Free to good home:
HP MDP module, P/N 5062-3054 - Can't test it since I don't have a 9000/K type
Dell Pentium cache module (big DIMM type card)
Also, I have a friend who has a HP 9000 Series 800 H50 server box (it's
been unracked, but fits nicely under the desk (he gave me the one from another
rack- runs HP/UX 11i just fine)
Somewhere between 512 and 768 MB RAM, single 96 MHz processor, several HP-PB
cards
it's sitting in my garage, and he's given me permission to see if anyone
wants it. He does audio recording, so if anyone has something to trade for it in
that field that would be good, or we could do a 3-way trade (I'm interested in
classic computers, I can get him what he needs, we're all happy...)
Heavy beast (~70 lbs) so pickup would be easier than shipping, but shipping
could be arranged. If no-one wants to trade, I'd try to talk him into giving it
away. I'd rather it get used than sit in a garage.
Reply off-list, etc.
The good news:
I found my Tandy 200 and repaired it. (All it needed was a new internal
NiCd battery, but by the time I found the battery, my wife lost the
computer! :-O ) Upgraded it to 72K RAM as well, so I'm really stylin' --
ready to rock with it.
It's 20 years old this month!
More good news: I found my 200 packed under my STacy 2, which I need to
repair. It's got a boatload of dodgy solder joints in it... and now that I
finally have a very good soldering station, I can work on repairing that as
well!
I can repair it... but sadly, I cannot *reassemble* it as the baggie with
all the screws for it (mostly case screws, but some board screws as well)
was *not* packed with it; and so their location is still unknown.
Anyone know the size/thread pitch of the screws in a STacy?
Thankz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate."
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein
zmerch at 30below.com |
On Sat, Feb 26, 2005 at 10:29:24AM -0800, O. Sharp wrote:
> ...What do you suppose demand for our older machines will be like
> after we're gone? I can't help but think a lot of ours are being
> preserved because they're nostalgic to us, "the machines we grew up
> on"; and a generation from now, the interest is going to be on
> machines _that_ generation grew up on.
Surely the machines _that_ generation all grew up on are going to be
identical wintel boxen and the like?
cheers
w
On 26 Feb 2005, at 09:37, Nico de Jong wrote:
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list
> contributors,
Well, FWIW:
About to hit the big 6 0 (hi Nico!)
Started in '62 sorting & collating cards in an IBM unit
record service bureau. Programmed my share of plugboards,
claim to fame was programming a 402 to multiply (Can't be
done? HA!). Moved up to running the Statistical department
(What percentage prefer Colgate to Pepsodent) on an IBM 101
and was finally involved in moving operations to the first
Burroughs computer installed in Canada AFAIK (a B200).
Dropped out for 10 years or so to run a motorcycle shop,
got back in as a contract programmer for Burroughs.
In '82 took on support for a professional investment
management package running on Cromemco systems; still
supporting one, albeit on PC's these days (just fired one
up on a Cromemco; forgot just how slow they were...)
Designed, sold & supported a factory data collection system
based on AIM65s and a Cromemco (later moved to PCs).
Consultant on several TV series about personal computers
in mid-70s; still have copies somewhere.
Personal computers: one of the first PET2001s, later
moved up to an 8032 (designed & sold custom accounting
packages for 8032). VIC20 & 64 of course (wrote some
educational C64 stuff for a local school board). A few
TRS-80s, an original IBM PC, XT & numerous clones since.
And Cromemcos of course.
Trying to clear out basement & apartment filled with
40 years worth of accumulating junk before my
executors have to deal with it...
mike
Age is 43, started trying to build 6502 machines after being exposed
to a KIM-1 in college. Then tried to build 1802 machines. Actually
got one to sort of work! Then I talked my dad into a TI-99/4A for
"writing school reports" (which it did, plus a whole lot more) and
have stuck to it. Now have several full-up 4A rigs plus a Geneve.
Also played with Atari STs and Falcons, and dabbled with an 800
briefly. Now (in addition to the 4As) have several 386es and
486es running a variety of FreeDOS and linux, and a Slackware
main system next to the Geneve and the 4Mb 520STfm.
I learned programming in FORTRAN using punch-cards on an IBM
mainframe at school, where I met a fellow who had built an
8080 machine in a file cabinet in his dorm room, and programmed
it using punch-cards from the Computer Center. I have played
with several VAXes over the years at work, including an
intimate experience with VMS 4 on a MicroVAX II that was
running the TI cross assembler for our TOW missile launcher
software development (based on the SBP9989, a close relative to
the 4A's TMS9900 and Geneve's TMS9995). Played peripherally
with a TI 990 mainframe and programmed a real-time hardware-in-
the-loop simulation on a 68000 ExorMACS.
All in all, it's been a blast, and I wouldn't change a thing!
"David V. Corbin" wrote:
>
>Born 1959 [45 year old], started programming PDP-8's in the fall of '72.
I could swear I used a 8/I running TSS/8 in '70. Might have been '71. But
might wrong about that.
Anyone have any idea when the first 8/I's got shipped?
(this one had 4 8/L's strapped to it with those nifty green storage
scopes and a funky joystick. we had a lot of fun playing a 'snowball'
game written in a focal varient called COLPAC)
-brad
Got all the websites moved. If any of you have trouble with your website on
the classiccmp server please email me directly.
