My issue is the motivation. Palm said they were doing this in order to extend the Treo's marketshare to people who would otherwise bought a WinPhone, but I think all this will do is fraction the Treo market so that neither the PalmOS nor the new WinCE handsets will benefit. I found Windows Mobile very hard to navigate in, even though (and I speak as a Mac bigot, so grain of salt where needed) I did try to give Microsoft a fair shake when I was in the market for a PDA. I found the interface clunky, busy and tried to do too much. The m505 was much simpler to navigate and operate, and I went with Palm. I have seen little improvement in Win Mobile's usability. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Ignorance, always loud in argument. -- Charlie Chan ------------------------

The Imsai 8080 system on the Vintage Computer Marketplace is in the last two hours of bidding, currently at $461.99 (there is a reserve, and of course, I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you that the seller is reasonable). http://marketplace.vintage.org/view.cfm?ad=2014

Terrible! I tried one and the screen is like a satire of miniaturization. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sridhar Ayengar Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 7:01 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PalmOS no more? :( Fred Cisin wrote: I saw one of those when they first came out. How's it in regards to usability as a Palm? Peace... Sridhar

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, John R. Hogerhuis wrote: FOUR icons. but they ARE small. The screen resolution IS adequate (that was s'posedly what delayed it), but the size is tiny. It is pretty much the maximum acceptable size for a watch. A regular stylus works a lot better than the tiny folding one hidden in the band buckle. It has some larger fonts available, and it helps a lot to switch to the largest ones. Before prebyopia, it would have been WONDERFUL! I created a "fiche" font for HPLJ, with 7 by 9 and 9 by 12 pixel characters, and used to use it a LOT to print half a dozen pages on a sheet of paper. Now I can't read it, or even a newspaper without at least +2 diopters. :-( I now use 3.50 reading glasses with the Fossil watch. It'll s'posedly run MOST Palm software. The built-in software is a lot more useful to me than that of the Epson RC-20, which was awkward for me to use because I never adequately learned to read Japanese. But it is a lot harder to program Palm than it was to program the Z80 in the RC-20. The Fossil palm watch is also available with crappier case and band under the Abacus brand name. On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: OF COURSE! Your computers are NOT silly toys???!?? Why do you collect them, if not as silly toys? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

There's a company called PConHand. They made a PDA-wristwatch that debuted at the Jan. 2000 CES in Las Vegas. I was a beta tester. Unlike the current PalmOS watch, this one actually was useful! http://www.pconhand.com/onhandpc.asp The web site liberally uses the word "Palm" but they probably shouldn't... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 5:06 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: OT: Fossil Palm OS 4.1 watch (was: PalmOS no more? :( miniaturization. On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, John R. Hogerhuis wrote: FOUR icons. but they ARE small. The screen resolution IS adequate (that was s'posedly what delayed it), but the size is tiny. It is pretty much the maximum acceptable size for a watch. A regular stylus works a lot better than the tiny folding one hidden in the band buckle. It has some larger fonts available, and it helps a lot to switch to the largest ones. Before prebyopia, it would have been WONDERFUL! I created a "fiche" font for HPLJ, with 7 by 9 and 9 by 12 pixel characters, and used to use it a LOT to print half a dozen pages on a sheet of paper. Now I can't read it, or even a newspaper without at least +2 diopters. :-( I now use 3.50 reading glasses with the Fossil watch. It'll s'posedly run MOST Palm software. The built-in software is a lot more useful to me than that of the Epson RC-20, which was awkward for me to use because I never adequately learned to read Japanese. But it is a lot harder to program Palm than it was to program the Z80 in the RC-20. The Fossil palm watch is also available with crappier case and band under the Abacus brand name. On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: OF COURSE! Your computers are NOT silly toys???!?? Why do you collect them, if not as silly toys? -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

Unfortunately my Sony Clie is reaching the "old worn-out" point. I need to try buying a replacement battery and installing it. I've come to realize that gadgets with batteries that aren't meant to be replaced are a *BAD* idea. Zane

Actually, the Treo 650 does have a removeable battery. But we're going too far off-topic. be sorry to see it go when my Treo 650 arrives. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Sridhar Ayengar Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 6:56 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PalmOS no more? :( Zane H. Healy wrote: >>Against my better judgement, I tried Windows Mobile. Never again. >>I'd rather use an old worn-out piece-of-shit PalmOS machine than a >>WindowsCE machine. > > Unfortunately my Sony Clie is reaching the "old worn-out" point. I > need to try buying a replacement battery and installing it. I've come > to realize that gadgets with batteries that aren't meant to be That's one of the reasons I like my Kyocera 7135 so much. I'll be sorry to see it go when my Treo 650 arrives. Peace... Sridhar

Rumor has it that Jules Richardson may have mentioned these words: At the risk of 1) dragging this weird topic back *on* topic, and 2) pizzing off people by being pro-M$[1] -- M$ has made several useful minimalistic OSs - just look at the Tandy 100/102/200, M$'s HH/OS in the Tandy 600, and other examples out there in classicland... And it's not *all* M$'s fault, either! I feel that XP would be about 1/2 size, if it wasn't for all the dancing dogs & wizards that those of us who can actually run a computer don't need - they put it in there for all the lusers... Granted, M$ hasn't considered OS efficiency in a long, long time... but they used to be able to do quite a bit in 32K or less. Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] and yet, I have a really, *really* sour taste in my mouth after the multi-attempt, multi-hour legal WinXP activation SNAFU I just had earlier today - my first install - and they say it's easier than Linux... Sheesh! -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers zmerch at 30below.com Hi! I am a .signature virus. Copy me into your .signature to join in!

