600 dpi so that the composite page is shown at the same relative size to the other pages in a PDF viewer. I had previously used hugin, an open source image compositing program that has tutorials for compositing multiple scans like this. However, using hugin to do the same job was a very tedious, laborious and lengthy process. With MS ICE, it was a simple matter of drag-n-drop of the image files onto the application which it processed automatically to find the resulting composite. -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

13 years, 8 months

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Ebay Cray T94

by saquinn624＠aol.com

>Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:25:24 -0700 (PDT) >From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> >To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > <cctalk at classiccmp.org> >Subject: Re: Ebay Cray T94 >Message-ID: <20121011212438.J78683 at shell.lmi.net> >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > >On Thu, 11 Oct 2012, jim s wrote: >> As to whether it is touchup paint, > >before buying a Cray, rap on each of the panels to check for Bondo? Crays are fast machines, so I suppose a system crash could be more destructive for them. Have you checked out CompFax? Maybe it was totaled after a particularly nasty segfault.

13 years, 8 months

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Missing footnotes [was RE: Our Museum Need a special help..]

by RichA＠vulcan.com

From: Rich Alderson Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 11:40 AM > The earliest Buddhist texts are written in a Middle Indic[2] language Oh, crap. There was only going to be 1 footnote anyway, which I forgot to include: [1] "Middle Indic" is a designation for the Indo-Aryan[2] languages of the period roughly between 500 BCE and 800 CE, descended from Old Indic languages contemporaneous with Vedic, Epic Sanskrit, and Classical Sanskrit. The Modern Indic languages are descended from various of the Middle Indic languages. [2] This is a linguistic classification, prior to the racialist adoption of the word "Aryan" to mean something entirely different. I decided in composing the 1st note that the 2nd was needed. Rich Alderson Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer Vulcan, Inc. 505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900 Seattle, WA 98104 mailto:RichA at vulcan.com mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/

13 years, 8 months

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Our Museum Need a special help..

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

what?? Top posted because its sent from my stupid phone Doc. When did I ever blame google for anything?? ------------------------------ On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 5:29 PM PDT Doc Shipley wrote: > <Top posting to preserve the prior top posting> > > Chris, you are SO busted. This post absolutely puts the lie to your >"Google made me do it" quoting defense. > > Color me trolled. > > > Doc > > >On 10/10/12 4:18 PM, Chris Tofu wrote: >> >> You werent aware that the expression simply represents a persons >> inability to decipher, and the inability to care? The second part >> doesnt apply entirely to me though, I am very interested in some >> languages, namely German, ancient Hebrew, koine Greek, Russian, >> Japanese, Chinese...roughly in that order (wish me luck!). Not loads >> of interest in Romance languages, but did take Latin and French in >> h.s. No I didnt pay very good attention either. Il es, tu es, je >> suis, la fanetre, le pupitre. Look right? >> ------------------------------ On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 8:42 AM PDT Kevin >> Monceaux wrote: >> >> On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 05:01:38PM -0700, Chris Tofu wrote: >> >>> C: It's all Greek to me! >> >> Greek looks more like: >> >> ? ??????????? ???????? ?????? ????? ?? ? ??????????? ??? ?? ???? >> ??????? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ????????? ??? ?????. >> >> Well, ancient Greek at least. :-) >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Kevin http://www.RawFedDogs.net http://Lassie.RawFedDogs.net >> http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org Bruceville, TX >> >> What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! Errare >> humanum est, ignoscere caninum. >> >

13 years, 8 months

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cluelessness, Re: Our Museum Need a special help..

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----- > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:25:01 -0400 > From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > > On 10/10/2012 11:06 PM, Ian King wrote: >> >> Dave, please don't color "most of us" as "clueless". This sort of >> self-flagellation feeds a tired stereotype that serves no one. -- Ian > > > ...except that, in the general public outside of academia, it's damn > accurate. I'm sorry if I offended you, in any case. There is a REASON > that many people in other countries have the opinions they do about us. > > -Dave -----Reply -------- Lots of folks like you also believe that there are REASONS why people have the opinions they do about Jews, Mexicans, Muslims, people with black skins or blond hair, etc. etc... Precious irony... ;-) m

13 years, 8 months

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8 bits and change

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Does anyone remember a zine from the early 1990s called "8 Bit and Change"? I found several issues of it in my heap-o-stuff and was wondering if I should pass it on or archive it myself. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

13 years, 8 months

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cluelessness, Re: Our Museum Need a special help..

