James Carter wrote: Wow, super. Thanks much for sharing. Charlie C.

On 21/06/10 10:44, Andy Holt wrote: It was double-booked with Tony Sale's Colossus Rebuild talk... I went for the Colossus talk because I thought I'd have to be back on the M1 for 4PM (and would thus miss the 'second showing'), and as it turned out Mum wanted to stay longer to look round the museum. It would have been nice if the pamphlet had included a brief biog of the speakers and what they'd be talking about. I'm terrible with names; it took a Google search to remind me who David Ahl was, but if you'd said "editor, Creative Computing magazine"... well. Half of the talks were listed as "In the museum" or "In the mansion"... OK, that says which building they're in, but which room in that building? Ugh. The "Enigma Cinema" wasn't even on the map -- we didn't notice that until we were walking out the gates at 5PM. The leaflet also explained that there would be demonstrations of the Bombe (Enigma key-cracker) machine "in B-block". We were there six hours and didn't manage to find B-block... But as I've said previously -- it was a great show. Nice turnout, no doubt I bumped into a few other classiccmp'ers, but only John Honniball unmasked me... evidently my disguise was too good! :) There were PERQs? Where?! My friend's got one of those... a little too geeky for my taste. Though that said I do have these: "Stand back! I know regular expressions!" (XKCD) "sudo make me a sandwich" (XKCD) "dreaming of androids" (complete with a picture of an electric sheep) "Nikitak Dance" -- a six-legged, white-furred alien critter dancing. <http://www.inhuman-comic.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=2> if you're interested. Only readers of the comic are likely to get the joke, and even then it's really subtle. I go for subtlety... sometimes too subtle :) Got a picture? The Great Oracle (er... Google) doesn't seem to want to play... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

This may well me my last post to the list for many reasons... Of course I did not go to to VCF-UK, and after seeing the photos, etc, I think I meade the right decision. Having looked at many of the photos on flickr, etc, I think you need to distinguish between the stuff which is at BP all the time (the NMoC etc) and the stuff that private collectors brought along specifically for the VCF. Several people have commented on the Colossus rebuild and the talk, for example, but I don't consider that to be specifically part of the VCF. Of the enthusiast displays, it appears most, if not all, were 1980s UK home micros, often running commercial games of the time. Which to me seems like something to attract the general public, not something that a classic ocmputer fanatic would rave over. Were there any minicomputers or workstations brought along by enthusiasts? I suspect the PERQs you mentioned were the ones that were in the NMoC anyway (As an aside, if I had been coming, and if I had had time to prepare it, I might well have brought alon a PERQ 2T4, a machine which is _not_ in the NMoC. Or at least one Philips minicomputer. Or HP calculators from discrete transsitor to 68000). Waht was the fleamarket like? The photos I've seen of it showed (again) 1980s micros selling at what I consider ot be high-ish prices -- certainly more than I would pay for such machines. I used to frequent radio rallies, not to get complete transmitters or receivers, but to find odd bits -- the connector I needed to fit $device, an odd PCB that I knew would fit the machine I was working on (or that contained ICs I needed), things like that. Was there anything like that at the VCF? I saw a girl (OK, female homo sapiens, in her twenties, I guess, what is the acceptable term for that) wearing what I believe is called a 'hoodie' the other day. On the back it said 'I wanted to change the world, but they wouldn't give me the source code' Perhaps fortunately (since i don't really know how to interact with females), I was on an omnibus and she wasn't, so I couldn't ask her about it... I would wear the jumper my late mother knitted for me. There's at least one picture of me wearing it on the net, it has a pattern which is appicable to me (both what I studied and what I enjoy). -tony

I was dissapointed with this. Apparently the organisers had run out of time to organise it, i for one would have bought a boot (trunk) full of stuff. Personally, i think the future of an electronic/electrical flea market is going to be on uncertain legal ground for any organiser in the UK, perhaps there should be unofficial ones, that way the organiser isn't responsable. rog

On 21/06/10 22:25, Roger Pugh wrote: There's always the option of cutting the plug off. Then put a sign on the wall like this: ALL items on this stand are sold as ORNAMENTAL and NON WORKING. Electronic products are SOLD AS NON-FUNCTIONAL. All equipment purchased should be safety tested and examined by a qualified person. ALL SALES FINAL, ITEMS SOLD AS-IS. That makes it pretty clear what the intentions of the sale are... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> writes: This is essentially the wording that the university I work at uses for surplus equipment sales; have the buyer sign it and pay a nominal amount, and the university's legal team is happy. (The nomimal price is usually a penny, but the bidding got up to significantly higher amounts when the Solaris workstations that some of us had become quite attached to were sold off... everybody wanted "their" machine to take home!) With regard to the hard disk fixed with sticky tape later in the thread: a friend gave me a PC a few years ago, and neglected to mention that the motherboard was only held in using Blu-Tak... -- Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>

