Re: Free Acorn RISC OS kit offer (California, USA)

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I can’t help but think that in the US, this belongs in a museum.

For those wanting to give RISC OS a try, it’s available for the Raspberry Pi 
(and yes, that’s why I bought a Pi).

I would have thought that the RISC OS community would be appreciative of an app 
such as Firefox being available.

Zane



> On Sep 18, 2017, at 4:13 AM, Liam Proven via cctech  
> wrote:
> 
> Peter Naulls is the creator of the Unix Porting Project, which
> successfully created Acorn RISC OS versions of some FOSS Unix apps
> such as Firefox:
> 
> http://www.riscos.info/index.php/Unix_Porting_Project
> 
> Alas it never really caught on as Acorn users tend to be very insular
> and did not understand the significance of this remarkable tool.
> 
> He relocated from the UK to California a few years ago.
> 
> He no longer works on RISC OS stuff and he wishes to dispose of the
> machines that he took with him -- an original Acorn RISC PC and a
> Castle Technologies Iyonix.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RiscPC
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyonix_PC
> 
> Apparently the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley has turned
> them down after initially indicating interest.
> 
> He hopes that  they will be preserved in a collection or museum,
> ideally for public display or failing that a private one. He's not
> looking for money for them. As he puts it, "there's history there".
> 
> He has given me written permission to post here and give his email
> address, which is his forename, "peter" -- the domain is chocky.org.
> 
> I know Acorn kit is relatively rate States-side so I thought this
> might be of interest...
> 
> I don't have much more info but I will help if I can. Best to contact
> him directly, though.
> 
> -- 
> Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
> Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
> Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
> UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: Solaris on PPC?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Aug 30, 2017, at 7:31 PM, Guy Sotomayor Jr <g...@shiresoft.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Aug 30, 2017, at 7:14 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Steve Jobs would have been at NeXT at that time, he didn’t come back to 
>> Apple until ’97.
>> 
>> Nearly 25 years later, my memory is pretty vague, however, around ’93 at the 
>> FOSE trade show in Washington DC, IBM had a system running both OS/2 and 
>> AIX.  I want to say it was PPC, but it may have been x86.
> 
> It was more than likely x86 and the AIX would have been AIX PS/2 (which I did 
> a lot of work on at the time).

I think you’re right, especially as, IIRC, it was a laptop.

> The IBM Microkernel project (which I helped start) was the only way that OS/2 
> ran on PPC.  OS/2 was an OS personality on top of the microkernel and all of 
> its services.  We also had a UNIX running as a personality too.  My memory 
> has faded too much at this point and but I also believe that there was MVM 
> personality to allow DOS/Windows to run too.
> 
> TTFN - Guy

I remember reading about this, around ’95, I’m pretty sure it was in one of the 
Mac magazines.  I was on an Aircraft Carrier at the time, I had both a Pentium 
90 laptop running DOS/Windows, Windows 95, OS/2, and Linux, as well as an Apple 
PowerBook 520c running System 7.5 in my locker.  Needless to say, the idea of a 
single system that could run OS/2, UNIX, and System 7 was very appealing to me. 
 I’m pretty sure you’re right about there being a way to run DOS/Windows.  
Realistically at that time, everyone had a way to run DOS/Windows.

Zane

Re: Solaris on PPC?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Aug 30, 2017, at 7:07 PM, jim stephens via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/30/2017 6:35 PM, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>> I was looking up some data, and as a result was flipping through a copy of 
>> Computerworld from ’93.  In doing so, I was marveling at the amount of 
>> Diversity we had in the Computer World at the time, but that’s not the point.
>> 
>> The point is that I found a advertisement for the PPC 601 chip.  In it they 
>> were advertising it running the Macintosh OS, OS/2, AIX, and interestingly 
>> Sun Solaris.  I was aware of the first three, but I don’t ever remember any 
>> mention of Solaris running on PPC.  Did that ever get off the ground?
>> 
>> Zane
> I worked for Sun in the early 90's for the former Interactive Unix group.  
> They were still based here in Los Angeles in the round building over looking 
> the 405 just south of the 90.  At the time there just a coupe of Summa Corp 
> buildings on the last remaining Howard Hughes Summa corp asset there off the 
> 405.  Now the Hughes Center shopping center long since sold off to developers.
> 
> They were the group inside Sun and did the port from the Solaris 2.4 source 
> to PPC open platforms.  The effort I think was underwritten by IBM, but I 
> might be wrong.  The entire effort was supported for maybe a year thru just 
> shy of the 2.5.  I don't know if it was ever released outside the building, 
> much less any public release.
> 
> This I think was when the Apple effort was underway, I think under Jobs to 
> allow the Mac system migrate to such hardware.
> 
> IIRC, the whole thing died more or less when Jobs pulled the plug on that, 
> and screwed everyone over.  Very sad, as the open boot (Don't recall all the 
> details) was pretty nice, and I'd have bought into it had such options been 
> available.
> 
> I did some testing on that platform in a sealed room of some tools I had 
> developed for the x86 testing.  The marketing department requested that my 
> tool kit be made available to certify platforms for Solaris HCL listing.  
> None ever happened however.
> 
> Had no use for Jobs before, still no use for him to now.
> 
> Thanks
> jim

