Re: VT340 Emulation
On Fri, 18 Jun 2021 at 19:15, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote: > > Does anyone have experience with the Reflection software that will > emulate a DEC VT340 color graphics terminal? I did try Reflection waaa back in the day, possibly around 1990 or so. It worked, but I had no need of graphics support. I never imagined that about 30y later I'd be working for the company that produced it. (But now my bit has been spun off and floated.) Most of my customers back then were running Wyse terminals -- later (i.e. cheaper) models but usually under Wyse-50 or Wyse-60 emulation, if I recall. For one or 2 demanding customers, we ended up going with the J River Company's ICE/TEN tools instead. https://www.icetcp.com/products/price-list.html -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: VAXstation 4000/vlc mouse issue
On Tue, 1 Jun 2021 at 05:08, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > I now have my VAXstation 4000/vlc up and running OpenVMS 7.3, DECnet Phase > IV, and part of my cluster. It’s using a SCSI2SD v5.2 board for the hard > drive. While have plenty of DEC Hard Drives, I like the lower noise, power, > and heat of the SCSI2SD’s, plus I can really cram the disk space in there, > this has a whopping 32GB. :-) This is good news -- well done. I have 3 of the things, with keyboards and mice, but only 1 DEC mono monitor. Unfortunately my to-do list is so long that I've never even tried them since I got them 8 years ago. :-( I don't know where to begin testing, TBH... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Motor generator
On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 16:13, Paul Koning wrote: > > I suppose APL might come closest, but it's hardly mainstream. > > No reason why it couldn't be. It's the same age as C, so why not? :-) I think because for lesser minds, such as mine, it's line noise. A friend of mine, a Perl guru, studied A-Plus for a while. (Morgan Stanley's in-house APL dialect.) He said to me that "when I came back to Perl, I found it irritatingly verbose..." and then was immediately deeply shocked at the thought. I seriously think this is why Lisp didn't go mainstream. For a certain type of human mind, it's wonderful and clear and expressive, but for most of us, it's just a step too far. Ditto Forth, ditto Postscript, etc. Plain old algebraic infix notation has thrived for half a millennium because it's easily assimilated and comprehended, and many arguably better notations just are not. The importance of being easy, as opposed to being clear, or unambiguous, or expressive, etc., is widely underestimated. > My favorite "radically different" processing concept is by Martin Rem, in his > thesis "Associons and the closure statement" from 1976 > (http://alexandria.tue.nl/extra1/PRF2B/7606837.pdf). I'd love to see that > implemented. He certainly gave no clue on how that could be done, and I > haven't reached any clue either. > > Then there's Pinatubo (2016: > https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~jzhao/files/Pinatubo-dac2016.pdf) which seems > related to William Shooman's "orthogonal computer (from 1961; it was sold by > Sanders Associates for a while). Ooh, great. Thank you, I will read up on these. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Motor generator
On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 02:19, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: > > I seem to recall an anecdote about Acorn hooking up the first prototype > ARM-1 processor and it working, despite showing no current draw on the > connected ammeter - it then transpired that the power supply was still > switched off, but it was so efficient that it was able to run via leakage > current on the connected I/O lines. Oh yes indeed. Sophie Wilson did a talk at the last ROUGOL meeting, last month. Not sure if the video is online yet. I can share it here when it's up if folk are interested. There are a few stories of bring-up of the first ARM chips that were remarkable. * The unanticipatedly low power draw; * Simulating the instruction set in BBC BASIC on a BBC Micro during the design phase, instead of some vastly-expensive bigger system; * The fact that the very first silicon worked very nearly perfectly first time; * Embedding a `MANDEL` instruction into the BASIC for demos, because people expected it so often that it was worth implementing someone's algorithm in ARM code and putting it directly into the interpreter. She's really quite pessimistic about the future of microprocessor manufacture. She gleefully made fun of Intel quite a bit, but pointed out the [cough] _inaccuracies_ and shall we say _over-enthusiastic_ claims of their marketing materials concerning die size. She's quite impressed with AMD's recent designs, which partition parts of multicore processors into separate dies, so that only the bits that really need it can be made on the very expensive tiny feature size processes, and other bits on cheaper, larger feature sizes. Oddly she barely mentioned Apple Silicon, merely that they were extremely aggressive with wide superscalar designs and so on. Her overall point being that although it _is_ possible for transistor sizes etc to get a _little_ smaller than is mainstream now, the industry is now at the point where smaller-feature-size, faster chips are actually getting _more_ expensive to make, not less. We are very nearly at the end of the line of high-end chips getting faster at all. Part of this is due to language design. I noticed myself that in recent decades, chips seem to be designed to run C fast, to put it simply. Wilson feels that the instruction model of C is now a limiting factor, and that one of the only ways to go is something akin to her own FirePath processor design for Broadcom. Firepath is more or less the "Son of ARM". Not much is public about Firepath and this is one of the best references I know: https://everything2.com/title/FirePath It can do things like load 8 different bytes of data into a set of registers, perform arithmetic on them, and depending on the result, put the results back somewhere else or not, in a single assembler opcode in a single cycle... and she feels that no contemporary high-level language can usefully express such operations. I suppose APL might come closest, but it's hardly mainstream. I find it an interesting thought that once the only way to get more performance will soon be to switch to radically different processor architectures that always work in ways very loosely comparable to MMX or Altivec (and their descendants), and write new programs in new languages on new OSes that can exploit deep hardware parallelism. The flipside of the coin may be that current, "traditional" designs will get smaller and cheaper and use less power, and the only way to squeeze better performance out of them will be to use smaller, simpler OSes. There's a chance here for what the mainstream sees as obsolete or irrelevant OSes and languages to enjoy a revival. The vanguard could be VMS. I'd love to see this. I found it amusing after my FOSDEM talk in February, which talked about this. I was talking about some of the ideas on the Squeak Smalltalk mailing list. I listed a set of criteria I'd been using to narrow down my selection of criteria: • a clean, simple OS, with SMP support, that supported pre-emption, memory management etc. • in a type-safe language, with a native-object-code compiler — not JITTed, not using a VM or runtime • and a readable language, not something far outside the Algol family of imperative HLLs • that was portable across different architectures • that was FOSS and could be forked • that was documented and had a user community who knew it • that can be built with FOSS tools (which RISC OS fails, for instance) • which is or was used by non-specialists for general purpose computing • which can usefully access the Internet • which runs on commodity hardware • which does not have a strongly filesystem-centric design that would not fit a PMEM-only computer (i.e. not an xNix) ... and several people went "no, that is impossible. Match all of those at once and you have the null set. And I said, no, this is why I picked Oberon and A2. The result seemed to be a number of people who hadn't been paying much attention sitting up and asking what language/OS this
Re: That VAXStation4000vlc 3W3 video connector
On Wed, 5 May 2021 at 17:59, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote: > I, for one, did find this helpful - one could make one of these up to > test before possibly forking over the funds to build one properly. If anyone were up to making a small batch of these, I'd be happy to pay for a few, plus shipping etc. I have 3 × 4000VLCs and only 1 monitor for 'em, and I hope to get them running again sometime... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: That VAXStation4000vlc 3W3 video connector
On Tue, 4 May 2021 at 07:50, Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote: > > Kindest regards, > > Doug Jackson > > em: d...@doughq.com > ph: 0414 986878 > > Check out my awesome clocks at www.dougswordclocks.com > Follow my amateur radio adventures at vk1zdj.net > > --- > > Just like an old fashioned letter, this email and any files transmitted > with it should probably be treated as confidential and intended solely for > your own use. > > Please note that any interesting spelling is usually my own and may have > been caused by fat thumbs on a tiny tiny keyboard. > > Should any part of this message prove to be useful in the event of the > imminent Zombie Apocalypse then the sender bears no personal, legal, or > moral responsibility for any outcome resulting from its usage unless the > result of said usage is the unlikely defeat of the Zombie Hordes in which > case the sender takes full credit without any theoretical or actual legal > liability. :-) > > Be nice to your parents. > > Go outside and do something awesome - Draw, paint, walk, setup a > radio station, go fishing or sailing - just do something that makes you > happy. > > ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G- In more laid back days this line would literally > sing ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G ^G Doug, could I ask you to please pay a little more respect to mailing list etiquette? Your reply should go _below_ the text you are replying to, not above. The maximum length for a signature is 4 lines of 80 characters or fewer, and the sig should be prefixed with a line containing two minus signs then a space. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: FTAG: AlphaServer DS15, Sun T5140, Sun Blade 10, HP Proliant DL380 G7, VT220 [London, UK]
On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 at 14:27, Andrew Luke Nesbit via cctalk wrote: > > Hello all again, > > With a heavy heart I need to find a new home for the following beautiful > hardware: > > - AlphaServer DS15 server > - Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 1U rack server > - Sun Blade 10 mini tower > - HP Proliant DL380 G7 2U rack server > - DEC VT220 with screen, keyboard, and various adapter cables > > Please note that the Sun T5140 and HP DL380 are deep (700mm for purposes > of installation in a rack). > > I'm starting a new job next week and intend to focus on that and my > family. I've stopped working on various projects and I am vacating my > studio workshop, so I have a lot of things to give away or sell. > > The above items are all FREE FOR COLLECTION ONLY (a car will be fine to > transport the above items). > > I am located in London, UK. Post code is N15 4QL (Seven Sisters and > Tottenham Hale) in Haringey, London. Would you like me to cross-post this to some relevant FB groups, such as "Vintage UNIX Machine Enthusiasts (AT&T, SUN, SGI, DEC, HP, NeXT, IBM, Etc.)"...? Anonymised, obviously. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Looking for VAXSET Software Engineering Tools for VMS 4.x
On Sat, 17 Apr 2021 at 20:35, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > ddrescue Agreed. Important note: `ddrescue` is the newer tool and is more modern than either `dd_rescue` or `gddrescue`. They are *NOT* the same tools under different names. GNU ddrescue or just `ddrescue` It is the preferred choice and should be tried first, but if you encounter problems you can try the older `dd_rescue` or `gddrescue` if you wish. https://askubuntu.com/questions/211578/whats-the-difference-between-ddrescue-gddrescue-and-dd-rescue -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Anyone know ancient versions of XLC?