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----- > Message: 16 > Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2012 07:00:53 -0700 (PDT) > From: geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> > > On Thu, 11 Oct 2012, Ian King wrote: > >> I get really tired of such meaningless generalizations. >> > Ian, the problem is that the dumbest of us is also the loudest of us and > the smartest of us can't be bothered to spend the energy required to shut > them up. :) > > g. ----- Reply ----- Well, if "loudest" = 'number of posts per day/week not related to CCs' you may have a point... ;-)

13 years, 8 months

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datasheetarchive.com weirdness

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

Has anyone recently tried to download data sheets from datasheetarchive.com? I keep getting sent round and round in circles. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

13 years, 8 months

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Our Museum Need a special help..

by tshoppa＠wmata.com

> QUINZE MIL FLOPPIES??? Que voces vao fazer com tanto disquete assim?! He's obviously building a 21.6 Gigabyte RAID Array using a proven storage medium with a long track record, rather than these modern hocus-pocus terabyte drives that use pure magic to record anything and you never know where on the media it will actually land. Won't hold all of bitsavers by any means, but will hold like an eighth of it. 15000 floppies, times 1.44 Mbyte each, gives 21.6 Gigabytes. Oh, wait, he needs at least one drive for redundancy. Actual capacity = 14999 * 1.44 Mbytes. The 15000th drive carries the parity stripe, just in case any of the other drives ever fail. Tim.

13 years, 8 months

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WATFOR for IBM 7040

by spedraja＠gmail.com

Hello. Im' playing actually with diverse emulators for the IBM 709x and the software available for them (IBSYS and CTSS). Fun and instructive (I'm using it to play with COBOL and FORTRAN at present). Now I should like to go one step beyond. I have doubts about the compatibility but I should like to know if exists some request for the WATFOR compiler for the IBM 7040 to the Waterloo University or whoever would be the owner of the rights of this software.. -- Gracias | Regards Saludos - Greetings - Freundliche Gr??e - Salutations -- Sergio Pedraja twitter: @sergio_pedraja ----- No crea todo lo que ve, ni crea que est? vi?ndolo todo

13 years, 9 months

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Burroughs System/V Series emulator

by stevew＠ka6s.com

-------------- Written by MikeSdm561 at torfree.net > > >Hi Steve, > >wrong Mike, but that's OK. > >What I have is the main nixie and indicator display and control console on >the front of the CPU cabinet, under the clock at the very right of the >picture below; I even still have a picture somewhere of me standing in front >of it compiling one of my programs. > >I think the SPO you're talking about is the teleprinter on >the desk to the left of it: > >http://www.smecc.org/burroughs-images/burrou4.jpg > >(The other) mike. I stand embarrassingly corrected TWICE! The "wrong" Mike part is explainable in that I get cctalk as a digest and messed up in the Copy & Paste. The second part was me reading "control console" and assuming you meant the teleprinter. So Sorry! I spent a lot of time with a B2700 learning Fortran. The Glendale, CA Board of Ed had a B2700 that was used by the Junior college for Cobol/Fortran classes back in the mid-70s. A buddy from High School got a job there as a Sys Admin so got to spend a fair amount of time around it. Eventually they upgraded to a B6800 system. Eventually I went to work in Goleta on the Small systems, then got transferred to Pasadena where the Medium systems were built. I was there as they were debugging the B2900. ;-) Very fond memories. Steve

13 years, 9 months

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disk flaws, classic vs. modern

by saquinn624＠aol.com

Message: 19 Date: Sun, 07 Oct 2012 03:51:12 -0600 From: Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: disk flaws, classic vs. modern Message-ID: <50715090.2020207 at brouhaha.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 10/07/2012 01:38 AM, jim s wrote: > recently I had a system with a 1.5tb seagate grow a count of > "uncorrectable offline sector count" errors. [...] To complicate > things a bit this was part of a LVM raid ext3 raid 5 set, When you have a drive go bad in a RAID 5, it's best to pull the drive, put a new one in its place, and start a rebuild. That's the point of using RAID 5. Trying to recover data from the failing drive is mostly a waste of time. Of course, if the drive wasn't in a RAID 5, mirror, etc., you wouldn't have that option. My experience is that once it starts it just gets worse, especially with the newer drives (>100 or so GB) - junk the drive and put a new one in. In fact, based on what I've seen and heard I'd replace more of the drives once you get the bad drive replaced and the array rebuilt, especially if the drives are from the same batch. Marginal drives can and do go out during rebuilds. Of course, if the data on the array isn't critical then this becomes much more flexible- but if it is then you don't want to have your second drive go at some point in the near future, then the third give up while you're attempting to rebuild the array after the second disk's failure. Any reason you're recovering data from the drive rather than rebuilding? I'd go along with Eric here - if you rebuild then you're starting with a known-good array, rather than potentially having errors in your replacement drive. This isn't just anecdotes, either - I've seen numbers. That's one reason I've gone to mirrors on my few critical installations.