Windows Muntzing. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

Jules Richardson wrote: There's always this: http://internet.ls-la.net/pictures/Windows-Cement.html Peace... Sridhar

Sridhar: I could always sell you my incredibly flawed and limited Palm m130 with partially defective color display (Palm had a recall on them that really didn't give you a working m130 back without paying out the ass for the value of 2 of them... and it would still have the same somewhat flawed display of 50-something thousand colors instead of the proper 64k, amazing what those marketing idiots did). Sorry, had to have a laugh. Also, there used to be a joke/image out there about M$: The next new future: "Windows CE_Me_NT: dumb as a brick and goes about as fast." My younger brother got bored one day and did research on reducing the size of Win98 (he does naughty things like program and reverse engineer when he gets bored). He found that if you remove a good chink of the B.S. in Win98SE, you could have a working graphical OS in the footprint of about 48MB, full installation. Obviously, after he tinkered with the research and all, the drive was immediately blanked entirely for legality sake, etc. Just shows how much garbage there really is in there if the newer XP takes about what- 1GB for fully loaded installation? It probably only truly needs (estimating fairly) about 256MB for something that much more complex and graphical. Final thing: looking online for replacement Palm batteries confirms the poor planning and intent on selling those damned things. $30-40.00 US plus shipping for a replacement m130 battery via 3rd party (Palm doesn't even offer it and their tech-help confirmed that)! For a unit only 3-4 years old, that is about double what the unit goes for used, in good to excellent condition, on ebay. -John At 03:01 PM 9/27/2005, you wrote: -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.344 / Virus Database: 267.11.7/112 - Release Date: 9/26/2005

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, John R. Hogerhuis wrote: As I've stated before, the Psion Series 5 trumps everything: full keyboard, standard memory card slot, touchscreen, backlighting, works on two standard AAs for about 40 hours (normal use, no backlighting), serial port adapter cable, etc. Standard software includes web browser and TCP/IP suite. I was able to find a freeware telnet client and, in combination with my now defunct wireless internet modem, used to be able to read e-mail off my server while driving down the highway (literally). Your Palms are silly toys. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Vintage Computer Festival wrote: My Kyocera 7135 has all the features you listed, except the ability to use AA batteries. And it has high-speed internet access and can act as uplink to a laptop. Peace... Sridhar

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 14:15:50 -0700 (PDT) Vintage Computer Festival <vcf at siconic.com> wrote: to as being Step careful, now. By that criterion, it's time for long technical threads about getting obscure graphics adapters to work under Windows 3.1.

At 6:26 PM -0700 9/28/05, Fred Cisin wrote: I don't know about that, I've seen a couple of systems that might squeak in under the "coolness" rule. One is those really tiny Toshiba palm/lap-tops, the other was a model of IBM desktop. It's got to be a fluke. You know if you make enough of something, a few have to have lasted this long. Another possible answer is that it fell through a time warp :^) Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

Vintage is very simple: it must be architecturally obsolete. Windows 95 isn't. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Teo Zenios Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:51 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :( ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fred Cisin" <cisin at xenosoft.com> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:26 PM Subject: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :( While Windows 3.1 and 95 might not be "cool" these days, I predict it will be in 10 or more years to quite a few people. I have machines dedicated to Windows 3.1 and Win 95 now to run old apps I have (Win 3.11) or to play retro games (Win 95). Every collector has an era of machines they are interested in for various reasons, what is cool to you might not be cool to me. Do people just have issues with mainstream OS's and hardware? If IBM owned the desktop market today with OS/2 would Win 3.1 and 95 be cool to talk about?

William Donzelli wrote: You have a point there. 8-) Peace... Sridhar

No, I don't mean in the sense of whether we like it or not, I mean whether the world still uses the same basic design. So whether we like Windows or not, there's the reality of Microsoft's market share. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Fred Cisin Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 10:02 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: RE: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :( On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, 'Computer Collector Newsletter' wrote: I contend that Windoze95 was obsolete several years before it was released.

... NT does not have "major changes" from 95 et al. It was a ground up rewrite. You could argue that the NT design is greatly influenced by VMS, which Cutler directed, but I doubt that there is any code in it from VMS. What programmer ever existed who did not think he could do it better given the chance to do it again? Name something that isn't. ... Gil A. G. (Gil) Carrick, Director The Museum at CSE Coach - ICPC Programming Team University of Texas at Arlington Department of Computer Science & Engineering Box 19015, 471 S Cooper Street Arlington, TX 76019 817-272-3620 http://www.cse.uta.edu/TheMuseum at CSE/

Fred Cisin wrote: But what choice did we ( users ) have in the matter? The PC was the only affordable while crappy system we had if I remember what systems I got to use in the 80's and 90's. Sadly only this list here still talks about *other* machines. Upgrading your PC does seem to a) What cool neon color your case. b) What USB feature of the day. c) Red Hat is the only other OS for your computer other than M$. Since a lot of people seem to have used better? if not bigger systems what should we be really running?

