[cctalk] Re: auction starting in 50 minutes
On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 05:28:35PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Sep 10, 2024, at 4:31 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk > > wrote: > > > > On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >> Wow, someone paid $56k for a MITS ALTAIR. And $945k for an Apple 1. Not > >> to mention $718k for an Enigma machine. A bunch of things went for way > >> above the estimate, while for others it's much closer. One wonders why; I > >> suppose a possible explanation is "because the auction house doesn't > >> particularly understand the market for these things". > > > > Any special provenance? (Hitler's personal Enigma?, BillG's' Altair?, > > Steve's Apple?) > > Nope. But the Enigma is a four-rotor Navy model, not the more common 3-rotor > one. I didn't know that the Navy had those; I had heard of 4-rotor machines > only as something the Gestapo used. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine "A four-rotor Enigma was introduced by the Navy for U-boat traffic on 1 February 1942, called M4 [..]" That page also has a photo of a 4-rotor Kriegsmarine Enigma machine. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Antonio's call for donations (was LCM auction)
On Thu, Sep 05, 2024 at 06:40:42PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > I forgot to mention that as soon as it had been scsnned, the document was > shredded. > > Occasionally they screwed up and shredded documents before scanning. Maybe you could have interested them in acquiring a shrinter, for a smooth print-to-shred experience: https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/cool-gadgets-the-shrinter-printer-shreder-combo/ SCNR, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Antonio's call for donations (was LCM auction)
On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 10:25:08PM -0400, cz via cctalk wrote: > > By the way, the earth is round... > > I'm glad we can agree on this. Of course the Earth is round. > > It's also hollow. Well, everybody who watched the documentary "Iron Sky: The Coming Race" knows that, of course. SCNR, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Antonio's call for donations (was LCM auction)
On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 08:08:04AM +0200, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > On 29/08/2024 23:28, Mychaela Falconia via cctalk wrote: > > Specifically: I am potentially willing to donate my equipment and/or > > my cash only to those who are Pureblood, meaning UNvaccinated. > > I assume you are aware that child mortality was 50% well into > the 20th century, and was still 25% in 1950. It is now 4.3%. > Guess what made the dramatic difference? Yes, vaccines... Now don't you derail someone's political rant and posturing with actual facts ... SCNR, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: FWIW CD & DVD demagnitizitation [was: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks]
On Wed, May 08, 2024 at 07:09:58PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > More here: > > > https://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0114/audiophile_ac_outlets.htm > > > If I knew that this stuff wasn't real, I'd figure that it was an April > > > Fool's prank. > > On Wed, 8 May 2024, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > Why stop there? A truly dedicated audiophile would run new pure silver > > electrical wire through the walls directly to the breaker box. > > Then you gotta upgrade to the breaker box that was disinfected from > > transient spirits through an exorcism, and then special 24K solid > > gold-contact breakers in inert nylon housings. > > But, how much good will that do, if you don't also upgrade the drop from the > pole? > > . . . and, do you know whether the electrons that you are receiving are from > nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, or fossil? German snake oil wizards to the rescue! The "Atomstromfilter" (nuclear power filter) joke product has been making the rounds in Germany for at _least_ 20+y now: https://traumshop.net/produkt/atomstromfilter/ It claims to filter power generated by nuclear power plants out of your power flow at the wall socket ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: FWIW CD & DVD demagnitizitation [was: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks]
On Wed, May 08, 2024 at 08:13:20AM +0200, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > On 08/05/2024 05:53, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > [1] Apparently there's a slogan on the wall of the QUAD workshop > > 'Ohm's Law rules here. Oxygen-free cable is not required' > > That would have been back when Quad was run by Peter J. Walker > who was a no-nonsense engineer. Unfortunately the company is > owned by IAG Group (Shenzen, China) and has resorted to more > "audiophile" oriented marketing. > > As to real audiophile scams, there are companies making > "audiophile" ethernet switches and even special, very > expensive linear power supplies for ethernet switches > for those audiophiles who have switched to streaming > music. Oh, and audiophile USB cables... I've seen "audio phile grade" Ethernet cables, promising "smoother sound delivery" and other, impossible to measure, nonsense. Basically bog-standard cat5 cable in fancy dress with eye-watering markup. A fool and his money are soon parted. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: FWIW CD & DVD demagnitizitation [was: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks]
