Hello,
This is my first post.
Several months ago, I purchased a limited edition (12/50) photographic print
of computer generated sine waves that was executed by Efriam Arazi in 1963.
Arazi is considered to be a pioneer in leading edge computer graphics. I
believe that the work was created by Arazi at MIT. Might anyone within or
without the CCTALK community shed further light onto this work?
Thank you,
Randy
In a message dated 10/23/2008 1:07:33 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
cctalk-request at
classiccmp.org writes:
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of cctalk digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s]
(Tony Duell)
2. Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s]
(Tony Duell)
3. Re: PDP-1 Spacewar! program internals (Lee Courtney (ACM))
4. Re: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8) (Johnny Billquist)
5. Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s] (der Mouse)
6. FS: How To Design Build & Program Your Own Working Computer
System (Steve Robertson)
7. Re: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8) (Ethan Dicks)
8. DDC BUS-65517 1553 card (lanoe)
9. OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth
(Christian Liendo)
10. OT: Atari 2600 w 10 games $400 (Christian Liendo)
11. OT: Here is another Mac IICi $595 (Christian Liendo)
12. Re: OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth
(Zane H. Healy)
13. RE: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8) (Paul_Koning at
Dell.com)
14. Re: OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth (John Floren)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:43:34 +0100 (BST)
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Subject: Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s]
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <m1KsjcH-000J1gC at p850ug1>
Content-Type: text/plain
I give up. I can't figure out how you define "monitor".
Nor can I.
It's clear (I hope) that the thing I use on my workbench with a
raster-scanned CRT and a composite video input is a 'monitor' by any
normal defintiion. It's equally clear to me that the DEC VT100 is not a
monitor, it's a terminal (although it contains a monitor).
But there are plenty of grey areas between them.
Is it a raster-scan CRT? If so, then yes, it doesn't directly do
characters.
Is it a vector-only CRT? If so, then again it doesn't directly do
characters.
Try as I will, I can't think of a _CRT_ that can only be raster scanned
or vector scanned.
Is it a vacuum tube with a phosphor face intended as
an output device
viewed by humans? That would be the definition I would assume
you're using. If
so, then the SAGE displays fit: those are direct view tubes that can display
both vectors and characte
rs, and the character display is a Charactron.
Esactly.
-tony
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:38:39 +0100 (BST)
From: ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell)
Subject: Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s]
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <m1KsjXX-000J12C at p850ug1>
Content-Type: text/plain
vector representation and *that* is sent to the
monitor. Monitors
don't eat characters as input.
Not unless they are a Charactron [...]
...which is not a monitor, so no characters are not sent to monitors.
You can, of course, use words to mean what you like, but it helps if we
all know that definition. So could you please tell us what you mean by
(video) monitor [1], what inputs it may have, and so on.
[1] I put the 'video' in to avoid discussion of monitor programs, and the
like.
And what do you call the HP98780?
-tony
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:26:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Lee Courtney \(ACM\)" <lee_courtney at acm.org>
Subject: Re: PDP-1 Spacewar! program internals
To: classiccmp at
classiccmp.org, "General Discussion: On-Topic and
Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <100541.90698.qm at web35307.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Hi Al,
Very nice interview. Is there an audio of the entire interview available on
the Museum web site, or Youtube?
Lee Courtney
--- On Tue, 10/21/08, Al Kossow <aek at spies.com> wrote:
From: Al Kossow <aek at spies.com>
Subject: PDP-1 Spacewar! program internals
To: classiccmp at
classiccmp.org
Date: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 11:00 AM
Here is part of an oral history I recorded with Steve Russel
last
August which discusses how the Spacewar! program works
internally.
