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101090 discussions

by jchin＠aesprodata.com.au

If any of you in the US gets to see this program, would you care to publish a short summary of any interesting bits? It's highly unlikely that this will be shown in Australia in the near future. cheers, John > I saw an advert in the latest issue of Scientific American for > an upcoming special about archiving digital data to appear on > PBS. It is supposed to show on the 13th (tomorrow) and alas > I don't have the magazine with me here and I cannot recall what > the show title is - or even whether it is part of a regular series. > At any rate I thought folks on this list would be interested so > go out and check your local listings. > Peter Prymmer

28 years, 3 months

What I did this weekend

by adam＠merlin.net.au

>The CPC's were the first Amstrads that I know of, they were commercialized >in Europe. >They are basically just a Keyboar type computer that plugs into a monitor >they also had an integrated tape player for the earlier models and a 3 1/2" >drive for the later models (before the PC compatibles). I don't remember the >exact number but I think that the CPC6128 was the last of the series. A bit more info in case anyone is interested. :) The CPC's were developed by Alan Sugar, who controlled Amstrad at the time, in England. They were pretty much unique, because although there had been rumours, the poress conference where they were announced not only had production CPCs but also a range of completed commercial software - very different >from Sir Clive Sinclair's announcements. Anyway, yes - the keyboard is seperate and contains the computer, but the power supply is in the monitor. There was an external power supply available in combination with a TV output box, but from my experience these are quite rare. So if you do get one make sure you get the monitor with it. The monitors are quite good, and are either colour or monochrome. There were three models - the CPC464, CPC664 and CPC6128. The 464 had 64k, a tape drive built in next to the keyboard, and colourful keys. The 664 also had 64k, but it also had the 3" (note - not 3.5") disc drive, and the keys weren't quite so colourful (I think the cursor keys were blue). The 6128 has 128k, the 3" drive, and boring keys - it was the buisiness version. I have a couple of 6128's, but none of the earlier models (yet). They were mostly used as games machines, and were quite good, although there was a very well regarded wordprocessor on them - TasWord, I think it was called. They sold well in Australia and England, as well, or so I gathered, in Germany under a different name. Keep in mind though that if you get a 664 or 6128 the drive probably won't work - the fan belts wore out, and as a result the drive keeps slipping. I'm told that a rubber band (OO, possibly) is a good replacement. Oh, and they're black. :)

28 years, 3 months

Firsts

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

>>> Then there is the "first solid state electronic calc" which I think goes to >>> the Busicom from Japan that employed the first production run of the intel >>> 4000 chip set: the 4001 (2048 bit ROM), 4002 (320 bit RAM), 4003 (10 bit >>> shift register), and the 4004 (4 bit CPU). That chip set was shipped to >>> Busicom in March 1971 according to Michael S. Malone's "The Microprocessor: >>> A Biography" ISBN 0-387-94342-0 Um. What date was the Casio AL1000? For that matter, what date was the AL2000? OK, the AL1000 had nixie tubes in the display, so was not all solid state, but it comes close, I'm sure. (Other people have commented on the HP 9100 and the earlier Busicoms) We've also had some strange definitions of Personal Computer flying around here. One I don't like, but am going to comment on anyway, is the "system, terminal and video circuitry all in one box" definition. I don't think it quite makes it, but personal loyalty compels me to put in a word for the Tektronix 4051. This was announced in November 1975 (I think - have to look this up). I've never seen one but I get the impression the prototype was a Tek graphics terminal with a 6800 development system stuck in the bottom of the case... Anyway, Tek 4051 was intended as single user, one-to-a-desk graphics micro, so I claim it is a "personal computer". And if you're interested in portability, a carrying case was an option you could buy. When did 6800 start shipping anyway? Philip.

28 years, 3 months

The IBM PS/2 model 70 again! -E61

by sinasohn＠ricochet.net

At 03:25 PM 1/7/98 +0000, you wrote: >Which is preferable: Hock the offer to half of that $40 as agreed >on to "whip" for being liar? I can't see him bec he's away for his >doc appt til Friday. $40 imo is a pretty good price for a PS/2 70 lunchbox (if that's what it is). Even with 2/60. I've got 8/60 in mine, and it works okay. Doublespaced, iirc, with Win3.1 loaded. Memory is available, though not always cheap. I don't know much about the motherboard specifics though. >One Mac IIcx - what good about this one? The IIcx is a 68030 (I think!) but doesn't include the onboard video of the similar but slightly later IIci. It was introduced in 1989 at $4669 and discontinued in 1991 at $4699 (according to "The Mac Bathroom Reader".) --------------------------------------------------------------------- O- Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know." Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates San Francisco, California http://www.crl.com/~sinasohn/