13 years, 9 months

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Our Museum Need a special help..

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

You werent aware that the expression simply represents a persons inability to decipher, and the inability to care? The second part doesnt apply entirely to me though, I am very interested in some languages, namely German, ancient Hebrew, koine Greek, Russian, Japanese, Chinese...roughly in that order (wish me luck!). Not loads of interest in Romance languages, but did take Latin and French in h.s. No I didnt pay very good attention either. Il es, tu es, je suis, la fanetre, le pupitre. Look right? ------------------------------ On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 8:42 AM PDT Kevin Monceaux wrote: >On Tue, Oct 09, 2012 at 05:01:38PM -0700, Chris Tofu wrote: > >> C: It's all Greek to me! > >Greek looks more like: > > ? ??????????? ???????? ?????? ????? ?? ? ??????????? ??? ?? ???? ??????? > ???? ?? ???? ??????? ????????? ??? ?????. > >Well, ancient Greek at least. :-) > > > >-- > >Kevin >http://www.RawFedDogs.net >http://Lassie.RawFedDogs.net >http://www.WacoAgilityGroup.org >Bruceville, TX > >What's the definition of a legacy system? One that works! >Errare humanum est, ignoscere caninum.

13 years, 9 months

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Protext

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

why not archive those floppies prior to or instead of mailing them out. ------------------------------ On Wed, Oct 10, 2012 2:56 AM PDT David Cantrell wrote: >While having a clear-out at the weekend I found a set of install >floppies for the DOS version of Arnor's Protext. Anyone want? > >I also extracted and threw out a *dozen* wall warts that were still >plugged in to the power but not connected to any devices, and found a >dead mouse that must have somehow wormed its way into the tangled >rat's-nest of cables but been unable to find a way out. > >-- >David Cantrell | Godless Liberal Elitist > >comparative and superlative explained: > ><Huhn> worse, worser, worsest, worsted, wasted

13 years, 9 months

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Protext

by david＠cantrell.org.uk

While having a clear-out at the weekend I found a set of install floppies for the DOS version of Arnor's Protext. Anyone want? I also extracted and threw out a *dozen* wall warts that were still plugged in to the power but not connected to any devices, and found a dead mouse that must have somehow wormed its way into the tangled rat's-nest of cables but been unable to find a way out. -- David Cantrell | Godless Liberal Elitist comparative and superlative explained: <Huhn> worse, worser, worsest, worsted, wasted

13 years, 9 months

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FFS: MSDOS 3.10 docs, CCS S100 docs, and bubble memory data

by dgriffi＠cs.csubak.edu

I have three things to get rid of. Free For Shipping. 1) Original copy of MSDOS 3.10 (docs only) in slipcase 2) Three documentation booklets for S100 cards from California Computer Systems (two DRAM boards and one M2422 multimode floppy controller) 3) "Tentative" data book from Texas Instruments dated 1977 for "Magnetic Bubble Memories and System Interface Circuits". It weighs about 3 pounds and will ship as media mail for three or four dollars from 93306 in the US. -- David Griffith dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text. Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing? A: Top-posting. Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

13 years, 9 months

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Cables runs at home

by saquinn624＠aol.com

David wrote: >A friend of mine described a time when he found a cable tech in the >basement of a new building using what was essentially a shotgun to run >cable through ducts. I think it was a blank firing straight into the duct >with the cable coming in through a wye. Gives new meaning to "pull".

13 years, 9 months

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power consumption

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

it's hopeless to suspect that a vintage 80s computer w/a built in monitor is color (not green mono) if it only draws 70 watts?

13 years, 9 months

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belated apolgoy for attacks on nefarious individual known as HAATA

by rampaginggreenhulk＠yahoo.com

He's not a bad guy. I must have been cranky. I'm protective of my keytops, what can I say (and that dag nab NEC APC k/b SOLD! Curses! That's wasn't according to plan!).