On Thu, 15 Apr 2021 at 18:57, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote: > I've used FrameMaker a lot...it's great for handling large documents and > collections of documents. Used it quite a bit at IBM and handled 1000+ > page documents (of course that wasn't all one "source" file). ISTM that for DTP, there were 2 competing layout metaphors. One was ideal for single-handed, ad-hoc layouts, and was friendly for unskilled or untrained operators. The other was better for longer documents, for structured docs where everything should look uniform -- long runs of documentation, or long series of magazine issues. The former, the "pasteboard" model, includes PageMaker, MS Publisher, Serif Page+ et al. The other, based on "frames" and "pouring" content into them, includes Ventura Publisher, FrameMaker, Quark Xpress, and I believe Adobe InDesign although I've never seen or tried it, although I've supported all the otghers. > I could never get my head around Word for anything more than 10 pages or > so. Just too hard to deal with everything in massive documents. Outline mode is the key. I did a 220-page illustrated manual in one big document in my last solo tech-writing contract, entirely as a Word outline. From blank page to finished manual in 8 weeks, and 2nd edition in 6 more weeks. Without Outline mode, it would have been next to impossible and would have required elaborate professional tooling that they didn't have. > Using a mark-up language also means I generally have more control > on how things appear in the document (something that continually > frustrated me with Word especially when dealing with cross references > and figures). Fair. Never used LaTeX but in the dayjob I use DocBook XML and AsciiDoctor to the same ends. I don't like them much but they do the job and do it well. It makes all the layout and formatting Somebody Else's Problem -- and even that SEP is 99.9% automated. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Anyone know ancient versions of XLC?
On Thu, 15 Apr 2021 at 16:00, Stefan Skoglund wrote: > > Ha, on my debian system i get more memory available when instead of > gnome i instead run e. E as in Enlightenment? I can believe that. I quite liked Bodhi Linux for its take on E, but E is not as configurable as I'd like. E.g. I like a vertical taskbar, like this: https://imgur.com/gallery/fLeAy I'd also like to try that combined with vertical title bars, like wm2: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Wm2.png > And when i i got some problem with printing from evolution > webkitgtk in its sandbox version cant print so now i run > webkitgtk inside the normal evolution process more memory saved > but i'm living a bit more unsafe now O_o > FRAME from that era was nice and fast. As in FrameMaker? I barely know it. Back in the '80s I was a total Aldus PageMaker fanboy. :-) IMHO one of the greatest GUI apps ever written. > I had to try to use word 20xx a few years ago compared with word > 6 (current 1991 on mac) HILFEE Word 5.1a was the classic version of Word for Classic. It's included in the WordPerfect for Mac VM that you can download here: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/macintosh.html > Nowadays I hate being forced to mouse along ... while having a > strained right wrist. If you want a lightweight but rich DOS wordprocessor that's freeware now, MS Word 5.5 is a free download from MS. https://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum/genres/pcs-and-clones/15399-ms-word-5-5-for-dos-for-free-legally?15238-MS-Word-5-5-for-DOS-for-FREE-(legally)= -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Anyone know ancient versions of XLC?
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 18:44, Kevin Bowling wrote: > > Linux tends to churn that amount of code in a release. I find it interesting > how large systemd has become as well: > https://www.theregister.com/2020/01/06/linux_2020_kernel_systemd_code/ I didn't know but I can well believe it. Virtually _any_ 30-40+ year old code is, by modern standards, lightweight and fast. Compared to, say, C++, Ada is a lightweight, clean language. Compared to modern *nix, Multics itself is a sylph-like slip of a thing. One of my personal favourites... there is a lot of word-processor advocacy online now and the one most people praise as The Best Thing EVAH is WordPerfect. I used and supported WordPerfect in the late '80s & early '90s. I never liked it that much. Fast, feature-rich, yes, but a UI one could only love because of Stockholm Syndrome. But I remember 5.x introducing pull-down CUA-type menus and being for me significantly easier to use as a result. And I remember v 6, lambasted as sluggish bloatware at the time, having a graphics-mode GUI on DOS if you wanted. So I found a copy and installed it on PC DOS 7.1 on a Core 2 Duo Thinkpad. On a modern multi-gigahertz x86, it _flies_ along. It's snappy and responsive even in graphics mode, and by modern standards it's tiny. A dozen meg or so. I don't use it much but it's fun to do so occasionally. My main go-to WP on my primary laptop is MS Word 97 for Windows, under WINE on 64-bit Ubuntu. Again, sluggish bloatware when new, but ¼ century later, lightweight and positively snappy. Does everything I need and more, including the all-important Outline mode. Has proper menus, not a Ribbon. Runs perfectly under WINE including being able to install service releases to get it as current as possible. Same file format as used up to 2003. There are 2 features I know are missing compared to later versions. Seriously, just 2. It has no highlighter (fake yellow marker pen you can drag over text). Who cares? And you can't embed a table inside a cell of another table. That is the complete list of missing features that I know about for the next 3 releases, then the Ribbon came in and I lost all interest. On my Mac I use Word 2011, which is also now obsolete and out of support. Works fine, though, and on macOS, you still have a menu bar and can turn off the Ribbon completely. > The rate of change to Linux literally keeps me up at night during incidents.. > but attempting to tame this for an enterprise also pays the bills.. I find it > peculiar so many people are ok with this model of computing but the jobs are > good for the time being. Agreed. I'm in the same boat: documenting an enterprise Linux distro. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Anyone know ancient versions of XLC?
On Tue, 13 Apr 2021 at 15:10, David Schmidt via cctech wrote: > > On 4/12/21 1:00 PM, Liam Proven wrote: > >> AIX 3.2.5 was so much leaner and meaner than 4.x that came along next... > >> I never did warm up to it the same way. > > > > Twas ever thus, no? > > A universal truth. > > > I remember an ad campaign for AIX when it was quite new... "We took > > UNIX and added millions of lines of code to it." (Or words to that > > effect.) To me and to a lot of other people, this did not sound like a > > good thing... > > The ad campaign I remember was "A disciplined merge of System V and BSD" > > This looks relevant, from 1989: > https://technologists.com/sauer/Convergence_of_AIX_and_4.3BSD.pdf Thanks for that! I only ever worked with AIX in my first job -- 1988-1990. Never saw it again. I wish I'd learned a bit more now... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Anyone know ancient versions of XLC?
On Sun, 11 Apr 2021 at 19:46, David Schmidt via cctech wrote: > > AIX 3.2.5 was so much leaner and meaner than 4.x that came along next... > I never did warm up to it the same way. Twas ever thus, no? I remember an ad campaign for AIX when it was quite new... "We took UNIX and added millions of lines of code to it." (Or words to that effect.) To me and to a lot of other people, this did not sound like a good thing... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Video presentations on 2 interesting OSes for vintage kit
Minerva and SMSQ/E, both related to Sinclair QDOS, the original OS for the Sinclair QL. https://youtu.be/yU0ptNyNqcI And EmuTOS, a FOSS recreation of Atari TOS & GEM, which reached v1.0 about 6 months ago. https://youtu.be/eqrM4TE5jTM I knew about the 1st 2, but this video taught me a lot. It's an insular community and most materials are aimed at people who already know about it. I wrote a blog post to explain a bit of the history and context: https://liam-on-linux.livejournal.com/78738.html Found via the m68k.info community: https://m68k.info/#sinclairql:video:SMSQE:mar2021 Which in turn I found when I asked if there were any 16-bit homebrew computers out there and learned of the Kiwi 68K: https://www.ist-schlau.de/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Hard To Believe This Person Is Serious
On Fri, 26 Mar 2021 at 21:11, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: > > Shirley this thread has run its course already I just wanted to tell you, good luck. We're all counting on you. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: VCF Swap Meet in Wall, NJ
On Tue, 23 Mar 2021 at 05:39, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote: > > That sounds like um, I think the technical term is, a big pain in the butt. Look, TBH, sorry to be That Guy, but what it sounds like is made-up mumbo-jumbo with as much basis in science as saying his choler is too low and phlegm and bile out of equilibrium. It's an anti-masker trying to justify killing other people. It's no more valid than a gun nut shouting about the constitution when they've never been near a "well-organized militia" in their life. Keep well away from any people like this in real life. Do not come into physical contact with them, ever, anywhere. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: 80286 Protected Mode Test
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 at 19:37, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote: > > At the time I was fairly familiar with the LOADALL instruction. I had > modified PC/AT Xenix to use the LOADALL instruction to allow for running > Xenix programs and multiple DOS programs simultaneously. Incidentally, I believe that OS/2 1 was not the only 286 OS affected by this. The development versions of DR's Concurrent DOS 286 could multitask DOS apps in protect mode on pre-release 286s, but Intel "fixed" the feature that permitted this in the first shipping version of the 80286, to DR's dismay and horror. https://books.google.cz/books?id=2y4EMBAJ&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false AIUI the feature was later restored, but customer uncertainty, together with suddenly-questionable compatibility with all the 286s out there, killed CDOS 286. I suspect this is instrumental in why DR took FlexOS and X/GEM down the RTOS route instead... in which form it survived and a distant descendant, formerly IBM 4690 OS, is still sold by Toshiba. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: 80286 Protected Mode Test
On Sun, 14 Mar 2021 at 19:37, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk
wrote:
> There were many heated discussions in various task forces (this was of
> course IBM) about the next generation OS (to become OS/2) about the
> '286. First and foremost was how to be able to run DOS programs on the
> '286. Over very vocal opposition, management decided to use "mode
> switching" rather than any of the other techniques. It should be noted,
> that a significant portion of us advocated abandoning the '286 in favor
> of the '386 to solve this problem. The argument that management made
> against that approach assumed that OS/2 would be ready in 9 months and
> that the '386 would be late ('386 at the time was about 12-18 months
> away). It turned out that OS/2 took well over 18 months to develop.
I will say this, Guy, your posts never cease to amaze me and provide
valuable insight!
I was on the sidelines at the time -- at university, reading about
this stuff in the UK computer mags. From outside too it was very
obvious that OS/2 should target the 386. When I started work, I was in
tech support in an IBM value-added reseller -- that's where I learned
about IBMCACHE.SYS, which we talked of a few years back -- and I can
confirm that most PS/2 owners were not at all interested in OS/2. A
handful ran 3Com 3+Share or Netware 2 on PS/2 boxes as the server, but
most 286 PS/2s were workstations. Only the 386 Model 80 sold almost
exclusively as servers. I still have one myself.
> At the time I was fairly familiar with the LOADALL instruction. I had
> modified PC/AT Xenix to use the LOADALL instruction to allow for running
> Xenix programs and multiple DOS programs simultaneously. I gave
> multiple demos to various folks in management but to no avail. They had
> decided that mode switching as *the* way that OS/2 was going to work.