On Tue, May 07, 2024 at 12:15:47PM -0500, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk wrote: > my ears would never be good enough to notice any difference > > For what it's worth: > > First, in general, there are so many apparent reviews of so many products, it > is hard to believe they are all scams. How can there be enough fools to buy > enough of those products to have that many different ones? I mean, it takes > a lot of work to develop a product, if you only sell 5, it is not worth it. > if you take money and don't send anything,t hat would show up in a google > search. I don't think that stuff like "oxygen free copper cables" take much development effort given that cheap regular copper wire already _is_ both 99.99% copper (result of the eletrorefining process) and contains no oxygen in the metal. The most effort, I suspect, is making up the marketing materials and selling that bullshit while keeping a (somewhat) straight face. > also, what some hinted at is the issue is even a very slight amount of > magnitsm, spinning very fast, could affect the signal in the playback > head CDs and DVDs are made from polycarbonate (for the body) and aluminium (the reflector) - nothing even remotely magnetic here, no matter what some sellers of high grade recrystallized snake oil claim. > > Do CDs and DVDs have parity and or checksums? If you grab a CD twice, will > both results be identical bit for bit? Audio CDs use Reed Solomon error correcting codes (specifically Cross Interleaved Reed-Solomon Coding (CIRC)) in order to extract acceptable signal out of a not-so-great storage medium. Digital CD formats pile at _least_ another layer of error correction on top of that. > > https://www.gcaudio.com/tips-tricks/cd-dvd-demagnetization/ > > https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/if-you-have-a-cd-player-you-need-to-do-this-periodically > > At first, this SEEMS even more ludicrous, demagnetizing vinyl LPs, but the > pickup heads are analogue magnetic, so maybe more reasonable There are plenty of reasons why the correct pronounciation of "Audiophile" is "Audiofool". E.g. "magnetism that has built up during playback" - tell me you slept through physics class without telling me you slept through physics class. But, as always, there is plenty of money to be made selling bullshit to the gullible ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks
On Mon, May 06, 2024 at 08:54:53PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 5/6/24 20:25, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > https://www.ebay.com/itm/134706639303 > > > > include a basic feature for rewinding rental DVDs before returning them. > > > Of course, you need a pure silver AC cable for those: > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/115970049389 Wow, the description text is hilarious: "[..] the mid frequency is loose and hydrated [..]" I sure hope those cables are properly sealed, wouldn't want some hydrated mid freqency sloshing onto the shag pile! SCNR, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Z80 vs other microprocessors of the time.
On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 02:45:50PM -0500, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote: > Cycle accurate emulation becomes impossible in the following circumstances: > > * Branch prediction and pipelining can cause out of order execution >and the execution path become data dependent. > * Cache memory. It can be very difficult to predict a cache flush or >cache miss or cache look aside buffer hit > * Memory management can inject wait states and cause other cycle >counting issues > * Peripherals can inject unpredictable wait states > * Multi-core processors because you don't necessarily know what core >is doing what and possibly one core waiting on another core. > * DMA can cause some CPUs to pause because the bus is busy doing DMA >transfers (not all processors have this as an issue). > * Some CPUs shut down clocks and peripherals if they are not used and >they take time to re-start. > * Any code that waits for some kind of external input. That was the reason (or so it was explained to me) why automotive ECUs stuck to relatively simple microcontrollers[0] for a long time because you could do simple cycle counting to precisely predict timing for instruction flow - getting the timing wrong for firing the spark plugs because your execution path takes 1ms longer than expected tends have Expensive Consequences (TM). Kind regards, Alex. [0] No cache, no branch prediction, no speculative execution, ... -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Borland Turbo C++ and Turbo Basic - Books and Manuals
On Sun, Apr 07, 2024 at 12:05:32PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2024-04-07 5:57 a.m., Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote: > > On 4/6/24 5:37 PM, Mike Norris via cctalk wrote: > > > Additional > > > I would like £5 beer money for this one please! > > > Writing Open VMS Alpha Device Drivers in C - Margie Sherlock/Leonard > > > Szubowicz > > > > > > I'd take it. > > > > I can send you beer money, or could send you 2 or 3 bottles of local > > beer. I'm living near Munich, Germany. > > > > Sending beer will likely be quite more expensive than 5 pounds, but has > > a fun factor bonus :-) > > > > regards, > > chris > > > I don't think bottles would be ship able. Bottles of beer are perfectly shippable. I ordered bottled beer over the mail plenty of times before. The trick is to use good packaging and pack them well. Or go with cans if you don't trust your packaging skills to reach the level of "Fedex Proof (TM)". ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Amoeba OS
