[cctalk] Re: The MAC at 40
> On 25 Jan 2024, at 08:21, Tony Jones via cctalk wrote: > > On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 12:53 PM Murray McCullough via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > >> The Apple Mac, 40 years old, came from Xerox PARC’s GUI and Apple’s LISA. >> Not sure that it really changed computing though! Financially it didn't >> help Apple until after 1997 and Gate's investment. >> > > I struggle with the whole "birth of the Mac" story. > > It starts with the "Jobs visit to Parc" story which is often told as if he > single handedly made off with Xerox's crown jewels, ignoring the fact that > lots of people had been given prior demos of the Smalltalk 76 and 78 > systems. Certainly he had the vision to appreciate what he saw and the > ability to capitalize on it, but it was hardly the "making off with a > secret" it's claimed to be. Agreed. > Then there is the whole "Lisa was a failure story. Lisa had several issues that hampered its success, in my view: The price was too high, relatively. The twiggy drives were unreliable, and it really needed a hard drive, which was additional cost on top of the already high base cost. The screen pixels were rectangular. It mightn’t seem like a big deal, but if you’re a software developer choosing between Lisa and Mac, it’s a factor. > The Mac (developed at significant cost largely because Jobs felt slighted) > launched for I believe $2,495 with a 9" screen, 128k RAM, minimal software > and a single tasking OS). > At the same time the Lisa 2/5 was released at $3495 with a 12" screen, 512k > RAM and a true preemptive multitasking OS. I think the advantages of the Lisa OS were largely invisible to purchasers at the time. It wasn’t something we’d been trained (by Apple DOS, or CP/M, or MS-DOS) to consider. Perhaps for those with experience using a “proper” OS it might have been a factor? I don’t recall it being really highlighted by Apple, either. I imagine the hand of Jobs in that, making sure marketing didn’t hurt the Mac. > The 128K of the Mac was so limiting that a few months later they had to > shortly after launch the Fat Mac (512K) at $2,795 > > In the mid 90s Mac's were still crippled by the original Mac OS design. > Badly behaving apps crashing the entire system was common. Multiple > projects to design a replacement had failed. Ultimately the “Blue Box” environment for OSX kinda solved this problem, emulating aMacOS Classic environment inside Unix processes. But Jobs wasn’t a software engineer, and this was an engineering issue. > Sure he turned it all around with the Next acquisition and the $2.9 > trillion rest is history but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if > they'd somehow been able to stop Jobs and instead focus on the Lisa. Without the Lisa, the Mac would have been perceived as “too expensive”. As it was, if you wanted the GUI-style system, a Mac was the cheap(er) option. I think the Mac would have tanked without this in the first year or so. d
[cctalk] Re: (no subject)
> On 14 Dec 2023, at 08:18, brian--- via cctalk wrote: -8<—- > I've done a lot of work converting technical documentation archives from > DCF and Bookmaster to Word and XML, but always worked from source, never > .BOO. A quick search suggests both Bookmaster and DCF use a library called GDDM which sounds like it is a device independent graphics format / renderer. Perhaps the .BOO format is related to this? In a different avenue of exploration, looking at some .BOO files in a hex editor, they do appear to use EBCDIC text, and near the start of the file there seems to be a long sequence of word fragments: often the trailing part of words. That suggested to me that perhaps it might be some sort of lookup table-based compression scheme for the text. I haven’t investigated beyond that yet. Someone in IBM must know, I suppose. d
[cctalk] Re: WTD: transputer multi-cpu isa card
> On 16 Sep 2023, at 09:45, Tony Jones via cctalk wrote: > > I'd like to get an ISA based transputer card. Something with multiple > cpus <…> > Suggestions on what to look for welcomed. Transtech also made a B008-compatible TRAM motherboard: the TMB08 iirc? d
[cctalk] Re: TI 960
> On 5 Sep 2023, at 06:01, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk > wrote: … > Weren't the TI 900 series the things called Transputers? Closest thing to a Transputer from TI I can think of were the C-series DSP chips: eg TMS 320C40, although they used 6x byte-wide parallel ports not the 4x bit-wide serial ports of the Transputer. Some Transputer software was ported to them, including Perihelion’s Helios operating system, iirc. d
[cctalk] Re: Silly question about S-100 and video monitors
> On 31 Aug 2023, at 07:07, William Sudbrink via cctalk > wrote: > > Now that I'm thinking about it, there were also instructions for hacking the > composite signal straight into the TV, bypassing the tuner... but Mom and > Dad probably wouldn't go for that (mine didn't). I paid a local electronics store to add an RCA composite input to our old black & white TV, bypassing the tuner. It think it cost $50 at the time (early 80s) d > -Original Message- > From: William Sudbrink via cctalk [mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org] > Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2023 4:54 PM > To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' > > Cc: 'W2HX' ; William Sudbrink > Subject: [cctalk] Re: Silly question about S-100 and video monitors > > There were RF modulators. See the November 1976 review of the Poly-88 here > (on page 16): > > http://cini.classiccmp.org/pdf/DrDobbs/DrDobbs-1976-11-12-v1n10.pdf > > Note the reference to the "Pixie Verter". It is a little cheap circuit > board that takes the composite signal and modulates it onto channel 3. You > will find references to the Pixie-Verter in a number of publications and > user manuals for early video boards. The Matrox and the Cromemco Dazzler > and the Ohio Scientific documentation all reference it. David Ahl in his > "Saga Of A System" magazine article references it. With that, a TV, video > board, RF modulator and a parallel keyboard were much cheaper than any > serial terminal back then. The RF modulator was separate from the video > board (usually hung on the back of the TV) for noise reasons. > > > > -Original Message- > From: W2HX via cctalk [mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org] > Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2023 3:39 PM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Cc: W2HX > Subject: [cctalk] Silly question about S-100 and video monitors > > Hi all, > > I recently acquired an S-100 computer, and it came with a video card and a > keyboard (3rd party products, not originally equipped with these). I am > trying to figure out the benefits of having a video card and keyboard vs > just using a serial port and terminal. Certainly if the video card supported > graphics, that would be a reason to go that route over a terminal. As for > the keyboard, ok-maybe you need specific keys for a specific application. > But I don't understand the video monitor. I could understand maybe if there > was an RF modulator so that you could use a standard TV. That would save the > builder some money. But this computer just provides composite. > > Other than graphics (and maybe some special function keys for an application > on a keyboard), why would an S-100 builder in those days opt to buy a video > card instead of a terminal? > > Thanks for the bandwidth. > > 73 Eugene W2HX > Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@w2hx/videos > > > -- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > www.avast.com > > > -- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > www.avast.com
[cctalk] NewtonOS
Some of you might recall that Apple released a series of machines based on the Newton OS in the early 1990s. There were eight models in total from Apple, and a few more from third parties who licensed both the hardware and software to make eg. ruggedized handhelds, or "smart" (landline) phones. The operating system was bespoke. It had a Lisp influence during development, but by the time it was released, it used a language called NewtonScript that had an Algol-ish syntax with Lisp/Self-like semantics. Although the OS core was written in C++, large parts of the system were written in NewtonScript as well, as were the built-in applications. Newtons ended up as a dead-end branch of computer evolution. The product line was cancelled by Jobs following his return to Apple, and despite a few little respectful nods, iOS has basically no commonality with NewtonOS. Ironically, the handwriting recognition engine (the focal point for most Newton criticism) outlived the devices and was ported to and shipped with Mac OS X. A Newton emulator, called Einstein, exists. It's able to run the OS, the built-in apps, and to install and run third-party applications with good fidelity to the original experience. It requires a ROM image to function. Apple made various ROM images available, and it's possible to extract the image from a physical Newton device, but the consensus is that it isn't legal to distribute these ROM images. This makes setting up the emulator more complex than is ideal. The NewtonTalk mailing list is a group of Newton fans that remain engaged with the platform to this day, and we're currently discussing the possibility of legally obtaining the Newton ROM images from Apple. We've been heartened by Apple's recent releases of MacPaint and the Lisa OS to the CHM, and are wondering if Apple might be persuaded to release at least the NewtonOS ROM, or (ideally) system's source code. If there's anyone who was either involved in those previous negotiations, or could introduce us to someone who was, and is willing to offer advice and/or assistance with our quest ... really, any helpful pointers would be useful, and much appreciated. Cheers, d https://github.com/pguyot/Einstein http://newtontalk.net/
[cctalk] Re: Tips on VME board access
I’ve got a 3/260 (in storage sadly). IIRC, it’s pretty fussy about what boards go in what slots, so moving to the end might be tricky. I never tried an extender card though. Not very helpful, sorry. d > On 5 Jun 2023, at 05:04, David Gesswein via cctalk > wrote: > > Did VME work long ago. We used extender cards to get better access. Sometimes > a card didn't like being on an extender. Then we might move it to the > end of the card cage and pull the end plate off to get access. Never worked > with 3/110. If I remember Sun made some big VME boards. We only used 6U normal > depth. > > Seem to be some extenders on ebay. Cheaper than when new... The ones we > used were multilayer boards to try to give better signal integrity. > > If CPU is slot 1 system controller moving it can cause problems if you are > trying to talk to other cards. > >> On Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 09:33:03AM -0700, Kurt Nowak wrote: >> Hi all, >> I have a Sun 3/110 with a faulty video section (hangs at boot when it polls >> the FB) and I want to be able to probe and troubleshoot the board. Does >> anyone have any tips on how to get at it since it's buried in the VME >> chassis. I was thinking of having an extension card made but thought I'd >> ask here and see what others have done first. Any thoughts would be >> appreciated. Thanks >> >> -Kurt >> >> --
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
I had a Gen6 Golf wagon. Remarkably useful luggage capacity, but I don’t think it would have fitted a full-depth rack through the tailgate. Plenty of mag tape or SD-card space though. d > On 4 Jun 2023, at 04:00, Alexander Schreiber via cctalk > wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 01, 2023 at 02:33:07PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> >> But, there is another problem. >> >> None of the auto makers still make "Station Wagon"s! > > Not quite true. VW makes the "Variant" version of the VW Golf and > Mercedes still makes the "t model" of the C and E class, all of which > are basically station wagons. And I can confirm from experience that > a Mercedes C204 T model fits a complete (fully assembled) IKEA sofa, > so it does have _quite_ a bit of cargo volume (and, once you fold down > the rear seats, a nice long _flat_ loading surface). > > Kind regards, > Alex. > -- > "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and > looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
