9 Jan
1999
9 Jan
'99
8:44 a.m.
Hi (from the list owner). :)
Hi yerself.
I usually tell people to stop eventually, though I am
rather lazy about it.
Generally, I come down harder on the poltiical discussions.
I acknowledge that I'm jumping in without the benefit of a lurking period,
and that what I've seen so far may not be statistically significant, but
I'd like to offer a little perspective. I subscribe to a pretty varied
assortment of lists (ranging from old Ramblers to new music), and this is
by far the highest volume, with each digest in the 3000-4500 line range.
This, folks, is a lot of mail. In the case of at least one of the other
lists I subscribe to, the list owner borders on tyrannical in keeping the
discussion on-topic. We like it this way. Otherwise the S/N just drops
off too hard, and the list becomes more burden than useful.
The Altair-price discussions are generally considered
to be on topic,
not just because they deal with classic computers, but because they deal
with changes in the hobby of _collecting_ classic computers. If you've been
looking at prices and available machines for any length of time, you can
probably tell that it just isn't easy to pick up machines that used to be
fairly readily available. (PDP-8's and -11's, for example.)
Understood. Me, I'm interested in the exchange of technical information,
and as I suggested above, it might be argued that the volume and variety
of discussion is going to make the list a less-than-satisfying thing for
people with specific interests.
Might I respectfully suggest that, in the absence of aggressive subject
management by the owner, the list would be better broken into four, say:
classiccmp-historical
classiccmp-technical
classiccmp-overblown_prices_collector_scum_die_die_die
classiccmp-more_about_television_licensing_really
Maybe I should start keeping a list of subjects that
are on-topic by
consensus, and those that are off-topic by consensus.
That's admirably democratic of you, but impossible in practice. It's
really just a job for one individual's discretion, and I have no reason
to not trust yours.
Jonathan
9 Jan
9 Jan
9:06 a.m.
Understood. Me, I'm interested in the exchange of
technical information,
and as I suggested above, it might be argued that the volume and variety
of discussion is going to make the list a less-than-satisfying thing for
people with specific interests.
Many of the people on the list are in the same category. In other words,
the list (which is supposed to be very single-minded) contains a number of
people who actually are single-minded (Tony Duell, Allison Parent, Megan
Gantry, Pete Turnbull, maybe others). This is good! Don't misunderstand
me. It's the way it's supposed to be.
The problem is that I'm not very single-minded. :)
Might I respectfully suggest that, in the absence of
aggressive subject
management by the owner, the list would be better broken into four, say:
That's admirably democratic of you, but impossible
in practice. It's
really just a job for one individual's discretion, and I have no reason
to not trust yours.
I think you're right about it being my job, but I think what you really need
to respectfully suggest is that the owner start owning the list.
We've discussed creating a parallel list for off-topic stuff, which might be
nice but may well backfire. It's a lot simpler just to keep things on topic.
-- Derek
10:52 a.m.
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12:37 p.m.
Many of the
people on the list are in the same category. In other words,
the list (which is supposed to be very single-minded) contains a number of
people who actually are single-minded (Tony Duell, Allison Parent, Megan
Gantry, Pete Turnbull, maybe others). This is good! Don't misunderstand
me. It's the way it's supposed to be.
I don't know what you mean by 'single-minded', but :
If you mean 'am only interested in one type of classic computer', then I
am _NOT_ single-minded. I may go on about PERQs, but that's only because
if I don't, then noone else will ;-). Looking around me I see a couple of
PERQs, an Apple ][, a TRS-80 Model 4, a PDP8/e, a PDP11/44, a couple of
IBM PC-family machines, etc. All of which get used. If you mean 'am only interested in classic
computers (in general), then
again NO. I have other interests (strange as though it may seem). All are
engineering/scientific - electronic design, robotics, clocks, model
engineering, radio, etc, etc. I just don't talk about them here as it's
not the right place to do so.
That's more like what I meant. Perhaps "on-topic" would have been a better
word to use than "single-minded" since that's what it boils down to.