Now I'm working on the last bit... going through the archives and rebuilding
them. A bit more of a pain than I'd normally think, because the mailman
archive rebuild program doesn't handle large files which of course the mbox
files are. So I'm having to break them up by date ranges and import
individually. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of programs to
manipulate and break up mbox files, so I'm writing ditty's to do it.
Once I'm done, the archives should be back up, and searchable with HtDig!!!
Jay West
Well I seem to be heading towards a usable computer. Sat down with
the manual and re-learned nspeed. First task was to write a script
to create links in the working directory to all the utilities on
DP0. Used the BUILD command (builds 'command tail file lists' in
unixese), and wrote an iterative macro to hash it up.
(There's no "path" to find executables (.SV); it must be in the
current directory or directory specified. Directories in RDOS
aren't heirarchical like they are in unix-derived paradigms;
they're like little partitions, you more or less "mount" them with
the DIR command (mounts the directory and makes it default
directory) or INIT them ("mounts" them so you can copy to them,
for instance.) You specify how many directories you can have
mounted at the same time at SYSGEN time.)
Build makes:
ASM.SV,MAC.SV,FDUMP.SV,FOO.SV,BAR.SV, [and so on]
I needed:
LINK ASM.SV DP0:ASM.SV
LINK MAC.SV DP0:MAC.SV
...
The nspeed command is:
32<1BTABSAJ#C
$ $BS0ILINK ^BA DP0:^BA
$-1LT1L>
Here's one of those maddening things that I'll figure out someday,
and has some dubious reason. The command:
S
$-1D
(Search for a CR)
S
$
(Delete 1 char before pointer)
-1D
Works fine maually. It doesn't work when iteration < and > is used!
That's why I change all occurrences of CR to space in buffer A:
#C
$ $
That works.
^BA
means 'insert the contents of buffer A'
-1LT1L
minus one line; type out line; plus one line, so it
prints the results of edits as it goes.
The leading 32< ... >
Means 'iterate 32 times' because I didn't feel like coming
up with a test for 'end of buffer'. Eh.
Now to write a HELLO WORLD program!
At 10:35 PM 2/25/05 -0500, you wrote:
>basically to get the constant voltage output even when the AC supply goes
>from 90 to 120. A normal transformer will "follow" the line voltage. The
>power supply board uses schottky diodes and the transformer puts out just
>enough voltage to be regulated to five volts with minimal power loss (there
>are a couple of other secondary windings for + and - 12 for RS232). With a
>normal transformer, the power supply design would have to been different to
>deal with the higher wattage that it would have had to dissipate.
I understand all that but AC power is cheap and so is a fan to dissapate
the excess heat. It's surprising to see a company spent money for features
like this unless there is a very real requirement for them. Even HP doesn't
go to this length with their power supplies.
The
>transformer was custom wound for AMC.
And expensive I'll bet!
>
>By the way, the EM189 was a 6809 emulator...
Oops. I guess it was late and I was tired. I had it setting right in
front of me and I still got it wrong. I should have said EM-180B. I'd sure
like to find a pod for it but it doesn't look likely. BTW I'm assuming
that the transformers for the various models all put out the same voltage.
Is that true?
Joe
>
>
>the resonant tran
>At 10:09 PM 02/25/2005, you wrote:
>> Thanks for the info Steve. I have a EM-189 (Z-80) that's missing the pod
>>so I guess I can rob the x-former out of it.
>>
>> I'm curious, why did they use a resonant transformer?
>>
>> Joe
>
>
>
Well,
Well born in 1963. I had always been interested in electronics and
such. My first computer experiences were in high school. The school had a
TRS80 Model 1 and
accounts on the university's PDP11/45. I had bought a CoCo 1 with
4K! This was in my senior year. I go to the same university. It was
Western Kentucky University (WKU). They still used the PDP11/45 with
RSTE. Additionally, they had access to UK's IBM 360 via a smaller PDP11
with a card reader.
So I got started with card readers and terninals. We ran a pirate exchange
with the microcomputer lab etc. Fun times. I ended up buying the
PDP11/45. Unfortunately a unplnanned move ocurred and I could not find
anyone to take it. So sadly it went to the scrappers. This was before the
Internet. I did keep the console panel.
Max
>>>
>>> Seriously, what do you reckon would be a "proper forum"
>>> for international discussion of classic computing?
>>>
At the risk of being labeled a "Heretic" or worse. And with an upfront
statement, that this in no way reflects on the fabulous work being done by
Jay.....
Now this *might* lead to something interesting.... A few thoughts (in no
particular order)
1) Given the nature of the list, compatability with a _reasonable_ selection
of classic computing enviroments needs to be maintained. This should not
preclude the usage of _newer_ technologies where appropriate.
2) "Conversations" should be easy to follow, with minimal requirements on
the behaviour of the user. For example if there are 100 consecutive messages
on a topic (each one in direct response to the immediate previous one), and
someone replies to message #68, then it sould be easily identifable as such.
3) Bandwidth (client and host) as well as storage requirements need to be
considered.
4) Digest, "Immediate Message" and On-Line Access would all be useful user
interfaces.
5) Searchability [by members and services such as Google] is important if
this is to be used as a reference site.
6) Organization (above the distinction between ccTalk and ccTech) would be
beneficial. Being able to filter messages for a specific computer vendor or
other simiular trait would be helpful.
7) Maintenance/Management issues should be kept minimal since there is no
paid sponsorship for the list [to the best of my knowledge].
8) Elimination of redundant information (i.e. duplicated from post to post
to post) while still retaining context.