Well Windows 3.1 IS obsolete on many levels, yet still not "vintage" to people here. ----- Original Message ----- From: "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" <news at computercollector.com> To: "'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'" <cctalk at classiccmp.org> Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 9:57 PM Subject: RE: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :(

More importantly, it's not very interesting, but then it never was! Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, 'Computer Collector Newsletter' wrote: In many respects, "vintage" is in the eye of the beholder. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Hi all, I have 16 30-pin simms left over from various past incarnations of my PCs, and I'm trying to figure out what I've got. I no longer have a motherboard to test them, so I have no idea what is what. Is there any not-to-painless way to figure out what I've got? Joe

On 9/29/2005 at 1:35 AM der Mouse wrote: Take a look at the individual DRAM chips and see if you can figure the size of the SIMM from those--these SIMMs were either 8 or 9 bits wide, BTW. I beliee that most PCs could make use of the added parity bit, while Macs didn't care if it was present. Cheers, Chuck

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Zane H. Healy wrote: And thus we have the dividing line between "vintage" and just simply "obsolete" ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 21:57:36 -0400 "'Computer Collector Newsletter'" <news at computercollector.com> wrote: 95 The Zenith SuperSport 386sx laptop that I am using to explore Assembly Language is thus vintage. I'm running Windows 3.1 without a mouse simply to give me a crude task-switching environment between MASM, my editor, linker, etc. You have to FORCE Windows 3.1 to run in 386 enhanced mode on a machine like the Zenith with only 2M of RAM. I should probably use DesqView instead.

At 11:05 PM -0500 9/28/05, Scott Stevens wrote: 68030 and 68040 based Mac's are still very usable with the right software for Office type apps, or kids apps. However, going surfing on the web pretty much requires modern software. The sad thing is, I have an AlphaStation 500/333 with a puny 96MB RAM, and since it has so little RAM, WinNT runs better on it than OpenVMS or Tru64 :^( Needless to say, it's sitting on a shelf, rather than being used. One of these days I hope to find an affordable 128MB or 256MB RAM kit for it. I bought it from Compaq, and it's the system that taught me to check RAM prices before choosing an older system! It was cheaper to buy a PWS 433au, than to try and get more RAM. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Teo Zenios wrote: It certainly remainds to be seen. Today, we like an old OS because we used it back in the day and now it's basically gone and considered quaint (RT11 for instance). We use others that are old because even though they are old they are still viable (i.e. PC-DOS) or are still evolving (Unix). How viable (or dead) will Win95 be in 10-20 years? And will we feel the same about it as we do with, say, PC-DOS? I doubt it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

At 12:22 PM 9/29/2005, John Allain wrote: It's an interesting flip side to the popular instantiations of Moore's Law, no? When the price of any used computer undergoes five halvings, it's sub-$100 soon enough no matter what the starting price, particularly if it's selling on the surplus market where the price might be based on weight alone. - John

At 01:03 PM 9/29/2005, Vintage Computer Festival wrote: As I'm sure someone else will step forward to argue, "value" is only of a concern for those with warehouses full of computers they hope to sell someday. There's plenty of classic computer owners who love their favorite for baby-duck reasons. Price is set between a buyer and a seller. Value can be personal. - John

I follow Moore's Law all the time in time/value comparisons. I think you have the essence of it. Value follows a neat curve down to the value of scrap, which is the essential 0 point, then rebounds as true collectible, following some other curve altogether. John A.

On 29/09/05, Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: Hmmm. I'm dubious. I'm not aware of any differing editions of Win95 in each individual version. Original Win95 - not 95a, not OSR 2 or 2.1 or 2.5 but the plain release version - *was* very basic by today's standards. No web browser - IE came in the Plus Pack, a paid-for optional extra. No CD key & I'm not aware of 95 doing anything to fingerprint diskettes. Sounds like a standard copy of the 1st version to me, on different media. -- Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Roger Merchberger wrote: Well, it's technically on-topic, so WTF: The first install of W95 I had was a bootleg of their beta on something like 15 3.5" diskettes. In fact...yep, weird, still sitting on my printer desk. It's been there for, gosh, I guess 10 years now :) 13 disks actually. Wow, that brings back bad memories (and I'm not just talking about W95 ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

The 3.5" 720K was more disks than the 3.5" 1.4M. 'Course the 360K 5.25" edition had the most disks.

Scott Stevens wrote: Yeah, but there was much more pleasurable anticipation in the Slackware install. :) IIRC, Slack v3.3 took 54 1.44MB disks. Doc

Roger Merchberger wrote: Indeed - ISTR the numbers being somewhat interchangeable though. One CD key would happily work with a Win95 CD that was shipped with a different key, which always seemed a little pointless. Hmm actually, was it Win95 where the entry of the key was optional and hitting escape just let you skip past it (with all the legal issues that created)? Maybe that was a different bit of MS software with a CD key at around the same time though...