Steve Jobs would have been at NeXT at that time, he didn’t come back to Apple 
until ’97.

Nearly 25 years later, my memory is pretty vague, however, around ’93 at the 
FOSE trade show in Washington DC, IBM had a system running both OS/2 and AIX.  
I want to say it was PPC, but it may have been x86.

Zane

Solaris on PPC?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I was looking up some data, and as a result was flipping through a copy of 
Computerworld from ’93.  In doing so, I was marveling at the amount of 
Diversity we had in the Computer World at the time, but that’s not the point.

The point is that I found a advertisement for the PPC 601 chip.  In it they 
were advertising it running the Macintosh OS, OS/2, AIX, and interestingly Sun 
Solaris.  I was aware of the first three, but I don’t ever remember any mention 
of Solaris running on PPC.  Did that ever get off the ground?

Zane

Re: DecWindows on remote display

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

Probably Mozilla 1 or there about.  I think that was about the time I stopped 
trying to run any browser other than Lynx on my DEC Alpha.

Zane



> On Jul 26, 2017, at 5:40 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
>> I have run DECwindows on a VAX 3100 model 300 under VAX/VMS 5.5-1 using the 
>> Motif window manager with a dozen remote DECterms open plus Emacs, a clock, 
>> a calendar, etc. and it gave reasonable performance.  The VAX was both the
> [...]
>> I was able to run Mozilla on it but performance was horrible
> 
> Wit. There was a Mozilla build for VAX???
> 
> I have Netscape Navigator 3, but I thought that was the last VAX build. It
> runs ... acceptably on my M76, though I wouldn't call it sprightly.
> 
> -- 
>  personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ 
> --
>  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
> -- If you have integrity, nothing else matters. -- Alan Simpson 
> ---

Re: Atari ST SCSI hard drive question

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I think you’ll find that’s an ACSI Disk, I’m not sure how compatible they are 
with SCSI.

Zane



> On May 24, 2017, at 5:12 PM, Win Heagy via cctech  
> wrote:
> 
> I have an Atari 1040ST that I picked up some time back.  It is very clean
> and for the most part appears to work.  It has what appears to be some kind
> of generic SCSI hard drive (no markings except a serial number on the back)
> as well as a DMA/SCSI adapter.  The computer will boot to GEM/TOS with or
> without a floppy, but I can't seem to get the HD to do much.  The HD powers
> up and spins/clicks like you'd expect, but after that, I get nothing on the
> desktop.  I tried different SCSI device number settings as well as moving
> the SCSI plug to each of the two plugs on the drive.  It did not have a
> SCSI terminator with it, but I picked one up...made no difference.
> 
> I know very little about STs, so am learning as I go.  I'm guessing that
> maybe there should be a driver for the HD?  The machine came with software,
> but I don't see anything that looks like an HD driver disk.  It has two
> slightly different language disks and will boot each of them successfully,
> but the HD does not show up.  Is anyone familiar with this particular drive
> and can possibly point me in the right direction?
> 
> https://imgur.com/a/pxMxl
> 
> The adapter on top is a male to female adapter.  Not sure what that was
> for.  The SCSI terminator is plugged in the back below the DMA/SCSI adapter.
> 
> Thanks...Win
> whe...@gmail.com

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On May 17, 2017, at 5:45 PM, devin davison via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
> to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
> the whole machine.
> 
> Any suggestions? i have not had much luck finding anything.
> 
> --Devin

There may be something for RSTS/E.  That seems like the OS most likely to have 
such software.  You might also find some old UNIX source code that might 
compile on BSD2.11.

