Gen-yew-ine Apple LocalTalk "PC Card" M2313/A.

Who would carry those?

I knew I'd have to start from scratch, but this makes the project seem bigger than I'd like it to be :-/

The PC's card does indeed have a Z8530 on the board. But, bizarrely, it also has a Rockwell R65C02. Does this give some hope, possibly, of stealing the low-level code the on-board CPU is using to drive the Z8530 if I could read off the EPROMs? The EPROM socket is labelled 2764 (hopefully it's truthful).

Isn;t it just a connector change? Get the pinouts of the DE9 mac serial port and the mini-DIN 8 and wire up an adapter that links the pins with the same names.

> I'd rather buy it, for two reasons. First, I've never found a female DIN-8 > port for sale (and not for lack of looking) -- that wasn't in something > else, that is. Second, and more importantly, my soldering skills are zero. > I know it's easy for a lot of you, but some of us are terminally all thumbs > at even "simple" soldering tasks. :-)

Yikes! I hope that surgery is not a part of your plans, Cameron!

Because no one in the area had any in stock.

The guy said that there is not much call for 6 pin DIN plugs anymore.. :(

> Someplace, maybe even this list (my brain is that shot from a cold), > mentioned an issue of PC Gamer that had a run down on the 50 best classic > computer games, AND how to get them working etc. Anybody know which issue > that was? A little groups.google.com searching shows it likely isn't either > the the top 50 lists in the last couple years, but I seem to remember it as > recent anyway.

They do this annually, although a lot of the classic games are starting to drop off the list. I'll have to dig through my stack of magazines.

Minimum requirements are the easy part. The hard part is how new of a system breaks the game, with a minefield extending from W3.1 on a P90 to W98 on a PII 233 MMX. Support for games often drops suddenly, so that fairly dopey advances can be problems. Also locating updates from dead companies can be a task too. When a game comes out there may be literally hundreds of decent web pages with tips and information. A year or so later half a dead links, and many pages that do exist are stale (not updated) or hollow (file links are 404s). Kind of strange, with the really old games the problem is finding a working copy, and with the middle aged games its getting the copy to work.

Since when did you need a utility to slow down a computer that was running Windows? <g>

Yes, I do know what the original intent of your remark was...just thought I'd have some fun with it.

I would imagine that older CGA/PCjr type games such as 'Chuck Yeargers AFT' or 'Gato' would likely be a problem on a lot of newer stuff, especially if it required you to boot the disk. The sad thing is, the new P4 CPU's don't impress me as there is no noticable speed increase, and there darned well should be when you're up at a gig and a half clockspeed!

Fresh P4 1.4 as shipped from Dell with NT on it. Not that I think much of Dell's quality anyway, but this machine didn't impress me at all. The CPU even arrived filthy but still sealed in it's box and inner bag.

IIRC, IBM quoted me 6 business day delivery, and gave in 4 calendar days. Twice. I think they knew their stuff.

from a PC maker with painfully low margins? expensive as new SGIs are, I

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Jeff Hellige wrote: I try very hard to do business locally, even at the cost of a few bucks. But Dell, after 2.5 years of doing business with them as a representative of my UT dept, has lost my custom forever. We bought a high-end workstation from Dell contingent on a hard delivery date. The due date came, no box, our sales rep said it was on the burn-in bench and would ship next day. Two days later, no box, our rep wasn't in, his boss checked and said "We are on back-order for your 36G drives" He didn't seem disturbed that the rep had lied to me. When I told him that the order was contingent on a timely delivery, and that I would have expected an email warning me that our order was delayed, he said this: "Mr. Shipley, it _would_ be nice if we could do that. However, we don't have any mechanism in place for that, and you won't find any first-tier OEM that does." Huh?! That was the last piece of business I'll EVER do with Dell. Doc

Dell service sucks donkey cock. Computers: good. Service: very bad.

Dell service sucks donkey cock. Computers: good. Service: very bad. F Dell!

On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Eric Dittman wrote: It would seem the majority of people I confer with have nothing but pain and anguish leading to murderous thoughts when dealing with Dell. F Dell and it's namesake! Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer

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International Man of Intrigue and Danger

* Old computing resources for business and academia at

I wonder why the disparity exists?

No, I've had the miniPCI MODEM replaced as my system was shipped with the Actiontec and I had specified the 3Com, so Dell sent a tech to swap the card. I also had the SXGA+ screen replaced twice. The first screen developed a flicker, so they sent a tech to replace the screen. I didn't the the second screen looked even, so they had a second screen replacement installed. I didn't have to make up any excuse, I just told tech support I was unhappy with the way the LCD looked. Finally, I had a problem with the mouse developing a mind of its own. The keyboard (with built-in eraser-head pointer) was replaced, and when the problem reoccurred they sent a new palmrest (which has the touchpad built-in), which fixed the problem.

Each time the techs arrived the next day, with the replacement part and tools, and the techs (I've had three different techs) all knew what they were doing.

So yes, I've had problems, and yes, Dell did give me outstanding support and service.

So in other words, you were wasting valuable tech support resources for your non-issues while people like me suffered? Thanks!