On 29/09/05, Roger Merchberger <zmerch at 30below.com> wrote: Good point, well made! [G] [Casts mind back a decade] I do believe you're right. My apologies. Didn't it take the standard MS 11111-111-11111 code, tho'? Or 11112-111-11111 if the 1st didn't work? That worked on most things. -- Liam Proven ? http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com ? MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508

Eh. Dump the 10 year rule and cut off at 1994. I'm serious. The computer world is not a flat, linear space from 1948 to present. Somewhere after the beginning of the pc/appliance age, computers are qualitatively different. The culture and tech is different too. You could more easily lump the mini and mainframe people together than the mini and pc people. When the computer-user count became in the millions it's simply not the same. At some point post-1990 computers became near-pure commodity. It's like collecting toasters. There are intersting models, but not in the way that say 1960s or even 1970s are -- pretty much ANY computer from the 70s and even 80s is "interesting". Pretty much anything post-MSDOS is deadly dull -- with exceptions of course. Consistency is for machinery. On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, Fred Cisin wrote:

Rumor has it that Tom Jennings may have mentioned these words: Sure, but then my Amiga wouldn't be classic anymore. It was built in '98. Oh, wait, then it still isn't, even *with* the 10-year rule. :-/ OK, then that would rule out Commodore 64 (several million sold) the Tandy Model 100's (several million sold) and even Ataris & Tandy CoCos. We were *well into* millions of users by '84, not '94. But what about the 90's? Seriously - let's look at this: When I joined the list, CoCo 3s weren't technically ontopic yet, as they'd been sold until '92. (Disco'ed in '91, I think I saw one (still in a RS store) in '93. When I joined the list, Macintoshes *still couldn't* multitask; 8-bitters could do that since '81-82 (whenever OS-9 was released). Yet lots of people are still waxing poetic about 68K Macs - I found them udderly[1] pitiful... much less useful for the power available than my NT4 workstation. Granted, I wasn't doing photo editing or typesetting; just the basics. [[ dons flameproof knickers... I'm not saying that Macs sucked, but I was rather disheartened when I finally had access to a Mac, that every other sentence I said started with "whaddya mean it can't..." What it could do, it did very well; but as a general-purpose computing platform, the OS was rather lacking. ]] And *who* gets to choose which exceptions are acceptable? That's the "slippery slope" we must climb, and why these "ten-year-rule" arguments come up every 6 months or so... And yet, it's the human inconsistency that keeps us rehashing the subject ad nauseum... :-/ Laterz, Roger "Merch" Merchberger [1] Not a typo - I rather thought they were "suckin' hind teat" if you catch my drift. ;-) After using OS-9 Level 2, with multiple hardware & software windows, and being able to recalculate a spreadsheet, spellcheck a document and play Rogue (albeit somewhat slowly) at the same time - I really missed that ability when I started working with MacOS. (And yes, to be fair - MS-DOS & it's ilk as well.) -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate." SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein zmerch at 30below.com |

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, John Boffemmyer IV wrote: Hmm, I don't recall anyone ever claiming that PS/2's or Amigas were not classic, let alone being dickish about it. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Scott Stevens wrote: Hmm a Possum powered puter ... no worse than the USB stuff sold. :)

Roger Merchberger wrote: I think you can buy CoCo 3's still. What I want is a REAL OS/9 machine but I never could afford more than a Coco. NOW a SWTP 6809 box with a nice HD would almost be on topic. Also OS/9 (6809) had 3 nice programing languages too - C, Pascal and Basic 09? Too bad 'games' machines are the way they marketed home computers back then. Ben.

Scott Stevens wrote: If I could wire wrap I'd have serveral TTL homebrew computers now. :) Now if I did build a system it would would be os/9 after the homebrew design I working on. 200 SSI LS chips and still counting for the alu. :)

Does anyone remember the 68000 based systems that were described in Radio Electronics in the late 80's? One was simply that - a description, of a project that had been popular in Europe. I guess sort of a set of plans that were developed by someone, and meant as a do it yourself project (or maybe was available in kit form). The other was an actual set of plans in RE, with, IIRC, circuit artwork, and all the rest. You could actually plug a cga card in, as well as other pc cards and whatnot, and of course drives. If anyone has any info/experience with either of these, please comment or e-mail me. I'll try and dig up the specific issues one of these days. --- Blars Blarson <blarson at blars.org> wrote: __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

At 11:13 AM -0400 9/29/05, Roger Merchberger wrote: It's an Amiga 4000, and as such I suspect it is within the 10-year rule, though it does make for an interesting question. Realistically, I don't think anyone will object to you talking about it here. Besides, even though it was "built" in '98, when were the boards manufactured? I thought they were using NOS boards that Commodore made. When you joined the list, Mac's *COULD* multitask (I can't remember if it would have been System 7.5, 7.6, or 8.0), they simply did cooperative multitasking, rather than preemptive multitasking. Furthermore, a 68k Mac was outdated when you joined this list, and Apple was on either it's 2nd or 3rd model of PowerMac. Actually that "lacking" was part of it's beauty, I was always more productive on a classic Mac because of that "lacking". As you might guess, I'm typing this on a Mac (a dual 2Ghz G5 running Mac OS X 10.3.9 to be exact), and I for one long for the days of Mac OS 9. Unfortunately all the new software requires Mac OS X, the only other advantage for me is that it has Unix underneath, so I no longer need both a Mac and a Unix box running at the same time. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