13 years, 9 months

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sharp eyes on another list saw an XT-370 system on epay.

by jws＠jwsss.com

http://www.ebay.com/itm/380481590039 As a side beg, I'd love any copies of the microcode that anyone might have to share for the PC/370 or XT/370 cards. They are 5 1/4" floppies, probably a few with the microcode, cp and cms for setting up the system, not much else. thanks Jim

13 years, 9 months

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Burroughs System/V Series emulator

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----- > Message: 8 > Date: Tue, 09 Oct 2012 06:47:37 -0700 > From: Steven Wilson <stevew at ka6s.com> > From: Michael Kerpan<madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com> > "...I also have the operator's console from a B2700 but it's promised to a > fellow list member." > > Mike - you gotta get it right. You have a "SPO" from a B2700 ;-) > > Steve (Small Systems & Medium Systems enthusiast ;-) -------------- Hi Steve, wrong Mike, but that's OK. What I have is the main nixie and indicator display and control console on the front of the CPU cabinet, under the clock at the very right of the picture below; I even still have a picture somewhere of me standing in front of it compiling one of my programs. I think the SPO you're talking about is the teleprinter on the desk to the left of it: http://www.smecc.org/burroughs-images/burrou4.jpg (The other) mike.

13 years, 9 months

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Cables runs at home (was Re: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Sysadmins - Re: disk flaws, classic vs. modern)

by ethan.dicks＠gmail.com

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 1:17 PM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote: > Well, I wanted it to remain straight in the end; it just needed to > go straight up through the walls. The problem was one of simple > geometry, specifically inserting a 10-foot pipe vertically into the > wall-ceiling junction of a 6-foot basement. I didn't particularly > want to cut it, and the pipe resumed its previous shape fairly > quickly once I got it into the wall. Gotcha. That's part of why I went with Innerduct - I'd worked with it in a commercial setting and was able to buy 100' off the reel at a local Granger's supply. If I were trying large PVC conduit in a short basement, I'd also consider a joint in the middle, but it seems that you worked it all out. > I was just lucky enough that the folks who had rehabbed the house > back in the '80s and added an HVAC system had left extra space > around the old chimney when they put in the duct work (and also > lucky that said space intersected my office). I ended up with > a built-in channel running straight from the basement to the > top floor for free; all I needed was to put a pipe in there so > the wires had some guidance going down. I had the same advantage in my 85-yro house (now 98-yro!) - next to the stackpipe is a laundry chute from the bathroom to the basement. The back bedroom shared a wall with that, and there was room around it to run the innerduct. I did have to rip a large hole in the bedroom wall to mount the various duplex boxes since it wasn't easy to find larger low-voltage boxes. Now, I can goe to Lowe's and get the big orange plastic wall boxes that even directly accept (with concentric breakouts) 1" and larger conduit. If I ever build a house, I'm going to run innerduct all over the place. The stuff is really handy to work with (and comes with pull-rope/tape already installed). It's specifically designed for fiber, but there's no problem sharing the space with twisted pair low-voltage cables. -ethan

13 years, 9 months

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Is your old hardware made of gold, or just DIRT?

by lproven＠gmail.com

Why it's not worth much, unless it's really old http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/02/recycling_your_high_tech_gear/ -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

13 years, 9 months

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Burroughs System/V Series emulator

by stevew＠ka6s.com

From: Michael Kerpan<madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com> "...I also have the operator's console from a B2700 but it's promised to a fellow list member." Mike - you gotta get it right. You have a "SPO" from a B2700 ;-) Steve (Small Systems & Medium Systems enthusiast ;-)

13 years, 9 months

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Anyone have a DEC M8650 or M8655?

by steve＠tronola.com

Hi Folks, I'm restoring a DEC PDP/8m, which is missing a serial (asynchronous) I/O board. Doe anyone have one that they would be willing to sell? Thanks, Steve http://www.tronola.com

13 years, 9 months

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Datagraphix 132A terminal

by legalize＠xmission.com

<http://terminals.classiccmp.org/wiki/index.php/Datagraphix_132A> This is a rather interesting terminal being the only commercial terminal I know of that uses a shaped beam tube, i.e. a charactron style tube. Does anyone happen to have one of these terminals? -- "The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book <http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline> The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org> The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org> Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>

13 years, 9 months

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disk flaws, classic vs. modern

