Jim wrote: As far as the suggestion to use Linux or xBSD just to erase the disk before reinstally Windows, it's even easier to do that is with a boot floppy or CD designed for that specific purpose, Darik's Boot and Nuke: http://dban.sourceforge.net/ Eric

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:40:10 -0600, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: Good luck getting *XP* to run on a Vaio. 80% of what's in there requires a proprietary driver that will not, of course, come with your Windows XP disk, and may not be available at all without the original restore CD. I -completely- recommend mirroring that extra partition somewhere, until you have a known good XP install. Vaio's are a symptom of what is wrong with the PC world. Proprietary this, non-standard that, oddly-shaped the other. If you want to call it a PC, make it compatible. If not, call it something else. But, as someone said, "That's the nice thing about standards; there's so many to choose from!" -dhbarr.

And thusly Jim Isbell, W5JAI spake: If you are talking about Sprint cellphones with the Vision service, Linux *does* work quite well - all you need is the right cable. Cheers, Bryan Pope

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:39:30 -0600 Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote: All my Coherent install media is all 5-1/4" HD diskettes. Haven't seen that on a portable in years. The point about IDE drives- I have been thinking of installing Coherent sometime soon. Is larger SCSI media better supported? At this point I am so awash in misc. PC hardware that I can 'cobble together' whatever I'd need to for setting up a Coherent system. Maybe this isn't that on-topic for the list though, and I should just look myself. . .

Oh Pahleeze people.... my joke about banning for talking about Linux, in reference to Linux & FreeBSD, was based on my obvious and well-known preference for FreeBSD over Linux. I apologize if my levity wasn't obvious :) Also, "UNmoderated" doesn't equate to "anything goes". I've said that before. If you want to revise the list charter, feel free to email me. Jay

No, this is NOT a PC support list, it is a general list for computer talk which is what my post is. If you need to be "on topic" go to the cctech list. On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 15:37:43 -0800 (PST), Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote: -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." W5JAI UltraVan #257 CAL - 27 #221

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: What, "Installing XP on Sony" wasn't blatantly off-topic to begin with? ;-D -- 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/

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: That was a bit harsh, considering this is the cctalk list and not the cctech list. Besides, his laptop is 4-5 years old if it only has a 5GB drive, so that's getting closer to on-topic, yes? Just because we use old computers every day doesn't mean we ONLY use old computers every day... -- 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/

Jay West wrote: Playstation? It's a 5-year-old computer, which the user is trying to upgrade an 8-year-old operating system. Was it necessary to jump on him? It's not like he was asking how to overclock his 3.6GHz P4 or something. Geez, I would have thought people would have been *flattered* that someone would specifically ask a question like that in this forum, showing that he values the advice of all of us more than others. I wonder -- would the response have been as unfavorable as if he were asking how to install Linux or FreeBSD? :-/ -- 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/

David H. Barr wrote: Hopefully he won't come back in a few years and gloat how he got a complete Apple Lisa in original box with manuals+media for $20 at a yard sale or something :-) It just seemed a bit hypocritical (not just you, all the harsh replies), especially considering we tackle "new software on old hardware" topics all the time (TCP stack for old micros, etc.) Okay, back to my 8088 assembler optimization... -- 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/

9000 VAX wrote: Hobby project -- trying to improve my previous technology demonstration of color video playback on an IBM Model 5150. Search archives of this list for mentions of it. -- 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/

You wrote... Sorry, brainlock. The hands sometimes finish sentences before the brain catches up! I didn't think I jumped on him. If it was Linux I would have banned him from the list ;) I said it was far off topic, and I still think so. An "OT" prefix would have helped somewhat. But I certainly didn't jump on him about it. Regards, Jay West

Eric Smith wrote: Well linux is still 386+ stuff. Old PC hardware is pre 386+. Ben alias woodelf