A phrase involving 'piss ups~ and 'breweries' springs to mind... Mind you, my views on the organisational skills of the people at Bletchley Park/TNMoC are pretty well known... So waht would have happend if (based on the adverts on the website), somebody had turned up wit ha carload of stuff to sell? -tony

On 22 June 2010 00:47, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com>wrote: I would appear to have been binned from the mailing list, it was facebook that mithered me about the festival but too late for me to do anything about it. Things to have taken - KIM1, kit-built NASCOM1, Tangerine Microtan65, Ohio Superboard II, Jupiter ACE, Amiga 1000, unassembled ZX81 kit, original 16K Spectrum etc etc. Oh well. -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

On 22 June 2010 01:51, Philip Pemberton <classiccmp at philpem.me.uk> wrote: It'd have been nice to exercise one of my Domesdays. The fun bit is when a visitor who contributed to the system originally manages to find the stuff they added, that always brings a smile to my face :) It would also have been good to try and get more info on the Domesday machine I have that was originally used to create amongst other things the video content for the discs. It's labelled as coming from the BBC Enterprises: http://www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk/scripts/picshow.php?image=domesday-creator… Any ideas anyone? -- -- adrian/witchy Owner of Binary Dinosaurs, the UK's biggest home computer collection? www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk

Yes, that's waht I gathered from the photos... I see. There are a couple of issues here... Firstly, if I'd donated stuff to TNMoC collection, I would be somewhat unahppy to see it being sold off at high prices. Sendonly, it appears that my earlier comments, the ones I was flamed alive for, have some basis in fact. This does appear to have been a TNMoC event with ethusiasts tacked on. And it does seem to have concentrated on home micros. And while home micros are undobtedly part of vintage computing, they are not the whole story by any means. I am feeling ever happier I saved my money by not attending... Hmmm... Again, I think my comment about it being an event for the general public has some relevance here. If it was a group of enthusiasts getting together to exchange information and machines there would be little problem.. Enthusiasts are going to do the inspections and tests. Enthusiasts are unlikely tro blame others... OK, perhaps I go over the top, I put a 1000V insulation tester on every electrical device that comes in here, new or old. If it's old, I just fix the problem if one exists, realising that an old device is likely to need repairs. If it's new, I would certianly inform the manufacturer of a possible safety hazard, but it's never come to that. I still check though. Yes, that's like the radio rallies I used to attend. All sorts of odd devices, parts, PCBs, computers, radio stuff, valves, and so on . (2) I believe there are companies that will print anything (within reason) on a T-shrit, hoodie, or whatever... I don't see why they'd object to printing one with that on it. Oh no, Something much more hackish than that.. -tony

Close, you've got the right 'game'. It's actually a Gosper glider gun in one of its 30 states :-). It relates both to my love or things hackish and to particle physics (particle physcisists bang particles together and see what happens, life enthusiasts bang gliders togther and see what happens, so in a sense the glider gun is an analogue of a particle acceleerator..) I have wondered for a long time if you could program an I2S iamge processor/displayu (the one with the transform sequencer board) to play life. When I figure out how to write microcode for that system (the one thing that's missing from the manuals I have), I will give it a go. -tony