That is just a start from my "wish list" view of communications. There are
many issues with making any changes to the method of communication that
would need to be addressed, and members feelings would be among the top.
<<<< now to go down and look for the C User Journal CD I promised a list
member....
At 02:50 AM 2/26/2005, Eric Smith wrote:
>Sellam wrote about telephone etiquette:
>> I answer with, "What the hell do you want?",
>
>I used to have a line that was only for modem use. If I noticed it
>ringing, I'd answer with either that, or "Wrong number, may I help you?"
>Either way, the telemarketers were startled.
Which reminds me of how my 80s modem-only line was listed in the
phone book: as "Barn". (I was in the city at the time.) The phone
company wouldn't let me call it "modem". I recall they had a list
of approved descriptions for a line, and "modem" wasn't on it.
So I picked "barn" instead.
- John
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On 26 Feb 2005, at 09:37, Nico de Jong wrote:
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list
> contributors,
I am a young 'un born in 1986. I have always been interested in
computers right from playing my dads PC1640 and Commodore 64 right the
way up to (trying to) build a SPARC based POV-Ray cluster.
I am a UNIX nerd at heart and hate anything with a Micro$oft logo on
it. I have volunteered at the Bletchley Park computer museum since June
2003 and I have loved every minute of it and every week I learn
something new :).
- - -- Chris Blackburn
E-Mail: cblackburn36NOSPAM at softhome.net
E-Mail: cblackburn36 at NOSPAMgmail.com
PGP Public Key: http://makeashorterlink.com/?C2AF31929
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Chris Blackburn
E-Mail: cblackburn36NOSPAM at softhome.net
E-Mail: cblackburn36 at NOSPAMgmail.com
PGP Public Key: http://makeashorterlink.com/?C2AF31929
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>> Born 1966 (age 39).
> Most people start at zero ;-)
...yeah, and?
Anyone born 1966-01-01 through 1966-02-25 (and part/all of 02-26 and
02-27, depending on timezone) is now born 1966 and age 39.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:00:13 -0800 (PST)
Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Michael Sokolov wrote:
>
> > Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Pine
> > > Is
> > > Not
> > > Elm
> >
> > What the hell is all this talk about pine and elm? I only use
> > Mail(1)!
>
> Wimp! On days when I'm sick I communicate directly with the SMTP
> port. Otherwise, I normally whistle bits down the ether!! This
> message took me 3 hours to submit.
>
Back when I was a kid and couldn't afford a real computer, sometimes I
would call the dialup number to the timesharing system (1) and whistle
into it. If you whistled the right way, you could get the other end
warbling and it wouldn't hang up until you ran out of breath from
whistling.
(1) we didn't have any _real_ computers at school, either, just several
ASR33's, a CRT Terminal, a Silent 700, and 'acoustic couplers' to
connect through.
-Scott
> Even better is when you get so well known locally that people bring stuff
> you! Someone gave brought me a big box of stuff pulled out of an old
My father came home one day (before he retired) and said 'Is a DEC PRO350
of any interest'. Of course I replied in the affirmative to which he said
'OK, there's one in the back of the car for you'. I then received a
_loaded_ PRO 350 (it even has an ethernet card in it...), a VR241
monitor, keyboard and the proper desk for it with the motorised column
for the monitor.....
-tony
> > That's fine, because if you play your cards right you'll most likely end
> > up out-living most of us here and then you can piss on all our graves.
> >
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
> I myself turn 60 next time, and have been in this business sinc 1967 or so,
> where I got a Cobol course as an "education by mail" (dont know the correct
> english term for that one
>
> Nico
~52.
Started as a radio apprentice in 1969 and the course included digital
(tube) logic, etc. ~1976 Paid for a short course in EduBasic on a
PDP8, then opened a commercial account at Control Data to get access
to processor time (Kronos and Scope). In those days you were taken
into the store room and you walked out with whatever manual took your
fancy. Best investment I ever made, didn't cost to open the account,
just paid for usage. Played with BASIC, COBOL, FORTRAN, Athena, etc.
Won't bore you with the rest
Regards,
Garry
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of this list contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
1960; Been keenly interested in electronic and technical things for as far
back as I can recall ... As a child I spent all my time "building things",
but didn't really get exposed to computers until the mid-70s when I fell in
love with an IBM 370 (See below)...
First computer of my own was a homebuilt 8080, followed closely by an Altair
8800 (which I still have). Long and highly varied list of machines follow,
including several more homebuilts. Never an "appliance operator", I always
used the machines as a creative outlet. Always been interested in low-level
and systems type aspects, designed my own interfaces, wrote my own operating
systems and development tools - still use mostly my own software, although I
have a couple systems configured with winblows for "when I really have to".
Pretty much the same story professionally, worked for various high-tech
companies, got caught up in it for a while - did a few "salvage jobs" where
I was came in to "rescue" a project after "the team" had spent all the money
and had little to show for it, eventually became a director at one of the
major telecom players ... at which point I realized I was rapidly leaving
the relm of "hands on", so I stepped off the ladder. Turned my hobby into a
business, and I've been hawking my embedded systems software development tools
and contract services for the past 15+ years... (and being much happier for it).