28 years, 3 months

Trainers

by ZGE＠aol.com

Does anyone have information on a 4-bit microcomputer called the KX-33B . Back in 1979 , with the purchase of a Pet computer you could have received the kx-33b for free from Ancrona . Also I am looking for information on a programmable digital computer that NRI schools offered during the 70's . The front panel of the unit appeared to have sixteen rows of on\off switches for machine code entry . I am guessing that the kit utilized possibly a couple of 7489's for ram . Also any info on units that had similar 16x4 or 16x8 machine entry would be appreciated . thanks, Frank

28 years, 3 months

Is there some special trick required to boot Fuzzball?

by DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com

I have my 11/23 (The DEQNA isn't in it yet, it has RT-11 v5.04 on it, I kermitted over the distribution, followed the directions in in readme.txt, and did @sysgen. Then I had to go to class. (The 23 is at school) I came back an hour later to the . prompt (No error messages) So, I followed the rest of the directions, put everything on the DU0: (10MB EDSI drive on a QD21) and modifed BOS11 for my config (Commented the QNA driver, added RX02 lines as per the example in some other config), renmaed it to BOS1 and built that. No errors. Put that on the DU0: Now, I do RUN BOS1 and it sits there. Doesn't halt, just sits. It's been sitting 20 minutes, what did I do wrong? Oh, and I fudged, the drive is 120MB. I'm using MM to send mail, so I can't go change it. RT-11 seems to work just fine, btw. I boot from rt11XM normally, but to load fuzzball I did BOOT RT11SJ, then ran it. Not enough memory to do it under XM. Anything else I'm supposed to do? -------

28 years, 3 months

Firsts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<>the latest. I know as the cover of my issue has the last of MITS number <>and a $1300 total and a mailing date in december 1974. <> < What do you mean "the last of MITS numbers and a $1300 total" ? No not quite, it was the first of the line if anything and early on to boot as I had it in my hands by January 15! Last was supposed to be list. < That's my point. The IBM was already being produced at that point and <being delivered shortly thereafter. Altair was still using the prototyp <machine and just starting to sell bags of parts as "kits". Keep in mind the cover of PE was composed and at the printer in in september-october 1974 time frame if not earlier to meet the publication schedule if it was to arrive in my home by mid December 1974!. I should point out that the 8080 by then had been in production about a year at that point. Allison

28 years, 3 months

Paperclip (Was: Re: Free IBM system 36)

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> Speaking of paperclip... I may have found the ROMs for both Paperclip and > Visicalc on the PET computers. Does anyone know what EPROM would fit the > ROM sockets in a PET? I've tried crossing the numbers on the ROMs and > can't learn anything. Does anyone have a schematic of a PET mainboard? 2732 on practically all PETs. Early ones (ROM=6540) had no spare sockets Early ones (ROM=2316) also had no spare sockets, but could take 2716 chips in place of the system ROMs Late ones (Model = 8296) had some sockets that could take 28-pin 2764s, but I think all the spare sockets were 24 pin for 2332 and 2732. HTH Philip.

28 years, 3 months

Free System/36

by Philip.Belben＠powertech.co.uk

> actually, what i meant by the power-user comment was a person who is > not afraid to use a black-and-white command prompt if it can help > him/her do something. So, would a System/36 be good for me? If you don't mind learning OCL (the minicomputer version of JCL) and typing all the // commands at the command line of a text only terminal (probably green rather than black and white :-) ) then yes, give it a go. But first find out what size it is. There were desktops (5364), desk side (5362) and huge monsters (5360) plus some others (odd numbers) (after my time). The 5360 had a version of my favourite diskette drive, but I have spouted at length on this list about this in previous posts... Philip.

28 years, 3 months

Firsts

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<was in full production and delivery while the Altair was still deliverin <incomplete bags of parts and even those were months behind. In fact, mos <Altair "kits" were delivered in installments spread over almost a year. Y <got parts for one section at a time. I DO have that ad handy. I shoul <scan it and post it. As some one that built ans has one... MITS offered the kit of the month as a way to get Altair into the hands of people that couldn't cought up $1000 at the front. I was doing engineering at the time and making a good buck with out marriage so it was doable and I had mine in about 4 weeks after the order (took UPS 10 days to deliver it then!). I may add it arrived on a tuesday and I used my evenings to set up for assembly and that weekend I started soldering and didn't stop till sunday night when first powerup occured. I had a working machine. Three weeks later I would get docs listing some 10-20 mods to make it more reliable! FYI the SN was in the 200 range. Now the much better IMSAI machine was nearly a year later in arrival but was actually better developed and a far more reliable design from the first. It was a marker machine as it also used S100 bus making it the Polymorphic -88 and the SOL-20 amoung the first to use the same bus and the swtp-6800 started the ss50 bus. Back then an open and standardized bus was a advantage to the person that owned the system and they werent locked to one vendors board and the price competition was fierce. By 1978 memory board were denser (8k static vs 4k dynamic) and half the price of the boards from MITS (88-mcd was ~400 for 4k). Allison

28 years, 3 months

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