As every UK hacker knew in the 1980s, 'you can have SEX with a Dragon, but not with an Apple' (the Dragon has a 6809 CPU, the Apple ][ hjas a 6502, of course). I assume everyone here knows the story that the PDP11 sign extended instruction was called SXT becuase the suits objected to it being called SEX. And the possibly aporcryphal extension that the hackers got their own back in the naming of the Failed UniBus Address Register in the VAX11/780 -- only after manuals had been printed and shipped did the suits realise what FUBAR stood for :-) -tony

I am absolutley sure it was deliberate, it is far too much of a conincidence. The apocryphal part is whether the suits realised what was going on before it was too late, and wheter it was a hacker's reaction to the SXT/SEX PDP11 instruction/ Hmm... :-) Well, there was already POS (PERQ OS or Pascal OS) which not suprisingly ran on PERQs and was a farily nice single-user OS for said machine. I have never heard of anyone calling that piece-of-s***. But that is an apporpirate name for the ruined RSX that runs on the Pro... -tony

Or SQL. "Sequel" is pretentious and unnecessarily adds an extra syllable. It is more obviously "Squeal" or "Sqawl"

On Mon, 2 Aug 2010, Ian King wrote: Sounds well worth getting to know. Does she have a sister? . . . but rarely hear it pronounced "System Query Language", or whatever

That would have been confusing to me. Balls Brothers were a company well-known for embedded video monitors in the 1970s/1980s, including at leat one version of the VT100 video board. So a 'Balls Box' to me would be a VT100 (or something) with a Balls Brothers video board. It was normally 'rustus' among the people I knoew who used it... Getting away from DEC for a moment... I have been known to pronouch 'CRT' as 'Crut'. But oddly, I almost never pronouce LED as 'led'. It's always 'Ell Eee Dee' (or 'Lima Echo Delta' if I am being more silly than normal :-)) -tony

Oh, it's normally 'C - R - T' (3 separate letter names) round here too. But 'Crut' is one way to pronounce it. I don't normally do that, but... Analogure to Digital Converter(ADC) is always 'Aye Dee Cee', but digital to analogue converter (DAC) is pronounced as a word -- 'Dack'. Other ones (at least as I pronounce them)... DACK (Data Acknowledge/DMA Acknowledge) is normally pronounced as a word.. DTACK (Data Transfer Acknoledge -- 6800 bus signal) is 'Dee-Tack' The column address signal CAS/ on a DRAM is always 'CAS-bar' :-) Serial input and Serial out are pronounced as words -- Sin and Sout. Doubtles I will think of many more... -tony

1. I once nearly took a job with them 2. I thought they were called Ball as opposed to Balls. 3. I have several of the Ball VT100 boards referred to but lack a circuit diagram to fix them. It would be a Ball diagram as opposed to a DEC one. 4. No, the circuit is not in any of the DEC VT100 manuals. Regards ? Rod Smallwood -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 02 August 2010 19:45 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Pronouncing acronyms (was Re: DEC acronyms) That would have been confusing to me. Balls Brothers were a company well-known for embedded video monitors in the 1970s/1980s, including at leat one version of the VT100 video board. So a 'Balls Box' to me would be a VT100 (or something) with a Balls Brothers video board. It was normally 'rustus' among the people I knoew who used it... Getting away from DEC for a moment... I have been known to pronouch 'CRT' as 'Crut'. But oddly, I almost never pronouce LED as 'led'. It's always 'Ell Eee Dee' (or 'Lima Echo Delta' if I am being more silly than normal :-)) -tony

Hi Yes I probably could trace the circuit out. But it's always worth asking as you never know who's got what out there. Regards ? Rod Smallwood ? ? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 03 August 2010 20:31 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Pronouncing acronyms (was Re: DEC acronyms) You are probslby right... Hang on a second...I know from your positings here that you are clueful.... And the VT100 video board -- any version -- is pretty simple. So why not trace out the scheamtic. It wouldn't take more than an afternoon... I think all the versions of VT100 video board that I've seen use the same flyback transfoemr (separately mounted on the chssis) which is a great help. Figuring out the windings of the flyback is a pain, becuase they have such a low DC resistnace that the show as a dead short on most ohmmeter. Desodler any low-resistnace compoennts from the PCB (inductoctors, transfofmers, fuses, etc ) before you start, and then start tracing connections with an ohmmeter. You amy find much fo the ciruitry is similar to one of the boards in the manual, which is a help. If I can mange to do machines with a couple of hundred ICs, then I am sure yoy can manage the VT100 video board... -tony

