Is there ay other type of dot-matrix printer [1] :-) (sorry, couldn't resist!) [1] OK, bonus points for those who realise that laser printers and inkjet printers are actually dot-matrix units. -tony

Howzbout: the ivy growing up through the recent Castro Valley PDP-11/40 rescue?

At 12:45 PM 5/26/04 -0700, you wrote: Naw. That's common here in Florida. I looked at the pictures and it didn't look like they'd been sitting out more than a couple of months by Florida standards. I ROUTINELY find birds nest, wasp nests, plants, animal dens and other forms of wildlife in anything that's left outside around here. BTW do any of you guys have "dirt-daubers"? They're a wasp and they like to build nests out of mud. They LOVE to find hollow things like tubing (connectors, gun barrels, etc etc) and build a nest in it. First they put in a good solid plug of mud about 2" side the hollow then they lay an egg in it and finally plug up the end of the opening. Their plugs are VERY solid and they they can do the job from start to finish in less than a day. You really have to careful with stuff around here. If you leave a tube such as a brake line open they'll build a plug in it and when you put it back together you'll wonder why the hell it doesn't work! Guns are a real menace. If you shoot one with a nest in the barrel it WILL explode the barrel. It's a fairly common occurance around here. If you have anything with hollow electrical connectors that's been outside for any time you'll often find the hollows filled with hard mud and wasp grubs! Joe

----- Original Message ----- From: "Torquil MacCorkle, III" <torquil(a)chemist.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 3:38 PM Subject: Re: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside a computer? tuesday" while tell some add 30 They can only attach something that was cut off cleanly I believe, having a small part of your finger crushed by the blunt metal case of a computer would not qualify. Still if it was my finger I would have looked for it, would make a cool keychain.

At 01:07 PM 5/26/04 -0700, Fred wrote: I had a customer that did exactly the same thing but she was about 30 years old (and yes, she was blond!) It was an expensive CD and I had to take the drive out and completely apart to get the CD back in one piece. Joe

On Thu, 27 May 2004, Geoffrey Thomas wrote: pressing the eject button on the cupholder?

In the spirit of the thread: Wierdest thing found in an item of electronics: While trying to find a Kodak Retina possibly lost off the back of the truck headed for the dump, I went to said dump and dug around for a while. Vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes plus charcoal fires plus time equals shriveled up raisinlike vacuum tubes. Wierd. Stepping into a new spirit: Wierdest design found in an item of electronics: A 1950's programmable function keypad implemented by placing a 3x4 matrix of switches under Each key. To change the bit patterns sent, a new bank of pins could be loaded under all the keys at once by slipping in a new cardfull of spring loaded pins. The things they had to do before EPROMS. Geesh. John A.

Why would you want to find one of those? It is my opinion, based on dismantling and repairing many cameras, that Kodak have never made a decent camera. Not one! (and yes, I've worked on Retinas, Retinettes, and Retina Reflexes). Presumably the heat of the fire softened the glass and atmospheric pressure caused it to collapse against the vacuum inside. -tony

I don't blame you :-). An example. The Retina Reflex is very similar inside to the Voigtlander Bessamatic. One of the main differences is the exposure meter coupling. On the Voigtlander it's a train of brass gears. On the Kodak it's a loop of string (and you can't install the string with the front assembly in place, you can't install the string without the exposure meter in place, but it would be a lot easier to install the front assemnly before the meter. Hmmm..) You mean IBM did make a decent computer??? (only joking :-)) Yes, OK. And IIRC Graflex are actually part of Kodak, and their stuff isn't too bad (although I prefer my 4 MPPs...) Totally off-topic, but for camera / repairs in the UK, I'll recomend 'The Camera Bellows Company' in Birmingham. They can make just about any bellows, and are not that expensive (around \pounds 50 for a bellows for the MPP 5*4 camera). And they're pleasant to deal with, which counts for a lot! -tony

[Kodak cameras] I've only seen pictures of the Ektra. I'd love to see (or even better to own and dismantle [1]) one. [1] I like to at leat pull the covers on fine machinery and admire the beauty within. I will only consider buying a digital camera when (a) they give a better resolution and noise figure than my existing film cameras (some of which use 5" * 4" sheet film...) and (b) are designed to last as long as said film cameras (many of which are over 50 years old and still going strong). I do have a digital camera, and it's on-topic (as it's well over 10 years old). It's a Datacopy 300, which uses a linear (1 - dimensional) CCD tracked across the image plane with a leadscrew. I also have the interface card for it, for the PERQ of course. One day I must have a go at getting it all working... -tony

Hmmm...if I had to guess, I would say the first digital cameraever sold was the *original* Sony Mavica (circa mid 1980's). I remember reading something about it in an old "Compute!" magazine that I have back home. If I remember correctly, it used a 2.5" (or similar) floppy disk. Your guess is as good as mine as to how you imported images from the camera to a computer (2.5" floppy drive perhaps?). I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it was not color, though.