-- Derek
1:10 p.m.
New subject: Sick Sorcerer. Diagnosis, Doctor?
I'm hoping for some insight from the clever people on this list.
I am attempting to bring back up an Exidy Sorcerer disk system. I have a
hundred or so disks for this system, and have just realised that I probably
have everything I actually need for the disk system, too. Cleaning out the
garage, found a twin-floppy drive which I thought had been gutted. But on
internal inspection, it appears to only have had the cable removed.
First question: there are two drives, and each has a set of jumper pins.
The pins are labeled..
DS 0
1
2
3
MX
MS
H M
H C
The top drive, on which the red LED lights when I power the drive, has
jumpers across DS1 and HC. I am guessing that this drive is the second
drive, and that the two jumpers that fell out of the casing belong on the
second drive. That should be, I'm guessing, DS0 and mmmh... HM? Can
anybody enlighten me on this?
Second question: Powering the Sorcerer (I thought I didn't have a monitor,
but the VIDEO IN on my VCR works nicely - it shows up well on my TV) exibits
some strange behaviour. What's trying to come up on screen is "EXIDY
STANDARD MONITOR" and a few lines after that. But it simply stops after the
second or third character. Repeated efforts see it stop in different
places - sometimes you see the whole lot, and it's actually usable for a few
minutes - sometimes you only see a character or two. Out of 100 resets, I'd
say that it actually works on one (ie: 1%) and then only for a short while.
But the strange thing is that, very rarely, it misses a character. So,
something like "EXID STAN". Furthermore, it's quite obvious to me that the
text is being put on the screen in a serial manner (slow enough to see).
And finally, occasionally some of the text changes case (ie: eRROR -
COMMAND NOT FOUND). At first I suspected the RAM, but have carefully
reseated all chips that are socketed, with no effect.
I found a homebrew cartridge for this machine, and when its plugged in, the
wordprocessor it contains appears to work fine - everytime - with no
apparent problems. Sure, I don't know the commands, but it does let me
type, doesn't crash, and doesn't have any visible screen glitches as
described above. For this reason I lean towards giving the machine's RAM a
clean bill of health.
So, the question is, what's wrong with the monitor?
Third question: Assuming I actually get the machine powering up correctly,
and that the drive I have isn't missing some vital component - it will be
time to insert a disk. Can anybody tell me how to actually use a drive with
the Sorcerer system? I'm afraid it's going to be some arcane "GO C800"
or
something like that, from the monitor. I think I might need someone with
documentation!
Any help appreciated.
A
--
adavie(a)mad.scientist.com
visit the Museum of Soviet Calculators at
http://www.comcen.com.au/~adavie/slide/calculator/soviet.html
1:28 p.m.
New subject: Prodigy collectors?
Are there any collectors of net.history who would be interested in trading
something for this: a "founding member" Prodigy notebook (white naugahyde)
from 1988. It looks like it may have belonged to a
lawyer. Every insert
has a "received" date, and there are some notes
about the legal sign-on
agreement and about their name change from TRINTEX to PRODIGY SERVICES.
Original 5.25" floppies included.
I'll hold onto it if nobody finds it fascinating, but if somebody can
demonstrate that they have a fairly comprehensive collection pertaining to
the net or online services, I'll donate this to your museum.
-- Doug
1:54 p.m.
New subject: Sick Sorcerer. Diagnosis, Doctor?
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7:48 p.m.
New subject: Sick Sorcerer. Diagnosis, Doctor?
On Sun, 10 Jan 1999, Andrew Davie wrote:
I am attempting to bring back up an Exidy Sorcerer
disk system. I have a
hundred or so disks for this system, and have just realised that I probably
have everything I actually need for the disk system, too. Cleaning out the
garage, found a twin-floppy drive which I thought had been gutted. But on
internal inspection, it appears to only have had the cable removed.