:'(
> I should also note, that the other way to get back to real mode from
> protected mode is via a triple-fault. What gets me (and I railed on
> Intel when I worked there for a time) that it still existing in the
> architecture even though they have a machine check architecture now
> (which while at IBM pushed Intel to implement for the '386!).
(!)
--
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: digital group's Richard Bemis
On Fri, 5 Mar 2021 at 16:00, John H. Reinhardt via cctalk wrote: > > No, he means "The Digital Group". It was a microcomputer company in the > 1975-1979 time frame. > > http://bytecollector.com/the_digital_group.htm > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Digital_Group Thanks for the clarification! I see a few people are happily telling me I am wrong. It's fair, I _was_ wrong. I merely wanted to point out the ambiguity in the original message, though... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: digital group's Richard Bemis
On Thu, 4 Mar 2021 at 05:23, Brad H via cctalk wrote: > > Hi there, > > I am working on a 30 minute historical video about the digital group. [Spelling out my thought process] "the digital group" -- so he means Digital Equipment Corporation. Never heard them called a "group" but fine. > when dg was still operational "dg"? Huh? He means DG? Data General? Well which _do_ you mean? Digital meant Digital Equipment Corporation meant DEC. DG meant Data General. Neither was anything "group". I don't know who you mean... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Wanted: Info on Optisys/Optidisk WORM file system
On Fri, 12 Feb 2021 at 21:12, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: > > My partner passed away about 2 weeks ago and would possibly have > recalled who it was, but can't ask now. I'll try a scan of our contact > files and see if "opti" anything shows up. Oh, I am sorry to hear that. My condolences. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: OT: pints, pounds (Was: APL\360
On Mon, 1 Feb 2021 at 21:07, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > That is what it MEANS. > But, it's not quite right. It's off by about 4%. > A US pint of water weighs 1.043 pounds. > One "fluid ounce" (volume) of water weighs 1.043 ounces (weight)! Close enough for government work. With all the off-hand mental approximations people use to convert units, including some I think mentioned here, 4% is pretty good. I may use metric when I am measuring things myself, but I got my motorbike licence in 1991 and my car licence in 2005. I was solely taught and tested in MPH. For estimating stopping distances by eye, a metre is a yard, near enough -- and of course "car lengths" and seconds aren't affected. Keep 2 car lengths back under 30mph, and over that, maintain 2 seconds' braking distance, is metric-independent. > How much do you suppose a "pint" of ice cream weighs? Wouldn't know. I have never in my life seen such a unit on sale, I think. > And, not all beer has the same specific gravity. Alcohol is less dense > than water. > And, of course, further variation with temperature and atmospheric > pressure. Indeed so. It does get worse. When I emigrated, I had no problem adapting to buying half litres of beer -- or even, just once in a brewery in Slovakia, a litre of beer. But the strengths...! Czech beer comes in 10º, 11º, or 12º, and very occasionally 13º, 14º or even 17º-18º. I have almost never seen anything stronger. But what the heck is a ten-degree beer?! I'd never heard of degrees in beer before. Degrees proof, yes, but just halve that for %ABV, which is far more meaningful for me. But while a 10º beer being 5% alcohol by volume was just about believable, a 15% ABV beer seems unlikely. Well, it is. The system is "degrees Plato", a system so obscure there isn't even a Wikipedia page for it. And all I knew about Plato's drinking habits was: « Plato, they say, could stick it away Half a crate of whiskey every day » It's horribly complicated in use: http://8degreesplato.com/2017/05/31/so-what-is-degrees-plato/ No wonder nobody much outside Central Europe uses it. But this country is the world capital of beer -- they consume more per capita than anyone else. There are good reasons I like it here, and it's not the language. https://news.expats.cz/czech-food-drink/the-czech-republic-leads-all-nations-in-beer-consumption-per-capita-by-a-whopping-78/ The USA drinks 12x as much in total -- but has nearly 40x as many people. > And, if you are in England, > "A pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter." I believe I have heard that. Maybe this is why it is meaningless to me -- it doesn't work with UK Imperial units, only with American Imperial units. Yet more reason to burn imperial measurements in a fire and throw the ashes in the sea. > Despite very minor variances in gravity, Earth is MOSTLY HARMLESS. ;-) Did you know that the Central African Republic covers one of the largest magnetic anomalies in the world? It's so big it's named after the capital of the CAR, which will of course make it trivial for you all to look it up. > Instead, it just means that British pubs are not as stingy with their > beer. And, it doesn't need to be chilled to almost frozen to make it > drinkable. Very true. British beer is often served with very little foam on top, so the capacity of the glass is measured to the brim. A Czech beer without at least a few centimetres of foam is considered defective and most drinkers would send it back -- so Czech beer glasses are lined instead, to leave plenty of space for the froth on top. > I wish that there were a pub open. Oh gods, me too. > But, "The Albatross" (pub in Berkeley) > has closed down. forever. Can't stay in business with a lockdown. Sorry to hear that. > I can get beer delivered! Coincidentally, it is Corona beer! Oh my word. My deepest condolences. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Mon, 1 Feb 2021 at 20:00, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > I had always been told, "A pint is a pound, the world around." Aha! Does that mean a pint of water weighs 1lb? Interesting. I did not know. > I had already assumed that pub prices had inflated to higher than a pound. It was under £1 for ½litre of beer when I got here. In fact it was under US$1/ US 1pt. Now it's a bit more. Cheapest I had was CzK 17 for half a litre. At the time that was about 50¢. > Such worries call for having a few pints. It is one of the things I miss most in lockdown. And there's no electricity supply in my man-cave/basement so I can't even go down there and play with my old computers. :-( -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Sat, 30 Jan 2021 at 02:56, dwight via cctalk wrote: > I constantly see people claiming how much better decimal is than the English > system of meassurment. Um. I am a native English speaker, as well as an English citizen, and I count in decimal. Do you mean metric (SI / Systeme Internationale) versus Imperial measurements? If so, I 100% aver that metric is far better. I am 53 years old. I did not learn Imperial at school, in any of the 3 countries where I went to school (UK, Nigeria, Isle of Man.) I know some of the units; I think of a few things, such as human beings, computer screens, and pizzas, in Imperial units. People's height in feet & inches is more meaningful to me than in metres, but I can cope. People's weight in stones. Beer in pints. Speeds in MPH. But that's about all. I have never managed to learn how many ounces in a pound, or pounds in an stone, or stones in a hundredweight. I do not know what a fluid ounce is, or how many are in a pint. I do not know how many yards in a mile. They're all arbitrary numbers and it makes no sense. SI units are 100% easier by any metric. Yes, that is intentional. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 22:14, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > such as 42 > WHATDOYOUGETWHENYOUMULTIPLYSIXBYNINE 👍 -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Mon, 1 Feb 2021 at 10:34, Tor Arntsen via cctalk wrote: > > Some sheep herders in (IIRC) the Caucasus do, or did at least. I > learned about that some decades ago. Counting sheep on their fingers. > I use the system sometimes. Fred Pohl's short story "Digits and Dastards" explains it well. I used to use it at my fencing club. Matches are normally first to 15 points -- first to 10 if we were busy. I'd keep score on my fingers in binary, left for one player, right for the other.. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Epson QX-10 hard drive
On Sun, 31 Jan 2021 at 19:36, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > Greetings > > I recently purchased a QCS external hard disk on ebay. This was one of the > companies that was selling DEC Rainbow hard drives. I had hoped it was an > old Rainbow drive with interesting to me bits... Turns out it is an Epson > QX-10 hard drive, full of interesting to bits for the QX-10 CP/M > enthusiast. I've had trouble finding a suitable community to note this in > should there be people around that care... so I thought I'd ask here is > people know of good CP/M groups and/or QX-10/16 groups, mailing lists, irc > channels, discord servers, etc I could find. I'm not in it, but https://www.facebook.com/groups/cpmusers ...? There's some interest in the GEM-DEV group on simpits.com -- GeneB is your man there. www.deltasoft.com is a starting point. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: UNIVAC
On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 15:20, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > Ah yes, radium. You'll get my original R-390/URR meters when you pry > them from my cold, dead, glowing hands. Relevant (& from a list member): "My vintage vacuum tubes are radio-active!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSWIdDcbGU -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Fri, 29 Jan 2021 at 13:11, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > > It is *also* the use of symbols. Firstly, some people are just symbol-blind > and prefer stuff spelled out in words. It's just how brains are wired. Agreed. I submit this is also why some people find Lisp (and perhaps Forth and Postscript) straightforward, while to others it remains ineffable. > It may > have even been inspired to do this by APL given the manual says Sinclair > BASIC was written by a "Cambridge mathematician". Specifically, this one, I believe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Vickers_(computer_scientist) > Yes, well, a lot of BASIC programmers have even more fundamental problems > with understanding important programming concepts, such as recursion Good BASICs had that. > and > pointers/references. ... Fair. :-( > Modern x86-64 (and ARM etc) also (finally!) has useful vector instructions. > Unfortunately, the popular languages do not make their use terribly simple, > and mostly rely on compilers recognising idiomatic loop patterns over > scalars and transforming them. This works about as well as you might expect. Very interesting paper, IMHO: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3212479 « C Is Not a Low-level Language Your computer is not a fast PDP-11. » It does imply the question, though, as to what a high-level language designed for multithreaded partly-parallel CPUs with SIMD extensions would look like, and whether this kind of logic is easily expressed for people who do not have an APL sort of mind... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: 50 free 8 inch floppies!
On Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 03:54, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > I'm offering > these disks for free. > > So if you need 50 disks with various versions of RT11 and god knows what > data on them or 50 frisbees let me know and they're yours for the cost > of shipping. I need to either pitch these things or give them away. Do you need disk boxes for them? A friend of mine in Brno has multiple 8" disk boxes -- the sturdy plastic type. Czech post is fairly cheap. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 17:50, Liam Proven wrote: > So I resubbed online and now I get it again. providing that warm > comforting sensation of intellects vast and cool, as immeasurably > superior to my own as mine is to that of the transient creatures that > swarm and multiply in a drop of water. On which note, from a totally different source, this may amuse the Perl _and_ APL fans: http://www.dlugosz.com/Perl6/web/APL.html -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 17:44, Gavin Scott via cctalk wrote: > > APL is still a going concern in a few places Oh, definitely. I subscribed to the British APL Association's newsletter from an advert in UK magazine PCW in the 1980s and continued to get its publication, _Vector_, for over 20Y. https://britishaplassociation.org/ I never understood it but I enjoyed the feeling of baffled incomprehension I got from reading it. I was sad when it stopped. When I was emigrating in 2014, I found an unopened copy of Vector in a box in my garage. _That_ copy was the one in which they asked all subscribers to confirm they still wanted it. :-( So I resubbed online and now I get it again. providing that warm comforting sensation of intellects vast and cool, as immeasurably superior to my own as mine is to that of the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. https://vector.org.uk/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APL\360
On Fri, 15 Jan 2021 at 17:21, Nemo Nusquam via cctalk wrote: > > In 1999, a fellow student in a UML course worked for a large information > company (Reuters, I think?) and told me that they had embarked on an > expensive s/w conversion project. Their back-end systems were > implemented in APL and they could not find programmers -- even ones > willing to learn APL for pay. Later than that, Morgan Stanley was still using significant amounts of APL, albeit in its own in-house dialect, A+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%2B_(programming_language) My lodger at one point (around 2005 I think) got a job with MS and had to learn A+. He was a heavy Perl user before and maintained some official Perl packages. He was given to improvising tiny cryptic Perl one-liners on Linux to work stuff out, calculate dates, do file management, etc. IOW he thought in Perl. He commented to me in the pub a year or 2 later that he realised one evening, doing some Perl work, that after some years working in A+, he now found Perl irritatingly verbose, and that realisation rather shocked him. :-) Of course this is some 15Y ago now and it may no longer be in use, but it certainly was well past the turn of the century. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 17:42, Bill Degnan wrote: > > Agreed. > > A fully provisioned IBM PC / XT in 1981-4 was pretty expensive too, that's > why 8-bit machines continued to sell well into the later 80's. 16-bit was > overkill for most home needs. Apple would not have survived the 80's without > their 8-bit machine sales, and Commodore, Atari, Tandy Definitely true. And one thing that interests me is the double factoid: [1] The companies that threw away their 8-bit line and did something totally new for their 16-bit lines generally did better, and attempts at backwards-compatibility failed _except_ [2] For Intel/MICROS~1, who somehow managed to smoothly transition from 8/16 → true 16-bit → 32-bit → 64-bit → multi-CPU → multi-core/multi-CPU, across multiple expansion buses, memory architectures and more... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 15:35, emanuel stiebler wrote: > > I guess we have to be careful, comparing machines & CPUs. > 68000 came out as a CPU in 1980/1981 (available on the market (?)) > > You're comparing it to a ARM2 machine of 1987, where Motorola had the > newer 68020, and 68030 by than ... That's a fair objection. :-) I suppose that the 68K only trickled down to the home/consumer market after about 5 years. The original Mac was circa $2.5K and the Lisa was around $10K -- *not* home computer prices for most people, even in the USA. The Sinclair QL was arguably the first affordable mass-market 68K box, and it used the somewhat crippled 68008 and 8-bit RAM to keep costs down. Before the Mac, I suppose that, as Cameron points out, the accurate comparison was with standalone multi-user machines such as the Sage and Alpha Micro. Desktop minicomputers, really. These were fading from the market when I started my first job in 1988. The only ones I personally worked on were Jarograte Sprite machines -- of which barely a trace remains on the WWW now, sadly. I'd like to know more about Jarogate and their products -- most of what I did was helping migrate stuff _off_ them onto either 386s running SCO Xenix, or small PC LANs. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: APE - ALTAIR peripheripheral emulator
On Mon, 4 Jan 2021 at 03:07, jwest--- via cctalk wrote: > > (not to be confused with the other APE, for Atari)? There's also an Apricot emulator by that name: https://ai.ansible.uk/ape.html from https://ai.ansible.uk/freebies.html Plan 9 has an APE too... http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/ape -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
On Sun, 3 Jan 2021 at 03:53, Boris Gimbarzevsky wrote: > > Ran into 68000 processor for > first time in 1986 when my father bought a 512 K > Mac and couldn't believe performance of this CPU It is odd. I had read of it, of course, but for me the revelation was getting an Acorn Archimedes in 1989, with an 8MHz ARM2, and seeing it blast past benchmarks of ~8MHz 68K machines such as the Amiga 500 or Atari 512 ST. It was about 4x faster, I believe. For me -- being a bit too young for the early days of the 68K family -- it was not a performance chip, but more about its ability to have lots of flat memory, unlike the crippled Intel chips that IBM used. > Weird that Rod Coleman had 68000 > instruction set associated with IBM 370 whereas > to me it was very PDP-11 like I've heard that before, yes,. and never the IBM comparison. I suppose it is a matter of what you're more familiar with. > Thanks for the link as didn't realize 68000 was > used for home systems before I ran into Mac. Sinclair's QL used a 68008 and was launched some weeks before the Mac. Of course Apple's own Lisa was before the Mac, too. Very soon after came the Amiga and ST -- the "Jackintosh", "power without the price." -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Rod Coleman's personal history of founding, building & running SAGE
This may be old news -- it was new to me, though. https://suddendisruption.blogspot.com/search/label/Booting%20Sage%20Computer I'm not really familiar with SAGE machines. They were not as well-known in the UK, I think, being upmarket from the Apple ][ and IBM PC, both of which were eye-wateringly expensive by UK standards of the time. Also, they were terminal-based things and even back then I was interested in boxes with graphics. :-) -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
On Tue, 29 Dec 2020 at 00:29, Nemo Nusquam via cctalk wrote: > > Thank you both for your information but I am still mystified as to why > Gmail marks Google alerts (from Google!) as spam. That is particularly amusing/irritating, yes. I have 3 or 4 connected accounts -- AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. -- and when it detects what it thinks are intrusion attempts, Google notifies me on all of them. Then the ones to non-Google services get collected into Gmail, and promptly flagged as spam. But I suppose that, to Google, Google errors that didn't come from Google but from non-Google services _are_ suspicious... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
On Mon, 28 Dec 2020 at 23:50, Bill Degnan wrote: > > Liam, > As I said I can set up a filter but that does not really solve the problem it > compensates for it in the cctalk world only. OK, that's fair. If I stuck a finger in the air and guesstimated, I'd say about 95% of my email is filtered, and I generally tick this box in all my filters, so I suspect that most things that go into folders -- I have over 100 now, I think -- don't go to spam. In 16Y on Gmail, I've had one significant false-positive that I recall -- the editor at Linux Weekly News was trying to contact me and consistently it got filed as spam. That's all I can remember. A few a month _don't_ get filed as spam, if that. So, yes, it's a problem, but for me, a small one, and all spam filters have it. > If you send an email from an old or incorrectly configured mail server to > someone in gmail who does not have a filter ready to receive your message it > will end up in spam and they won't get it unless they check their spam > folder. If I was using a mail server that was causing messages to be dumped > into the spam folder due to issues with mail gateway authentication/delivery, > I'd want to fix it. Logical that one would want messages to be received and > delivered to the inbox of the recipient with the highest percentage possible I have contacts who run or ran professional mail-filtering services and mostly these days I see comments that it is not possible to _completely_ solve this problem, unfortunately. :-( -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
On Mon, 28 Dec 2020 at 23:12, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: > > Hi, > I have noticed the same email addresses' messages routinely end up in the > spam folder of gmail. I have 2 nested folders (labels/tags/whatever) in Gmail: classiccmp/talk and classiccmp/tech. In my rule which filters messages into those folders, I ticked the box that says never to send messages matching the filter to spam. Problem solved. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 21:23, geneb wrote: > > Hopefully Cancel Moose can return too. :) http://cm.org/ ...? -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 17:46, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote: > Do it yourself HEART surgery??!!?? Yikes! As close as I've heard of: (1 b&w pic but not for the squeamish) https://web.archive.org/web/20121107053510/http://www.doctorross.co.za/antarctica/self-operation-tracking-down-a-good-story -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 18:20, geneb wrote: > > > That would be glorious. :) Looks like it's happened. https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Board_members https://events.opensuse.org/conferences/oSLO/program/proposals/3028 -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 17:12, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote: > > What's Livejournal? :-o It was one of the first free blogging sites, before WordPress or Blogger or the like. It has a number of forks, one of which is extant and alive: Dreamwidth. It's the site that memcached was written for. I've had a personal blog on there since 2002, and a technical one since I can't remember but not that much later. Like Google's Orkut, it ended up mainly popular in 1 geo-market -- Brazil for Orkut, Russia for LJ. Google just killed Orkut, as it does with a lot of its sites -- it didn't even make any effort to roll it into Wave or G+ or anything. LJ's founder sold it off, took the money and semi-retired. The management sold it off and now it's Russian-owned, but the English site still works fine. I just ignore the odd sponsored link in Russian. It has a great threaded commenting system, the basic free offering is all I need, and because I had 400+ friends on the site at its peak, whenever I post, a few dozen people with active accounts still see it, so it gets a bit of attention. It was always more community-oriented than very solipsistic sites such as WordPress or whatever. > (Don't you mean created by kids who think the existing community is > boring / irrelevant / dominated by someone they don't agree with and think > their new creation is going to be cool, interesting and open to all but > have yet to discover that they don't have the ability to make this happen?) Also could be, of course. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: WTB: CompuPro / Godbout RAM 17
On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 21:31, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > Other than "Buy It Now" I have pretty much given up on > ebay. Never had luck selling anything and very seldom > had any luck winning a bid. Got better ways to waste > my time. If you _really_ want something that is _not_ BIN, the key is to use a sniping tool. I only use them very sparingly as I think it's a bit unethical, but sadly, I think a lot of people use them. I personally use a Polish one: https://snip.pl/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Wed, 16 Dec 2020 at 01:02, Mark J. Blair via cctalk wrote: > > USENET is still around. But much like the rest of the infinite groups, it's > not where everybody is. Sigh. True. In fact a colleague of mine at $DAYJOB is trying to resurrect the Big 8 committee and get some active management occuring again. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 20:09, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > This is one of the reasons why I miss good old USENET - with a public list > of groups, and a clear hierarchy. I was thinking exactly the same thing. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Tue, 15 Dec 2020 at 10:35, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > Seems to be the usual FB problem - too many similar groups. :) How do you mean? Has it already appeared in some I'm not in? It's nothing new. 15y ago or something, there were umpteen Communities on Livejournal for any conceivable subject or interest -- most created by kids without the wits to check for others' before creating their own. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: misc stuff - free
On Mon, 14 Dec 2020 at 22:52, Don Stalkowski via cctalk wrote: > > I'm listing this stuff just in case someone is desperate for > any of it. Would you like me to post these lists on the Facebook vintage-computer collectors' groups for you, Don? I can suitably anonymise your email, if you prefer, and broker comms for you... No charge, of course! :-D -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Perkins-Elmer 3600 and PETOS
Does anyone know anything much about this early desktop computer and its OS? Example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Perkin-Elmer-3600-PETOS-Like-Microsoft-BASIC-Computer-6800-CPU-Works-/303540134722 Although it predated the PC, MS supplied the BASIC and apparently the CLI resembles early DOS. I ask because there is someone in the Free Pascal Compiler fora looking for help getting data off one -- they're still using it for data monitoring! https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,52458.0.html -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Atari ST diskettes
On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 at 12:28, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote: > > Well, I guess for some anything that does not require you to toggle in > the boot loader or doesn't have a teletype console terminal is surely too > modern to even consider. :-D One of the things I enjoy about this group is that some of the discussions and the memories make me feel young... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Anyone want some LMI Lisp Machine tapes?