Regards,
Dave
---- (below) ----
For those who didn't experience IBM mainframes - IBM was not always just another
player in the "me to" Wintel market - in the 70's, they were one of the major
forces in the computing industry, and to our university computer center which
was built around the IBM mainframe, at times they seemed like denizens of
Mount Olympus. Here are a couple of my "favorite IBM moments" from that era:
----
At the University of New Brunswick, we had mostly serial TTY terminals, however
at one point they brought in five IBM 3270s which were set up at one end of the
user access area. The idea of being able to "instantly" write an entire screen
page was really cool, and in short order I wrote a "tank game" where multiple
people could enter a virtual maze and shoot at one another, which pretty much
realtime updates of the visible maze and other players. It was very popular, but
due to a bug somewhere in the system, it had the undesired effect of crashing the
entire mainframe. (They had a "traffic light" in the access room, which would show
Green when the system was up and running, Red when it was down, and Yellow if it
was scheduled to be taken down shortly. Invariably, a short while after a couple
of people started up my game, all the TTYs in the area would stop responding and
shortly after that the light would switch to red).
My "favorite moment" came one Sunday morning, when the computing center announced
that the system would be unavailable for the day (a very rare occurance) - I came
in to see what they were up to, and found the access room empty except for 5 guys
>from IBM, complete with suits, ties and briefcases - sitting at the 3270 cluster.
Four of them were playing my game (and making some favorable comments), while the
fifth guy was madly running diagnostics, scrolling through dumps and generally
trying to figure out what going wrong - they did find it, and after that my game
no longer crashed the system (although it still cost a small fortune in processor
time to play it!).
----
Fairly early in my career, I worked on developemnt software for a 6809 based test
system at Mitel - this had a CPU/RAM card, and various interface cards. One of the
hardware engineers had designed a floppy disk controller for it, however software
support consisted of a monitor program with commands to read and write tracks/memory.
On my own time, I wrote a decent multitasking operating system and disk file system
for it, and when I demonstrated it, the company formed a new devision to develop
this "advanced test system" - I was in charge of the operating system, languages
and development software ... We ended up selling quite a few of these to IBM, and
having been launched on my path by my experiences with IBM MVS, I took great pleasure
in the thought that they had bought and used *my* operating system (yeah, I know -
to them it was just a piece of test equipment... but at the time it was a "favorite
moment").
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Nico de Jong wrote:
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
I'm 31, born in 1973, and I've been into electronics since I was about 6
or 7, and computers not long after. First computer was a ZX81, then a
48k Spectrum, then a string of relatively unusual kit bought by my Dad's
boss for various datalogging projects and subsequently discarded.
AIM65, Epson HX-20, stuff like that.
Among one pile of bits was a manual for a Sinclair MK14 - attempted to
write an emulator on the Speccy in machine code, but didn't get very
far. Subsequently wrote one in Turbo Pascal on an Amstrad PCW8256 -
very slow, but it worked!
Currently I've got various PCs and Macs, an Altos 386, IBM Workpad Z50
(not strictly speaking a classic but unusual enough to be nearly
on-topic), various Psions, a Sanyo MBC-4050 (the one mentioned on this
list, picked up from a guy literally 2 minutes up the road from me!), oh
- and the PDP11 that has been the source of so many of my postings recently!
Gordon.
Jay,
I think there is a problem, at least with the list. I had problems with my
email server (randy at s100-manuals.com), I changed it to cctalk at randy482.com.
I just started sending back to my s100-manuals.com account.
I canceled my subscription again (for randy at s100-manuals.com).
I also subscribed to cctech with my randy482.com.
If that fixes it I'll let you know.
Randy
> > There is a certain etiquette in place when talking on the telephone, right?
> > Most of us say "Hello" at the beginning, "ByeBye" and the end, and engage
>
> Do we? I answer with, "What the hell do you want?", or if I'm feeling
> nice, "This had better be good." However, I always end with, "Don't ever
> call here again, you freak!"
Please remind me not to bother calling you when I find a pile of Apple
1's 'Free to a good home' ....
-tony
I myself am 23 (I'm probably one of the youngest members here), born
1981. I guess you could say that I'm a second generation classic
computer user.
Anyhow, I cut my teeth on an Osborne 1 that my dad owned (that he hooked
up on old Amdek B&W monochrome monitor to), as well as the Apple //e &
//e platinums at primary/elementary school. After that it was primarily
PCs from there on (what can I say, I was the generation that got
corrupted at an early age!). It remained that way until 1998 when I was
given a Commodore 64C (which I still have and has been heavily expanded
since then), and now, well, have a look at my collection now! ;)
David M. Vohs
Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian
Computer Collection:
"Triumph": Commodore 64, 1802, 1541, Indus GT, FDD-1, GeoRAM 512, MPS-801.
"Leela": Original Apple Macintosh, Imagewriter II.
"Delorean": TI-99/4A, TI Speech Synthesizer.
"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer III.
"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable.
"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000.
"Butterfly": Tandy 200, PDD-2.
"Shapeshifter": Epson QX-10, Comrex HDD, Titan graphics/MS-DOS board.
"Scout": Otrona Attache.
(prospective) "Pioneer": Apple LISA II.
"TMA-1": Atari Portfolio, Memory Expander +
"Centaur": Commodore Amiga 2000.
"Neon": Zenith Minisport.