Oh cool. Is yours the Exidy branded dual-drive system, using full-height
5.25" drives? I have such a cabinet but no drives, and no internbal
circuitry save for an interface in the back. What I'd like to know is
what circuitry populates the front of the chassis where the LEDs used to
be (mine has labels for track read/write and I think track number LED
displays but the circuitry is gone).
But the strange thing is that, very rarely, it misses
a character. So,
something like "EXID STAN". Furthermore, it's quite obvious to me that
the
text is being put on the screen in a serial manner (slow enough to see).
And finally, occasionally some of the text changes case (ie: eRROR -
COMMAND NOT FOUND). At first I suspected the RAM, but have carefully
reseated all chips that are socketed, with no effect.
If the cart works then it sounds like you have bad BASIC ROMs.
I found a homebrew cartridge for this machine, and
when its plugged in, the
wordprocessor it contains appears to work fine - everytime - with no
apparent problems. Sure, I don't know the commands, but it does let me
type, doesn't crash, and doesn't have any visible screen glitches as
described above. For this reason I lean towards giving the machine's RAM a
clean bill of health.
I have this cart too and the commands are printed on the label. I'll try
to a) find mine and b) transcribe the commands.
So, the question is, what's wrong with the
monitor?
Nothing, check the ROMs.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
7:13 p.m.
On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, D. Peschel wrote:
Many of the people on the list are in the same
category. In other words,
the list (which is supposed to be very single-minded) contains a number of
people who actually are single-minded (Tony Duell, Allison Parent, Megan
Gantry, Pete Turnbull, maybe others). This is good! Don't misunderstand
me. It's the way it's supposed to be.
The problem is that I'm not very single-minded. :)
As list maintainer you should be setting the standard for the rest of the
list, and making a good example. Since the charter of the list you
adopted was that of discussing only classic computers (with some leeway)
then you should adhere to that charter.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/27/98]
11:21 a.m.
Might I respectfully suggest that, in the absence of
aggressive subject
management by the owner, the list would be better broken into four, say:
classiccmp-historical
classiccmp-technical
classiccmp-overblown_prices_collector_scum_die_die_die
classiccmp-more_about_television_licensing_really
Why is it every newbie we get wants to split the list? I understand this stuff
might be pretty tedious to wade through on digest, but there's a simple
solution: subscribe to the actual list. Then you can delete by topic, which
I've been doing to all the e-bay discussions, and a number of others that
don't interest me.
If I could ask one thing of our gracious list admin, it would be to require that
all posts to the list are not in HTML. I'd even go so far as to say no
MIME inclusions, even though the mailer I'm using, ELM, handles them fine.
E-mail is a plain text format, and every mailer I've ever seen has some way of
turning off spewing HTML in mail. I can only imagine how unpleasant having
some messages in HTML and some messages with multi-kilobyte MIME inclusions
makes life for people reading the digest. I can at least delete them
unread once I realise what they are without loosing everything else.
The flip side of this is it might be cool if the archive web page had an upload
and download section so people could just say "I uploaded the y2k checker to
the classiccmp web page" instead of including it.
Hmmm. This is starting to sound more and more like a BBS. :)
--
Jim Strickland
jim(a)DIESPAMMERSCUMcalico.litterbox.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vote Meadocrat! Bill and Opus in 2000 - Who ELSE is there?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
7:22 p.m.
Jim Strickland wrote:
Why is it every newbie we get wants to split the list?
I understand this
stuff
might be pretty tedious to wade through on digest, but there's a simple
solution: subscribe to the actual list. Then you can delete by topic, which
Ah, the voice of reason! This is right on target. I can imagine that a
digest of this list would be rough, but it's great if you get each message.
The flip side of this is it might be cool if the
archive web page had an
upload
and download section so people could just say "I uploaded the y2k checker to
the classiccmp web page" instead of including it.
I like this idea, but one question, there is a classiccmp web page again?
I thought it went offline about a year ago.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
9333
days inactive
9334
days old
10 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
adavie＠mad.scientist.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
dpeschel＠u.washington.edu -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jim＠calico.litterbox.com -
jonathan＠canuck.com -
yowza＠yowza.com