https://www.ebay.de/itm/254795423667 €1 « LISP MACHINE INC 1/2" Reel Tapes Anyone who opens this auction will know what this is - and how unique these tapes are. The lot is consisting of 13 tapes, which are labeled as follows: LMI FORTRAN 77 #1352- LMI Release 2.0 two tapes LMI Boot / SDU 3.14 #3143- Rev A LMI REL 3.1 Patch Tape 1600BPI 30. SEP 1987 LMI CS Tape Experimental 6. AUG 1987 LMI UCODE 1599 11 FEB 1987 LMI RELEASE 2.0 Diagnostics #1022- LMI LISP SOURCE LMI Release 3.0 LISP System 3.205 Microcode 1593 plus four unlabeled tapes plus two loose tape label, not assignable to the tapes unlabled The tapes were not tested for readability by me and will be sold as is. Shipment world wide, please ask for shipment costs - additional insurance cost might be apply. » -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Atari ST diskettes
On Tue, 1 Dec 2020 at 22:36, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > I found a box of 45 Atari ST diskettes in my basement, from my 1980's > 520 ST (or maybe my brother's 1040 ST). > > I don't have a floppy drive, so I can't tell whether they're readable. > > Some are originals, for example for 1St Word, the word processor, and > Regent Base, a relational database program. > > Others are copies. > > If you send a PDF of a USPS media rate shipping label, 4"x5"x6", 3lb, > they're yours. Coordinate with me so you don't send a label after > somebody else has already sent one. So I guess you are in the USA? If you don't get much response here, for many of whom I suspect the ST is a bit modern, let me know and I can share it on some relevant groups on FB for you. Anonymised or obscured as you prefer. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: NEC NEAX IVS2 PBX with NEAXMAIL AD-8 - hard drive clone, issues
On Sat, 28 Nov 2020 at 23:33, keith--- via cctalk wrote: > > Hi Liam, > > As stated in my OP, I was using Windows 10 and USB adapters. *Goes back and re-reads* Ah, OK. I did not follow before. I think Windows is a really poor choice for this. Worse, it might have tried to mount the filesystem R/W and conceivably damaged it further. Rufus I use for writing Windows ISOs to USB, but nothing else. I don't think it's a suitable tool for this at all. > Active Disk Image, and Macrium Reflect programs Never heard of them, I'm afraid. I used to have Windows tools for this stuff, 2 decades ago before I stopped using it unless someone was paying me to, but they won't run on Win10. > to copy it an > image file and then back to the CF. They are supposed to create exact > images of the drives but I think they do not. Of course it could be > something with my CF to USB adapter. It could be-- but it could also be that they're trying to copy a mounted FS or something. > As far as errors, as stated in my OP, "Since the voicemail card is > running headless, I can't see the error messages." The only way I know > of a successful boot, is one LED turns green and then I can call in to > the VoiceMail card. Couldn't you try to boot the image in a VM? > I am going to try a Linux machine and DD next. Much better plan. If there are any errors on the drive, I would recommend GNU ``ddrescue``. Do not confuse this with the older (but still maintained) dd_rescue which is the product that inspired the GNU one; the newer one is more capable. It images but skips and continues on error, whereas ``dd`` will simply fail. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: NEC NEAX IVS2 PBX with NEAXMAIL AD-8 - hard drive clone issues
On Fri, 27 Nov 2020 at 01:32, keith--- via cctalk wrote: > I have tried to copy it to an industrial CF > card but no luck. I have used Rufus, Active Disk Image, and Macrium > Reflect. First question: how did you try to copy it? You've not given us anywhere near enough info to try to troubleshoot the issue. • What did you connect it to? • How did you connect it? • What did you try to copy it onto? • Partitioned how? • Formatted with what FS, using what tool? • What OSes did you try? • What errors did you get? -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: evil thing to ask but I need keystroke logger
On Fri, 20 Nov 2020 at 13:19, Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote: > > Have you considered asking them what they are doing? As my only offspring is only 1y old, [a] I'm not too worried and [b] it would elicit no coherent response. However I've been doing my research and I am given to believe that this leads to inaccurate information. Not exactly a citation but... https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2020/nov/14/berger-wyse-on-emojis-cartoon -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Regional accents and dialects (Was: The best hard drives??
On Thu, 19 Nov 2020 at 17:58, Ethan Dicks wrote: > > As an American, I think Hugh Laurie and Bob Hoskins have quite > acceptable American accents AIUI, most people do. I think it's just to their countrymen that they sound artificial. > as does Jamie Bamber (Lee "Apollo" Adama > in Battlestar Galactica). (*Googles*) Oh! Didn't know he wasn't. But apparently his dad's American, so I guess he grew up hearing it. > The funny thing is I just caught an episode > of Hugh Lauie in Masterpiece Theater "Roadkill" and thought he sounds > "less British" than he did in the days of Fry and Laurie. :-) > We have a Wooster, Ohio, but owing to the local rural accent, there's > a "Wster/Wuhster" pronunciation split. The local joke is > "Wooster, where the cows say 'Muh'". :-D -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Regional accents and dialects (Was: The best hard drives??
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 at 21:20, Fred Cisin via cctalk
wrote:
>
> And the machines that Calcomp made (570, etc.) were called "plodders"
I am well-used to that one; I think all Brits are, from TV and cinema.
(Aside: it is amusing to me, at least, that some British actors
succeeded in Hollywood or TV analogues thereof, playing Americans, in
what to other Brits sound like unconvincing accents: Hugh Laurie
("House"), Bob Hoskins ("Who Framed Roger Rabbit?").)
> Nobody around here will use Worcestershire sauce, because they are
> afraid to even try to pronounce it.
It took me decades to realise, but P G Wodehouse's famed fictional
character Bertie Wooster has the same name. "Wooster" is just a
phonetic rendering of "Worcester". Any placename with "chester" or
variant thereof is ~2000 years old, because it derives from the Latin
"castrum" used by the Romans. Castra were Roman fortified bases.
Sounds drift a lot over two millennia.
Gloucester → "Gloster"
Leicester → "Lester"
Worcester → "Wooster"
My personal favourite is Woolfardisworthy. It's a pretty little
village, but its name sounds so different, they put the phonetic
version on signposts too, so outsiders can actually find it: Woolsery.
> For a while, I lived near "Bawlmer" (Baltimore)
Huh. I did not know Baltimore was not pronounced boll-tea-more.
I've watched this many times but never clocked on:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfIWX5vGTEk ← sweary but highly amusing
> (The most significant landmark is the B R O M O S E L T Z E R clock - what
> time is it when both hands are on 'O's?)
*Googles it* Coo...
--
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: The best hard drives??
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 at 17:15, Diane Bruce wrote: > > My expat FIL was from Lancs. Good part is I learned how to make a decent pot > of tea. The bad is, I couldn't understand him half the time. Being from Lancashire myself, I can't see the problem, but the rest of the UK regards us as impenetrable. Prime example: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6u0reg Discussion: https://www.goodiesruleok.com/articles.php?id=17 -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: The best hard drives??
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 at 04:21, Tapley, Mark B. via cctalk wrote: > > On Nov 17, 2020, at 7:03 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk > mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote: > > Argh! I was not posting to the list that I thought I was. I apologise > for using that nickname. :-( > > Liam, …. does it actually make it better that you were posting to the wrong > list? No, it doesn't. :-( -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: The best hard drives??
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020 at 02:53, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Most of us "merkens" haven't truly mastered one language. I was very surprised to discover a couple of years ago that many in the USA pronounce "squirrel" as "skwerl". My surprise was subsequently pushed to its limits when I discovered that the 'L' in 'solder' has become silent and it is now commonly pronounced "sodder". But yesterday, I discovered that the 'L' in words such as "palm", "balm" and "psalm" is _no longer_ silent and is actively pronounced in some regions of the US, and mere surprise was no longer adequate and I was forced to resort to astonishment. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: The best hard drives??
On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 at 15:36, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > Most "Merikens" just let the bank do the conversion when they buy > from overseas. Argh! I was not posting to the list that I thought I was. I apologise for using that nickname. :-( -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: The best hard drives??
On Tue, 17 Nov 2020 at 10:26, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > Five MyBooks bought 18 months ago had debranded He8 disks in there: very nice. > The three Elements a few months back have (non-SMR) WD Reds in them, which is > OK. Three more are supposedly turning up tomorrow. Oh blast, I wish I had known then... > It also turns out that £1 ≈ €1 ≈ $1. Indeed so. Sadly, most Merkins don't know this and wail about not understanding Weird Forrin Money. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Way off topic: posting to the list using default Samsung Android Mail Client
On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 19:27, Angel M Alganza via cctalk wrote: > Most of them, yes. Then there is K-9 mail for Android, > which almost makes me to not miss Mutt, when using the phone. Which is what I proposed in the first reply, complete with links. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Way off topic: posting to the list using default Samsung Android Mail Client
On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 11:31, Dave Wade G4UGM via cctalk wrote: > > That is like asking how do you fix Windows/10 MAIL app. It’s the default, it > sends and receives mail. If you want something that works better and gives > you control then you switch to a supported app. > There is also Outlook and a GMAIL app for Samsung. What Dave said. Proper old-fashioned internet-standard email is totally unknown to the authors of modern email clients, such as for phones etc. No, you can't fix it. If you want to write/reply to old-style plain-text email from a fondleslab, then use K9Mail. It is the only mobile client I know of that can handle bottom-posting, trimming quotes etc. You can do it by hand with a lot of work in the Gmail client, but it means manual selection and trimming etc. I have not found any way to force plain text on mobile. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Way off topic: posting to the list using default Samsung Android Mail Client
On Tue, 10 Nov 2020 at 00:44, Ali via cctalk wrote: > Any > ideas/suggestions? TIA! https://k9mail.app/ https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9&hl=en&gl=US -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Floppy disk: one drive per face
On Mon, 9 Nov 2020 at 21:41, ben via cctalk wrote: > > Is the Author find able? Do he still have 8" floppies? Dude. Really. Pay attention. The author has been posting in this thread. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: AOL CD and other old PC software...