You're saying the Apple G4/G5 are vintage? Get real... -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy Sent: Thursday, September 29, 2005 11:43 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: YATYRD (was: PalmOS no more? :( The problem with dumping the 10 year rule, and putting the cut off at 1994 is that you miss out on some really cool, and classic hardware. Systems that even if they don't meet the 10 year rule fall into the classic category in my mind would be the BeBox (and BeOS itself), any SGI IRIX Workstation, any Alpha capable of running VMS, and any UltraSparc based Sun box. I'd also include any Amiga HW, including the new Mini-ITX boards, and the MorphOS boxes. I'm also inclined to include specific pieces of Apple HW, such as the original G4's running Mac OS 8.6 (yes, they exist) or the original G5 duals. Zane -- -- | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator | | healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast | | | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Tom Jennings wrote: Yeah, but at some point computers from the post-1994 period will be interesting, or in the very least, certain ones. Most everything from Apple post iMac (including the iMac itself) is interesting already. Even boring as shit 286 clones from the mid-1980s are starting to look interesting to me, just because they aren't around anymore, and some designs were actually quite innovative, stuffing a lot of different things onto the motherboard long before I thought this all-in-one integration was taking place, including SCSI controllers even. Yes, people collect those too: http://www.joeyharrison.com/2004/10/toaster-collector-association-held-its.… They even have an association by gawd. Why, I'd gather they're even more organized than those nerds we hear about who collect old computers. And for well prepared oatmeal, which this bowl I am currently eating is not. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Roger Merchberger wrote: Hmm a BIG bag of Oats for feeding your horse is dirt cheap. :) And of course it wants some NON html feature to work. That reminds to pick up a box of crushed grains and rasins for breakfast. :)

Roger Merchberger wrote: Now would be a good time to find a copy of "Mother Earth News". :) I got it a second time here. The first time it got stuck on between a pop-up and 'download flash' box.

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: I don't agree that crap makes something classic, vintage, or worth preserving. Where shall I send the pallet to? -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Scott Stevens wrote: They also happen to describe the charter of this mailing list. Go figure, eh? Sure, but only if the original is worth preserving in the first place. My "time machine" costs me $.80/sqft. I can't afford that for the next 40 years ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Am 29 Sep 2005 20:38 meinte Tony Duell: See, but the remaining 1% is what I realy like. And as tighter the 'Standard' became, as more interesting are the ways designer tried to add something that would make their work worthwhile. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

Am 28 Sep 2005 18:26 meinte Fred Cisin: Which is a good thing, 'cause finaly some cool unique machines that came with 95 can be on topic. Wait a few years. right now, XP still looks tway to much like a spoofed up 95. But when it changes it startes looking old fashioned - like Win 2.x looked orld after 3.1 and 3.x looks today. Also, there are still interesting developments in the PC area, that needs to be documented to make a point thst there was more than the Dell/Taiwan class of computers. The argument, that there was nothing interesting after '90 would for example exclude such intereting machines as the Acorn where. After all, ir comes down as with cars. For a simple perspective, there was no real development and no noteworthy car after 1970, so better just scrap everything made thereafter. Right? Well, it would include to scrap little GEMs like the Dutch Daf cars, a quite interesting development, or even today Smart cars. There has been no real invention on cars since the 1930s. Everything today has been there already before 1930. From electric and hybrid to turbo charged (until short before WW1, electric cas have been the fastest), from manual, electric and semimanual to atomatic transmission, from convertible to station, all already done back then, so no no need to collect any car after 1930. Right? Just get on your beat armor when tryin to tell this to a Ford Edsel owner... Well, ther is a difference to be seen: in vintage cars they have room for different qualifications, and maybe we get there also in a few years. As for example, over here, if a car gets older than 20 years, you may apply for a 'historic' licence plate, giving a tax break, since, while this car might still offer some value and usability in daily life, it's assumed that driving a 20 year old car might realy need dedication :) Now, while this 20 year rule is already fine to draw a first line between 'actual' cars an vintage, most of us will agree that a 1984 Rabbit (VW Golf) isn't exactly a car anyone would considere special. Speaking for myself, I wouldn't have any problem with using it on a stock car race ... or just sell it as scrap metal. Realy, not worth any tear ... but, going 20 years before that, a 1965 VW Beatle does already make me think. After all, the bug was as omnipresent as the Golf later on, and as anoying, and I remember that we crashed more than one during the 1980s, just for the fun of it. But it is, no doubt, a classic car by now. So, coming back to my hope about the future, I think we will eventualy come to similar regulations, where the 10 year rule is just the basic front line that keeps all non cool modern stuff out of the picture, while other lienes will be drawn to separate them even further. I think, like with cars, these lines may be drawn to certain fixed dates, like pre 1975, 1975-1980, 1980-1993 and so on... Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 7.0 am 29/30.April und 01.Mai 2006 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/