Exerpt of an oral history of Steve Russell
August 2008
CHM Reference Number X4970.2008
(C) 2008 Computer History Museum
Russell: Anyway, the PDP-1 arrived, and Marvin Minsky
wrote the tripos
demonstration, generally called the Minskytron,
and there was the famous weekend
where the mob of undergraduates transcribed the
macro assembler from TX-0 to the
PDP-1, because they didn't like FRAP. And
then fairly quickly thereafter, they
wrote DDT and connected up the macro symbols to
DDT. So that was all sort of in
place by the middle of the fall of 1961. And the
combination of the Minskytron and
having DDT with interactive debugging with
symbols was very tempting. I don't
remember the exact order of things, but I'm
pretty sure I started talking up a better
demonstration program than the Minskytron, and
eventually, Alan Kotok went up
to Maynard and collected the sine and cosine
routines from DECUS, presented
them to me, and said, "Okay, here are the
sine and cosine routines; now what's your
excuse?" And I discovered I had run out of
excuses; I had to actually think. And so
I started work and figured out the basic trick
of Spacewar! display which is that you
only need to calculate a unit vector pointing in
the direction of the spaceship. And
you can express everything else the spaceship
does, and the outline of the spaceship
in terms of that unit vector, suitably scaled.
So it's basically a lot of addition in the
usual program upkeep.
Kossow: Do you want to just give an overview, then, of how
Spacewar! actually
works?
Russell: It's one big loop, and the loop is on the
displayable objects. And I called
them displayable objects, although I didn't
know about object orientation or object-
oriented programming at the time.
Kossow: So you have the sun--
Russell: Colliding objects, not displayable objects. The
colliding object is a space
ship, there are two of those. And that has a lot
of extra data with it. It shares the
position and velocity tables with all of the
torpedoes and explosions that are running
around. So there's just one big loop through
the colliding objects, and it looks at all
the higher-numbered colliding objects to see if
there's a collision, using an octagon
because you don't need to calculate the
square root of anything, you can do that by
work on X difference, Y difference, and X+Y
difference--
Kossow: So the bounding box for the collision detection is
an octagon?
Russell: Yes. So it goes through, it sees if this object is
colliding with any higher-
numbered object. If it is, it replaces the
calculation routines. That's another thing
that every colliding object has, is a
calculation routine. It replaces the calculation
routine with the explosion calculation routine.
And then things take care of
themselves. Then, after it's decided whether
it's an explosion or not, it goes off to
the calculation routine. And the calculation
routine updates the position, since all
colliding objects have velocity; and if it's
a spaceship, it worries about reading the
controls and updating the other things about the
spaceship in deciding whether to
launch a torpedo or not. And if a torpedo needs
to be launched, it searches up the
colliding object table for an empty slot,
indicated by having no calculation routine.
It searches up the table for an empty slot, puts
a torpedo calculation routine there,
and the spaceship position plus the suitable
increments, so it won't run into its
torpedo, and of the velocity of the spaceship
plus an increment for the torpedo, and
it goes on. When that the main loop gets done,
you go off and do some star display
and display the sun, and calculate -- and part
of the spaceship calculation is to
calculate the effect of gravity on the
spaceship. Originally, there wasn't any gravity,
and I had an interpreter, which interpreted the
outline description, and Dan
Edwards, sometime in late 1961 or early 1962,
looked at that code and decided if he
could write a special purpose compiler which
would compile precisely the right
code, and proceeded to. And there's one
compiled outline for each spaceship; each
spaceship actually does half of the spaceship
outline and then you twiddle the
vectors and do the other half. That keeps the
display running just as fast as it can.
That gives time to calculate the effect of
gravity on the two spaceships, but not on
the torpedoes. So we decided that they were
photon torpedoes not affected by
gravity.
Kossow: So when the explosion routine starts, it continues
calculating motion, so
the explosion moves?
Russell: Yes. If you see two spaceships collide, if you
watch closely, you will see
that there are two explosions that continue off
in the direction that the two
spaceships were going. There is another number
in the table for all colliding
objects, which is the size. And this is, roughly
speaking, proportional to the amount
of computing it takes to compute that object.
And at the end of the loop, as you go
through the main loop, you accumulate the sizes
also; and so at the end of the loop,
there's fritter away time loop that attempts
to keep the frame rate approximately
constant. It doesn't do a wonderful job;
it's visually adequate, but God help you
when you try to take a movie of it.
Kossow: One of the complaints with all modern kids trying
to play it now is
that it's TOO SLOW.
