Why would I want a machine based round a hard-to-find microprocessor chip (the 6120) when I can have a more versatile one built from easy to obtain TTL? -tony (looking at a PDP8/e on his desk)

On 7/11/11 4:44 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: Because it's tiny and runs on a battery. And it's cool in its own right. And "real" PDP-8s don't exactly grow on trees. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 7/12/11 3:38 PM, Adrian Stoness wrote: And the world is a better place for it. PDP-8s are great. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

Reminds me of the time I bought my P850. I went to the texi company office (which, luckilly was just round the corner from teh place where I'd bought the P850) and said "I'd like a taxi with a boot large enough to put a mini in, please". The look was priceless... [Note the non-UK people here, a Mini is a model of small-ish car, but still much larger than the boot (trunk) of any normal car] -tony

Ah no, that;s the 'new' Mini. And if you think that's areal mini, you probably also think the the HP Officecalcs are real HP calculators.... The real mini, which first appeared in 1959 IIRC, is a somewhat smaller car. -tony

Is it? I am sure we had a car over here called a 'Mini Cooper' that was based on the original Mini. -tony

On 13/07/2011 21:31, Fred Cisin wrote: Actually Cooper never made Minis. They didn't mass-produce /any/ cars. They /designed/ engines, and the designs were used in certain versions of the Mini. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011, Tony Duell wrote: The REAL Mini, unlike the BMW MAXI-cooper, has 10" wheel rims with 145x10 to 165/70x10 tires (like the Honda N/Z 600s), transverse engine over transaxle, etc. They corner GREAT! With an aftermarket cam, 4 Weber carb barrels (2 DCOE), etc., it can be modified to put out a level of power that is absurd to have in such a vehicle. Watch "The Italian Job" (The REAL original, not the American remake that uses the MAXI-cooper). The original "Italian Job" had a lot of England's best actors, and the most fantastic stunt driving footage of any movie. To get back closer to topic: the movie has a theme of extreme UK V Italy nationalism, with a group of Brits tampering with the traffic control computers to pull off a robbery. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011, Tony Duell wrote: Hmmm. compared in size to the BMW? "maxi-pad" is an American feminine hygiene product Interesting. I've never been in an automatic Mini. Was there enough spare power? Although completely separated from the engine, the original Honda Civics used 10W40 engine oil in their manual transmissions. (a carryover from their motorcycle (including N/Z600s) heritage?)

On 13/07/11 22:55, ben wrote: Only if you don't mind myself and Tony giving you a long and arduous lecture about how WD40 isn't a lubricant (they can call it a lubricant all they like, but that doesn't make it one!) -- Phil. classiccmp at philpem.me.uk http://www.philpem.me.uk/

About the same, I think Not really :-). I've never travelled in one, but a teacher at school had one that I fixed for him at one point (he was a physcis teacher, and couldn't understand some simple bits of th electrics of his Mini. Go figure). I now have the full offical workshop manual for the original Mini (actually the Australian manual, but that's just the English manaul with some bits added). It does cover the automatic transmission in detail -tony

On 7/15/2011 3:27 PM, Gene Buckle wrote: Where does a Paid Physicist fit in the picture?

On Fri, 15 Jul 2011, ben wrote: I think those are Nuclear Physicists. Playing the Bongo drums would be a good side line though. :) g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.simpits.org/geneb - The Me-109F/X Project Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_! Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

One of my friends had a card printed up (this is Leon K) which included the title Physicist. He worked for TRW when they made satellites, and was responsible for balancing the spacecraft loads and as such did real physics. If you need to blame someone for orbiting 400# of sand because a payload was not ready, he specified the mass and shape of the load. We hired him to balance a CIE systems CI-300 printer which was vibrating all over the computer room for CI. The desire was not to just make a heavier stand, but to dampen the vibrations so the printer wouldn't dance around. Our design as submitted worked, but in the end they went with heavy stand, and really sticky (rubber) feet on the stand. there probably are people doing the latter in the UK, though they might not know they are practicing physics. Jim On 7/16/2011 10:43 AM, Tony Duell wrote:

We implemented his work, tested it, paid him for it, and the customer made the choice. His work was not dumped, since we did verify the solution. The customer kept both solutions and implemented the brute force one for all customers. The one who requested that we come up with the balance solution did get the unit and kept it. In a case where only you only make hundreds of pieces, it usually is cheaper to add some sand, than to have to scrap an entire design and do what we did. If they had done the design from scratch, I think the balance design could have won, but you were dealing with a situation where there ware a lot of installations who didn't care about the extra weight issue, etc. They may well have used the solution for other similar situations, but they didn't have to buy anything from us or from our physicist friend. And he was glad to have the assignment. If we had not employed him, the instant case we were trying to solve which involved an installation with a raised floor and other reasons not to want a bunch of ballast added to their print stands was solved. Jim On 7/18/2011 11:06 AM, Tony Duell wrote:

It may sounds crazy, but when I have something rare as a PET and want to keep it WORKING for a long time, I usually change **all** sockets and put sockets on socketless ICs. Of course, with proper dessoldering tool :)

In Brazil, they are! I've never seen a PET in person :(

On Sat, Jul 16, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: I understand your comment about how perception colors what is "common", but between the ECCC/VCFmw show last year in Chicago and my own house, I've seen at least half a dozen PETs owned by several people in the past twelve months, and corresponded with several more PET owners. Doesn't mean they are "common" where you are (who ever "you" is and wherever "you are" is), but I've seen more PETs in the past 10 years than TRS-80s or Apple IIs of the same vintage (i.e., not a CoCo, not a IIe or IIgs, etc). They were popular in educational environments in the US and the UK before the Apple dumped container-loads of Apple IIes on schools in the late 1980s. If you didn't live around one of these school districts, then it's likely that PETs are not common to you. I purchased several from the local University surplus in one lot in the early 1990s (for $10-$15 each, disk drives and printers extra). Location and timing is everything. Clearly the distribution is not even, but for pre-1980 machines, I'd classify them as "common". Not as common as the C-64, but then nothing else is. -ethan