On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 05:02:10PM +, Alessandro Mazzini via cctalk wrote: > Sorry if I intrude... now is no more possible to obtain hobbyist licenses for > vms ?? Not for OpenVMS/VAX, that stopped more than a year ago. IIRC you _can_ get something like[1] it for OpenVMS/amd64 from VMS Software. The only legal[0] workaround for VMS on VAX is to go back all the way before LMF was introduced which IIRC means running VMS 4.4 and nothing newer. Sad and mildly irritating, but nothing we can do about it. Kind regards, Alex. [0] Personal opinion. Worth every cent you paid for it. I'm not a lawyer and I never played one on TV. Void were prohibited. Caveat emptor. [1] Last time I checked, there was a time limited "educational purposes" virtual machine image one could download and run with the appropriate hypervisor software. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: DEC Processor Books
On Sun, Mar 17, 2024 at 03:58:00PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > I distinctly remember a comment from a DEC customer at DECUS: "When I'm at > DECUS, I always seek out the people wearing t-shirts, because I know they are > the ones who know what they are talking about." Reminds of something that happened at a previous job, where I was part of the small Unix team. We had bought an expensive pile of HP-UX related kit from HP and apparently also some HP consultant time for training on said kit. First day of training, HP consultant shows up in usual full on business attire. Starts talking about stuff (e.g. SAN management and and clustering related things) in a very ... "HP business" kind of lingo, which rubbed us rather the wrong way. So I interrupt him, pointing out: a) we already understand Unix TYVM and are mostly interested in the HP-UX specific details and b) drop the business lingo and start talking plain text, we're Unix admins, not MBAs. With a heavy unsaid implication of "You are wearing a suit while explaining tech, that makes it hard to take you seriously". So, step 1) said HP consultant _did_ drop the "HP business" lingo and started talking plain Unix. And step 2) beginning the next day, he always showed up at our site in shirt and jeans and was taken seriously now ;-) That was ... sometime in the early 2000. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: BEWARE: Phishing
On Sat, Jul 08, 2023 at 12:49:43PM +1000, Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote: > To be completely honest, Electrotechnology students with 415v DC bench > supplies and HV caps all learnt very quickly not to catch something when > somebody threw it to you. Old electricians wisdom: "Be wary of honking great capacitors, lest they bite thee in the arse" ;-) > Ahhh - The folly of youth :-) Was fun, though ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: BEWARE: Phishing
On Thu, Jul 06, 2023 at 07:16:38PM -0400, KenUnix via cctalk wrote: > Chuck, > > So what actions are we supposed to take?? Laugh, say "nix try", ignore that phishing attempt and move on with life. > I was going to go to the cloudflair link but got a message that this was a > dangerous site! Do not follow link in such emails, as at best, they'll point to a deceptive trap (that tries to con you into handing over e.g. login credentials). Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 07:47:35PM -0500, Cory Heisterkamp via cctalk wrote: > > > On Jun 3, 2023, at 7:12 PM, Alexander Schreiber via cctalk > > wrote: > > So the Mercedes T model was (at least in Germany, the manufacturers country) > > never called a "station wagon" because that category name doesn't exist > > there. The closest analogue to it in German parlance would be the "Kombi" > > class of vehicles. Based upon the more numerous sedan models, but shaped > > like a station wagon with a large rear door, a level trunk (usually) > > and with the option of considerably expanding cargo space by folding > > down the rear seats to provide a flat surface. > > > > And - since demand for that kind of vehicle never went away - there are > > still quite a few "Kombi" variants of common sedans. As for why "nobody > > makes station wagons anymore, but something like it and calls it a > > different name" - I get the impression that station wagons in the US got > > a bad rap as "big and wasteful" vehicles. Which is hilarious when you > > think about the SUV epidemic that happened (and seems to be getting > > worse still) many years later and very much redefined "big and wasteful" > > (aside from "silly and dangerous to use due to high center of gravity"). > > > > looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison > > Here in the US, it wasn’t so much that they were considered ‘big and > wasteful’, it's that a station wagon has a connotation of being frumpy, > something your parents or grandparents would have driven. Basically, “not > cool”. Ironically, it’s the older generations that now prefer SUVs due to > ease of getting in and out, and higher road visibility. Eh, this engineer strongly prefers a _practical_ car. That's how I ended up with a Mercedes S204: - Diesel engine - I don't care about driving fast, I want an efficient