by jws＠jwsss.com

I have a problem that cropped up that spans both old systems and flaw maps / disks that have flaws to skip over and current technology. In the old days with my experience on a lot of cdc winchesters and removable pack smd drives (and trident) there were flaw maps you could use in a controller to figure out where the bad spots were. When shipped from the factory the mmd / cmd / emd / fsd drives (at least the first two) were not allowed to have more than a false address mark on a track, and a limit of maybe 5 for the entire stack. Later at least on the mmd's they had run of marginal media and upped the FAM errors considerably. (10? 15? don't recall). I later found some drives delivered to such as Datapoint for large systems delivered when we got the story about the FAM problem (needing to up the count) that had zero flaws, but that was 10 years later buying some scrap drives (better than the ones I had purchased 10 years before, still working). Anyway, recently I had a system with a 1.5tb seagate grow a count of "uncorrectable offline sector count" errors. I'm telling this up front since these are effectively the same as the above errors, sectors that are not recoverable by the drive and presented as bad or timeout spots when you seek to the sectors. The errors were not there when I initialized the linux system on the drive, and grew later. To complicate things a bit this was part of a LVM raid ext3 raid 5 set, so there are other complications here, but the initial build was flawless, ran about a 6 months then this drive grew 16 bad errors visible to linux. So, I have now got the situation where there is a bad spot in a file (more complicated because this is part of a raid set, but bear with me). If you power cycle the drive set they do a scan of the media with the raid system I'm using (linux based) and hang before releasing it for server operations. That is the only flaw that there was, and I had a brick. Thank heaven I could put it in a desktop system and recover the data (7tb of it). Anyway, have we lost the capability with such as Linux to run with flaws growing on media at the level where transfers from media come from the drive target to the host, or did this vendor of raid equipment (appliance was readynas nv2+) have a flaw in their bringup procedure. I am glad I shopped and got a system with raid 5 support like this with a linux system that I could take out and troubleshoot with any linux tools, rather than hardware raid. Dodged that bullet. but I am disappointed even so with the behavior of the raid set when I put it on my recovery system. I think there is a basic loss of what one would have been accustomed to in earlier times with media, throwing their hands up with defective media. I was only able to narrow down the error with manual applications of careful dd commands and shell scripting (lacking a better tool) to see the errors. There is a nice timesaving web page if you hunt around the pages found by searching for smart errors. At least that is a nice tool, telling a lot about the drive. I am not going into why a 1.5tb drive with huge amounts of extra space (as I understand it probably > 500gb) can't reassign media 16 consecutive sectors, as that is a totally different discussion. Jim

13 years, 9 months

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Where to buy conductive foam in the US ?

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----- > Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2012 10:53:15 -0500 > From: Jim Brain <brain at jbrain.com> > > Here is what I use to send products to people: > > http://www.correctproducts.com/ESD-Packaging/High-Density-Black-Conductive-… > > It's a bit cheaper per sq inch than mouser, and they offer different > thicknesses (I use 1/4") > > Jim -----Reply: Recycled styrofoam wrapped in aluminum foil works for me and is practically free... mike

13 years, 9 months

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disk flaws, classic vs modern

by saquinn624＠aol.com

David wrote: >If a second disk dies in *my* RAID, it's annoying, but I don't lose >data. Well, I lose anything since the last backup, but given that those >happen every 24 hours, it's not *that* much data and I can reconstruct >it pretty easily. Guess it depends on (a) whether it's personal or business and (b) (if (a) is business), how good your secretary is. I'd rather replace the disks than spend hours dealing with people who come in grumbling about their work for today disappearing. Also, for most non-miniscule businesses it's cheaper to replace the drives preemptively than it is to pay for people to recreate the work done since the last backup if more drives fail.

13 years, 9 months

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John Draper interview

by rachael＠telefisk.org

John Draper interview, might be interessting to some here,it's in english dont let the tld foul you. http://www.golem.de/news/telefon-hacking-das-bewegte-leben-des-captain-crun… -- Jacob Dahl Pind | telefisk.org | fidonet 2:230/38.8

13 years, 9 months

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Fwd: [AHCS] NorthStar Horizon Boot Disks

by david＠classiccomputing.com

Can anyone help my friend Kyle out? Please email him directly - kylevowen at gmail.com > I'm trying to revive a N* Horizon, and as I've found out, you have to have a booting machine to make boot disks. In order to have a booting machine, you either need a boot disk or a ROM board. My processor board doesn't have a ROM option, so I'm out of luck. I have supposedly 4 boot disks, but none of these seem to get the computer booting, though I hear the drive head move back and forth as it seems to read the disk. I still don't get any output into the right serial port. > > Does anyone have access to a bootable Horizon? I have a few hard sector floppies, so if I could get a boot disk copied, that'd be great. Optimally, I'd like to try to read these disks on a known working machine before having to overwrite any. Two aren't labeled, so they may very well be blank. All of the others have labels indicating some possibly neat programs, like Microstat, WordStar, and Mailing List Utility. About half of the disks are labeled Care. Care System, Care Data, Care Source Code, and so on. Any idea what the Care System could be? Another one is from Validata Computer and Research Corporation, which apparently is still alive an well in Montgomery, AL. It's entitled "5 Meg Hard Disk Start Up Diskette for Worcs, PM, Care Systems". No telling, eh? > > My system has a CompuPro 24k SRAM card (with only 20k populated), a N* RAM16-A3 16k RAM card (fully populated), a N* ZPB-A2 processor card (no ROM option) and a N* MDS-AD3 double density floppy controller, all on a N* HRZ-MB-3 motherboard. From the double density FC, I would indeed need a DD boot disk. Judging from the date codes, I would date this particular machine to 1979. > > Thanks, > > Kyle Best, David Greelish - Computer Historian, Author, Speaker, Blogger & Podcaster - Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13 http://about.me/davidgreelish