On Thu, 15 Oct 2020 at 22:48, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > On 10/15/20 2:32 PM, Kevin Lee wrote: > > Link for the prodigy work please? Seems interesting.. > > Sorry, I don't have a link per say. That's _per se_, BTW. Latin. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/per_se -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: cctalk Digest, Vol 73, Issue 13
On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 at 22:28, Adam Thornton via cctalk wrote: > > I agree that whether a student learns has much more to do with the student > than what in particular they're studying. > > I quit my undergraduate physics degree when I had a moment of clarity that > even if I managed to squeak through my Partial Differential Equations class > with a C (I did) I'd still be on a trajectory where _solving PDEs was what > I would be doing with my life_. I don't know about that. AIUI very few people continue to work in the field where they studied. In my field, most holders of bachelors' degrees who work in that field do palynology or haematology. IOW, they spend their lives in labs, peering down microscopes, identifying and counting either blood cells (for hospitals) or pollen grains and spores (mainly for oil companies). Neither appealed to me at all, but I learned that to stay in biology, I'd _need_ to do a doctorate. I didn't fancy that at the time (20Y old), nor did I fancy a career of lecturing uninterested undergrads and applying for grants. So I left. Sounds like you changed disciplines instead? It's good to have that option. In the England, Wales & NI in the '80s, you only got 3Y grant for a bachelors -- I guess 4 in Scotland, where a 1Y foundation is mandatory. So if you change your field of study and restart, you have to pay your own way for the extra time, which was not doable for most people. Result: a strong incentive to either stay the course, or drop out completely. Since now there are no grants at all, only loans, I guess it's worse. :-( > My undergrad degree is in Ancient Mediterranean Civilizations. My MA is in > History (but, hey, the History of Computing). I dropped out of the Ph.D. > program I was in for a variety of reasons, to be honest crushing depression > probably chief among them, but also because I was a fairly decent > practitioner, and I had more fun playing with computers than I did writing > stories about people who'd played with computers a couple generations > before I had. It being the late 90s, my job prospects were decidedly > better on the Not A Professional Historian side of the fence. I can see that! But hey, you beat me -- you got a Master's. I was battling depression for the 2nd half of my degree too, but I didn't know it. > That was 22-ish years ago. I'd been making beer money all through college > and grad school with IT jobs, and I've stayed in IT-related fields ever > since. Consulting, systems administration and engineering, these days > software development-but-also-devops. My lack of appropriate degrees > probably only didn't hurt because I started a not-unsuccessful consulting > business with my mentor after I quit grad school, and by the time I was > ready to move on from that, I had enough years of broadly varied experience > under my belt that it didn't really matter. Yup. Broadly what I did, too. I look upon it as turning my hobby into my career. I never found the irrelevance of my degree a hindrance, but those were different times. > But that's tangential. The actual point was: the fuzzy stuff is only > contemptible if you've got Physicists' Disease. History is hard, and it > has a lot more in common with debugging that is obvious at first glance. > In both cases you are presented with "Here's what happened," and it's your > job to figure out "why?" Fascinating insight -- thanks for that! In both cases, the ability to break the end-state > The thing with debugging is that you usually are afforded > the opportunity the repeat the experiment while changing parameters. With > history, you're not so lucky You might enjoy the novels of Connie Willis. :-) > Nevertheless, a degree--and particularly an advanced one--is indeed much > more about the discipline to put your head down and swallow what's put in > front of you than about smarts. Definitely. > I was told a couple of decades ago I'd regret not having stuck it out for > my Ph.D. I'm still waiting for that regret to kick in; in the meantime, > many others have come and gone. :-D Thanks for a very interesting and engaging response! -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Maynard MaynStream
On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 at 01:08, Van Snyder wrote: > I'll send it for a PDF of a shipping label for a 20" x 10" x 10" 10lb box, > your choice of carrier. That is a very kind offer and I appreciate your generosity, but I think perhaps you mistake what I was trying to say. It's too old to be of direct interest to me, sadly. What I was saying was that if you put it on eBay, for instance, for a token price -- I used to start my auctions at 1 penny -- you will reach a far wider potential audience than here on ClassicCmp, or indeed on the VCF forums. I'm happy to put it on the Facebook Vintage Computer Club for you, if you'd like, and act as intermediary for comms (assuming you're not on FB). I think it has over 15,000 members now. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: college study
On Wed, 14 Oct 2020 at 00:19, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Do you want the degree? > Or do you want to LEARN? Fair! Both. > Take a course in your limited "spare time". > Then another. > and another > > I did grad school (UC Berkeley) while teaching full time plus running a > business, and over 40 years old. This may be tricky in a country where I do not usefully speak the language -- but if we get through the newest pandemic outbreak and out the other side next year some time, when Ada is a little older, it's worth investigating. Thanks for the encouragement. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Maynard MaynStream
On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 at 21:51, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > I have a Maynard MaynStream tape backup unit from the 1980's. > > It uses audio-format cassettes with 1/4" tape, but it's a different > tape composition, and the cassette has a notch in it to tell the device > it's not just plain audio tape. The capacity was 80 MB per cassette. > > I also have four ISA controller cards, four cables, and several > cassettes. We used it for backup with IBM PC/AT boxes many years ago. > > Does anybody want it? It seems a shame to throw it in the e-waste bin. At least offer it for sale! I had a later model, which used VHS-C cassettes. I should get another one, as I have a bunch of backup tapes and some stuff on there is probably the only copy I own now... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: college study
On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 at 21:17, Paul Koning via cctalk
wrote:
>
> It depends. In sciences, people understand that it's a lot of work. In what
> Robert Heinlein called the "fuzzy subjects", you can often be a party animal
> who does very little real work and get a degree anyway. If so, it doesn't
> mean you learned anything and it doesn't mean the field you picked as a major
> has any merit or usefulness.
I see comments like in this thread a lot, and I have also looked over
some modern uni papers and they look straight forward to me. I only
have a BSc and I have PhD envy, and occasionally idly considered
"dropping out" from work and doing a Master's and a PhD over here in
Czechia. Then I unexpectedly had a daughter, at 52, and it's no longer
an option.
But the thing is -- over here in the former communist bloc, people are
even keener on education and degrees than back in the West. (I had to
bring my degree certificate to prove I had one!) Study is free or very
cheap and not time-limited; I know of people who have been at uni for
over a decade.
*But* saying that, I taught English for a year or so over here, and 2
of my students were also full-time uni students. One was studying
English, because she wanted to be a TEFL teacher. It was her 3rd
attempt at a degree.
Another did physics, dropped out, then did maths, dropped out, then
did computer science, and dropped out.
The real core point of a degree, I feel, is that it shows that you can
pick a subject, knuckle down, study it for several years, subject
yourself to the stress of exams and theses and so on, and _keep doing
it until you have one_.
This is _not_ an idle threat. I personally know smart, motivated
people who just did not have that degree of self-control and
self-discipline.
I also have a friend with quite severe ADHD who has a good history
degree. He has _very little_ self-control and a butterfly mind, but
the point is, he knew he needed it so he got his head down and did it.
So, yes, they _do_ seem easier now than when I did mine in the late
1980s, but they are still hard and still take a long time and they
_do_ select people -- or *deselect* people.
And as for the "soft" studies, the oft-mocked arts and so on... well,
I had friends at Uni who did maths or comp-sci, and some were
_startlingly_ ignorant of the world around them, because _all_ they
knew was maths. I had a close friend -- who still is, nearly 40y later
-- who did English. He had a laughable lecture load of an hour or
90min a week, and moved to a house 30 miles and a couple of hours'
travel away. But the amount of reading he was expected to do was
extremely intimidating. I'm a speed-reader; I did most of the optional
reading for all my courses, including my Eng Lit "high school"
course. ('A'-level, for the English.) My friend did about 10x more
than that or more. Consistently several long dense books a week for 3
years, holidays/vacation included. Not trivial at all!
And long after, I befriended 2 young chaps via a wonderful
organization I was extremely peripherally involved in founding and
running -- Skeptics in the Pub. These guys were friends of each other
from Uni, where they both did Media Studies, a subject I'd always
regarded as a bit of a joke.
I learned something from them. I was wrong. They're both very smart,
and their knowledge and erudition was astonishing. Far far more than
my English-degree olding friend, who even now in his 50s is an
unworldly ingenue. Alex and Jonathan had a good solid grasp of world
communications and affairs going back 50 years -- they could, for
instance, pick up subsconscious references or quotations or
paraphrases from minor TV series that I watched decades before they
were born, and not only that, tell me who acted in, wrote and directed
it. They knew science communications, good and bad, and how it should
be done, and the problems, and the core stuff that it needed. They
knew print fiction and poetry and song and theatre and classic and
modern painting and sculpture and so on.
The point I took away from this is that *if* you're genuinely
interested and *if* you genuinely work on this kind of study, it _is_
very much real, valid and important, and the resultant knowledge and
understanding are profound and valid and useful.
In our current world of "fake news" and biased reporting and
politicians cuddled up with media conglomerates, of foreign nations
using paid posters on social networks to influence social opinions, of
people inserting falsehoods into online references, inventing scare
stories and spreading them online, all this sort of thing -- people
who _know_ and truly understand and can dissect and if needed
manipulate "The Media" are essential.
So, yes, I no longer mock the "soft sciences" and the liberal arts and
humanities as much as I did. I've come to see it's not an easy or
lightweight option, it's hard and it's arguably important and
certainly worthwhile.