They are rare here in New Zealand but not impossible to find. About the same for any microcomputer made prior to 1981 really. 8080-based machines are REALLY rare (in that I've never seen one or knows anyone who owns one). Terry (Tez)

My gut reaction is that if a socket is in a state where you can't pull th IC and replace it without damaging the socket, then the socket is bad anyway. Ift may be making proper contact now, but I'd not want to trust it. So yes, you may have introduced a fauly and had to replace the sockets, but if you hadn't, the sockets may well ahv given trouble a little later on anyway. -tony

On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 6:46 PM, terry stewart <terry at webweavers.co.nz> wrote: I have a 2001N/3032 that we bought semi-new in the late 1970s (an in-warranty return to the dealer). After all these years, the IEEE interface is a bit flaky, and it appears to be the 40-pin sockets for the VLSI I/O chips. I've replaced 2 sockets, 2 to go. -ethan

That;'s why I said 'simialr mechanically'. Interestingly the Morris 1300 (essentially an 1100 with a larger engine) had air conditioning available as an option. This was unheard-of in the UK at the time (certainly on small cars), and I asusme it was only fitted to export models. No idea if any of them got to the States -tony

On Wednesday 13 July 2011 05:58:13 pm Pete Turnbull wrote: Considering what was around when I started driving, they're ALL small cars these days...! :-( -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

On Wednesday 13 July 2011 02:30:06 pm Tony Duell wrote: I remember my first encounter with one of those, teeny little wheels on a teeny little car. The best part was that the guy who owned it, who'd brought it over then, was about 6 foot 5... He had to unfold himself getting out of that car. :-) -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin

On Tue, Jul 12, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote: I'm sure. I've seen the classic minis in the UK - they are indeed tiny, but _might_ fit in a full-sized American cargo van. My big score was *two* H960 racks, and the PDP-11/34 and RL02 and RX01 and docs and floppies in a VW Microbus. The racks went in from the back and the BA-11s and such were on the floor underneath (no middle seat installed - it's in a cargo configuration). Handled pretty good, too. Much later, I fit a VAX-11/750 into a Chevy Astro Minivan - that was harder because of the stumps of the middle seats hanging up the bottom of the rack. -ethan -ethan

Is there something that takes off-level a Citroen? :o) (I'm crazy for a xantia or XM...)

the new ones has the hydraulic suspension

On Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:18:18 +0100 (BST) ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: DS3 and DS4 seem to be souped up C3 and C4 models. The "Hydractive" hydraulic suspension is not available for these models. C5 (optional) and C6 have Hydractive. But Hydractive is not really comparable to the old DS hydraulic suspension as it is heavily microprocessor controled. -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}

Yes, I am sure there are vans/lorries i nthe UK that can carry a Mini (car), but you don't normally find them on hire from taxi companies :-) Although when I needed to move a PERQ 2T4 for a demonstration at Bristol University, the (very helpful) taxi compnay offered us the vehicle they normally used to carry people in wheelchairs. It hd a low flat flooe and large doors and was idea for fitting a PERQ in... I've often thought a hearse would be a rather useful vehicle ot own. I suspect the bit at hte back designed ot take the coffin would take an H960 rackj on its side. You'd get some odd looks though. Agreed! I have this vision of them all being strung out one after another towed behind the car ;-) -tony

I had some explaining to do, put it that way... The Mini Coopr is, IIRC, a version of the same car with somewhat better performance. Note that I am talking about the origianl Mini, not the modern horror -tony

Nah, it's got far too many microcontrollers in it to be 'a fine automobile'. And the interior styling looks like a toy (seriously). -tony

There is also a clone from china...Looks JUST LIKE a mini cooper. I'll take some photos when I see one around Ah, found some online: http://jalopnik.com/382010/chinese-mini-cooper-clone-revealed-by-lifan-take… http://www.dancewithshadows.com/motor/lifan-320-production-china-2/ http://www.autospies.com/news/MINI-Cooper-Clone-Made-In-China-25609/

On 07/13/2011 04:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote: Probably. But I wasn't comparing it with anything, much less an original Mini. I've never seen a real Mini in the flesh. I grew up going to classic/exotic car shows, was raised by a mother who had several small British cars, and I've STILL never seen a real Mini in the flesh. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

That was aparody of the styling of the original Mini, of course. The first Minis had one central instruemnt, which was a speedometer with a little fuel guage at the bottom (in the unusepad part of the sepedometer scale). Various warning lights also appeared in the middle of the dial. Some later minis had the '3 dial' cluster. This kept the speedomter/fuel guage as, but added a smaller (stnadard accesory instrument size, about 2" in daimeter) instrument on each side. IIRC was was a water temperatur gauge, the othre an oil pressure gauge. The BMW 'Mini' has a large central speedometer, and IIRC air distribution thingies (for the heater) on either side, in rogutly the positions of the other 2 instruemtns on an older Mini. The thing that annyes me a lot more than that is that on moder cars all sorts of parameters are monitored by the electornci engine (and trasmission) management cotnrollers, but you can't display them on any dashboars instrument. My father's modern Skoda certainly monitors inlet vacuum, air temperature, engine oil temperature, transmisison oil temperatuir, various speeds, and so on. You can read this stuff out over th CAN bus with the disgnostic tester, but you can't have it on the dashboard. ARGH! -tony

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011, Tony Duell wrote: In other words, Mr. Bean's car ;-) Christian