Zane

Re: Bulk tape eraser

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

On Apr 30, 2017, at 10:04 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk  
wrote:
> 
> On 04/30/2017 08:55 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
>> You may as well run them through a shredder. All modern tapes have
>> embedded servo tracks.
> 
> Certainly not DLT IV tapes--I've done the bulk eraser thing with them
> and the result re-recorded just fine.
> 
> But then, DLT IV is hardly modern.
> 
> --Chuck

I know you can’t run LTO tapes through one, but if I remember correctly you can 
do at least the original SDLT tapes.  We had a heavy duty degausser in the 
datacenter, up until a couple years ago.  The tape library vendor we were using 
at the time wanted us to degauss tapes prior to reusing them due to all the 
issues we were having.  That meant degaussing 100’s of tapes a week.  Normally 
contractors would do it, but in an emergency, I’d do it at times.  With the 
later tapes, you had to run them through something like 4 different ways, 
otherwise they were still readable (which is why I’m pretty sure we were 
degaussing SDLT tapes).  As I recall, DLT IV tapes only had to go through once.

Zane

Re: Did we miss the 20th anniversary of classiccmp?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Apr 20, 2017, at 10:26 PM, Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> It makes me wonder, what is the oldest still running mailinglist?

Part of the question I’d have, is do you mean on the Internet the whole time?

I’m on one for photography that started out life on Fidonet, moved to the 
Internet, and while it still has the maillist, is now sadly, mainly a Facebook 
group.

I know of a couple Role Playing Game lists that are definitely older than this 
list.  The one started in the early 90’s, on the Internet, the other in the 
80’s on GEnie.  

These are simply examples I’m aware of.  It would also be interesting to know 
how many have evolved into either Facebook or Google groups.

Zane

Re: Did we miss the 20th anniversary of classiccmp?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Apr 20, 2017, at 2:09 PM, Shoppa, Tim via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> A FAQ in my old emails show the founding of the Classiccmp mailing list as 
> being 20 years and 1 month ago. March 13 1997 was when Bill Whitson first set 
> up the classiccmp list at the University of Washington.
> 
> Tim N3QE
> 
> 
> Sent from my VAX-11/780


That means I’ve been on this list for just short of 20 years.  I think its safe 
to say that a list dedicated to computer history, forgot its own history.


Zane

Re: If C is so evil why is it so successful?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Apr 11, 2017, at 5:38 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> 

Because people are too lazy to use Ada.  

Zane

Re: interesting... hp-9000 in the news! - russian-hackers-used-backdoor-two-decades

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Apr 3, 2017, at 4:23 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> I'm trying to identify the specific unit. It looks like an early PA-RISC,
> but even the enlargement doesn't show the model number clearly.

I’m not sure what model it is, but it looks more like an early 90’s PA-RISC.  
The ones we were using in the late 90’s had a “modern” look to them.  That 
looks, to me, to be of a similar vintage to the HP 9000/750.

Zane

Re: Photography, was Re: Pair of Twiggys

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Mar 14, 2017, at 3:37 PM, Kyle Owen via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Mar 14, 2017 5:24 PM, "Fred Cisin via cctalk" 
> wrote:
> 
> 
> Ah, out of touch on that, as well!
> "But, you can do ANYTHING with Photoshop!"   Yeah.  right.
> 
> Want a stabilization processor?
> Most of a ragged Beseler 45, plus a dichroic head that I never got around
> to rebuilding and mating?
> Movie film daylight developing tank?  (motorized back-and-forth reel to
> reel 16mm, 35mm, but not large diameter reels)
> Fujinon desktop holography camera?  (needs new laser tube)
> bellows for 35mm?   tilt and shift?   (I am keeping my
> Hama/Kenlock/Spiratone for now, but getting rid of the rest)
> Selling my Linhof and Tachihara soon.
> 
> 
> Just got through setting up a darkroom in my upstairs bathroom. Did some
> developing years ago, but it's nice getting back into it. Looking at doing
> some wet plate work next, but I haven't found a cheap source of ether yet.
> 
> Kyle

These days, even when printing in the darkroom, photoshop may be involved.  
Lots of folks are creating digital negatives.