Yes, true, smart students can coast through. But that's OK
Re: Concurrent Controls Multiuser DOS
On Sat, 3 Oct 2020 at 18:14, Jonathan Haddox via cctalk wrote: > > I'm researching Multiuser DOS out of my own interest. A version made by > Concurrent Controls specifically. However, I have been unable to find > documentation on it to satisfy my curiosity on how it works and how it is > configured. They must have somehow broken the 640K barrier or virtualized > each user session, I'd like to understand it better. What were it's > limitations, I'm guessing that each user didn't get direct access to > hardware. Anyone out there have a document or experience with it? It's just one fork of the old DR Concurrent DOS/386, descended from Concurrent CP/M. The Wikipedia article is a good start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiuser_DOS I say this with slight bias as I wrote a chunk of it. Yes, I had some experience with it, installing and supporting it on customers' systems in the late 1980s. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: [TUHS] Fwd: Choice of Unix for 11/03 and 11/23+ Systems
On Fri, 2 Oct 2020 at 19:20, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > (For those are are not familiar with Mini-Unix and LSX, they are both V6 Unix > variants lobotomized to run on PDP-11's without memory management: Aha! Like this? https://hackaday.com/2018/06/03/its-unix-on-a-microcontroller/ http://www.jcwolfram.de/projekte/mxe11_en/main.php -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: [TUHS] Fwd: Choice of Unix for 11/03 and 11/23+ Systems
On Thu, 1 Oct 2020 at 00:58, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > No, it looks like it uses a different fie-system layout. > > Besides; there's not much point: the big adantage of using V6 is that one can > use the V6 tool-chain to prepare Mini-Unix binaries; XV6 wouldn't allow > that. If all one wants to do is get files in or out, there's already a program > (compilable with gcc, that uses Standard I/O) to read files out of a V6 > filesystem. If there was any good need, it could be extended to write > (although that would be non-trivial). Ah, OK. Sorry for the noise, then. May I ask, for my continuing education: what's a "Mini-Unix binary"? -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: [TUHS] Fwd: Choice of Unix for 11/03 and 11/23+ Systems
On Wed, 30 Sep 2020 at 23:35, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > Good basic idea (using a different system to build on), but there's a > better/easier approach (in the same basic vein): bring up V6, and mount the RK > pack with Mini-Unix on it (it's a V6 file system, so is mountable); V6 is rock > solid running under simulators. Would the x86-32 "reimplementation" of v6 UNIX be able to mount and/or read-write such filesystems? https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2012/xv6.html -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: AW: CGA card (Mitsubishi Electric) with 192K RAM?
On Wed, 9 Sep 2020 at 18:56, Jules Richardson via cctalk wrote: > > On 9/8/20 6:04 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Date and time of Command.com and any other DOS files will identify the > > version number. Only after DOS 5 or so, I fear. > I've got 11/26/85 on command.com. > > > DIR /A or > > DIR /A:H > > will let you see the hidden files (presumably IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS; PC-DOS > > had IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM instead) > > The /a switch isn't part of the dir command in whatever 3.3 version I have. Yup. `ATTRIB *.*` might work in 3.3 though. > However, I just wrote a DOS 6.22 boot disk and that shows three hidden > files on the hard disk: > >MSDOS.SYS (11/18/85) >MIO.SYS (11/18/85) >SD.INI > > I'm guessing that the 'M' in MIO.SYS is "Mitsubishi" and the OS is tailored > in some way to the machine. Uhoh. Danger, Will Robinson. > > TYPEing "sd.ini" indicates that it's related to Norton Speed Disk - not a > program I'm familiar with, but as that appears to be a defragmenter, it > might hint at why my drive isn't bootable and seems to be having problems > with various executables - I wonder if the directory structure "looks > sane", but file contents have been completely mangled. Oh dear, yes. If the machine is not totally vanilla but close enough to boot vanilla DOS, then it's possible that SPEEDISK could have run but incorrectly and mangled stuff. Similarly running DOS defraggers on a VFAT disk with LFNs would mangle them, in the Win95 era. TBH, though, I'm surprised -- later versions of DOS (such as 6.22) didn't run on DOS compatible machines, because they'd died out by then. It was IBM compatible or nothing by the DOS 6 era, IIRC. So I'd expect a later-era machine to be compatible enough that Norton etc. would have no problem. I ran things like PKARC and PKZIP successfully on DOS-compatibles in the late '80s, because they only did legal file access and wrote plain text to the screen. I wouldn't expect SPEEDISK to run on an early Apricot or something. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: NetWare 5.1 / BorderManager 3.5
On Wed, 9 Sep 2020 at 06:34, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > On 9/8/20 7:18 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > I haven't tested that specific ISO. > > The particular ISO that you linked to is Novell NetWare 5.1 (Support > Pack 0). So it needs support packs installed on it. But that's good, isn't it? I confess I may have misread your original message as being "I need NW5.1 with no SPs." Was that wrong? But if you have SP0, no bugfixes, then surely you can just install the SPs on top of it to get to whatever level you want? My $DAYJOB was part of Novell until about a year ago. I _may_ be able to find internal download links still but I am not confident. Want me to start asking around? I may need some fairly specific info as there are few Netware folk left now. E.g. how many separate SPs did NW5.1 get? Do you need both US and ROW versions? > I've learned that there are different Support Packs, "Domestic" and > "International" having to do with the 128-bit vs 56-bit encryption woes > of the '90s. Oh dear... TBH I have a suspicion nobody may have kept stuff like that, even inside Novell... :( -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: AW: CGA card (Mitsubishi Electric) with 192K RAM?
On Tue, 8 Sep 2020 at 06:47, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > 1) If the drive is larger than 32MB, then boot with DOs 3.31 or newer. > Although even with the older ones, you can still do quite a bit. 3.31 is > the first where DOS supports a partition larger than 32MB > MS-DOS 5.00 is first where debug commands have a "/?" option to get a > short reminder of usage. Agreed. (Like I'd dare to differ with Fred.) My 2¢'s worth is just: for an XT, if you want to fit a CF card or something, try DR-DOS 3.41. It's out there in various places. RAM usage as small as MS-DOS 3.3 but offers most of the benefits of MS-DOS 4 and some of MS-DOS 5 (both of which take a *lot* more RAM on an XT-class machine.) -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: NetWare 5.1 / BorderManager 3.5
On Tue, 8 Sep 2020 at 08:18, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > Does anyone have any idea where I can get install media at various > support pack levels and / or support pack install files for NetWare 5.1 > and / or BorderManager 3.5? Something like this any help? https://winworldpc.com/product/netware/5x I have physical media of this somewhere: https://archive.org/details/Netware_5_Operating_System_3_User_Demo_Novell -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Brittle plastic
On Fri, 4 Sep 2020 at 11:02, Stefan Skoglund via cctalk wrote: > Textilmuseet (textiles and clothes museum in Borås, Sweden) have a > number of items which was haute couture in the 70s and 80s. Some of > them was done in a plastic which today is basically an awful mess... > > And so they are basically forced to thwrow away items which cost them a > fair bit to buy. :-o I did not know it affected fabrics, too, but I guess it makes sense. That's awful. Perhaps the problems of accumulating microplastics in the biosphere will resolve itself sooner than expected... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Basement Haul
On Thu, 3 Sep 2020 at 15:09, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > Unfortunately access to the pictures is restricted, silly of them. Agreed but this is normal for VCFED. I do have an account but I've not used it in years -- the forums are a bit too US-centric for me, and I hate web fora in general. Otherwise I'd share this on FB for increased interest/attention. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: IBM 3270 compatible terminal connected to Hercules IBM mainframe emulator.
On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 at 08:24, Mattis Lind via cctalk wrote: > > I have been working on a project for some time to connect a IBM3270 > compatible Alfaskop terminal with its IBM 3274 compatible cluster > controller to the Hercules mainframe emulator. > > Yesterday I eventually succeeded. I was able to login to TSO on my Hercules > system that ran MVS 3.8j. > > Here are a couple quick video clips: > > https://youtu.be/H1Sxt7xjn4Y > > https://youtu.be/CFfB3yCN9OI Very impressive! I shared links to the videos on the FB vintage mainframes group, where they are attracting some approving comments, too. :-) -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Sun SPARCstation LX boot from CDROM?
On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 at 15:33, Tom Hunter via cctalk wrote: > About 70% of the PCB had solder joints that were nice and shiny like brand > new. The remaining section near the front of the drive was quite badly > corroded and it also looked like there was some liquid spilled over that > section of the PCB (component side). This and the rest of what you describe sounds quite like the damaged caused by electrolyte leaking from failed capacitors. This is probably the most common cause of failure in electronics after they get to 2-3 decades old. There was one particular time when this happened prematurely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague But it is a general problem with almost all capacitors. I could be wrong but this seems more likely than rodent pee... Personally, I have failed caps in 3 Apple Macs -- one PowerPC and two MC68000. All are awaiting repair. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Looking for an IDE simulator
On Fri, 28 Aug 2020 at 18:07, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > After having a run of almost half a dozen IDE hard drive failures recently in > a short period of time (on my older desktops which use them, I've decided that > I should see if there's an IDE emulator (using SD cards) SD (and the related MMC, now obsolete, and the many subtypes of SD such as SDHC, SDIO, SDXC, SDUC etc.) is a complex multiplexed protocol. MMC used 1 pin, original SD used 4, some of the newer ones use 8, etc. But CF card _are_ EIDE. The interface is the IDE interface. Only a conversion of connector is needed, no controller electronics at all. CF cards are an old standard now, but professional photographers still use them, and high-end digital cameras use them -- partly because of the large storage capacity but also, I suspect, because they are easier to handle in a hurry, or in suboptimal conditions. SD cards are too small to manipulate easily wearing gloves, and MicroSD cards can be lost in a decent carpet. So my advice is: don't even consider SD. Use CF. Convertors from CD to 44-pin 2.5" hard disk connector and to 40-pin desktop connector are widespread and very cheap. CF cards with capacities in megabytes are $10 or under. Cards with capacities in low numbers of gigabytes are only a little more. You can get cards in the 256GB range now, for a few hundred bucks. I think you'll find it much easier -- and cheaper -- to interface CF cards to EIDE than any variant of SD, which is probably going to involve multiple convertors and controllers: micro-SD to SD, then maybe to SATA to PATA, and associated points of failure etc. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Buying and running an IBM PC-XT in 2020
On Wed, 26 Aug 2020 at 15:10, Bill Degnan wrote: > > I remember when the IBM XT was too new for a VCF exhibit, back when Sellam > ran shows. I can believe that. I gutted 2 original working PC-ATs in about 1996 for cases for Pentium-class machines. I deeply regret it now but it was 25y ago -- they were only about 10y old and not remotely collectable or even very interesting at the time. I still have 2 MDA cards and one screen from them. > The perspective is of a person who was not really part of the XT class > machine world when they were > pervasive. To me he seems to be exploring how they work as he teaches his > son, but I guess most people > forget at this point how to use a PC and DOS. Exactly, yes. The PC came out nearly _forty years ago_ now, and only middle-aged types like myself (52!) remember them when they were new. I didn't see one until Uni in 1985, when I was 17. Working adult IT professionals in their mid-twenties to early 30s today grew up only with multicore 64-bit machines and have quite possibly only used SSD-equipped machines at work. Most have never seen or used a floppy diskette or CD-ROM, and machines with ISA slots and optical drives disappeared when they were small children. They might never have seen or used any kind of rotating or magnetic media whatsoever. Some I have personally encountered have never used a wired network connection. The era of 16-bit machines with rotating 5¼" media (floppy, hard or optical) that you can _hear_ turning, that take time to get up to speed, where as you wait a minute or two for it to creak into life you can _hear_ motors whirring up, is as unknown to them as spinning the thread to make their own garments. For me, who started out at work on a PC-AT and worked on PC-XTs, it's a smooth continuum, but it's easy to forget that it really hasn't been, and the days of text-only single-tasking command-line machines with moving parts are last century... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Buying and running an IBM PC-XT in 2020
I found this blog post quite interesting. I've left what I hope is an informative, helpful comment. I wonder if anyone else here would have more to add? https://www.forsure.dev/-/2020/05/19/640-kilobytes-of-ram-and-why-i-bought-an-ibm-5160/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: SIMH on low overhead platform
On Mon, 17 Aug 2020 at 09:43, Tom Hunter via cctalk wrote: > > Has SIMH been ported to a low overhead (instant-on) platform? > > I ask the question because the startup time of Linux is distracting when > powering on a PiDP-11/70 or similar clone systems based on SIMH. Not that I know of. I have been looking thoughtfully at Ultibo: https://ultibo.org/ It is a bare-metal FreePascal development environment for the RasPi 1 to 3B. I have not actually tried to build anything yet and my Pascal skills are 30y rusty now (and they were never that great anyway, but they're better than my C skills ever were). I believe it is possible to get Ultibo to load and execute a monolithic ARM binary, so long as it meets some requirements. I was pondering trying to built a statically-linked executable of Aranym: https://aranym.github.io/ Aranym already runs on the RasPi using Rasbian: https://sites.google.com/site/beebox68k/news/beepi10 But by the same token it ought to be possible to do this with SimH or anything else... -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Any interest in "newer" hardware, software?