On 04/08/10 19:12, Tony Duell wrote: Don't get me started on customer disservice... A year or so ago I ordered some hardware and had it sent to work (the alternative was to take a week off; the distributor wouldn't give me a firm date for delivery, nor were they willing to let me send a courier down to pick it up). Fast forward to last week when said hardware breaks. Turns out it's got a "lifetime guarantee" handled through the distributor. So I called the distributor and ask for an RMA number, and for the replacement to be sent to my home address (which is the billing address on the original invoice, and also the current billing address they have on file). No other distributor has had a problem with this (it was over a year ago, people move, it's a common problem). Their response? "We can't guarantee that the replacement will be sent to the billing address. You'll need to contact the current occupants at the delivery address and have them forward it to you." "That'll be a little difficult. That's my previous employer's address, and they've moved since then. I'm not even sure the building's still there, the landlord was going to knock it down and rebuild it." "Well, that isn't my problem. I can't help you further, you'll have to negotiate with the current occupants of the building." [ After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I still can't get the CSR to understand the significance of 'the building is a pile of rubble, the courier will just send it back to you' -- if this happens they charge ?45 to whatever credit card they have on file as a "handling charge" ] "Sorry, I don't think we're getting anywhere here, may I speak to your supervisor" "No." "No?" "My supervisor won't take calls from customers. He's too busy." "Do you know when he might be available? Or can I at least have his name and office address so I might send a letter of complaint?" "The address is on our website. I can't give you his name." "OK... is there a department I can address this to?" "Complaints department." "Right, can I just take your name, for my records? Or maybe an employee ID number or something, just so I know who I've been talking to?" "I can't give you that information." "Despite the fact you started the call by giving me your name?" "I may have given you my name, but I'm not going to repeat it. I feel this conversation has gone on long enough, goodbye. *click*" This is the same company whose "resolution" for replacing a faulty PC motherboard was to send me someone else's faulty board, and call it "refurbished". Yes it was nice and clean, but the blown power FETs were a bit of a give-away... Yes, they're on my "naughty list"... though dealing with the fallout entertainment for years to come. [ Is it just me or are computer vendors about as trustworthy as the average used car salesmen? Although in most cases the manufacturers aren't much better... Antec are great, Akasa are reasonable, ASUS are downright evil ] -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

On 05/08/10 21:57, Chuck Guzis wrote: Yes, and apparently you can get just about any electronic component you could want from Shenzhen (or Akihabara for that matter). What narks me off is when companies demand that you pay for an "RMA voucher" -- which is what ASUS do over here. ?50 for the voucher, and you pay the cost of shipping the faulty $DEVICE to Taipei. Bet it really cuts down on the number of RMAs. The annoying part is that ASUS USA will sell spare parts for their laptops (even stuff like motherboards) so you can basically do DIY fixes. ASUS Europe don't even have a phone number (IIRC). Seagate are almost as bad. "Send us the drive, we'll pay return post, but it has to be sent in one of our RMA-Approved Boxes complete with branding".... last time I checked, one of those boxes was ?25 plus VAT and P&P. This and the "F-you" I got when my Barracuda 7200.11 packed in of my $$$ for a VERY LONG time. I did fix the drive, though: with a serial cable and a HOWTO I found in a Google search (I think it was on hddguru). -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

On 05/08/10 22:40, Adrian Graham wrote: That's new. Last time I checked they didn't even have that... Seems they've revamped the "e-shop" and actually added a link to it, but it's as broken as ever: Thank you for visiting ASUS eShop! ASUS eShop is temporarily unavailable as we are currently upgrading our system to further enhance your ASUS online shopping experience. We apologize for any inconvenience . If you have any questions regarding to your order on ASUS eShop United Kingdom site, please email us. I'll wager that they still don't sell laptop parts in the UK / EU... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

But not real poarts, like individual ICs, or even things like swithces and connectors (which are likely to break, and can be easily hand-soldered) I'll bet... Again, I have real service manauls for all my laptops (which are, of course, all on-topic here :-)) with schematics. And many of the parits I can still get (althoguh the ASICs would be fun to get now ;-(). But anyway... Yep, I had that little scam... -tony

On 06/08/10 20:35, arcarlini at iee.org wrote: Maxtor used to do that too -- they called it an "Advance RMA". They'd send the new drive, and you had 30 days after it arrived to send them the old one. If you didn't send it back, they charged your credit card for the RRP of the new drive. You can guess what happened to that policy after the Seagate buyout... -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

