test-drb

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

101090 discussions

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 17, Mike Ford wrote: > >Having a machine to interact with allows you to test your code on the spot > >and if you are writing in an interpreted language the error-checking the > >interpreter provides is a godsend for the coder. Why anyone would code > >without the interaction of the target machine is beyond me. > > I write perfect code, like Mozart it flows out in its final form to the > paper, and then to the system. Time for the hip waders, folks...it's getting deep in here. ;) -Dave McGuire

25 years, 10 months

Programming on Paper

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> In the past I have tried to write code to paper and failed to do much with > it. Outlines are about as far as I can go. I did this because I wanted to > continue work or pass the time when I didn't have a machine in front of me > (in high-school or waiting in the Doctor's office). I guess it's what you become used to. Timesharing used to cost beaucoups bucks, so you worked offline as much as possible. That economic reality did engender a generation of higher-quality software than we've seen since, though... I blame a lot of the low-quality of current software on the program-by-the-seat-of- your-pants method. -dq

25 years, 10 months

A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On June 16, Charles P. Hobbs (SoCalTip) wrote: > Not to mention, only so many people who would know what to *do* with > an old Commodore, VAX, TI 99, etc. As far as the rest of the world is > concerned, it's "trash".... Only our broken, brain-damaged society can take a thing that does it's job just as well as when it was new, and call it "trash" simply because something newer (not necessarily "better") has been announced by the vendors. Fascinating...and disturbing. My primary car is a '95. It continued to run just fine when the '96 came out. There's a clue in there somewhere. > Well, not nearly as much as they used to, but one can always hold out > hope. Know of any new people entering this hobby? Not just squirrelling > away stuff, or churning it on the auction sites, but actually buying old > computers, plugging them in, and actually working/playing with them? I've turned a few younger people on to it...they seem to get a kick out of computers whose internals they can really understand. One can find databooks for 7400-series TTL logic anywhere, and figure out exactly how a pdp8/e works. Pop open a current PeeCee and what do you find? Five or six two-zillion-pin chips with names like "Win-<whatever>" on them that you'll never find so much as a pinout for in any printed or .pdf literature. -Dave McGuire

25 years, 10 months

MELLOW OUT! Re: A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > > Does anyone around here know what SEX is? > > Aargh! If we knew about that do you think we'd be living alone with > 20 old computers and nothing else? :-) > > Some times I think we're the male, technological version of the "Cat > Lady"....:-) I recently broke up with my girlfriend, and her possesion of seven cats in a tiny apartment was one of the reasons... ...now, realizing I've got _way_ more than seven computers makes me question my own sanity. oh well. -dq

25 years, 10 months

Programming on Paper (was Re: Apple III motherboard)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

Cool... that way, you can make mistakes faster! Here's a pointer to a short story on a programmer whom I've never met, but whom I am certain is a soul brother... http://www.multicians.org/thvv/andre.html > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul R. Santa-Maria [mailto:paulrsm@ameritech.net] > Sent: Friday, June 16, 2000 5:22 PM > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Programming on Paper (was Re: Apple III motherboard) > > > ---------- > > From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com> > > To: 'classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org' > > Subject: RE: Apple III motherboard > > Date: Friday, June 16, 2000 01:39 PM > > > > Since I compose > > to paper (and still do and cannot understand why some > > programmers compose directly into thr machine), > > Because I can type much faster than I can write. > > Paul R. Santa-Maria > Ann Arbor, Michigan USA > paulrsm(a)ameritech.net >

25 years, 10 months

MELLOW OUT! Re: A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> ...and way too much time on their hands with few (if any) outlets for > their frustrations. > > Does anyone around here know what SEX is? Sure... Sign EXtension.... in x86-speak, it's cbw ; sign-extend byte to word or cwd ; sign-extend word to doubleword How does that help with frustration? ;-) -dq

25 years, 10 months

Old laptops as cheap terminals (was Re: Old Macs = cheap terminals)

by ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com

--- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote: > Another good solution for the terminally challenged is > *old* laptops, also a good solution when space is a big problem. The only > real use I keep my ancient Twinhead 386sx laptop around for is to use as a > terminal when nothing else is handy... I bought an ancient Zenith XT laptop (dual 720K floppies) for $10 at a local box shop explicity for a terminal. I have a DOS 3.3 boot disk in it with Kermit, and away I go. If I could lay my hands on a cheap Xircom PE3 (no flames, please), I'd use the laptop as an IP "terminal", too (for the Kermit-ly challenged, modern versions contain an IP stack; just add packet driver; that's how my Commodore Colt is on my network). -ethan ===== Even though my old e-mail address is no longer going to vanish, please note my new public address: erd(a)iname.com The original webpage address is still going away. The permanent home is: http://penguincentral.com/ See http://ohio.voyager.net/ for details. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos -- now, 100 FREE prints! http://photos.yahoo.com