Liam Proven wrote: The Kyocera is a PDA and a phone. It runs PalmOS. No, my palmtop has a *keyboard*. It's external, but it has one. And it's full size with full travel and tactile feedback. Folds out. Folds down to the same size as the palmtop. The screen is small, but it's nowhere near "stamp-sized". It's 160x160 3" or thereabouts. I can read it at arm's length without any difficulty. This, it doesn't have. Doesn't really have memory protection. I have *2GB* in it right now. SD card. I sync mine to a PC and a Mac. Works fine on both. Plus mine has an MP3 player with decent sound. Calm down. I never said I didn't like EPOC. I do. I'm just saying my Palm is quite featureful. Peace... Sridhar

On Thu, 29 Sep 2005 01:51:44 +0100 Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: My Tandy Pocket Computer (a PC-8) still has the same battery in it that it did when I bought it used. Granted, I don't hammer away at it extensively, but I've coded in BASIC programs to factor numbrers to their primes and various other tasks and fooled with it enough. I am talking about a machine as thin as a light-duty calculator which uses a coin battery. I've owned it personally for more than four years now and it STILL has the same battery. And it has retained my BASIC programs that long.

Tony Duell wrote: I never get more than 2-3 year out of my 16C... Maybe I'm using the wrong batteries? :-) (if the damn thing ever dies I may freak out and need detox. I just can't live without my 11c and 16c. I use them *every* day.) -brad

Brad Parker wrote: I would *love* to have a 16C, but I can't afford one. 8-( Peace... Sridhar

On 10/1/2005 at 12:01 AM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: I replaced the original cells on the 16C sitting right in front of me in 1989, right around the time of the Loma Prieta quake. Not because it needed it, but because I was nervous about having them go out after so many years of use. I haven't bothered since and the 16C keeps chugging along. OTOH, the batteries in the TI Programmer that the 16C replaced would run down in less than a month of use. Too bad HP doesn't still make the 16C--it was one of the few really good programmer's calculators. Cheers, Chuck

On 10/1/2005 at 2:32 PM Fred Cisin wrote: It was the LED model--actually had a "Made in USA" legend on the back of the case. Like many TI calculators of the same era, it developed problems with the keyboard (I seem to remember a fix being circulated that involved soaking the whole shebang in distilled water). The small LED display wasn't multiplexed at a particularly high frequency, so it was annoying for me to read. As soon as HP announced the 16C, I junked the fool thing. Here's a question for the Voyager experts. The aluminum bezel on my 16C is beginning to separate from the case at one corner. Can the bezel be safely removed, cleaned and reglued without messing things up? Cheers, Chuck

On 10/2/2005 at 5:57 PM ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk wrote: Thanks, Tony, that's some very useful information. I was intending to use 3M Scotch 77 spray contact adhesive. Do you have any advice on the least-damaging way to free the bezel from its currently stuck-on state? I want to avoid creases, so some way to soften the existing adhesive would be very nice indeed. Cheers, Chuck

I could never get on with the 27S. The darn thing didn't have an ENTER key ;-) -tony

Ah, right.... I bought my 28C in 1987. I'd gone back up to university and saw it in the local bookshop. Played with it in the shop for about 5 minutes, then handed over \pounds 247.25 and walked out with it. Couldn't afford food for a fair time afterwards, but... And of course I first ran out of memory later that same day. 2K bytes was ridiculously small for that machine. The 28S at least had a sane amount of RAM, but no way of loading it other than the keyboard. Oh well... -tony

Liam Proven wrote: Well I've never heard of any RISC machines with built in GUI logic. Who made it? Ben alias woodelf

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 01:29:12 +0100 Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: that am uses a and programs it? :-) Nope. It's a Tandy Pocket Computer. It has a one line LCD display. It's highly non-buzzword compliant. I mean, you program it in BASIC for God's sake. I think it has 4K of memory.

[Tandy PC8] The Tandy / Radio Shack Pocket Computers were actually made by either Sharp or Casio, and were prety close to standard machines of those manufactuerers. The PC1 was almost identical to the Sharp PC1211 (IIRC, the difference was that the former didn't have a Yen sign on the keyboard, but the appropriate keystrokes still generated it). The PC2 was similar to the Sharp PC1500. Similar but not identical. The circuitry was the same, the ROM was the same (or at least close enough that the peripherals -- printer and RS232 interface -- for one would work on the other). But the keyboard layout was different. This would have meant a new top case moulding and new upper PCB, so no idea why they did it, but they did. I found this out the hard way, I have the Radio Shack RS232 module. In the ROM is a dumb terminal emulator program. It rusn fine on the Sharp, but the supplied overlay (to indicate the functions of some of the keys) doesn't fit. I think the PC3 was also a Sharp. The PC4 was a Casio PB410. AFAIK it was identical The PC5, 6, 7 were also Casio, but I can't remember the details. And I've never seen a PC8 -tony