I don’t know if you can even get paper for a stabilization processor, not to 
mention I doubt it would work for me.  My main enlarger (currently the only 
usable one) is a old Beseler 45.  I spent a day last summer getting it working 
better.

My latest score was two Jobo CPE2 processors in the last month.  Between the 
two, I only need one more tank (and technically I don’t need it).  I can now do 
daylight rotary processing of anything from 35mm to 11x14 (I can currently 
shoot up to 8x10).  So far I’ve only used it to process 8x10 sheet film.

One of my next projects needs to be to get a proper darkroom setup, so that I 
can heat it, or cool it.  That way I can work year around.  Ideally it would 
include room for things like drum scanners and LF printers, but that’s 
dreaming. :-)

Zane

Re: Pair of Twiggys

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Mar 14, 2017, at 2:40 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> 
> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 14 Mar 2017, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote:
>> Good grief!  When did Lisa stuff get so expensive?  I just did a search for 
>> Apple Lisa on eBay.  Am I this out of touch with the hobby?
> 
> Yes, we are.

LOL, thanks Fred!  I’ll freely admit that I’m out of touch, as these days my 
focus is my photography.  Since I need to free up space to build a better 
darkroom, the rise in value is of interest.  Maybe I can free up some space and 
fund the my darkroom project. :-)

Zane

Re: Pair of Twiggys

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

Good grief!  When did Lisa stuff get so expensive?  I just did a search for 
Apple Lisa on eBay.  Am I this out of touch with the hobby?

Zane




> On Mar 14, 2017, at 10:24 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> www.ebay.com/itm/122383386508
> 
> still a few hours to go, hovering at $20K
> 

Re: Univac I memory tank

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

What scares me the most is that there are already 4 bids on it.

Zane




> On Mar 14, 2017, at 11:16 AM, dwight via cctalk  wrote:
> 
> Cool. I need on of those.
> 
> Dwight
> 
> 
> 
> From: cctalk  on behalf of Al Kossow via 
> cctalk 
> Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 10:20:00 AM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Univac I memory tank
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/162428766985
> 
> Asked if the mercury was still in it. They ignored me.
> 

Re: RT-11 5.x install tapes?

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

I booted up RT-11 5.6, my install was done from original 5.6 floppies.  I don’t 
find any sign of the DD driver, that could be because my /73 doesn’t have a 
TU58 drive, and I’m not sure where the floppies are right now.  Booting 5.7 I 
find DD.MAC, my 5.7 install was from an original tape.

Zane



> On Mar 8, 2017, at 10:26 AM, Jörg Hoppe via cctech  
> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> for work on TU58 emulator "tu58fs" I'd like to experiment with oversized tape 
> images under RT-11 5.5, 5.6 and 5.7.
> The images I know about are the classiccmp collections, Earl Evans pointed me 
> to the RT11DV50.ISO archive.
> 
> However, in these images the TU58 driver files DD.MAC/DD.SYS/DDX.SYS are 
> mostly missing.
> Strange, because they claim to be pristine.
> 
> Somebody knows about original RT-11 V5 installation tape images?
> 
> Thanks,
> Joerg
> 

Re: FTGH (you come get): VAXstation 100 terminals

[Zane Healy via cctalk]

> On Mar 5, 2017, at 11:56 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> I picked these up as part of an estate liquidation, but I don't have a
> Unibus setup to run them off, and they are large and taking up space. They
> now need to be gone. The condition is unknown but they are intact.
> 
> If you know what one is, you probably know how to hook it up and use it. If
> you don't, they are NOT VAXen -- they're more like overgrown graphics
> terminals that connect over Unibus. They are not like other VAXstations.
> 
> Take as many as you like (greater Los Angeles area). However, units that
> are not spoken for, or haven't made other arrangements regarding, will go
> to the recycler this weekend. E-mail me offlist if you are interested.

Cameron,
Please keep in mind that these things are rare as hens teeth, if not rarer.  
This is only the second or third mention I’ve ever seen of them, and the first 
I’ve seen of anyone having any.  Please do not recycle them.  If nothing else, 
see if you can get them to one of the museums.

About the only thing I know of that’s rarer seems to be the DECnet kit for 
RT-11!

Zane