Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread Mike Ross
Thanks for the thought... my main concern is the System/3s and Henk Stegeman - who has forgotten more than most of us will ever know about S/3! - says that 60Hz S/3 on 50Hz power is a no-go. Different voltage, fine - transformer can be restrapped. Different frequency... trouble! And then there are

Re: cctech Digest, Vol 18, Issue 30

2015-12-30 Thread Mark Matlock
On Dec 30, 2015, at 12:00 PM, cctech-requ...@classiccmp.org wrote: > Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 14:47:17 -0600 > From: Jay Jaeger > To: cct...@classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: Software for DEC MINC systems > Message-ID: <5682f155.3050...@charter.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 >

Re: Telecom woes

2015-12-30 Thread Guy Sotomayor
On 12/30/15 10:02 PM, Jim Brain wrote: On 12/30/2015 10:51 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: We're at least 2.5 miles from the DSLAM, so DSL is *not* an option. That's the distance on the private roads and I haven't seen where the DSLAM might be (nearest town is 5 miles away once you get to the "publ

Re: The KGB, the Computer, and Me

2015-12-30 Thread Jason T
On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 6:24 PM, Ray Arachelian wrote: > On 12/28/2015 04:45 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote: >> >> I now expect to get a long list of weveseenits. > > Indeed! > > I remember seeing this on live TV many years ago. You can find it on > youtube now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FT

Telecom woes (was: Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes)

2015-12-30 Thread Jim Brain
On 12/30/2015 10:51 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: We're at least 2.5 miles from the DSLAM, so DSL is *not* an option. That's the distance on the private roads and I haven't seen where the DSLAM might be (nearest town is 5 miles away once you get to the "public" roads). We're in a similar boat. We'r

Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread William Donzelli
I bet you (or Mike, actually) could get it to work by trial and error, swapping in caps. The transformers (generally) are apparently pretty forgiving - being off in frequency just results in lost efficiency, maybe 10-15 percent lost at most. Not flames, anyway. -- Will On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 12:

Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread Guy Sotomayor
On 12/30/15 9:29 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Of course! Find the exception that proves the rule! ;-) However, it would've been nice if it were only necessary to change the capacitor! TTFN - Guy -- Will On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 12:23 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: On 12/30/15 9:06 PM, William

Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread William Donzelli
Of course! Find the exception that proves the rule! -- Will On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 12:23 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: > > > On 12/30/15 9:06 PM, William Donzelli wrote: >> >> Sorry about digging up a slightly stale thread... >> >>> I haven't done any troubleshooting yet but checking the manuals on

Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread Guy Sotomayor
On 12/30/15 9:06 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Sorry about digging up a slightly stale thread... I haven't done any troubleshooting yet but checking the manuals on Bitsavers tells me my US 3278s have ferroresonant transformers specified as 120V 60Hz only. This can be expected to cause problems

Re: Ferroresonant transformers and 3278

2015-12-30 Thread William Donzelli
Sorry about digging up a slightly stale thread... > I haven't done any troubleshooting yet but checking the manuals on > Bitsavers tells me my US 3278s have ferroresonant transformers > specified as 120V 60Hz only. This can be expected to cause problems > with 120V 50Hz here in NZ from my knowledg

Re: The KGB, the Computer, and Me

2015-12-30 Thread dwight
I just saw it on youtube. Cool story. It was shocking how unprepared the CIA and FBI was. I hope they are more on there toes today. Computer security as we do it today is truly flawed. I doubt it has gotten much better since then. If you restrict information too much it is like a blockade to progre

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Guy Sotomayor
On 12/30/15 6:52 PM, Jon Elson wrote: On 12/30/2015 12:39 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: We just dropped our POTS service last month. Our phone now is an OOMA VoIP Office system to get the features we wanted/needed. I haven't tried any rotary dial phones on it since I don't have any. We need th

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Jon Elson
On 12/30/2015 12:39 PM, Guy Sotomayor wrote: We just dropped our POTS service last month. Our phone now is an OOMA VoIP Office system to get the features we wanted/needed. I haven't tried any rotary dial phones on it since I don't have any. We need the landline phone to call when the cable

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
On 12/30/2015 03:06 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: I can't speak for the whole Telco segment, but I work on DSLAMs for a living and have done so for the past 15 years. Our earliest generation DSLAMs were ATM based (T1 IMA fed), but within a couple of years transitioned to Ethernet. Almost all of th