On Fri, 24 Jul 2020 at 08:36, Boris Gimbarzevsky via cctalk wrote: > > Was about to toss a 1987 box containing DOS 3.3 but then figured > someone might want it. Have a couple of XT systems kicking around > somewhere A chap on the FB Vintage Computing group was seriously asking if an original IBM PC with original packaging was worth USD 1000 this week. A thousand bucks for an 8088. *shakes head in disbelief* I sold a lot of my kit when I moved from the UK to Czechia, 6y ago. Individual 1.2 MB 5¼" disk drives went for £25-£50 each. You might be surprised how much it is worth... I was. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Compaq Smart Array 3200 Controller as a SCSI Controller
On Thu, 16 Jul 2020 at 14:09, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > Funny story about that: In 1990 I installed a Compaq systempro for > Hechinger's that cost over $100,000. I just about remember the SystemPro machines. One of my bigger clients in my first job got one, but they hired a full-time guy to customise their app for it, and he also became the sysadmin. A very early example of devops, I suppose. So I never got to play around with it. :-( > Had a full compliment of memory, > max internal disk on the ATA controller, ATA? That long ago? Possible but unusual in a server, I would have thought. What OS, just out of interest? > and two external boxes of disks > with the smart SCSI-ish controller. Massive system running Sybase SQL. > Designed to replace a 24*7 mainframe and expected to be up all the time. A single box? Oh dear. > Got a call 2 months later: The system had blown a hole in one of the > disk controllers and was down. Called Compaq, they got someone on a > plane with a spare controller from the west coast and I drove out to > meet them in the middle of the night so we could get the system up by > morning. > > That was pretty insane. And pointed out that "mainframe" PC's didn't > have anywhere near the redundancy or support of true mainframes. Oh yes indeed. I've had catastrophic hardware failures, but luckily, none that took out a RAID controller. I've just heard the horror stories. I finally left the support business in about 2011, but by then, it was fairly standard practice to install VMware (the free VMware ESX hypervisor if the company didn't have a paid vSphere site licence) on all new boxes, then install the OS in that. Even if it was a dedicated machine that only ran 1 OS ever. Because that way, if the machine died, you could restore the backup onto a new, totally different box, so long as it was running ESX, and it would Just Work™ with no driver or activation issues -- the virtualised hardware was the same. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Compaq Smart Array 3200 Controller as a SCSI Controller
On Wed, 15 Jul 2020 at 22:09, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > > There is no good use case for them in 2020, which is why they're all > > suddenly > > quite cheap. > > Peter, > > Why do you say that? Not disagreeing per se but just wondering the reasoning > behind it. Happily for me I don't do stuff like build production servers any more, but my understanding is this: With modern hardware, it's easier, cheaper and more flexible to build and manage arrays in software, using modern filesystems such as ZFS, Btrfs, or MS Storage Spaces on Windows Server. I was recently documenting the use of Btrfs for this on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server: the benefits of doing it in software are that you can dynamically migrate arrays between different RAID levels, add new drives and resize the array to include them or add them as additional parity disks on the fly, you can mark individual files as having different RAID levels (for example, you could place the OS' virtual memory space in a file on the RAID and tell the filesystem not to compute parity for it, just stripe it, for better performance). ZFS and Ceph allow for a mix of high-speed (e.g. SSD, NVMe, even NVDIMM) storage and low-speed but large rotational storage, and use the faster storage to cache the slower stuff. And of course, if your server dies, then the array can be mounted on any other box with the same OS and you can retrieve data from it -- which is far more difficult if a hardware RAID controller dies, in which case you might need the same firmware revision etc., and possibly onboard controller config info. Ceph now basically lets you build arrays of storage servers, so that you can, say, have single storage volumes comprising local storage in different countries, or on different continents, for local access speed and the software syncs it in the background between zones or regions. So it's no longer an array of physical disks on one server, it's an array of servers with disks in them -- and the servers and the disks may themselves be virtualised. It gets very complicated but it's also very powerful and flexible. Dedicated hardware just can't do stuff like this any more. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: About to dump a bunch of Compaq SCSI disk caddies (and disks)
On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 at 18:14, Alessandro Mazzini via cctalk wrote: > > Flebay is quite overpriced, sadly ( personal opinion anyway, from the point > of view of someone that's now looking at finding a thing since months and is > fixated about a real price vs an enflated one I often hear comments like this, but I don't really understand them. People pay what they are willing to pay. It is not like Amazon where bots watch other bots and raise the prices of rare books in a spiral anti-bidding-war. Sure, they are places where, as a buyer, you may find bargains -- but as a seller, what is the appeal of selling somewhere that will make you less money? eBay is easy, it works worldwide (or as nearly as anyone does), the seller fees are low, and it has a large catchment audience. I have sold a lot of stuff there, and bought some too. It does the job. I often see people on here saying go to some obscure website or other instead, but most of those are US-based. I am not in the USA and don't want to be. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: IBM System/36 5360 For Sale - Alabama
On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 at 04:08, STAN IRWIN via cctalk wrote: > > I recently found an IBM System/36 5360 for sale, with 5251 Terminal and > Keyboard. System is supposed to be in good running condition, taken out of > service in September 2019, single owner. Asking price seems to be about 10k > (!). > > Anyone interested should go to this link: > Vintage 1979 IBM 5251 Beam Spring Mechanical Keyboard 7361073 System 36 34 | > Almost Anything That is not a link, and I don't know about anyone else, but I had never heard of "Almost anything" before. The items are in Alabama, in the USA. This seems to be the keyboard: https://www.almostanythingopelika.com/product-page/vintage-1979-ibm-5251-beam-spring-mechanical-keyboard-7361073-system-36-34 -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: About to dump a bunch of Compaq SCSI disk caddies (and disks)
On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 at 17:05, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > Thanks - good hint. I was a bit surprised to see the prices people are asking > on fleabay. I think I sold my last 2 or 3 before I emigrated for circa €50 each. 5.25" HD floppy drives went for more than that. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: About to dump a bunch of Compaq SCSI disk caddies (and disks)
On Mon, 6 Jul 2020 at 22:19, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > Hi! > > I have a box full of Compaq SCSI server disk caddies (with 9.1G disks in > them). Feels silly to dump them into e-waste recycling, but there > probably isn't much point in shipping them very far either (I am in > Amsterdam). I would also suggest advertising or offering these online. Vintage Mac collectors, as well as all manner of vintage UNIX box collectors, are finding it increasingly difficult to find SCSI drives these days. Some are happy to go with SCSI2SD but for others it lacks authenticity, or they want the speeds, noises etc. too. I suspect you will easily find people who would take them for _at least_ the cost of shipping them. -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: A tool many of you may make find useful!
On Sun, 28 Jun 2020 at 22:55, Richard Pope via cctalk wrote: > > Will, > Ultimate Zip is showing that the file is empty. Hum! I have been > using Ultimate Zip for decades. Hum! I wounder what is going on! I've never even heard of this tool before. I looked it up, and http://www.ultimatezip.com/ ... is a dead link now. I think your Zip tool is obsolete and must be replaced. I recommend 7Zip. It's free & open source, runs on Windows, it's fast, and opens just about anything. It is genuinely the only compression/decompression tool I find that I need, although I rarely run Windows. Won't cost you a penny/cent, runs on any version of Windows, no licensing or anything ever. https://www.7-zip.org/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: IDE-SD adapter question
On Sat, 27 Jun 2020 at 02:30, W2HX via cctech wrote: > > Could it be related to the fact that it is a 2GB SD card and I believe IDE > controllers of that day could only address something like 500MB? It could well be, yes. > Should I consider trying to partition the SD card into a 500MB partition? Won't help. It's at a level underneath partitioning. A disk manager might help. Here's a legit freeware download: https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html This is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Manager -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
Re: Future of cctalk/cctech
On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 at 17:36, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > There are *no* "modern" newsreaders, > apart from the occasional kitchen-sink monstrosity which does nothing well.) There was... https://panic.com/blog/the-future-of-unison/ -- Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk – gMail/gTalk/gHangouts: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/Flickr: lproven – Skype: liamproven UK: +44 7939-087884 – ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