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list
> contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
I'll be 47 in a couple months. I never saw a computer until I
went to college in 1976 and met a PDP-11/40 running RSTS/E. I
lived on the computer for the next 3 years until it interfered
with my grades and I had to spend time on classes instead. I
got a programming job in 1981 in RPG on an IBM S/34 immediately
after college and have been doing software development ever
since, on IBM mainframes (COBOL, CICS, Assembler, ADS/O, etc),
PCs (Basic, C, MASM, OS/2 PM, Visual Basic, IIS based web
development), primarily Microsoft platforms, taking occasional
breaks from programming to dabble in the management side of
things and fly around the country doing requirements studies,
marketing, training, etc. I always tire of corporate management
and politics after a few years and get back into the programming
side of things until they twist my arm and talk me back into
management stuff again. I've been in this cycle of management/
technical flip/flop since about 1986. For the past 20 years
I've been involved in development of software for the insurance
industry.
Ashley
What a mix, right?
First the AIX stuff. v2.2.1, definitely on-topic. My RT has been
laid up with a failing IDE disk for a while. The E70s that it came with
were serious junk, and near death. I now have a couple of Maxtor ESDI
disks to play with, and I also found a 1.2GB Medalist that should work
in it with the IDE/floppy controller that's presently in it. For
power/BTU reasons I'll go with IDE if possible.
The problem is that the AIX floppy images are no longer on the
dementia.org FTP site, and I've stupidly lost my archive of them. Does
anybody happen to have them stashed away? Floppy images are nice, or I
have the sort-of-SCSI 1/4" tape streamer and adapter too.
For whatever it's worth, my company is an AIX software and services
partner. That means I can legally have any version of AIX needed to do
or to properly research my work. :)
While I'm at it, does anybody have an RT mouse they don't want, or a
Matrox graphics adapter?
On to Amiga UNIX. The little information I can find about
installation (see rant below) says that the original v2.x requires a
Commodore 3070 tape drive, which is an Archive Viper-150 in an external
enclosure. I don't have an Archive drive, but I do have an
IBM-firmwared Tandberg TDC 3600 an a Sun-firmwared TDC 4220, both of
which are QIC-150 compatible.
The first question is whether AMIX looks for Commodore firmware on
the tape drive, or will any 150MB quarter-inch drive work?
The second question is whether install media for AMIX v1.x exists in
downloadable form?
<rant>
Somebody mentioned "more appropriate fora for discussion" the other
day. Well, the only active AMIX forum seems to be a freakin' MSN Group.
Since I don't have and don't EVER want an MSN .Net Passport, I don't
get to play there.
Do they think all the world is already owned by MSN?
</rant>
Doc
Born 5/16/48
Computing History:
Monroe programmable calculator (H.S. Math/programming class) punch-card
input/ impact printer out
HP2100 batch system (H.S. field trip to local university Engineering
department)
Nova?? based Basic Timeshare (H.S. Field Trip to university Business
department)
Poly88 Kit built owned
HP41C (traded for poly, was a better fit for my US navy life)
Ohio Scientific board - never finished (left it on the ship on leaving
navy - oops)
Commodore 64.
Macintosh
VAX 11/780 at work VMS 3.x
same Macintosh upgraded to fat mac
IBM PC/AT clone (televideo color 10mb)
Ran BBS on above after replacing it with newer PC.
Macintosh SE
Mac Powerbook 170
Various IBM clones running win31, Win95 and Win98
Current:
Macintosh iBook OSx
Windows98 Laptop (toshiba)
Linux redhat 7.3 laptop (IBM)
Well, first off, I was born in 1986, so I'm 18. A bit young, but there you
go :)
Let's see.. where to start.. Well, the first computer I actually used was an
Acorn BBC Micro (Master 128 if I remember correctly) in primary school (age 8
or so). I talked to the IT teacher and she let me borrow the manual and some
BBC BASIC guides. At the parent's evening that year she spoke to my mother
and apparently said "Get this kid a computer!". I got a Spectrum +2A fpr ,y
birthday, again with a load of programming books. Wrote a few games, then hit
the limits of the hardware.
A year or so later I had a fairly high end 486SX/25 with 4MB of RAM and a
160MB Conner hard drive, MS DOS 6 and Windows 3.1. I learned QBASIC, then
Visual Basic, then didn't really do much programming until '96, when my uncle
let me borrow his copy of Delphi 1.0 for the weekend (including the manuals).
I learned ObjectPascal from that :)
In '98 or '99 I managed to scrape together enough cash for a 56k modem, then
got an account on Freenet UK - my first internet connection, on a K6-II/450.
All of 56kbits a second. IIRC, I joined classiccmp in 2000 (might have been a
bit later), then joined the MIT PICLIST a few months later. Getting ADSL in
'03 really made the mail downloads go quicker - I've had my own fileserver
running since mid-'02, late-'03, running Linux.
As far as programming skills go - I know C, some C++, x86 assembler, PICmicro
assembler (12, 14 and 16-bit varieties -- PIC12, PIC16 and PIC18 devices),
QBASIC, Visual BASIC (DOS and Windows versions), Pascal and BBC BASIC.
Other hobbies: Well, electronics is the main one. I'm entering the Parallax
(www.parallax.com) SX Design Contest - all being well, I should be able to
get the firmware for my entry stabilised within the next few hours. It's
gonna be a long night! :)
I'm a real tech nut - I won't go anywhere without my Minidisc recorder (Sony
MZ-N710) and my mobile phone (Nokia 6210 or Samsung V200, depending on which
one's charged at the time).
Oh, and I've got a bit of a reputation for destroying hard drives when they
fail. Usually with big drills and hammers. I'd love to see a thermite
reaction melting a defunct IDE hard drive down at some point though :)
Gee, I've just written most of my life story.. maybe I'll put this post
on my website at some point :)
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem at philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... I believe I will take this opportunity to remove my ears.