13 years, 9 months

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Whale Oil Redeux

by bpettitx＠comcast.net

Resend. My messages haven't been making it to the list. From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: > On a related note, a friend of mine found in his collection a full > sealed can of whale oil, from ADM, no less. We are not sure what to do > with it. If it's really old, then it might be for illumination (burned). But ISTR that whale oil was also used for lubricating instruments, such as clocks and watches. So it might be worth quite a bit, assuming the stuff doesn't go rancid with age. --Chuck Whale oil was used in a lot of precise mechanical devices that required a fine stable oil that didn't gum up. Clocks and watches were one application, as were some early mechanical calculators and toys. I used to carry it with me for working on Selectrics and teletype paper tape gear. Would love to find some more - have been looking for 20+ years for it. If your friend wants to sell it, I would be interested. Billy Pettit

13 years, 9 months

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phillips p1000 model

by tdk.knight＠gmail.com

mail man brought me this today http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8302/7944707284_f8f4fa6ab8_b.jpg :D anyone know much about that machean so far found this site http://www.computer-museum.nl/Electrologica.html and the wiki page like to find more photos of this machean

13 years, 9 months

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ATA over Ethernet was disk image server

by tom_a_sparks＠yahoo.com.au

I've been in talk with a company[1] who dose ATA over Ethernet hardwareabout the option of allow our retro/vintage computer to have their hard drive data stored on the network (cloud storage) currently the only option is to? use a linux based system :( PS: he owns a? 26 year old 8-bit casio personal calculator [1] http://www.jwe.com.tw/ --- tom_a_sparks "It's a nerdy thing I like to do" Please use ISO approved file formats excluding Office Open XML - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Ubuntu wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/tomsparks 3 x (x)Ubuntu 10.04, Amiga A1200 WB 3.1, UAE AF 2006 Premium Edition, AF 2012 Plus Edition, Sam440 AOS 4.1.2, Roland DXY-1300 pen plotter, Cutok DC330 cutter/pen plotter Wanted: RiscOS system, GEOS system (C64/C128), Atari ST, Apple Macintosh (6502/68k/PPC only)

13 years, 9 months

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3.5" drives needed...

by geneb＠deltasoft.com

I'm working on a project to add 3.5" high-density drives to my Kaypro in order to use DSDD media with them. I chose HD drives because getting genuine DSDD 3.5 drives for anything resembling a reasonable price is basically impossible. It turns out that I don't have any 3.5" drives in my stash any longer. If you've got a pair of working 3.5" drives with drive select jumpers, I'd like to hear from you if you want to sell them. Thanks! g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!

13 years, 9 months

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FS: HP 9845B, HP 9826A, HP Integral

by hp-fix＠xs4all.nl

To make some room and pay for some new items, I'm selling some machines from which I have more than one. Before they go on epay I put them on the list. HP 9845B nice condition fully functional with German keyboard. HP Integral fully functional in nice condition. HP 9826A also fully functional and in nice condition. All machines come with some documentation and software on DVD/CD and sometimes the real books. Software is archived on DVD. Items are located in The North of the Netherlands I'll ship them worldwide.. -Rik

13 years, 9 months

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kit assembler (australia)

by tom_a_sparks＠yahoo.com.au

I've been reading the Retro computing kit thread and some of these kit look interesting I am wondering if there are any people who can assemble kit in Australia? I can buy the kit, send it to them, they assemble it,and sent it back to me --- tom_a_sparks "It's a nerdy thing I like to do" Please use ISO approved file formats excluding Office Open XML - http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html Ubuntu wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/tomsparks 3 x (x)Ubuntu 10.04, Amiga A1200 WB 3.1, UAE AF 2006 Premium Edition, AF 2012 Plus Edition, Sam440 AOS 4.1.2, Roland DXY-1300 pen plotter, Cutok DC330 cutter/pen plotter Wanted: RiscOS system, GEOS system (C64/C128), Atari ST, Apple Macintosh (6502/68k/PPC only)