Re: Software for DEC MINC systems

2015-12-30 Thread Jerome H. Fine
Sorry - I did it again and forgot to remove the junk in the subject line! >Jerome H. Fine wrote: >Jay Jaeger wrote: On 12/29/2015 2:47 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote: I have had several folks express the desire for them. Over the day or few days (we have a gathering coming up tomorrow, and not sure

Re: [SPAM key] - Re: Software for DEC MINC systems

2015-12-30 Thread Jerome H. Fine
>Jay Jaeger wrote: On 12/29/2015 2:47 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote: I have had several folks express the desire for them. Over the day or few days (we have a gathering coming up tomorrow, and not sure I will get to it today, so it could be as late as next week), I will load them up on my Google driv

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Geoffrey Oltmans
On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 4:40 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > Speaking of 1980s/90s, are telcos pretty much the only ones using ATM > nowadays? > > --Chuck > > I can't speak for the whole Telco segment, but I work on DSLAMs for a living and have done so for the past 15 years. Our earliest generation DSL

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Ian S. King
I've had CL in Seattle for years with minimal disruptions. Nothing compared to my friends/colleagues with ComCrap. On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 12/30/2015 02:06 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: > >> It doesn't much matter who the telco is for CAF money to be >> awarded...

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
On 12/30/2015 02:06 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: It doesn't much matter who the telco is for CAF money to be awarded... you can see who has been awarded what money on the FCC's website, and CenturyLink has definitely gotten a large sum for it ($500M/yr for 6 years). Here's a press release on Clin

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
Speaking of 1980s/90s, are telcos pretty much the only ones using ATM nowadays? --Chuck

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Geoffrey Oltmans
It doesn't much matter who the telco is for CAF money to be awarded... you can see who has been awarded what money on the FCC's website, and CenturyLink has definitely gotten a large sum for it ($500M/yr for 6 years). Here's a press release on Clink's own website: http://news.centurylink.com/news/

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
On 12/30/2015 11:59 AM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 1:24 PM, Jim Brain wrote: We were spoiled in South Dakota, as somehow (and I am sure someone knows and will enlighten us/me) the rural telcos (LECs?) tapped into lots of funds from somewhere to drop fiber to all of the r

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Geoffrey Oltmans
On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 1:24 PM, Jim Brain wrote: > > We were spoiled in South Dakota, as somehow (and I am sure someone knows > and will enlighten us/me) the rural telcos (LECs?) tapped into lots of > funds from somewhere to drop fiber to all of the rural homes. 50Mb was the > slowest speed, a

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Oliver Lehmann
Command 91h did the trick. Issueing this once before any read/write commands makes the drive finally work! Oliver Lehmann wrote: I checked now with MS-DOS and issuing a simple "DIR D:\" command with a power cycled disk: Command: C4h (Read Multiple) -> 51h, 51h -> 04h Command: 10h (Obsole

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Jim Brain
On 12/30/2015 1:49 PM, Mike Stein wrote: - Original Message - From: "Jim Brain" Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 2:24 PM I am sure it is not that original, but my touch phones don't know the difference (like you, I have not tried my rotary with the extra long cord), and it is $10.00/

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Mike Stein
- Original Message - From: "Jim Brain" Sent: Wednesday, December 30, 2015 2:24 PM > I am sure it is not that original, but my touch phones don't know the > difference (like you, I have not tried my rotary with the extra long > cord), and it is $10.00/year versus $35.00/month for POTS.

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
On 12/30/2015 11:01 AM, Oliver Lehmann wrote: Does anyone know what command 10h is? The documentation I have only states "obsolete". Command 1x is "recalibrate". The "x" used to be the stepping rate, but is ignored on most later drives. --Chuck

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Jim Brain
On 12/30/2015 12:12 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote: All of this has me wondering how long it's going to be before POTS completely disappears from the infrastructure. I've been experimenting with one of the Obihai VoIP boxes and have been pleasantly surprised at the quality. I haven't tried yet to

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Paul Berger
On 2015-12-30 3:01 PM, Oliver Lehmann wrote: I checked now with MS-DOS and issuing a simple "DIR D:\" command with a power cycled disk: Command: C4h (Read Multiple) -> 51h, 51h -> 04h Command: 10h (Obsolete???) -> 50h, 50h -> 04h Command: 91h (Initialize Drive Parameters) -> d0h, d0h, d0h, ..