Museum wants and needs: the Sony ( WE NEED THIS ONE) you mention was the first and then there was something called a zapshot.(we have this one). these both but recorded on weird tiny disks not a direct connection to computer.... the quicktake 100 is the one that is considered first for a commercial production camera that hooks to a pc ( or mac) these quick takes are pretty reasonable it seems. picked up some for the museum and also off site displays. we are of course looking for other early examples for the display too... would be interested in an example with doc on the one mentioned here that used the memory chip with the apple II also need examples of early computing systems, we the addition of the future building more room for old iron! any b-205's , GE 200 systems, IBM 650's or old tab equip like a 402 or 407 avail? on the sci-fi front.... need anything related to Andre Norton. Thanks Ed Sharpe archivist for SMECC Please check our web site at http://www.smecc.org to see other engineering fields, communications and computation stuff we buy, and by all means when in Arizona drop in and see us. address: coury house / smecc 5802 w palmaire ave glendale az 85301 ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Vohs" <netsurfer_x1(a)fastmailbox.net> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2004 3:18 AM Subject: Re: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside years go

dycam? I am lost...in reply to which part of msg? ed! ----- Original Message ----- From: "Vintage Computer Festival" <vcf(a)siconic.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 2004 12:03 PM Subject: Re: **:museum wants and needs re: What's the weirdest thing that you've ever found inside: museum wants and needs was on 100 that seems. Festival ---- http://www.vintage.org mputers ] http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Sat, 29 May 2004, Stan Barr wrote: That would be the Dycam Model 1 I believe. It was apparently the firsy to include the digitizer in the camera itself (as opposed to a host PC doing the digitizing). http://www.digicamhistory.com/1990.html Here's a terrific site on digital camera history. Spend a good many minutes reading through this because you'll learn a lot about digital photography (prepare to be surprised). http://www.digicamhistory.com/ -- 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 ]

John Lawson wrote: I thought was a 1/2 of 16k dynamic ram with Ciarcia's camera, that I read about in BYTE. I thought he had good projects until he came out with his own PC clone, then he went down hill.

On Sat, May 29, 2004 at 11:27:00PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote: I remember the article... I don't know if Steve Ciarcia used a commercially prepared chip or not, but I still have a ceramic/gold-lid 4116 that I peeled the lid off myself and replaced with a slide-cover. I never built mine into a camera body, but I did do a few experiments where I had an Apple II with the cover off and changed how much light fell on the DRAM. I saw that the effect basically worked, but never wrote any software to do image collection/processing. -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 29-May-2004 22:40 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -79.8 F (-62.1 C) Windchill -128 F (-88.90 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 18.7 kts Grid 003 Barometer 665.5 mb (11176. ft) Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html

I think you're right. I remember we borrowed one at school for an open day, 1985-ish. Alas I wasn't allowed to dismantle it to see what was inside, but I remember the images had a 'gap' down the centre, like the ones produced by a DRAM would (that's where the address decoder, etc, are on the chip). Maybe back then, but I am sure these days you can get a junked camcorder for not too much and extract the CCD. -tony

Normally you can get JVC service manuals... All my video cameras have the old-fashioned CRT-based viewfinders, and it's generally easy to see where to feed video into those. Any markings on it at all? -tony

Yes, but the schematics of the finder would be useful if you ever need to repair it. Anyway, \pounds 90 is very expensive for a video service manual. I assume you tried some of the places that advertise in the back pages of Television magazine. I think you'd ahve found one there for under 20 quid. My Handycam is one of the original ones... Record only, and with an optical (not even reflex) viewfinder. Apparently, when you'd recorded whatever on the 8mm tape, you either played it back on a little tabletop recorder/player (I have this), or sent it to Sony, who would copy it to Betamax (what else :-)) for you. Hmmm.. Can you not rebuild the battery pack? Cut it open, replace the cells? To put this on-topic (slightly), that's what I do with HP calculator batteries.. Oh, right... It's got 8 pins, you'vr indtified 2 as ground, and one as the video output. One is not used. That leaves 4. At least one must be a power supply line (maybe identifyable either by having a steady DC voltage on it, or by havine a sizeable (100nF or more) decoupling capacitor on it. HAve you tried probing the unknown connections with a 'scope? Elantec made/make a fair number of those, many of them fixed-gain (including unity gain), and many in 8 pin DIL packages. Have you looked at their databook yet? -tony

*** off topic *** The Retina was a gift and attractive in its moderate mechanical complexity, and found that day BTW.. My prime camera cost me over $200 (1976) and I wouldn't use it out in the wild which was where I was working that summer. Speaking of v."moderate", I agree that Retinas are off topic. I like mechanical cameras and can live with keeping them off the list. Luckily I was away for most of the thread deviation. John A.

going to turn into a hotel for rodents. Just watch out of that cat hair... My mother-in-law has cats and it is AMAZING how much cat hair collects inside her computers. Just awful.

Bwahahaha. =) Got me to laugh before 9am, damn you, hehe. -John Boffemmyer IV At 08:11 PM 5/26/2004, you wrote: ---------------------------------------- Founder, Lead Writer, Tech Analyst and Web Designer Boff-Net Technologies http://boff-net.dhs.org/index.html ---------------------------------------

At 01:21 AM 5/27/04 +0100, you wrote: In Florida we have FREQUENT problems with outdoor electrical outlets. We usually find a line of dead ants or a toasty lizard between the power lines inside the box. I've even seen ants tunnel into underground cables and short them out in the middle of a run. Joe

At 04:05 AM 5/27/04 +0100, you wrote: If you had kids you'd know better than to ask! Joe

1) Dead mouse in a PC that someone gave me to repair for them. They had it in active use in their home. Needless to say the problem was obvious. 2) Opened the back cover of an LA36, and found an omnibus async card in an antistatic bag tucked inside. Jay West --- [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Bob Brown wrote: Party! You should've smoked the resin! They probably smoked the resin! :) -- 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 ]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Mark Firestone wrote: Well of course you don't, pot-head! :) -- 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 ]

They were returned (re-sealed) to the company where the person was employed. We had been unable to locate the person directly.