13 years, 9 months

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Burroughs System/V Series emulator

by dm561＠torfree.net

----- Original Message ----------------------------------- > Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2012 09:45:27 -0400 > From: Michael Kerpan <madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com> > > On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 7:53 AM, SPC <spedraja at gmail.com> wrote: >> I've received an advice from ClassicMainframe about this emulator >> (thanks Peter). >> >> Great shape. >> >> http://vseries.lurndal.org/doku.php?id=simulator:installation > > Hmm, this looks interesting but I can't find a download link anywhere > on the site. How would one go about running this? > > Mike ----- Reply: Looks like maybe you have to ask the site owner (Scott Lurndal?) for a login password. I still have several manuals for Burroughs Medium Systems: - 1054772 System Software Operational Guide 10-73 (CP14, CP40, MCP1, MCP2 and MCPV) - 1054905 BASIC and CANDE Reference Manual 9-71 (Overview) - 1067527 BASIC Reference Manual 2-74 (Language Manual) - 1058062 FORTRAN Reference Manual 4-73 (Language Manual) as well as several utility instruction printouts (PTCOPY, INSTR5) Are these already archived and on line anywhere? I also have the operator's console from a B2700 but it's promised to a fellow list member. Memories... m

13 years, 9 months

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Needed MicroVAX II Diag Maint TK50 tape or images.

by mc68010＠gmail.com

I want to low level format some drives and I understand this is what I'll need to do it. The Customer Diag tape apparently doesn't let you. Google tells me it was once talked about here on the list and what I am after is : AQ-GM5AN-DN MVII DIAG MAINT TK50 I found something on the web but, I am pretty sure it is just the customer version and I can't get it to boot anyway.

13 years, 9 months

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Which vax-vms license for a microvax II with VCB-02?

by elson＠pico-systems.com

> > Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2012 15:37:50 -0600 > From: Kevin Reynolds <tpresence at hotmail.com> > To: <cctech at classiccmp.org> > Subject: Which vax-vms license for a microvax II with VCB-02? > Message-ID: <BLU157-W454A5A7A156107652BD49FA2840 at phx.gbl> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > > I've been wracking my brain over which license I need for VMS 5.2 on a microvax-II with a VCB-02 graphics module installed? > > > I understand that I could just use the hobbyist licenses, but I bought the system with a legitimate VMS license and want to keep it as close to the original configuration as possible (I have other microvax systems with hobbyist 7.x). > > > > Unfortunately there is no vmslicense/charge like you have with vms 5.3 and beyond. > > > I'm testing by connecting up a terminal to a serial port (not the console, thats a different problem, won't work with VCB-02 installed unless you are in debug), and trying to log in. Right now I'm getting license exceeded. I figured I would just need a workstation license, but this doesn't seem to have worked. > > Older KA-630 boards (maybe all of them) do not have the firmware to talk to the VCB-02 screen during boot. So, you have to use a serial console to check boot progress or run diags, etc. Once it is booted, VMS 4.7 will run the VCB-02 just fine. There were single-user licenses and multi-user ones. The license exceeded message sounds like it has to do with the single/multi user issue, not the VCB-02. I think maybe there is a system boot-time switch to select # of users, and if that doesn't match, then only the administrator is allowed to log in. (Been so long since I ran VMS, I'm forgetting a lot!) I bought a MicroVAX-II board in 1986, and ran it as a home computer for about 21 years, until the hard drive died. I added a VCB-01 first, then upgraded to a VCB-02. Jon

13 years, 9 months

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Retro computer kits

by david＠classiccomputing.com

Thanks for the help and suggestions everyone! Best, David Greelish - Computer Historian, Author, Speaker, Blogger & Podcaster - Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13 http://about.me/davidgreelish

13 years, 9 months

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Retro computer kits

by jjacocks＠mac.com

On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote: > At 12:55 PM -0700 10/5/12, Chuck Guzis wrote: >> >> Where are you drawing the line? There are a considerable number of >> vintage designs implemented in FPGA, for example. >> >> Are those "vintage" in the sense that you mean it? >> >> --Chuck > > > The list is definitely missing some great Commodore related hardware. > > Turbo Chameleon 64 -- I must confess, I want one! (I have the older MMC > Replay w/RR-Net) > http://www.vesalia.de/e_chameleon.htm > > > Jim Brain's stuff -- I'm a big fan of his work, and see something new I need > to find $$$'s for (I have his uIEC/SD) > http://store.go4retro.com/ There are a ton of retro-accessories currently available. You could list the many other Individual Computers products, mostly made for the Amiga (accelerators, memory cards, graphics adapters, etc.), or the 1541 Ultimate and Ultimate II, or a myriad of others. It might be interesting to link all of this stuff from a wiki (maybe Vintage Computer Forums' wiki?). There are, however, many fewer kits available. I'd love to see more, as I feel differently about a machine that I have built, myself. - Alex