> At the Keeble & Suchat(sp) camera store near Stanford there is
> a guy upstairs (Pro cameras) named Richard. He answered
> the phone: "Professional. Dick speaking."
My mother woked for a time with a certain 'Frank A. Sweet'. He used to
answer the 'phone 'Sweet FA here'. Seriously...
-tony
Mike <kenziem at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> How many variations of LK201 were produced?
> Are they interchangeable?
All LK201s are mechanically, electrically and functionally identical. The
only difference is in keycap engravings. Yours doesn't work because there
is something wrong with the keyboard or the terminal, not because it's
different.
MS
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
> I myself turn 60 next time, and have been in this business sinc 1967 or so,
> where I got a Cobol course as an "education by mail" (dont know the correct
> english term for that one
OK, I'm 37.
I've been interested in electronics for as long as I can remember, I
built my first transsitor radio about 32 years ago. I've never really
been interested in programming/software, I'm very much the hardware type.
The fact that computers are interesting pieces of heardware is why I
collect, restore, etc them. This might explain why I like to keep the
hardware of my machines as original as possible, even for things like
power supplies. The power supply _was_ part of the original design, it
should be preserved (and if you think all SMPSUs are the same, then, boy,
have I got news for you...)
My first computer (not suprisingly) was a Sinclair -- in my case an MK14.
That put me how his designs for life. I've used some of the others, I've
never found one I consider to be even moderately well-designed.
I then got a TRS-80 Model 1, used Beebs and RML380Zs at school and fooled
around with some other micros. Then I went to university and picked up the
Philips P850. Chatting to a friend about it that night (this was some 19
years ago), we realiased that unless something was done -- and fast -- a
lot of computer history was going to be lost for ever. At the time,
museums were not bothering to preserve common micros and minis. So we did
something about it. We (I suspect particularly me) started collecting
everything we could get our grubby little hands on. The rest, as they say,
is history...
-tony
So far the list looks ok, and I'm going through all the classiccmp related
websites and getting them up now.
I have noticed that the new server seems to be very slow in delivering posts
compared to the old server. This doesn't make a lot of sense, given the old
server was a 1.2 P3 and the new server is a 2.0 P4. Go figure. However,
since it seems to be working, I'm going to continue with the website
migration and complete that. Then I'll turn back to the mailing list and
find out why it's running slow, and, then finally start the work on the
archives.
Regards,
Jay West
[quote]
Looking to possibly sell - will send pictures.
- I have a very unusual collection of 4 mainframe face
panels (1410 - 360/40 - 370/145 - 370/158) and 14
control unit boxes that have nothing inside of them, I
am thinking of selling them. I was in the computer
service arena for 30 years.
Thank You for your assistance-
Dennis Correll
correll at mwt.net
[unquote]
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more.
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>
> I have to wonder if any mini or microcomputer family was ever NOT involved
> with running a model railroad.
I've never heard of a PERQ or a Philips P800 series being used for that.
Perhaps I should remedy it :-)
-tony
> After French took over the RCA, they started putting weird location
> marks: It goes like this: LL005 for fly, TL00x for transistor in
> horizontal, TV00x for video transistor amps. So on. Totally
That second character 'L' might well stand for 'line' which is the
conventioal name for the hoprizontal deflection system over here. We talk
abvout the 'line output trnasistor' where you'd say 'HOT'.
Were the transistors in the vertical stages called 'TF00x'? 'F' being
'frame' or 'field' depending on how old you are.
-tony
>
> Tony (and others),
>
> I wonder people (including members on this list) who use the justification,
> that because they (generally) choose to use old hardware that it is a valid
FWOW. I don't 'choose to use old hardware' I use what I consider to be
the best solution I can get (and afford). That does not mean the latest,
it doesn't necessarily mean the oldest.
I do however refuse to use anything I can't fully understand and/or
maintain. This does, alas, rule out much modern computer hardware...
> reason for not making use of features that are available on even mildly
> modern hardware.
>
> Should movie producers ONLY produce black and white movies because some
> people only have B/W sets?
_VERY_ bad example. All the colour TV stardards were designed to be
'both ways compatible' That is, a colour TV had to be able to correctly
display a B&W signal (this was the easy way, since the set could be
designed to detect the lack of colour information (the 'colour killer'
circuit) and respond accordingly). And also an unmodified B&W TV had to
be able to produce a good (albeit B&W) picture from a colour signal.
People with B&W TVs did not lose out when colour TV signals came along.
THey could still watch them, and get pictures like they'd always got.
> Should newspapers and magazines only use one color, one font, etc because
Interestingly, I stoppd reading one magazine when they started prinitng
in colour. The schematic diagrams printed over 'interesting' coloured
backgrounds gave me a headache. I think others felt likewise, the
magazine stoped being published not long afterwarrds...
Of the magazines I read, the one that could most benefit from colour
would be 'Clocks' (a magazine for people interested in real, mechanical
timepieces). And amazingly it's the one with the fewest colour pages per
issue...
> Just because my PDP-8 can't video conference or interact with my whiteboard,
> doesn't mean I shouldn't use them. It would have been quite convient if I
> there had been someone here on the list I could have interactively done
> video with while I was tring to repair my ASR-33's [my mechanical skills are
> limited = klutz]. Ever try to exactly explain what you are seeing when the
> lever jam between the typing unit and the underside of the keycboard in
> plain ascii?