Russell: Kids who are used to something like Asteroids seem
to think that. But
when we do the demos, we get a number of people
who seem to be still quite
addicted to it with the old, slow version. Now,
that was always a complaint; the
reason that all the parameters got accumulated
in the first page of the listing, which
says you can put that first page of the listing
of the console, and anyone who wanted
to try a different set of parameters could. But
the ones that were compiled in or
assembled in were the ones that I thought were
good. Now it turns out I'm not a
representative arcade game player, and so my
version of the parameters is slower
and gives more opportunity for marksmanship than
the arcade version.
Kossow: Right, that's the whole thing with gravity and
doing the, what's that called,
where you whip around the sun? Does it have a
name, where you whip around the
sun and you shoot?
Russell: The closest name is the "CBS maneuver"
is what happens when two lazy
experts fight each other, which is they both
turn at right angles to the sun, and fire
for 3.5 or 4 seconds, so they're now in
stable orbits, and they know it. And then they
turn at each other and start trying to place
torpedoes where they think the other one
is going to be. And so the trails turn into an
eye around the sun, and CBS used that
as a logo, so it got called the "CBS
maneuver". You can-- one of the spaceships can
go the other way around the sun, so that both
ships meet on the same side of the
sun. But that seems usually to have less chance
of winning. Not much less, but
somewhat less.
Kossow: It's better that you stay on opposite sides,
then?
Russell: Yes.
Kossow: And then at some point, you added hyperspace?
Russell: Yes, and we realized that that was going-- I
don't remember whether we
actually had it. I may have had it for a little
while with no limit, but it became very
clear that someone who didn't understand
could use hyperspace to escape their
proper justice forever, and so we added the
unreliability of hyperfield generators
very quickly. One thing that Asteroids and the
arcade versions, the later arcade
versions of Spacewar! added, which actually was
a big help, especially with their
high acceleration rates, was "training
mode" where space was actually viscous. So
if you got your ship accelerated so that it was
going across the screen so fast you
couldn't understand what was going on, if
you took your hands off, the situation
would gradually become understandable. I
don't think I would have been persuaded
to do that in the original Spacewar! because it
was unrealistic. But it definitely
made it easier to learn.
Kossow: So are there any other favorite anecdotes about
Spacewar!, or just the
spread of Spacewar!?
Russell: Well, the "imitation is the sincerest form
of flattery"-- many people saw
Spacewar! as, some people ask for copies of the
source, and of course we gave them
out because we very briefly considered trying to
sell Spacewar!. We realized the
only possible customer was Digital Equipment,
and we also, on a little reflection,
that they were too cheap to do it. So we gave it
out to anyone who wanted it, and
some people got the listing and thought about
it, and by reading it-- a lot of people
simply saw the game and had a computer that
wasn't the PDP-1 but did have a
display, and implemented Spacewar! their own
way. I suspect most of them figured
out the "basic trick", but I'm not
sure.
Kossow: What "basic trick" were you thinking of?
Russell: That you could do everything based on the
spaceship unit vector. How are
you fixed for the source code for different
implementations of Spacewar!?
Kossow: We have a few. I don't know if we have the
PDP-10 version. We have the
12 version, and I think we have a PDP-7 version.
Russell: I think Bob Saunders wrote the PDP-7 version. I
think one 6 version
simply ran on the PDP-1 simulator. I think there
must have been others, but I don't
know. Something for some history grad student to
pursue. When we were running a
demo for the Yelp event, there was one woman who
had done Spacewar! in turtle
graphics as a high school programming project,
which she wasn't too happy with.
She seemed to like the demo of the original
Spacewar!.
Kossow: So turtle graphics running on a micro or something
like that?
Russell: I didn't quiz her. I didn't have the
opportunity to quiz her further.
Kossow: So she thought this version was better?
Russell: No, she just thought it was nice to see the
original.
Kossow: So she was in her mid-20s?
Russell: 20s or early 30s; probably 20s. The DEC field
service story where the
DEC production people got into the practice of
loading Spacewar! the last thing
before PDP-1 shipped, and field service would
then unpack it, make sure that
nothing horrible had happened, tryed turning on
power, and starting Spacewar!.