13 years, 9 months

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Retro computer kits

by david＠classiccomputing.com

> Are you including circuit boards? I'm building an N8VEM right now. Thanks Paul! I had forgotten about that one, and I do think it's relevant. There are certainly different levels of kits, difficulty and what's included. Best, David Greelish - Computer Historian, Author, Speaker, Blogger & Podcaster - Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13 http://about.me/davidgreelish

13 years, 9 months

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Unusual PC hardware and EPROMS for sale

by jim.p.davis＠gmail.com

I'm cleaning up and have some items that may interest some list members. Central point software transcopy deluxe board - $30.00 http://alkaspace.com/is.php?i=142538&img=copy2.jpg 100+ AM27C2048 16X128K EPROM 40 pin package NOS - $30/OBO http://alkaspace.com/is.php?i=147940&img=eproms.jpg ISA PC-Elevator 386 + 387 co-processor board - $50 http://alkaspace.com/is.php?i=148130&img=Pc-elevator.jpg ISA Definicon 68020 coprocessor - $50 http://alkaspace.com/is.php?i=148129&img=68020-large.jpg + actual shipping - Paypal friends option. The 2 co-processors were purchased for work in the early 90's. No software located yet. Current condition unknown, stored in anti-static bag since 1992. Thanks, Jim.

13 years, 9 months

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Retro computer kits

by david＠classiccomputing.com

This is my theme and blurb I came up with: "David Greelish, Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society, will give a presentation on the history of computers, and especially show how the modern Make movement parallels the early "homebrew" computing hobbyists. Plus, a look at electronic retrocomputing kits and accessories." Could everyone help me brainstorm on exactly what all is out there that you can actually buy to build now? retrocomputing kits: Briel - replica 1, Altair 8800micro, micro-KIM, PocketTerm, a2mp3 and others FIGnition Digi-Comp I Gakken 4 Bit Micro Computer Accessory kits: CFFA3000 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Apple II IDE64 CompactFlash reader / IDE for Commodore 64 ZoomFloppy for Commodore disk drives PETdisk microSD reader for the Commodore PET Help. Best, David Greelish - Computer Historian, Author, Lecturer, Blogger & Podcaster - Founder of the Atlanta Historical Computing Society Producer of the Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 1.0 - 2/9/13 http://about.me/davidgreelish

13 years, 9 months

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Dandelions

by aek＠bitsavers.org

http://www.ebay.com/itm/221130342261 very nice systems, too.

13 years, 9 months

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Buss Farm and Flossie

by ats＠offog.org

Hi all, I've just spotted this story on BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-19819288 Retrocomputing enthusiasts may recognise Buss Farm as the home of Flossie, Roger Holmes' 50-year-old ICT 1301: http://ict1301.co.uk/ Thanks, -- Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>

13 years, 9 months

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Anyone want some CR-563-B CD drives?

by fraveydank＠gmail.com

Hey all, These are a sorta-proprietary Panasonic interface CD drive that was found on a number of PC ISA sound cards. I have a pair of them and possibly the sound cards to control them (though I have an inclination to hold on to those for personal reasons). I realize this is teetering dangerously on the edge of "crappy '90s PCs" rather than true classic computing, but one man's trash is another man's treasure (unless it was made by Packard Bell). Free if you'll pay shipping. I owe some people some FileMaker boxes, and I haven't forgotten, but it's been at the back of my queue. - Dave

13 years, 9 months

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DMC11 at Ebay

by michael.99.thompson＠gmail.com

> From: "Hans-Ulrich H?lscher" <vaxorcist at googlemail.com> > Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2012 13:42:10 +0200 > Subject: DMC11 at Ebay > Who is bidding for the DMC11 at Ebay? > > I'd just like to know who else (besides me of course) is interested in > that very special old DDCMP communication adapter. I cannot imagine > that any DMCs are still in productive use today, so there's probably > another collector out there somewhere ... > > I would be nice to get in contact with that special person (no matter > who wins the auction) to exchange experience. > > My motivation to own a DMC11 is to run DDCMP DECnet under VMS V2.x > (no Ethernet support with VMS V2.0 yet) on my VAX-11/750. There are > still some lesser problems to overcome, e.g. obtaining DECnet for VMS > V2.x ;-)) > > I know the bidder might as well (or even with greater probability) > want the DMC11 for his/her PDP-11 rather than for a VAX. > > Maybe one day some crazy collectors will connect their VAXen or > PDP-11s via DMC11s and dial-up lines every now and then? > > Regards, > > Ulli I have a DMC11 that I plan to install in a PDP-10 KS10 so I can run DECnet to a VAX. I even have a synchronous null modem. -- Michael Thompson

13 years, 9 months

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