Yes!. You get the partsbook -- I get it off the bookshelf, you download
it from bitsavers (I think) and print it. You then say something like
'Lever 12345 under the carriage is not moving forwards when...' And I say
something like 'Check spring 45321 on the same diagram'.
-tony
>
> >If you can get any colour other than green (and black, I guess) out of an
> >unmodified IBM 5151 monitor, I will eat a classic computer!
>
> If you connect it to a high voltage source, maybe you will get a brief
> flash of yellow orange, red (and maybe blue) out of the back... followed
> by some puffs of grey out the top.
Maybe... If you apply the HV to the mains connector, I suspect the only
thing that would fail would be the fuse (the 5151 has a linear PSU with a
nice fat mains transformer at the input).
If you apply it to the signal cable, well, it'll probably take out the
input buffer chip (a '04 IIRC, I can't be bothered to go and get the
schematics). Maybe some smoke. I doubt you'd get many interesting effects
though.
In any case, the monitor is not unchanged at the end, so I would class
that as a modification :-)
-tony
>
> On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
>
> > In Outlook, yes, it's a righteous pain. In PINE, as you might know,
> > CTRL-J fixes most messed up quoted paragraphs.
>
> Eh?! Oh, you mean the pico editor! Too many brain cells pre-wired for
> vi here.
The mental case who picked ^J for that needs to be LARTed. Problem is, ^J
is linefeed and if you happen to hit return on entering pico before it
sets the terminal driver to raw mode, it'll justify the first paragraph
of your file for you. If it happens to be a mail message you're replying
to, then the '>' characters at the start of each line will mean the
entire file is taken as one paragraph (no blank lines to mark the end of
the paragraph) so you get a total mess.
Yes, I understand 'J' for 'justify', but....
-tony
Mike wrote:
>On Saturday 26 February 2005 11:53, woodelf wrote:
>
>
>>Ronald Wayne wrote:
>>
>>
>>>TTL going the way of the dodo?! Does this mean that I have to learn
>>>about electronics now or I'm going to be stuck figuring out those many...
>>>
>>>
>>They've mutated now - hundreds of pins sucking up your power and hogging
>>all the ground.
>>
>>
>
>http://d116.com/spud/
>
>
That's a potato BUG ... not a real computer. :D
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 12:49:19 -0500, Mike <kenziem at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> http://d116.com/spud/
> this one was referened on the theregister recently
Ah yes, somebody was showing me rfPICs last year. Just imagine a
wireless webserver the size of a match head. :)
I remember thinking at the time, 'how does this thing compare to an
Apple II?' Of course the guy showing it to me didn't have the
slightest idea because he didn't know what a 6502 was.
So perhaps I should ask here: how would your typical 2005 vintage PIC
compare to a early-1980's vintage 8-bit microprocessor? From what
little I could gather the interface with the outside world is terribly
limited (something like four lines on the chip I was looking at, one
of which was special purpose) but that is slightly negated by the
thing having an, albeit miniscule, amount of memory on chip.
On Sun, Feb 20, 2005 at 05:13:07PM -0700, woodelf wrote:
> PS the homebrew computer using CPLD's is going to need a far bigger
> board than demo PCB software gives.
Why CPLDs over FPGAs?
--
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd at jdboyd.nethttp://www.jdboyd.net/http://www.joshuaboyd.org/
Doc Shipley declared on Saturday 26 February 2005 02:29 pm:
> Doc Shipley wrote:
> > O. Sharp wrote:
> >> Nico de Jong wrote, in part:
> >>> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list
> >>> contributors,
> >>> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
23 years old, born in 1981. Interested in "big computers" ever since I
got a 1970s computers textbook from the local library's used book sale.
Sadly, I don't have the book anymore (my parents threw it out ):, but I
still have the interest. I've been on the list since before I could
(legally) consume alcohol. ;)
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
On the BoatAnchor net (ham radio stuff) they live by this: REAL radios GLOW
IN THE DARK.
(And keep the shack warm.)
At 02:17 PM 2/26/2005 -0500, you wrote:
> > >I am now self-employed and hoping I don't put myself out of business ;-)
> > >
> > >
> > Well you can allways go back to TUBE audio ... as hobby :) Now is a
> > good time for I think
> > to go back to tube amps if you build your own hardware and you don't
> > already have a system.
> > Ben alias Woodelf.
>
>I suppose I could. I wouldn't hate it. There seems to be a resurgence in
>glass audio. Some claim it sounds better (I always thought it did). Not
>to brag, but I was talking to <really famous rock-star> who lives in the
>next town over. He was saying he wants to get some old tube guitar amps
>fixed. I didn't think of it at the time, but maybe I could get my foot
>in the door of the rock tech support field. Hmmmm... multi-hundred watt
>amplifiers and hot women. A geek's dream.
[Commentary] War talk by men who have been in a war is always
interesting, whereas moon talk by a poet who has not been in the moon
is likely to be dull. --Twain
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, Cisco Certified CCNA
JimD declared on Thursday 24 February 2005 10:58 pm:
> Patrick Finnegan wrote:
> >On Thu, 24 Feb 2005, Computer Collector Newsletter wrote:
> >>Who else on this list owns a mainframe? What the heck do you DO
> >>with it?
> >
> ><SNIP>
>
> Talk about a mainframe, well actually a real big farm, take a look at
> this.
> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=64031&item=5754
>425731&rd=1 Still listed in the top 500 supers. Battell surplus. zero
> bids, $12,500 starting bid.