The Beebs did make it here -- there are NTSC BBC units. I've seen one, but the guy wouldn't sell it. (Darn.) As far as T/S units, there's the 1000 (ZX-81), the 1500 (81 on roids), the 2048, basically a 48K ZX Spectrum with better video, and the beautiful but incompatible 2068 which is Spectrum-like but dissimilar from any specific model. So, as I'm sure Glen Goodwin will add, there were more T/S innovations than we give them credit for. Btw, anyone getting rid of a 2068? -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- "I'd love to go out with you, but I need to clean my toilet brush." --------

Cameron Kaiser wrote: Cameron, have you ever seen a US-made TS2048? To my knowledge they never made it into production. These are constantly on eBay for around $50. If you snag one let me know and I'll hook you up with some goodies :-) Glen 0/0

Cameron Kaiser wrote: Okay. According to everything I've been able to find out, the machine was originally advertised (pre-production) as TS2000, but when the C64 was released, Timex wanted to "one-up" Commodore and renamed their unit TS2068 (68 being greater than 64 ;-) The TS2048 was then put into the plans as a 48K version, but was never produced. Of course, Timex of Portugal sold a lot of TC2048s in Europe. A Spectrum emulator is nice to have because of all the available software (not just games ;-) A disk drive is handy, too. Several were available, but the best was made by John Oliger (who, remarkably, is still in business and still sells the drive i/fs). I say best because it uses the expansion bus instead of the cartridge dock, and it is also Spectrum-emulator comppatible. Other Oliger goodies include a parallel printer i/f and EPROM programmer. Glen 0/0

2048 or *2068*? There's a difference ^_^ I suspect you have a 2068. -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- Magic Eight Ball vs. Microsoft: "Outlook not so good" ----------------------

Sellam, I think you must be mistaken. The TS2048 was never produced. Here's a snip for you from one of the many TS history pages : Timex recognized that a 48K Spectrum would not continue being competitive in North America for long without changes being made. They developed two computers that were to be North America's debut of the Spectrum. One was called the TS2048 and the other the TS2068. The TS2048 was basically a 48K Spectrum w/ Kempston joystick and the advanced video modes of the TS2068 (see below). The TS2068 was a completely different computer with the Spectrum as its roots. Timex decided to only sell the TS2068. [end snip] If you have a TS2048, it must be a prototype, and is undoubtably rare. Jack Boatwright has posted a photo of a prototype TS2048 here: http://www3.outlawnet.com/~jboatno4/ts2048.jpg Glen 0/0 Vintage Computer Festival wrote:

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Jules Richardson wrote: As far as I can tell, the Dragon 32 was sold here (in the U.S.) in normal retail outlets for a while, though on a very limited basis. I got mine rather largish stock they had. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

Roger Merchberger wrote: [Dragons] They're very light weight machines by the way, and still turn up in the UK pretty often. Shipping one across the pond would likely not be that expensive if you *really* wanted one (comparable to shipping a Commodore 64 I'd say). Rich Harding who runs the Dragondata website might be worth a prod in case he has a spare machine: http://www.dndata.com/dragond/frames.htm Jules (with a dead D32 and a GEC-built D64)

On Fri, 30 Sep 2005, Roger Merchberger wrote: Yarp. I think you're SOL. Last I heard someone tried to order one and was told they done sold out. I had the same thing happen with a lot of unusual Xerox laptops they had: waited too long to order and they sold out :( -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

At 10:37 AM 9/30/2005, Zane H. Healy wrote: But CBM and Atari share some history, CBM had strong sales and development ties in Germany, and both machines were trying to appeal to the lower-priced end of the market. - John

Zane H. Healy wrote: OK, when did the ST and the A500 hit the markets? Does anyone have pricing for the machines in both Europe and the US at that time, along with prices for a typical-spec PC and a typical-spec Mac? It'd be interesting to see how prices in the two regions compared and may have affected popularity of the various machines. (At least in the UK, models of Amiga other than the A500 seemed pretty rare - not sure if that was true elsewhere in Europe or not) cheers Jules

On 10/1/2005 at 9:23 AM Fred Cisin wrote: I remember when Atari had some offices by the CDC building in Moffett Industrial Park. CDC was in the middle of a reorganization then and personnel cuts were numerous. Atari in its help-wanted ads actually stated something to the effect of "no mainframe programmers need apply". A friend who was turned down by Atari went on to work on the programming for Commodore's scientific calculator. I remember her showing me the prototype--basically a plywood chassis with a keyboard, display, some PC cards and a rat's nest of wires... Does anyone still have a Sinclair or Commodore digital watch? I built one of the do-it-yourself Sinclair digitals, but it failed within a couple of months. My wife still has a couple of National Semi watches that have long since died from corrosion caused by perspiration--and I suspect that's what did in my Sinclair. I was cleaning out an old filing cabinet and came across a section from the Mercury News advertising the Commodore watch for $16.95 at Mr. Calculator--your choice, white or yellow with leatherette strap. Mr. Calculator would keep the watch adjusted free of charge for life. Cheers, Chuck