And if it worked, they would call the customer
over and say, "See, it works." If it
didn't work, then they'd worry about it.
In the restoration project, we had a little
reflection and we decided that probably if
Spacewar! works, just about everything
works, as far as machine instructions go. It
doesn't guarantee all the I/O gear works,
but it does multiply and divides, and just about
every instruction. So a lot of people
implemented Spacewar! just from knowing that it
existed and having seen it maybe
once.
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:35:21 +0200
From: Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se>
Subject: Re: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8)
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <48FF6459.90408 at softjar.se>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> wrote:
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 07:54:04AM -0400, djg at
pdp8.net wrote:
Does
anyone actually have a copy of the DECnet-8 software
I have disk images which seem to be it.
http://www.pdp8online.com/cgi-bin/htsearch?words=decnet
I will poke around in that tomorrow when our sat rises.
That definitely looks like DECNET/8. Fun!
The first two
are from disks which were labeled decnet 1 and decnet 2
Sounds promising.
After looking all day, I finally found the doc file I recently
discovered (most likely from dbit). It's an ASCII file named
'decnet8.doc', internally designated "AA-5184A-TA", and happens
to briefly reference a couple of other DEC docs, "DEC-08-ORTMA",
and "DEC-8E-HMM3A".
The primary doc file describes programs like TLK and LSN and NIP.
TLK and LSN are a line-at-a-time messaging pair. NIP (Network
Information Program) prints network status and diagnostic information.
At first pass, DECNET/8 appears to support local traffic (process-to-
process or terminal-to-terminal) as well as a variety of interfaces
for node-to-node traffic. One list includes the KL8E, KL8J-A, KL8A,
KL8M, DP8E (interprocessor buffer), and DKC8-A (parallel).
So to amend my previous speculations, DECNET/8 appears to provide a
basic messaging utility and user-written applications, but does not
come with any bundled file transfer capabilities.
That matches my impression as well.
There is a DDCMP implementation in there as well.
I wonder if the TLK and LSN programs are compatible with the ones on RSX.
Someone asked about compatibility between phase III and phase IV, which
Paul Koenig answered.
I have another question, though.
As I've read it, phase III nodes can talk with phase II nodes, just as
phase IV can talk with phase III. But can phase IV talk with phase II?
Since DECNET/8 is phase II, this is somewhat interesting...
I doubt I'll have time to look more into this any time soon, but unless
someone else manage to get this working I definitely will try it sooner
or later.
Could anyone put up the files for convenient access with ftp?
Johnny
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 17:00:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: der Mouse <mouse at Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
Subject: Re: CRT displays [was: computer graphics in the 1950s]
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <200810222130.RAA03919 at Sparkle.Rodents-Montreal.ORG>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Is it a
raster-scan CRT? If [...]
Is it a vector-only CRT? If [...]
Try as I will, I can't think of a _CRT_
that can only be raster
scanned or vector scanned.
Well...one without deflection plates is rather difficult to use as a
vector display, but that's a matter of complicated and unconventional
driving electronics more than a matter of possibility proper. (Or, I
suppose, one could use electrostatic deflection with the deflection
plates outside the vacuum envelope, but that gets interesting in other
ways.)
But, that aside, if you want to use that narrow a definition of CRT,
then no, characters are never sent to any CRT, Charactron or not; it's
all voltage levels. I suppose you could view the voltage levels sent
to a Charactron's pre-mask deflection electrodes as an encoding of a
character; this point of view has some justice to it, since you could
equally well say that a serial line doesn't carry characters, just
voltage waveforms - but in that case you can view the relevant inputs
to any CRT that's displaying a character as an encoding of that
character, so it's really a question of which point of view is most
useful.
But I think we already got an explanation upthread that basically said
it depended on software's view of it, making it more a question of
design intent than anything else, since either "graphics" or
"character" can be pressed into service as the other....