> Jim Davis.
> I would get it, if I had free power.
Despite what the seller claims, it's definately too slow to be on the
top500 list. When I looked into it, I found out it was last on the list
in June of 2002, and wasn't very high up (low 300s).
The machine is (or was, with all of the frames, which the seller doesn't
seem to have in the auction listing) only 512 processors of 120/135MHz
processors. They're not horribly slow, but definately not
computationally worthwhile. The ~900 processors of IBM SP (375MHz
POWER3) we have at work (well, we've got 320 now, soon to add another
576) won't even make it onto the TOP500 list this next time around I'm
pretty sure.
As far as memory and disk space go, you'll probably be using up a good
chunk of the disk space per node for OS and software; and the memory is
evenly distributed between all the nodes. Having a large amount of
contiguous memory and disk (like what you can with an IBM p690) is much
more interesting from an HPC standpoint. :)
One rack of the SP system would be sort of cool to have, but having that
many frames just doesn't make any sense no matter how I try to look at
it.
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCS --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
Looks like I have the mailing list running on the new server. Please send
any problems to me offlist at jwest at classiccmp.org
Of course, to do this, I had to pick if I moved web or list services first.
I chose list services. Any classiccmp websites I host gratis - if they have
their own domain they should be ok, otherwise (they are tied to the
classiccmp.org domain), they are down till I get them moved. This will
likely be a longish process. I apologize for the inconvenience. I'll email
again when all seems to be done.
Jay
vp(a)cs.drexel.edu (Vassilis Prevelakis) wrote:
> Since this was running Unix V7 (or smth close), I am
> sure you can get a postscript viewer running on it (or a tiff viewer
> for that matter), while you'd have no chance in hell of getting
> Acrobat Reader for it.
This is very close to my original point.
> Which gives me a nice excuse to repeat my favorite line: I use open
> source software not because it is free, but because I get to keep the
> code (so I do not depend on the code author to port the software to
> newer/different/stranger platforms).
I'm getting a feeling that der Mouse is about to remind us again that one
can use GhostScript instead of Acrobat Reader... The problem with
GhostScript is that porting it to a Very Vintage platform will likely be
more difficult than rewriting it from scratch. I once thought about building
it under 4.3BSD-Quasijarus (so I won't have to log into a Linux machine
on the other side of the planet to convert PDF to PS), but one cursory
look at the code was enough for me to scrap the idea.
Open source is of no help when it's unusable.
I have pretty much given up on using any software not written from scratch
by me. It's almost always easier to write the program I need than to port
an existing one.
MS
>in my PDP11/45, the originla core and bipolar memory has been replaced by a
Hex height Digital Data Systems inc. / >SETASI memory card (placed in the
1st SU - the original Fastbus memory slots are now unused). I know the
system ran >like this, as it is documented in the local handbook.
>
>Does anyone have any information on these cards? Especially the settings of
the jumper and the DIP switches!
After looking at the paperwork a bit more, it seems the module may have the
designation UFUM
Jim.
Born in 1954. Got the computer bug in the late 1970's. My first
machine was a no-name 8080 based SBC that I purchased as a kit. Of
course I didn't know their idea of a kit was was bare board and a big
bag of parts. But it worked and I was on my way.
--
www.blackcube.org The Texas State Home for Wayward and Orphaned Computers
Nico de Jong wrote:
>>Sellam wrote :
>>
>>That's fine, because if you play your cards right you'll most likely end
>>up out-living most of us here and then you can piss on all our graves.
>>
>
> It could be interesting to know the age"spread" of thist list contributors,
> and how long we've had the computer virus under our skin.
> I myself turn 60 next time, and have been in this business sinc 1967 or so,
I am not nearly old enough to really be a member of this list. :-) My father
was a tech writer with teletype and he would bring home various toys, like a
vt100 line/signal analyzer (hope I'm remembering that properly) and various
computer-like things. In 1980, I played Adventure on an Osborne luggable; in
1983 I connected to BBSes and Compuserve using a (rich) friend's IBM PC Model
5150; also did much (MUCH) Apple II stuff in school from 1980-1985. In 1985 I
got my very own PC clone and, being an antisocial nerd, I went crazy with it.
Maybe a better way to understand myself and my background is to look at my
collection, which is mostly 1980-era personal computers, including stuff like:
2 5150s
1 5160 clone
1 XT/286 (NOT AT, the XT/286, can't remember exact model number)
2 C64s (NTSC)
1 Timex Sinclair 1000 with various tapes and expansions
1 Mac 512
1 Mac SE
6 Amigas (2 A500s, 1 A1200, 2 A4000s, 1 A3000)
I also tend to like wacko x86 hardware:
2 PS/2 Model 25s
2 Panasonic Sr. Partners (luggables with built-in thermal printers)
1 AT&T PC 6300 (my first clone, still works, upgraded in crazy ways)
2 PCjrs with various sidecars, ROM carts, add-ons
Various Tandys (Tandy 1000, 1000HD, TL/2, maybe others)
I still program for x86 and last year I won a competition for programming a
stock IBM 5150 (4.77Mhz, 8088, 640K RAM, Sound Blaster Pro, CGA, 10MB MFM) to
display 30 frame-per-second full-screen video sync'd with 22Khz sound. This
same program is up for an award in March at Breakpoint 2005 for Best Original
Production. I am still developing the technology (up to 60fps now and 44KHz
audio) and hopefully will have something even more impressive for next year.
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project? http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/