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 11:32:45 -0800 (PST), Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote: I don't know about the instruction set (if XP requires Pentium instructions or not), but I'd be surprised if there were any 386s that could be stuffed with enough memory to run XP (or RedHat 9, for that matter). By the time you get to 486s and 64 meg 72-pin SIMMs (yes... I do have machines with them, c. 1995, ex-CompuServe 32-bit nodes, no less), you _can_ stuff enough memory in them to run operating systems from 2005... the question that immediately follows is whether or not ones peripherals have modern drivers (yes... I have run into _that_ recently as well, with *5* year-old hardware, throwing out a *PCI* sound card because it wasn't supported). -ethan

woodelf wrote: 18-year-old 386 machines are too "new" to discuss on this list? -- 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/

On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 09:40:51 -0700 woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote: Almost the only 80386 hardware I still own is a really old full-AT motherboard, built with a few 40 pin 8xxx Intel chips, and otherwise, the same big bunch of TTL gates that are in a lot of old DEC hardware. Your point well taken, though.

Tore S Bekkedal wrote: That's the ELKS project, which promptly went inactive as soon as they got something cobbled together. A much better bet for running *nix on 8088 hardware is Minix. -- 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/

Scott Stevens wrote: NetBSD requires 32-bit math/architecture, and hasn't been ported to 808x as far as I know. So does Linux, which makes the embedded ports interesting. -- 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/

Tony Duell wrote: That said, I *do* want to run some sort of Unix on my PDP-11/73. Probably won't boot it that often, though. Gordon.

Ethan Dicks wrote: Or Amiga UNIX.... I did get Amiga UNIX(R) v2.1 installed from tape and running on an A3000 last week, but the A2500 spits a kernel panic late in the kernel load during install. I didn't have time to do much debugging at all, but the v2.01, v2.03, and v2.1 boot/root floppies died at the same point. It's an interesting SysVR4 implementation, to say the least. :) On a loaded A3000 (16MB ZIP RAM, 2MB chip RAM) it's also surpisingly snappy. Doc

Mark Davidson wrote: It actually wasn't very difficult. Of course, I just happened to have a tape streamer that the installer doesn't hate. The A3000UX had custom v1.4 ROMs and a special Zorro-II framebuffer, but a box-stock A3000 with (I think) 4MB+ and v2.04 ROMs will happily run UNIX. The A3070 tape drive is a firmwared Archive Viper, but my Tandberg TDC 4220 (and by extension probably a TDC 3600), an Archive 2150, and a couple others are known to work. There's also a hacked-up install process available (that just builds filesystems and then blows in all the files with no package management at all) that will install from a spare disk instead of tape. The code is Out There, but like so much else here it's still under copyright, but there's nobody around to license it. And yes, I also have a Turbo Slab, which doesn't suck at all. :) Doc

Ethan Dicks wrote: Hmmm. The pedigree of the install code I'm using is, ummm, "murky" at best. I *think* it's the original v2.1 tape and floppy images, but I wouldn't be lunch that they're pristine. Known-original install images would be verrah nyhze.... I have to say that even the CLI is horrible on a 1084 display. I have to turn the contrast waaayyy down to keep text mode from vibrating. The internal flicker-fixer and a good multisync helps a lot, though. Very, very true. And let's not forget the 19.2MB JPEG background image. ;) Doc

Teo Zenios wrote: Yep! I have a IIci with a DiiMO '030/50 running A/UX, but I do lust for a Workgroup Server. And four more 16MB SIMMs, of course. :) Doc

Cameron Kaiser wrote: Ohhh, kewl! What bootloader are you running? And what do you think of MacMiNT? I looked at it a while back and thought "Eh." Doc

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005, Ethan Dicks wrote: Wasn't it you who posted a link to the install tape image online? At any rate, it's available and online, if you want to try installing it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

----- Original Message ----- From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 11:08 AM Subject: Re: Classic 680x0 UNIX platforms (was Re: Running different OSes onclassic hardware) it. I posted this link http://www.mmhart.com/amix_download.htm#Downloads Back in Sept 2004, its dead now. I hope you grabbed all the files back then since it had the manuals and disk/tape images.