Tony Duell wrote: You shall be missed if it is, just so you know. cheers Jules

I did not attend either but went to my local amateur radio clubs boot sale. I picked up a DEC Multia for ?5.00. It was marked ?10.00 but when the guy selling it said "It's not a PC" I offered ?5.00 and got it! Somebody had added a 2.5" 4Gb IDE drive. It had been installed using one screw and double sided sticky tape! They will take them but there are issues booting from them. I mounted it correctly pending its removal and the installation of a DEC RZ series 1" high SCSI drive. Next job was to remove the battery (4.5V Alkaline) and replace it with three 1.5V Duracell AA's wired in series and insulated with tape. Multias will never boot with a flat battery. It should then be a case of plug in the external DEC SCSI CD drive, boot the ALPHA VMS CD and install VMS7.3 So who had the better day? Me or those who went to BP? Rod -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 21 June 2010 19:15 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: photos from VCF UK etc This may well me my last post to the list for many reasons... Of course I did not go to to VCF-UK, and after seeing the photos, etc, I think I meade the right decision. were items Having looked at many of the photos on flickr, etc, I think you need to distinguish between the stuff which is at BP all the time (the NMoC etc) and the stuff that private collectors brought along specifically for the VCF. Several people have commented on the Colossus rebuild and the talk, for example, but I don't consider that to be specifically part of the VCF. Of the enthusiast displays, it appears most, if not all, were 1980s UK home micros, often running commercial games of the time. Which to me seems like something to attract the general public, not something that a classic ocmputer fanatic would rave over. Were there any minicomputers or workstations brought along by enthusiasts? I suspect the PERQs you mentioned were the ones that were in the NMoC anyway (As an aside, if I had been coming, and if I had had time to prepare it, I might well have brought alon a PERQ 2T4, a machine which is _not_ in the NMoC. Or at least one Philips minicomputer. Or HP calculators from discrete transsitor to 68000). Waht was the fleamarket like? The photos I've seen of it showed (again) 1980s micros selling at what I consider ot be high-ish prices -- certainly more than I would pay for such machines. I used to frequent radio rallies, not to get complete transmitters or receivers, but to find odd bits -- the connector I needed to fit $device, an odd PCB that I knew would fit the machine I was working on (or that contained ICs I needed), things like that. Was there anything like that at the VCF? I saw a girl (OK, female homo sapiens, in her twenties, I guess, what is the acceptable term for that) wearing what I believe is called a 'hoodie' the other day. On the back it said 'I wanted to change the world, but they wouldn't give me the source code' Perhaps fortunately (since i don't really know how to interact with females), I was on an omnibus and she wasn't, so I couldn't ask her about it... I would wear the jumper my late mother knitted for me. There's at least one picture of me wearing it on the net, it has a pattern which is appicable to me (both what I studied and what I enjoy). -tony

Nice!. Reminds meof the time some years ago when I was going round a radio rally and noticed a brown tower case with a monitor next to it. The seller said 'it doesn't run Windows' (which increased my interest...) and pulled one of the borad to show 4 40 pin chips (which I correctly guessed were 2901s or similar). I got the machine for a tenner. Only later did I realise I'd bought a complete Xerox Daybreak :-) Or me, who spent the time investigating an interestign HP serial interface module containing an 8048 microcotnroller and a Z80-SIO serial chip... -tony

Depending on the device, you can replace 'day' with 'month' or even 'year' :-) -tony

On 20 Jun 2010, at 22:32, Andrew Back wrote: \ I noticed an MK14 - I remember having one of those, Not a useful computer, but I went on to a Nascom - were there any there? Richard

We were in the news!!! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10364135.stm On a personal note, never having been to Bletchley park before i was amazed at the level of knowledge the volunteers who work there have and how much they put into maintaing what they have! I was great to see some of the projects people have been working on. I quite fancy an IBM 360 / 30 FPGA board now i know a little about big iron! Roger

On Mon, 2010-06-21 at 14:25 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote: Ah, yes. VCF was its debut. I haven't got a page up yet, but you can see Andrew's photo at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/carrierdetect/4718559358/ Basically, it's a 1000K gate Spartan 3 which contains the microcode store (2k x 55) and 8k x 9 of main memory. Front panel switches are physical rotaries and pushbuttons; blinkenlights are via a VGA display for now. Right now it fails the microcode startup diagnostics with a main memory parity error, probably due to a race condition somewhere (the memory /used/ to work). Once that's sorted, the next step is to get it executing 360 code. Then adding virtual peripherals to the multiplexor and selector channels. Then taking a 2311 DOS/360 image, and booting. Simple! Once I get the diagnostic stuff sorted I'll put an image or the VHDL up for anyone that wants to have a go at programming it into one of the Digilent S3 boards, or perhaps porting it to something similar. -- Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence at ljw.me.uk The IBM 360/30 page http://www.ljw.me.uk/ibm360

On 6/21/10 3:46 PM, Lawrence Wilkinson wrote: (/me faints) Thank you SO much for doing this, and releasing it! I happen to have a Digilent S3. I'll dig it out and dust it off. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

If you can help Dirk, please respond directly to him. Dirk is in the Netherlands I own a Canon BX-1 and have been looking for manual for years. Can you help with a manual for that kind of machine. I can sell it for a reasonable price now but only with the manual. Thank you for your help. Kind regards, Dirk Amling dirkamling at gmail.com

On 21 Jun 2010, at 11:23, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote: Hmmmm. I was hacking Galaxian video games at that time and my employers bought a Nascom 1 for me to use as a 'development platform'. The hardware was quite similar to many of the pub game machines back then. I bought a Nascom 2 soon after they came out and got as far as a hard disk controller and a 5Mb 8" hard disk before getting side-tracked into pimping Macs! Richard