That's interesting. Tandy's PC-x series started with the Sharp PC-1211 (PC-1), and they continued OEMing from Sharp until the PC-3. They switched to Casio as the supplier for the PC-4 to PC-7. But I didn't realized until now that they switched back to Sharp for the PC-8. -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Liam Proven Sent: Friday, September 30, 2005 9:45 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PalmOS no more? :( On 30/09/05, Scott Stevens <chenmel at earthlink.net> wrote: One of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Pocket_Computer "Clone" of one of these, it says... http://pocket.free.fr/html/sharp/pc-1246_e.html -- Liam Proven . http://livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=lproven AOL/AIM/iChat: liamproven at aol.com . MSN/Messenger: lproven at hotmail.com Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk . Skype: liamproven . ICQ: 73187508

On 30/09/2005, at 10:29 AM, Liam Proven wrote: I just checked my Sharp PC-1211 (which is the same thing) and the battery is almost dead - the screen is hard to read but it still works. Given that I've had it for 20 years or so that's not too bad! I'll pick up a new battery later today (should last another 20 years!). Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"

Tony Duell wrote: I do remember, in the dim distant mists of 1991 (probably caused by all the McEwens 80/- at RGIT student union bar prices) a whole run of Amstrad 2086 and similar models coming back to us (Amstrad dealer in Aberdeen where I whiled away the time I was supposed to be in classes I didn't like). Eventually we discovered that if you put alkaline HP7 batteries (AA size) in the battery compartment, the clock wouldn't work and the machine wouldn't boot. Replacing them with el-cheapo zinc-carbon batteries brought the machine to life. The only difference that I could find was that the alkalines had a cell voltage of around 1.65-1.7 volts, feeding the clock with something nearer to 7 volts. I have no idea why this upset it, but the battery voltage circuit reported this as flat batteries. Gordon.

I should stil have mine, having "liberated" them when the shop went tango uniform. No idea where, though. No, we just gave the customers a nice new packet of Panasonic Silver Seal batteries, which cured all the problems straight away. I seem to remember that it wasn't a clock battery error it came up with, but something else. Maybe a RAM test error or something - I know it was pretty odd. Gordon

In trying to turn this tide of the list lately a little more to the heavy side, I would like announce my new machine, an IBM 5340 System/34. I got a full set of diagnostics and manuals, so I can get a real idea of how the thing works. Very interesting, to say the least. S/34s are dual processored 16 bit minis, with one processor running the OS and the other running user tasks. There is a great deal of fault tolerance built in, all the way to checking the results on the ALUs against predicting circuits. Apparently IBM tried to aim at more than just the RPG and COBOL markets, as BASIC and FORTRAN were also available. This should be a plug and play machine - no three phase needed, and the thing is in pretty darn nice condition. I hope it does not need work, as I have other machines that have been in storage too long. So send me all of your palms and other PDAs, so I can study how fast I need to get the S/34 rolling to completely crush each model under the casters. William Donzelli aw288 at osfn.org

Duh, the silly toys list. Silly. ;-) -- ---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ -- Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. -------

comes with the Psion is a true 32-bit multitasking OS, and puts to absolute shame anything that MS can come up with. And quite frankly it's better than anything Palm has for that matter. LOL, I traded a Series 7 for the original Psion Organiser (1984)... How's that for bringing this back on-topic? -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Vintage Computer Festival Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 8:25 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: PalmOS no more? :( On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, John R. Hogerhuis wrote: One could just about touch type on the keyboard, which is somewhat remarkable given the not quite 7 inch length of the keyboard. They tend to be very reliable, but start to have problems once they are dropped too often (as was the case with mine). The serial lead is standard, and easy to get if missing from one you might purchase second-hand. A complete setup can be had for under US$100 on eBay. They still have a rather large following and so don't expect to get one for cheap unless it's very broken or you get very lucky. Then perhaps you want the Series 7? At any rate, the EPOC32 OS that comes with the Psion is a true 32-bit multitasking OS, and puts to absolute shame anything that MS can come up with. And quite frankly it's better than anything Palm has for that matter. -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org [ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ] [ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 20:45:51 -0400 John Boffemmyer IV <john_boffemmyer_iv at boff-net.dhs.org> wrote: graphical. Yes, but the 'good to excellent condition' unit that is 3-4 years old probably is also due for a battery replacement. I recently bought a Tungsten E and am happy except I do anticipate needing a new battery before the unit has served it's useful life (I try to wring a lot longer life out of expensive gear than the manufacturer plans). To drag things back on topic, battery replacement for portable 'vintage' machines is always an issue. My Powerbook 165c (which is _quite_ on topic here now, I hope) needs a battery that would cost quite a bit. My PC Convertable needs a battery, but last time I cracked a Convertible battery pack, it was just C-size Nicads spot welded together. I've now started using a fairly nice 386sx Zenith laptop for assembly language programming and it's close to time to look into batteries for it (the brick powerpack is pretty cumbersome.) The Model 100 is the king of vintage portables, though, and it just slowly eats regular batteries.

\begin{pedant} It's a NiCd, it therefore leak battery _alkali_ \end{pedant} -tony

Interesting looking CPM system on eBay. On the left coast of the USA. Has an interesting story with it. item # 8706303939 Gil