20 Feb
1998
20 Feb
'98
6:01 a.m.
<No, it's just something about REALLY LARGE frontpanel boxes that rules.
<The KA-10 is plain awesome. It's not only a real good hack, but it's
<the foundation of timesharing and the ARPAnet. I'll probably never see o
<in action, so I'm amassing as much information as I can - maybe it can b
I have and it's more than awesome.
<re-built? Who knows, they used discrete components...
Half the problem is finding one that is complete enough with minimim
peripherals. The peripherals also eat power. just the cpu with a hack
to use modern disks for power and space savings wouldn't be out of line.
As to being discrete, the answer is mostly not completely. It's a
hackable machine.
<Of course, this is WAY out of my league, but if I keep docs around...
You never know.
Allison
21 Feb
21 Feb
8:11 p.m.
<No, it's just something about REALLY LARGE
frontpanel boxes that rules.
<The KA-10 is plain awesome.
Yes, frontpanels do. It is a shame that no computer has had one since the
1970s. There just is no need for them anymore.
What was the last machine to have a switch register and lights? The oldest
I can think of is one of the HP1000s (help me with the model number!).
Half the problem is finding one that is complete
enough with minimim
peripherals. The peripherals also eat power. just the cpu with a hack
to use modern disks for power and space savings wouldn't be out of line.
Has anyone actually captured a KA-10? There has _got_ to be one stuffed
away in a barn somewhere.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
8:15 p.m.
According to the site prep manual, it needs 3-phase. And a few of the
peripherals do, too... (An RP0(3? Or was it 2...) does.
Good luck running it if you get one!
I think Tim said he had a KS-10...
I have a few KL-10 RAM boards and assorted miscelany, but as far as an acutal
CPU I don;t.
-------
22 Feb
22 Feb
12:26 p.m.
I'd say it's not so much a matter of there being "no need for them"
(front panels), so much as the fact that machines are so fast any more
that I'm not sure how much use they'd be, especially with
multi-tasking operating systems. Before the address and data LEDs
stabilized with any useful information, it would be somewhere else.
I'd like to have a front panel on my PC, just for old times sake,
though...
On Sun, 22 Feb 1998 02:11:27 -0500 (EST), william(a)ans.net wrote:
-Bill Richman
bill_r(a)inetnebr.com
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/bill_r
(Home of the COSMAC Elf Simulator!)
<No,
it's just something about REALLY LARGE frontpanel boxes that rules.
<The KA-10 is plain awesome.
Yes, frontpanels do. It is a shame that no computer has had one since the
1970s. There just is no need for them anymore.
8:28 p.m.
On Sun, 22 Feb 1998, Bill Richman wrote:
I'd say it's not so much a matter of there
being "no need for them"
(front panels), so much as the fact that machines are so fast any more
that I'm not sure how much use they'd be, especially with
multi-tasking operating systems. Before the address and data LEDs
stabilized with any useful information, it would be somewhere else.
I'd like to have a front panel on my PC, just for old times sake,
though...
They'd be extremely handy as a diagnostic tool, especially when there's a
problem with a video card or memory, and instead of having to count a
bunch of stupid beeps to determine what the error code is, you can just
read it off the front panel.
Those front panels had value that was overlooked when the modern machines
were ushered in.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
23 Feb
23 Feb
9:37 a.m.
On Sun, 22 Feb 1998 23:28:08 -0800 (PST), you said:
<snip>
They'd be extremely handy as a diagnostic tool,
especially when there's a
problem with a video card or memory, and instead of having to count a
bunch of stupid beeps to determine what the error code is, you can just
read it off the front panel.
Those front panels had value that was overlooked when the modern machines
were ushered in.
I have a 286 by PC's Limited (Dell) with a "Smart VU" panel on the
front. It consists of a red-led section which, as far as I can tell,
shows that the thing is running. It also contains a green-led matrix
which tells what's going; ROM1, ROM2, etc. A:, B:, C:, and then shows
the track# being accessed. It shows mem test count and error messages
too.
Pretty slick and useful, but when I sold one to an older lady for word
processing and genealogy work, she asked what that stuff meant... I
just told her to ignore it.
_______________
Barry Peterson bmpete(a)swbell.net
Husband to Diane, Father to Doug,
Grandfather to Zoe and Tegan.
9641
days inactive
9644
days old
5 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
allisonp＠world.std.com -
bill_r＠inetnebr.com -
bmpete＠swbell.net -
dastar＠wco.com -
DSEAGRAV＠toad.xkl.com -
william＠ans.net