I think this rant could run and run... One of my major dislikes is companies who do not reply to queries/complaints .Put it this way, I bought a product some years ago which di not meet the advertised speicifcations (if they say 'built in assembler; then i darn well expect there to be one). I wrote 2 letters, the socond one including IRCs, and enver got a reply. The company? HP (!). I will never buy another new HP product... It's a pity becasue I'd been using their machines for many years until then, and had had excelelnt customer service (not that I needed it very often). As an aside, I've found a lot of lifetime (or exxtended) guarantees are not worth the paper they're printed on. They either depend on having thr thing checked/serviced my the manufacuter (cars often have this one...) or the gurrantee covers parts, but you still have to pay for labour. And they wont give you the bits to fit yourself. Of coruse most of the time they simply inflate the labour charge to cover the cost of the parts... [...] As I said, not worth the hassle. The sooned such companies learn to actually support their customers, the better! I see... I can't disagree with you... That's one reason I stick to older kit. I can fix it myself, not having the hassle of sealing with those sort of lamebrains easily outwiehgts having to track down faults with 'scope and logic analyer myself... -tony

You got it/. It was not too long after the company was ruine by Ms Fiorina... Indeed. I have bene pleasntly suprised by the old manuals you can download for free froom their site. Nothing specifically computer-related. but plenty of interesting manuals on classic test gear. Proper service manuals too. I suspoect the cost of me fixing it myself is a lot less than the ectended guarantee. Might I suggest buying better quality :-).... So far, touch wood, the dishwasher has needed no repairs-- it's on of the last ones made with a motor-and-camshaft timer, so I can fix it properly. The washing machine has needed a notor controller (as luick would have it, it was the microcontrolelr that had failed, and they won't sell just the chip :-(). Yes, I've kept the old one, if anything fails on the replacement other than the microcontroller, I will do component-level repair. YEs, I do have the wiring diagrams, parts lists, exploded views, etc. Fortuately all that goers wrong with the lenses for my cameras is that the grease goes rock-hard in the focussing helical threads (a pain to clean out, but possible), and occasionally oil migrates onto the diaphagm blades and causes them to stick (ditto). No electronics to go wrong, of course... -tony

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/technology/2010/08/marylands_computer_…

Not all of us have a former Naval Communications Research Base to setup our stuff in ;-) Evan Koblentz wrote:

I haven't seen the indoor photos before till now, I think that place is very impressive - I would add it to my list of travels. This is certainly not just a room full of stuff lying around in somebody's garage or living room. Even thought it's a private collection - alot of museums are privately owned - there's no rule that a museum is supposed to be publicly owned. From looking at the photos there, he made a great effort to have machines on display for the public, some mention of historical timeline is shown, including educational material [e.g. using video feeds]. Plus the mention of further exhibits being planned for display. All of which is the intention of a museum. =Dan http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman Evan Koblentz wrote:

On Mon, 2 Aug 2010, William Donzelli wrote: It's illegal there to start up an independent museum??

It is mostly paperwork and legal crap, but actually pretty easy to follow the rules. Basically, the Regents make museums actually follow all the things they teach in Museums 101. -- Will

Not really. Save-the-Whales, Inc. and The-Museum-of-Save-the-Whales., Inc. follow the same tax rules, providing they are both 501c3s. -- Will

Chuck Guzis wrote: Yes, and as long as the museum would be willing to do the paperwork and follow the rules, either of your examples would be able to pass accreditation. Peace... Sridhar

But I will take credit, because it sounds good. -- Will

If you incorporate as a non-profit, basically you have to go thru all the paperwork with the Regents. If you do not follow the rules, they can dissolve the corporation. I suppose there is nothing wrong with calling a personal collection a "museum" in New York, but certainly it would be illegal to be a "museum" (non-profit or other corporation) and not do the whole Regents thing. I think the state has busted people for this. -- Will

On 03.08.2010 05:17, William Donzelli wrote: Ahh...! That discussion rings a bell.... pdp12.org

On 8/6/2010 5:24 PM, Philipp Hachtmann wrote: 1 am PDT in Los Angeles. Just a note, I imagine running power for your mainframe exhibit is easier in the Naval Base than running it in the castle.

I think I;'d prefer a Victorian factory building with the steam engine (anf boiler) and lineshafting still in place :-) Castles, at least the ones I've fisited over here, tend to have narrow stone helical staricases, which would not be easy to get 19" racks up. -tony

Would it? Many analogue instruemnts come/came in 19" rack cases too... -tony

I would suggest you don;t try this with an oscilloscope :-) -tony