Oh yeah? Name them.

If it was one crackpot on a Usenet newsgroup ranting about it, I'd ignore it. If it's more than several crackpots, it's a real issue. At best, their product quality and customer service could be considered inconsistent. That's definitely not good.

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Eric Dittman wrote: I already gave heaps of praise to my wonderful Dell Deimnsion PC. I've also had much luck with some of the other Dell hardware I purchased. Despite my inflammatory comments to contrary, I believe overall they make decent hardware. However, this doesn't make up for the fact that: a) their technical support and technical support policies are horrible b) they are seemingly loathe to help the customer out in a crappy situation, even when the customer has purchased service plans c) their quality control is not so good (I base this on the numerous defects in hardware I've bought from them) What!? That's pretty piss poor of whoever this vendor is/was. They couldn't bribe me THAT easily. I'd also demand some money and a trip to Tahiti in return for signing an NDA to keep me quiet. Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer

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International Man of Intrigue and Danger

* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com

What!? That's pretty piss poor of whoever this vendor is/was. They couldn't bribe me THAT easily. I'd also demand some money and a trip to Tahiti in return for signing an NDA to keep me quiet.

I've had a few occasions to deal with Dell over the past year or so. With the exception of _one_ experience, all of them have been bad. The first was with a new laptop. Display failed on the second day; the on site "technical support" guy turned out to be the guy who ran the local hole-in-the-wall computer shop. He arrived, I handed him the machine and he said "I've never seen one of these before". After tightening all of the screws on the case (he was unable to figure out how to get into it) he handed it back to me and said "send it back to Dell". Three weeks and innumerable calls later, I finally told them I was going to ask my credit card issuer for a chargeback -- and the next day a new machine appeared. The hard drive on _that_ failed after 72 hours; it took another two weeks to get a replacement. It's been stable since, but by the time it was all over it took more than two months to get it to that state. The second was with a batch of 1U rack mount servers for a Wall Street client. The front of each machine was divided into four bays, the first three having hot swap drives, the fourth having indicators and switches. One of these arrived with the switch panel shoved so far back into the chassis that it actually popped over the retaining ears that were supposed to make such a thing impossible (the shipping boxes were undamaged and the machines packed like nitro, so this was a manufacturing defect, not a shipping issue). The on-site service tech arrives (a different tech -- these machines were installed in an urban setting) and says "I've never seen one of these before". Apparently that phrase is standard for all Dell field service techs. She proceeds to sit cross-legged on the machine room floor with the machine in her lap while she talks on the phone to Dell for two hours. Eventually she pries the panel out -- and breaks its retaining latch in the process. Turns out that's not a FRU, so we have to exchange the entire machine. Once we get the machine sorted out, we go to rack mount them. Dell, of course, sells rack mount kits, but they only work with Dell racks. Dell sends "adapter" kits, but they only work with two-post racks -- and we're using four post, fully enclosed bays. The customer, who was looking at buying a few thousand Dell machines, eventually drags some senior Dell VP into their offices, and after I recount our experiences with their machines in a conference call (resulting, according to the customer, in the guy gagging on his pizza) he manages to get the right kits beamed down the following day. I dunno. I no longer buy Dell, and more and more of our customers are giving up on Dell as well. The build quality is highly uneven and their tech support is biased towards helping people plug their machines in. It's incredibly frustrating to have people ask if you've recently installed any new programs when your hard drive is throwing nonrecoverable errors and starting to screech. -- Chris Kennedy chris(a)mainecoon.com http://www.mainecoon.com PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97

I will agree with you that these machines were well made, but Dell's quality has gone way down since then. The real bitch with Dell's proprietary supplies are that they use a connector that looks just like the one on ATX spec supplies. If you plug an ATX supply into a dell board, expect fireworks. They use a totally different pinout, and you'll end up with a dead power supply and or board. (I've never done this myself, but I know a few folks who did.) -Toth

Proprietary everything, you mean. I just stripped a client's Dimension P266 today, put the disks & NICs in a new chassis. I had forgoten. In a P-II 266, there was: No AGP - PCI only, although AGP was common & proven then.

70ns parity 72-pin DRAM SIMMs. Twice the price of even the ECC 168-pin SDRAM that was current. And half the speed. The DMA bus was, get this, EISA.

The ever-popular 56K USR Sportster WinModem.

The fabled Dell non-standard PSU, which *looks* standard The fabled Dell non-standard case - which looks like an ATX board should drop right in - NOT!

upgrades only from Dell, they frequently used parts & sub-systems slower than the current technology.

And we should not fail to mention the equally notorious Dell-badged 3Com PCMCIA Combo cards, that were 3Com seconds and fiddled so that only Dell drivers worked. You could buy them here for a while for $10 the handful.

Bah!

Doc

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002 jpero(a)sympatico.ca wrote: Not exactly. The Dell version of that card, modified 3c589 if I remember right, is infamous among the Dell service folks here for losing the "latch" on the dongles. The Dell version used a cheaper PVC compund in the dongles, and the shoulder wore off the catch early. I've not seen that in 3Com originals.

Yup. I have several of those, still under warranty. I'm trying very hard to thrash them.

