I've never actually seen one, but they were used on several home microcomputers back in the late 70's/early 80's. Probably trs-80 and apple ][. If my poor memory serves, they were supposed to be somewhat between using a slow but cheap audio cassette, and a fast but expensive floppy drive. I think they ended up being a faster but too expensive and too unreliable option, and thus never really caught on. -Lawrence LeMay

On Tue, 19 Jun 2001, Ernest wrote: I believe that they were first introduced at the third West Coast Computer Faire (the time they held it in LA). They were marketed as a storage peripheral for several different computers, but I think that the only one that they came even close to catching on with was TRS-80, since it was cheaper than buying an expansion interface and a floppy drive. They were somewhat more reliable than the TRS-80 cassette port (which was an almost Write-Only medium) -- Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com PO Box 1236 (510) 558-9366 Berkeley, CA 94701-1236

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On Tue, 19 Jun 2001, Don Maslin wrote: The guy pushing them at their intro told me that "floppy" was because they were intended as an alternative to using a floppy drive on TRS-80, and they were "just as good as a floppy drive". (not true) -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote: I have a very interesting computer based on the 6502 from about 1979 that has a stringy-floppy drive built into the back. It seems like it might have been used as some sort of process control computer, but I'm not sure. I haven't fired it up yet. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Gene Buckle wrote: Sure. The connector on the left side, near the front, which was a pass-through of the expansion port.

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Gene Buckle wrote: THAT was the serial port. The printer port was left rear, around the corner from the floppy port. (both 34 pin) The expansion port was the 40 pin one. 'shoulda come to VCF in 1999. In the last two years, I got rid of several cubic yards of TRS-80 stuff. I HATE moving. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com

--- healyzh(a)aracnet.com wrote: I have a documentation directory from the days when DEC released the right- to-copy to customers for those docs that DEC no longer sold. If someone has one handy, it might be good to scan it... I don't know how long mine would take to find. I don't have the precise langage here, but it said, in effect, if we won't sell it to you, go ahead and copy it. While I wouldn't recommend copying stuff that Mentec sells, I don't think you can get anything out of Compaq these days. For older stuff, say the RT11 v4 docs, I doubt Mentec sells those. If you stick to the previous major versions, and especially stuff published by Digital, not Mentec and/or Compaq, I would expect that it falls under that notice from 15 years ago. Newer stuff is much less likely to be so liberated. -ethan ===== Visit "The Seventh Continent" http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

Jerome Fine replies: A company I helped to modify their distribution of V5.04G (December 1988) of RT-11 to be Y2K compliant could not find their old manuals. When DEC was asked to sell them a copy for V5.04G DOCs, the oldest version available at the time was for V5.05 of RT-11. This was about 4 years ago and occurred just before V5.07 was released. Note that the DOCs for V5.07 of RT-11 are composed of (so I am told) of the V5.06 DOCs plus an (approximately) 1" set of release notes for V5.07 which explain the changes between V5.06 and V5.07 of RT-11. So that would mean that V5.06 DOCs are probably considered (and maybe still V5.05 - although by this time COMPAQ probably no longer has kept any copies and Mentec is also unlikely to have any) the current DOCs and scanning would not be considered acceptable. Now as to the reason for my reply. Four years ago, DEC stated in writing that the company would be allowed to make copies of the V5.04G DOCs for use by the company. So in principle, that letter of reply supports the position that Ethan Dicks mentions about "out of print" DOCs, even and especially for operating systems. I understand that for the hobby distribution of V5.03 of RT-11 which Mentec allows users to run under the Supnik emulator, the user must acquire all information by themselves and I would presume that such acquisition includes not only the BINARY files (which are now available at least two sites) but also a copy of the DOCs since they were DEC only and are now obviously out of print. In any case, I have access to a set of V5.02 DOCs that came with a PRO350 which I will carefully guard and I know where an original DEC set of V5.04G DOCs are located which I hope to eventually obtain. The question is: "Is it worth while to do a scan now of V5.02 (or perhaps even V5.04G) or is it better to wait until V5.06 DOCs are no longer available and do the scan only once?" Don't forget that the RT-11 DOCs are about one foot of double-sided sheets (without the binders - i.e. just the paper - an estimate of 10,000 pages to be scanned?). Of course, since each page is already separated in a loose leaf binder, scanning of standard 8" * 11" sheets might be quite easy when being fed automatically - even if time consuming - and could be placed on a CD once finished. That is almost certain and since DEC gave permission for the V5.04G DOCs to be copied, then V4.00 from 1980 would be even more reasonable to be copied. For RT-11, I suspect that presently means ONLY the present V5.06 DOCs plus the V5.07 release notes. By the way, I understand that there is something in the works that is either from Mentec or Mentec approved re hobby licenses for PDP-11 operating systems. I understand that since it is being done for free, it is taking much longer than expected (it was hoped to be done already), but one aspect that will probably be included is to allow real DEC hardware - at the very least. For RT-11, the allowed versions will probably be extended to at least V5.05, but may not include V5.06, but since I am not directly involved, I will have to wait just like everyone else. I don't know if a ten year rule is being used as an implicit standard, but that may be the case if V5.06 is not allowed, but V5.05 is permitted. If this actually takes place, then the question of DOCs will be much more important since an up-to-date set is almost essential. Hopefully the news will be confirmed by the end of the year - maybe sooner - maybe before COMPAQ sells the Alpha design team. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

Jerome Fine skrev: [big snip of PDP and OS licence issues] Hm, what's this about sellinbg the Alpha team, and why? Have the Compaq executives suffered some kind of massive stroke or have they been free-basing (I think that's the term) on Windows NT discs? -- En ligne avec Thor 2.6a. Kimagure Orange Road inneh?ller v?ldigt mycket ton?rsromantik, extremt mycket ton?rsromantik faktiskt. Men det ?r samtidigt en av de st?rsta klassikerna inom shojo, kanske till och med den absolut st?rsta. - Animanga.nu

Let's have a moment of silence for the Alpha, and for DEC. /me removes hat and bows head. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Hellige" <jhellige(a)earthlink.net> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Monday, June 25, 2001 8:32 PM Subject: Re: BIG haul of DEC docs!