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at
rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:25:45 -0400
From: Steve Robertson <steerex at ccvn.com>
Subject: FS: How To Design Build & Program Your Own Working Computer
System
To: cctech at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <1224721545.17212.5.camel at bart>
Content-Type: text/plain
Thinning my collection of collectible books.
If anyone is interested, make an offer for Tab Books: "How To Design
Build & Program Your Own Working Computer System" by Robert P. Haviland
Pub. 1979 . 308 ppg. This is a complete how-to for the SC/MP
microprocessor.
Reply to me directly. Postage will be from Western North Carolina.
--
Steve Robertson
steerex [at] ccvn [dot] com
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:40:59 +0000
From: Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov>
Subject: Re: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8)
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20081023074059.GA7597 at usap.gov>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 07:35:21PM +0200, Johnny Billquist wrote:
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> wrote:
I will poke around in that tomorrow when our sat rises.
That definitely looks like DECNET/8. Fun!
Yep... I dug around today and it looks good.
I wonder if the TLK and LSN programs are compatible
with the ones on RSX.
There's a comment in TLK.PA about a change made in 1976 to add "PDP11
COMPATIBILITY", so I think it's possible.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 23-Oct-2008 at 07:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -53.5 F (-47.5 C) Windchill -86.9 F (-66.0 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 12.1 kts Grid 21 Barometer 676.2 mb (10772
ft)
Ethan.Dicks at
usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:51:11 +0200
From: "lanoe" <lanoevr41 at aol.com>
Subject: DDC BUS-65517 1553 card
To: <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <KCEOKINBOMNOIPEFMILBAEGACGAA.lanoevr41 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi Wouter,
I have seen on an internet site that a few yeras ago you were
discussing about BUS-65517 1553 card. I'm currently looking fo one o this PC
board, do you have any information about the procurement of this PCB please,
DDC is no longer proposing this reference.
Thanks by advance
Best ragrds
P. LANOE
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:08:32 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christian Liendo <christian_liendo at yahoo.com>
Subject: OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <190818.54386.qm at web110501.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I find stuff like this funny
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tag/889529620.html
Video Game Collectors Sale - $1 (New York, NY)
Reply to: sale-889529620 at
craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-22, 5:29PM EDT
$200 Atari 2600 Video Computer System with varies games(Pac-Man, Missle
Command, etc.)
$150 Nintendo Entertainment System with varies games(Top Gun, Bases Loaded,
etc.)
$100 Commodore VIC-20 Computer
Collectors wanting to own a piece of video game history. All original
packaging and box. Systems still works.
Local delivery available
Ethan, 917-334-8123
Location: New York, NY
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:10:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christian Liendo <christian_liendo at yahoo.com>
Subject: OT: Atari 2600 w 10 games $400
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <605098.29305.qm at web110514.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Some of this stuff is crazy
http://newyork.craigslist.org/brx/clt/881172465.html
Original Atari 2600 with games - $400 (Bronx)
Reply to: sale-881172465 at
craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-16, 3:09AM EDT
Selling an original ATARI 2600 I got in 1982 Atari 2600 with games
about 10-=15 games Including defender, yars revenge, combat,
misslecommand ,break out , asteroids, Frogger, Raidersof the lost ark ,
ET, River Raid, Space Caverns, night driver , original pac man , bezerk
, championsip soccer among some, Have the original Joysticks and paddle
controls. I have had them since 1982 since I was a little boy and now I
am 36 . Serious inquiries only for you old timers who know what I am
talking about. console works perfect and so do the cartirdges. will not
negotiate on this one guys so dont even ask . $400 even no less if not
then I hold on to it a few more Yrs and Get much more $$$$$ i am a
maticulous man keeping my things in perfect conditions. Also have
Nintendo , Super NES and Sega Genesis , Commodore 64 , And many other
items in my day which are mint and flawless. Once again serious
inquieries only NO LESS THAN 400 and you old timers now that is a
bargin !!! Eddie (347) 702-3918
Location: Bronx
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests
PostingID: 881172465
------------------------------
Message: 11
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:12:31 -0700 (PDT)
From: Christian Liendo <christian_liendo at yahoo.com>
Subject: OT: Here is another Mac IICi $595
To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org
Message-ID: <983369.60357.qm at web110511.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
I like where he talks about "Advanced Hardware"
http://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/sys/886217650.html
Apple Macintosh II ci Computer - $595 (East Hills, Long Island)
Reply to: sale-886217650 at
craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-10-20, 11:38AM EDT
A ?Like New? Apple Macintosh II ci Graphics Computer with Color
Monitor, loaded with Hardware and Software. This can be a great
Workstation for development or graphics. This computer has advanced
hardware and software as follows:
Hardware: 330 MB Hard Drive; Network Card; SCSI Card; PLI Infinity
40 Turbo SCSI Drive; three 44 MB SyQuest Cartridges and much more.
Software: System 7.0.1 Operating System; QuarkXpress; Unitron; Norton
Utilities; Alliance Power Tools and much much more.
This is a GREAT BUY!
Please call David or Ehud at: (516)625-3476
Location: East Hills, Long Island
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial
interests
PostingID: 886217650
------------------------------
Message: 12
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:17:57 -0700
From: "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
Subject: Re: OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <p0624081cc52634c644d4(a)[192.168.1.199]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
At 6:08 AM -0700 10/23/08, Christian Liendo wrote:
I've been watching Craigslist the past few months looking for some
camera equipment I'm after. I can typically buy used stuff from a
dealer with some sort of warranty for about the same price people
want, or less. What really gets me is the stuff people are trying to
sell for more than it costs new. The strange thing is, it's
typically on the very high-end expensive stuff you can get a good
deal.
So far I've not purchased anything off Craigslist, as what I'm
looking for hasn't turned up at a price that makes it worth messing
with.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at
aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
|
http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
------------------------------
Message: 13
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:52:05 -0500
From: <Paul_Koning at Dell.com>
Subject: RE: DECNET/8 (was Re: RTS-8)
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID:
<B135486A342E6244AEE1EB13118903BA019CA7F9 at ausx3mpc106.aus.amer.dell.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
I wonder if the TLK and LSN programs are compatible
with the ones on RSX.
FWIW, TLK/LSN exists in RSTS also.
Someone asked about compatibility between phase III
and phase IV, which
Paul Koenig answered.
I have another question, though.
As I've read it, phase III nodes can talk with phase II nodes, just as
phase IV can talk with phase III. But can phase IV talk with phase II?
Since DECNET/8 is phase II, this is somewhat interesting...
I thought the comment was that DECnet/8 is Phase III?
In any case, the question is no. Compatibility is one phase up, so Phase
III understands II, and IV understands III, but IV->II isn't supported. It's
possible that someone did implement that; it wouldn't be all that difficult.
But for example DECnet/E does not. I just checked... the message code for
the Phase II init message is in the definitions file, but it isn't mentioned in
the routing layer code so the state machine for handling that message is
absent.
paul
PS. I noticed that the pdf/dec/DECnet directory on
bitsavers.org has some
Phase II and some Phase III docs (not clearly differentiated -- the 1978 docs
are Phase II, the 1980 ones are Phase III). But there are no Phase IV docs
there. I know they exist elsewhere; having those copied to bitsavers would be
a good thing.
------------------------------
Message: 14
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:26:51 -0400
From: "John Floren" <slawmaster at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: OT:Humor What people think their stuff is worth
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID:
<7d3530220810230826s6935423eh419d888dfaa10f65 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 10:17 AM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
At 6:08 AM -0700 10/23/08, Christian Liendo wrote:
I've been watching Craigslist the past few months looking for some camera
equipment I'm after. I can typically buy used stuff from a dealer with
some
sort of warranty for about the same price people want,
or less. What
really
gets me is the stuff people are trying to sell for
more than it costs new.
The strange thing is, it's typically on the very high-end expensive stuff
you can get a good deal.
So far I've not purchased anything off Craigslist, as what I'm looking for
hasn't turned up at a price that makes it worth messing with.
Zane
Step on any college campus and see all the flyers for used laptops
selling for more than they cost new...
John
--
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
End of cctalk Digest, Vol 62, Issue 49
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