On Thu, 10 Jan 2002, Doc wrote: Seconds? That's the first time I've seen them called that. From what I remember, they are simply OEM versions of the same cards with their EEPROMS slightly changed.

This would be a real bargain to those of us who don't run windows, are they still available? :)

not work. There are a number of solutions to this kind of problem, the simplest one of all is getting rid of windows and the binary-only drivers. This would be a real bargain to those of us who don't run windows, are they still available? :)

I wonder why the disparity exists? -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

Those who aren't willing or able to pay a few extra dollars for extended warranty may be making a mistake. And it's usually those who yell and curse who get the most attention.

So, G*d D**m, Dell makes an excellent computer. And their F***ing service is the best I have ever seen!

Most people would just trash the bad part and not bother with returning

Okay, let me get this straight. You bought a system without onsite warranty, so when they ask you to send the entire system in to be repaired (which is the usual business practice I've seen from Sony and Compaq, too), you get upset? You then ask to get the replacement part sent to you as an advance replacement and you don't want to give them a credit card number for a deposit (which is the way most vendors handle advance replacement), so you get upset at that, too? I find it entirely reasonable that Dell ask for a credit card number as a deposit to secure the transaction to insure you send the faulty part back. Most people would just trash the bad part and not bother with returning it once they got the good part if there wasn't a financial incentive. It sounds like the problem is in not understanding the warranty and the difference between on-site and mail-in repair coverage. I paid extra for the on-site coverage so I don't have to worry about mailing my system in or providing a credit card number as a deposit on an advance replacement. -- Eric Dittman dittman(a)dittman.net Check out the DEC Enthusiasts Club at http://www.dittman.net/

Well, aside from making lame assumptions about my experience, I don't know what incident you are referring to.

We DID have onsite repair for the desktop. The hard drive was shot. It was dead. Since this hard drive had important data on it, and the last backup was a week prior, we needed to see if we could have the data recovered so we sent it off to a local data recovery house. In the meantime, we asked Dell to send out a tech with a new hard drive. But they wouldn't do so after we explained we'd already sent off the hard drive for data recovery. THEIR stupid tech support procedures were more important than their customer's business operations.

Bullshit. We'd been doing business with Dell for about 6 months by then and had several orders. If they couldn't trust us by that time then screw them. I've never had that kind of treatment from any other hardware vendor.

So you've run a survey and have analyzed the results and have concluded scientifically that this is what "people" would do? Or you're just trying to defend Dell for the sake of nothing else to stick up for today and are coming up with these silly arguments?

It sounds like someone would rather argue for the sake of arguing. I won't doubt you had a good experience. I, on the other hand, and many other people (a not insignificant number), have had terrible experiences with them and that makes the company suspect on a broad level. If you want to be Dell's cheerleader then go ahead and don the mini-skirt and pompoms for them. Rah rah sis boom bah.

From what you've described above, it sounds like your problems with

Those who aren't willing or able to pay a few extra dollars for extended warranty may be making a mistake. And it's usually those who yell and curse who get the most attention.

I am still waiting for the refund. I categorize them as crooks.

P.S. When OS/2 came out, what really impressed me about it was its ability to format a floppy disk and *NOT* slow down every other process running... Oh, and play MS-DOS shoot-em-ups in a window and *STILL* have time for other things... Now XP / 2000 can't even run *simpler* MS-DOS games!

I was amazed by the fact that floppy access on an Amiga does *not* slow the system either. It was merrily copying files around and everything was totally responsive. And this was on a original, ho-hum A500.

The ZModem implementation in the terminal package didn't seem to work very well with the VAX version (which, I believe, was the real thing written by Omen). There seem to be more wrong versions of ZModem out there than right ones. I don't know if it's the fault of lazy authors or of Omen (for not making the spec public, or having weird marketing policies).

from within Telix and I was constantly modifying it to add support

I'm pretty sure that Wintel machines have problems with trying to walk and chew gum at the same time because the low-level routines suck - they block for I/O, because, why would you *need* to do two things at once, anyway? PeeCee floppies will do DMA, but I think the BIOS driver waits for the DMA to complete before twiddling the control lines. The Amiga, OTOH, was designed to keep things rolling; its drivers don't lock up the machine waiting for an I/O to complete.

> >> They do this annually, although a lot of the classic games are starting to > >> drop off the list. I'll have to dig through my stack of magazines.

> >Shouldn't be a big deal to a CC-Member ... just setup a system as > >described on the package and inset the disks :))

> Minimum requirements are the easy part. The hard part is how new of a > system breaks the game, with a minefield extending from W3.1 on a P90 to > W98 on a PII 233 MMX. Support for games often drops suddenly, so that > fairly dopey advances can be problems. Also locating updates from dead > companies can be a task too.

> When a game comes out there may be literally hundreds of decent web pages > with tips and information. A year or so later half a dead links, and many > pages that do exist are stale (not updated) or hollow (file links are 404s).

> Kind of strange, with the really old games the problem is finding a working > copy, and with the middle aged games its getting the copy to work.

There are utilities that slow down your computer. I believe there is even one for Windows.