25 years, 10 months

New find: HP 1000 E series

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Carlos Murillo-Sanchez <cem14(a)cornell.edu> wrote: > Thanks a lot for all this! The cable halves that I have > are marked either "12966-60015 ASYNC DATA STRAPPED FOR 9600 BAUD" > or "12966-60008 ASYNC DATA". Fortunately, the numbering in the > back of the card edge connector corresponds to the 1-24 (top, left > to right) and A-Z,AA-BB (bottom, left to right) numbering. The 60015 > option has quite a few more cross-connects than the 60004 option. This time around I'm looking at a newer (April 1984) revision of the same manual and it has three (!) descriptions of the -60015 cable, two for HP 2621B terminals, and one for HP 264X terminals. Cross-connects inside the card-edge hood appear the same for all descriptions of this cable: (F, X, Y, AA) (H, K) (N, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15) (these strap it for 9600 baud) (W, 5) (4, 21) (11, 22) And for the far end of the cable, the 2621B flavors looks like they could be going to a DB25: A -> 7 (Signal Ground) D -> 3 (Transmit Data) E -> 5, 6 (Request to Send) F -> 8 (Data Terminal Ready) S -> 2 (Received Data) X -> 4 (Clear to Send) -60008 looks like it's supposed to be for a 264X terminal (to the card-edge connector on the datacomm board) and has slightly different cross-connects: (A, 1, 12, 13, 14, 15) (F, X, Y, AA) (H, K) (N, 8) (W, 5) (4, 21) (11, 22) As far as I can tell, this is strapped for external clocking from the terminal. I guess it's time for that table about how to strap for a baud rate: Baud Rate Bit Yield Pin 8 to pins: Pin 1, A, 24, BB to pins: Ext (16X) 0000 N 12, 13, 14, 15 50 0001 14, N 12, 13, 15 75 0010 13, N 12, 14, 15 110 0011 13, 14, N 12, 15 134.5 0100 12, N 13, 14, 15 150 0101 12, 14, N 13, 15 300 0110 12, 13, N 14, 15 600 0111 12, 13, 14, N 15 900 1000 15, N 12, 13, 14 1200 1001 14, 15, N 12, 13 1800 1010 13, 15, N 12, 14 2400 1011 13, 14, 15, N 12 3600 1100 12, 15, N 13, 14 4800 1101 12, 14, 15, N 13 7200 1110 12, 13, 15, N 14 9600 1111 12, 13, 14, 15, N -- > Looks like the labeling of TD and RD signals in your docs > indicate that the card thinks of itself as DTE, and the cable > that you describe is actually a null modem-like cable w/o > handshake. All this should be enough for me to build a simple > cable and test this over the weekend. That would be about right, I think. The HP terminals that I'm familiar with generally had cables whose far ends were a DB25 plug that wanted to plug into a DCE-flavored connector. Good luck! -Frank McConnell

25 years, 10 months

Blah this is no longer about Tek anything so die subject line die

by xds_sigma7＠hotmail.com

a 20 year old MicroVAX II?... That's pretty amazing, since the MicroVAX II is 1986ish or so... MicroVAX I isn't even 20 years old yet, getting close, but not there. Just my two cents worth of picking nits. Will J ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com

25 years, 10 months

A Great Find & A Defense of E-Bay

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

Good morning, all... The subject line above might be a bit misleading. In the short time I've been subscribed to the list, I've seen a lot of negative criticism of E-Bay, or rather, of trying to buy things found on E-Bay. The criticisms all seem to concern how much an item on E-Bay ends up costing. What I guess I haven't seen said here is an acknowledgement that the high prices are a result of parties bidding against each other. I realize that in some cases, some shill bidding may be going on, but most of the time, I think I'm just seeing prices go high because people really want an item. Now, as to why an original IMSAI will go for $1200 when you can take about $800 and buy a brand new one with a Z-80-descended processor and a meg of bank-switched RAM, is beyond me. OTOH, I see SOLs going for for high prices, and they don't make those anymore. But I've been able to find great buys on items that aren't quite so popular, like TI Silent700 terminals, older wide-carriage printers, and so on. Having said that, one item I'd been trying to buy for a while is a Wyse 50 terminal, with a preferences for an amber screen. The ambers seem to be more rare, and command a higher price on E-Bay. Everytime one is for sale, someone goes over my max price, and I don't get a terminal. So, I decided to surf the web more broadly one day (and not specifically looking at other auction sites), when lo and behold, I find a guy up in Michigan who has an amber Wyse 50 for sale; he threw in a modem and a serial cable and shipped it to me for a mere $25.00. It's a clean unit with no visible screen burn. The F13 keycap comes off easily; other than that, it's a fine example of what became my favorite computer terminal. In closing, I'd say no one should limit themselves to searching only at *any* auction site, but I wouldn't avoid E-Bay just because prices sometimes range too high. regards, -doug quebbeman

25 years, 10 months

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