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Oliver Lehmann
I checked now with MS-DOS and issuing a simple "DIR D:\" command with a power cycled disk: Command: C4h (Read Multiple) -> 51h, 51h -> 04h Command: 10h (Obsolete???) -> 50h, 50h -> 04h Command: 91h (Initialize Drive Parameters) -> d0h, d0h, d0h, 50h Command: C6h (Set Multiple Mode) -> 5

Re: Remember the old "Choose your own adventure books" By D & D! ! !

2015-12-30 Thread Liam Proven
On 21 December 2015 at 13:46, Mike wrote: > Has any of you took one of them old choose your own adventurer books and > coded it into a text RPG in basic? Blimey, yes, I have -- but in about 1983! Even then, given my very meagre programming ability, I found it a dull project. The simplistic way

Re: Available: various PSION organizers, parts, and documentation from the mid-80s

2015-12-30 Thread Liam Proven
On 22 December 2015 at 05:03, steven stengel wrote: > I have boxes full of like-new PSION II organizers that I recently received > from a US distributed. > > These aren't rare or valuable, but they are new in the box and seemingly > never used. > > There are different models, with both 2 and 4 l

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Guy Sotomayor
On 12/30/15 10:12 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: I read an article recently that in the US, only 8 percent of the population relies on POTS exclusively. Currently, I'm waiting for more upstream capacity before I can get 20Mbps DSL--right now, I'm existing on 1.5Mbps, but the local telco did send

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Mouse
> All of this has me wondering how long it's going to be before POTS > completely disappears from the infrastructure. Completely? I expect that to be a fairly long time - decades, at least. > I've been experimenting with one of the Obihai VoIP boxes and have > been pleasantly surprised at the qu

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Chuck Guzis
On 12/29/2015 11:24 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote: The direct successor to the 4/4AXB was the 4ESS/4AESS. (Meanwhile the successor to the local crossbar offices was 1ESS/1AESS; save for the weird 3XB which was replaced by the small 3ESS.) And of course both local and toll ESS have been rep

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Ian S. King
Bob wasn't an academic - but that's not to say he wasn't right. On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 9:13 AM, Paul Koning wrote: > > > On Dec 30, 2015, at 11:41 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > > > >> ... > >> Great terminology. Can I have permission to use it too :-) > >> > > > > Citation is the sincerest complime

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Paul Koning
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 11:41 AM, Ian S. King wrote: > >> ... >> Great terminology. Can I have permission to use it too :-) >> > > Citation is the sincerest compliment. :-) Then again, as Robert A. Heinlein put it, "The sincerest form of praise starts with the phrase 'Pay to the order of...'.

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Ian S. King
On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Huw Davies < huw.dav...@kerberos.davies.net.au> wrote: > > > On 30 Dec 2015, at 11:58, Ian S. King wrote: > > > But it is intriguing to see the computer as pop-culture artifact within a > > broader grouping of like artifacts. (You're welcome, Jay.) In my > academ

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Oliver Lehmann
OK, detatching the power cord of the disk from my PC while running FreeBSD and reattaching it also brings up error code 4 on the next access. This does not happen with other drives. So it must be some sort of initialisation the OS or BIOS does which readies up the drive. Oliver Lehmann wrote:

Re: IDE knowledge anyone?

2015-12-30 Thread Oliver Lehmann
OK, I just got my Logic Analysator and traced the communication on my PC while forcing it to do PIO instead of DMA. I then changed my AVR code to do the exact same commands and nearly the same timings and... nothing changed - the drive still responds with error code 0x04 after the read sector 0x2

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Todd Goodman
* Jules Richardson [151229 14:05]: > On 12/29/2015 03:03 AM, Kevin Parker wrote: > > May be of interest to some list members - appeared, of all places, in the > > property section of a local newspaper - the Commodore 64 gets a good mention > > But it's one of those new-fangled C64s, not the bread

RE: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread tony duell
> > I do have to say, though, that in the '80s many if not most phones had > transitioned to touch-tone 'dialing' (what a delightfully archaic term!). Not as archaic as 'to ring off' (which dates back to magneto-ringing telephones where you gave the magneto a little crank at the end of the call t

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

2015-12-30 Thread Huw Davies
> On 30 Dec 2015, at 11:58, Ian S. King wrote: > But it is intriguing to see the computer as pop-culture artifact within a > broader grouping of like artifacts. (You're welcome, Jay.) In my academic > work, I use the term 'consumer computer' rather than 'personal computer' > because the latter