Don't forget the DSP (56001) and custom blitter chip. I think the blitter contributes more to responsive feel than anything else, because it offloads a lot of the screen rendering work from the main cpu, and screen rendering is a major contributor to snappy feel. /~\ 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 Mon, 7 Mar 2005 08:44:41 -0800 (PST), Tom Jennings <tomj at wps.com> wrote: I get asked all the time how to speed up computers. My stock answer is that if you want your computer to go twice as fast, type twice as fast. :-) -ethan

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 13:51:32 -0500, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote: It depends upon why you are collecting, I suppose, and what you are doing with the machines you collect. I tend to collect machines for the fun of figuring out what makes them tick, and you can learn a lot by porting an OS to a new machine. You can also learn a lot by upgrading a machine to the max. You learn boatloads by designing new hardware for an old machine. For example, I'm planning my next "just for fun" project. I've got a Tandy 6000HD (The follow-on to the TRS-80 Model 16B, i.e. a Model 2 chassis with a 68000 board). At one point these were the most common UNIX systems in existence, but now they're fairly hard to find. They run Microsoft Xenix. You can put a whole megabyte of DRAM in them. They have a 15MB HDD and an 8" floppy. There were rumors of an Arcnet card for these things. The development kit is crappy, the editors are worse, and there's no hint of software to be found online for this beast. So what am I going to do? First, build a memory board for the thing. 1MB isn't enough. DIP DRAMS are hard to come by, but I've got a box load of 8MB 72 pin SIMMs. Add a gate array for decoding, and I may have the fattest 6000 on the planet. Of course Tandy Xenix won't support the extra memory, so I'll need to port some other UNIX. There's no memory management hardware, so it'll have to be one of the embedded linices or Minix, I suppose. Just figuring out how to get the 68000 to talk to the Z80 for I/O will be a trick. The next problem would be the hard drive. I suppose that I could build an IDE interface, or I could just get a larger MFM drive.... Then there's building an ethernet card. Does it destroy the 'classicalness'? Maybe. But what's the point of having these things if they're just going to sit in a closet? Eric

----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric J Korpela" <korpela at gmail.com> To: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>; "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org> Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 7:03 PM Subject: Re: Running different OSes on classic hardware (Re: Re installingXP on Sony) You can learn boatloads writing a new OS for a classic machine. Many early mini's had very little software available. Even less of it is 'usable' in a practical sense. What if anything is wrong with developing new software for older systems?

On Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:55:20 +0000 (GMT) ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: I would agree, if it were a matter of _just_ running CP/M or UNIX on a particular machine. However, I feel that one can use a variety of OSes on some hardware, and that it's useful to be capable of running all of them. I have two Macintosh SE/30 systems. One has been 'torqued out' with max memory and drive size, and runs NetBSD. The other one is in stock condition and runs a MacOS version contemporary with what it was designed for. A well-known tool like NetBSD can be a highly useful to run on older hardware. You can use it to 'shake out' the hardware and prove it is operating properly before you struggle to get something you're far less familiar with, i.e. the original OS or other weird and cool things, to run.

True - but that fact doesn't make the other ones any more appropriate for discussion here. /~\ 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

I would have had no trouble with this {original} post if the Subject line had simply been marked [OT]. FYI John A. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim Isbell, W5JAI <jim.isbell at gmail.comTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.orgSent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 8:34 PM Subject: Re: Re installing XP on Sony The laptop is almost 10 years old! On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 18:42:08 -0600, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.orgwrote: cctech http://www.oldskool.org/ http://www.mobygames.com/ http://www.mindcandydvd.com/ -- Jim Isbell "If you are not living on the edge, well then, you are just taking up too much space." W5JAI UltraVan #257 CAL - 27 #221