engine with long service life, lots of torque is nice too - station wagon - I don't care about looks, I want the cargo space and I've used it quite a few times already, although I _do_ think it looks nice (as does my wife), but that is bonus - a _safe_ car - solid design and plenty of safety engineering to keep me and mine alive (and hopefully as minimally injured as possible) in case of an accident - a reliable car - that series has a pretty decent track record from what I can tell and actually doing the regular inspections on time and with the officially certified mechanics helps too I also found simple repairs (such as replacing one of the rear light clusters after I missed (well, I wish I'd _actually_ missed it) a bollard while reversing suprisingly simple: undo 5 screws, disconnect connector, pull old cluster, reconnect connector, put new cluster in, tighten down 5 screws, all done in < 2 min with zero prep (and I'm no mechanic). It also nicely hugs the road, with the suspension hitting the (for me) sweet point of giving you a solid road feel without rattling your teeth on every uneven spot. I'm not a fan of SUVs, mostly for two reasons: - higher center of gravity makes them too easy to roll - they tend to end up on the more heavy side, for which you pay in fuel consumption (the high build doesn't help with that either) and fuel in Europe is not cheap > The wife and I just purchased a 2018 Buick station wagon. Only offered here > for 3 years, it’s really an Opel. Sales were abysmal. Nobody knows what it > was, nobody has seen one before, and on a recent 1000+ mile to the Dayton > Hamvention, I never saw another one coming, nor going. Funnily, most thought > it was a Volvo or Mercedes of some sort. We love it. > > My tape measure says it’ll handle an 083 sorter on its back, and 30+ MPG > means a lot of vintage gear will be getting rescued in the near future. -C Mine does about 32 mpg (7.2l/100km), which is pretty ok for 200 hp - the OM651 is a pretty decent engine. Put more than 160k km (100k miles) on it so far, plan for plenty more. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Sun, Jun 04, 2023 at 11:39:08AM +0200, Harald Arnesen via cctalk wrote: > Fred Cisin via cctalk [04/06/2023 02.50]: > > On Sun, 4 Jun 2023, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > > So the Mercedes T model was (at least in Germany, the manufacturers > > > country) > > > never called a "station wagon" because that category name doesn't exist > > > there. The closest analogue to it in German parlance would be the "Kombi" > > > class of vehicles. Based upon the more numerous sedan models, but shaped > > > like a station wagon with a large rear door, a level trunk (usually) > > > and with the option of considerably expanding cargo space by folding > > > down the rear seats to provide a flat surface. > > > yes. a Kombi full of tapes hurtling down the highway. > > ...down the Autobahn. ... doing a sedate 160 km/h (100 miles/hour) because one is not in a hurry. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 03:03:43PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > But, there is another problem. > > > None of the auto makers still make "Station Wagon"s! > > On Sat, 3 Jun 2023, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > Not quite true. VW makes the "Variant" version of the VW Golf and > > Mercedes still makes the "t model" of the C and E class, all of which > > are basically station wagons. And I can confirm from experience that > > a Mercedes C204 T model fits a complete (fully assembled) IKEA sofa, > > so it does have _quite_ a bit of cargo volume (and, once you fold down > > the rear seats, a nice long _flat_ loading surface). > > Yes, quite true. > As stated previously, that was a gripe about fad terminology. > Note the quotation marks in the original post. > The same as Tony (ARD) being unable to do "Sneaker-Net", due to > unavailability of "Sneakers" within his shopping range of his home. > BTW, the 1992 movie "Sneakers" (was it renamed for UK showings?), with > Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, and James Earl Jones, was one of the first > (if not "The First"), movie to out the existence of NSA. > > Many companies make suitable vehicles, but NONE of them are willing to call > them "station wagons". If the Purchase Order explicitly specifies "Station > Wagon", then will the bureaucrats in purchasing let you substitute a > "Variant", instead of a "Station Wagon"? So the Mercedes T model was (at least in Germany, the manufacturers country) never called a "station wagon" because that category name doesn't exist there. The closest analogue to it in German parlance would be the "Kombi" class of vehicles. Based upon the more numerous sedan models, but shaped like a station wagon with a large rear door, a level trunk (usually) and with the option of considerably expanding cargo space by folding down the rear seats to provide a flat surface. And - since demand for that kind of vehicle never went away - there are still quite a few "Kombi" variants of common sedans. As for why "nobody makes station wagons anymore, but something like it and calls it a different name" - I get the impression that station wagons in the US got a bad rap as "big and wasteful" vehicles. Which is hilarious when you think about the SUV epidemic that happened (and seems to be getting worse still) many years later and very much redefined "big and wasteful" (aside from "silly and dangerous to use due to high center of gravity"). Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 12:25:48PM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote: > On 2023-06-03 11:46 a.m., Alexander Schreiber via cctalk wrote: > > On Thu, Jun 01, 2023 at 02:33:07PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > But, there is another problem. > > > > > > None of the auto makers still make "Station Wagon"s! > > > > Not quite true. VW makes the "Variant" version of the VW Golf and > > Mercedes still makes the "t model" of the C and E class, all of which > > are basically station wagons. And I can confirm from experience that > > a Mercedes C204 T model fits a complete (fully assembled) IKEA sofa, > > so it does have _quite_ a bit of cargo volume (and, once you fold down > > the rear seats, a nice long _flat_ loading surface). > > Getting older now, packing a sofa, next a love seat.:) Hehe. > But can it handle any kind of rack mount computer? Depends. I'm pretty sure it won't fit a full height rack, but as long as the computer only occupies _part_ of the rack it might fit. I _have_ used the car to transport more than a dozen rack mounted machines to their new homes when our club had to clear out the bunker data center in the Swiss Alps (due to the place changing owners and the new owners having different plans). But those were almost all 1U pizza boxen, and reasonably current (hence off topic here) hardware to boot. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Thu, Jun 01, 2023 at 02:33:07PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > But, there is another problem. > > None of the auto makers still make "Station Wagon"s! Not quite true. VW makes the "Variant" version of the VW Golf and Mercedes still makes the "t model" of the C and E class, all of which are basically station wagons. And I can confirm from experience that a Mercedes C204 T model fits a complete (fully assembled) IKEA sofa, so it does have _quite_ a bit of cargo volume (and, once you fold down the rear seats, a nice long _flat_ loading surface). Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 05:01:34PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > What is the bandwidth of a station wagon full of 1TB Mcro-SD cards hurtling > down the highway? $BIGNUM. But the latency is going to be orders of magnitude worse than the station wagon full of tapes, so there is that. Also, SD card reliability being what it is, expect some of that data to "evaporate" along to way, so you might need to look into applying erasure coding and some redundant copies ... SCNR, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 04:26:56PM -0700, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > > > I think I will just convert file sizes to lengths of paper tape for > > > > comparison: > > > > > > > > 1K 102.4" > > > > 10K 85' > > > > 100K 853' > > > > 1M 1.6 Miles > > > > 10M 16.5 Miles > > > > 100M 165 Miles > > > > 1G 1,695 Miles > > > > 10G 16,947 Miles > > > > 100G 6.8 Earth Circumferences > > > > 1T 69.8 Earth Circumferences > > > On 2023-05-31 4:31 p.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > > How about converting that to tons of 80 column punched cards? > > On Wed, 31 May 2023, ben via cctalk wrote: > > No. I don't want to sink into a Black Hole, thank you. > > What is the capacity of the NSA Utah Data Center? Well, I'm sure there are persons that could tell you, but then they would have to kill you. And that would be bad, so let's not risk that. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Tue, May 30, 2023 at 12:22:53PM -0500, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote: > In 1981 when i got my first 5MB hard disk drive at work (I had to write the > drivers for the OS myself) I was able to put all or my source code, > binaries, executable, applications and the operating system and not fill > half of that disk. A the first computer science class in school (very early 90s) our teacher held up a 3.5" 1.44M floppy and told us that "this can hold all you'll ever write" ... well, that aged worse than fresh milk ;-) > A single .raw file from my camera can be over 20MB now. Indeed. The camera archive (2 people shooting DSLRs - strictly as a hobby, not professionals) here is at 1.5T now here and of course only ever growing. Even the compressed archive of my diploma thesis (written in LaTeX, as one does - so no bloated MS Word files) won't fit on a 1.44M floppy at 1.9M in size and that happened not that many years after the above overly optimistic statement. And anybody doing _any_ amount of programming outside of ones job surely has written way more source code than would ever fit on a 1.44M floppy, even after LZ4 compression. I know I did and I don't get to write much code these days. > Is technology advancing us or just helping us to create more and more > storage needs 😁? "Too much storage capacity" is a thing that fundamentally cannot exist, data grows to fill available storage capacity eventually (and usually much sooner than one likes). ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Sun, May 28, 2023 at 07:17:54AM +0100, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > On Sat, May 27, 2023 at 8:47 PM philip--- via cctalk > wrote: > > > > > > > USB interfacing is hard, but SD cards are a lot simpler. So use a card > > > reader thing to transfer the files to an SD card and design an > > > interface for that to ISA bus. > > > > Thinking of that, I had actually wondered whether one could transfer the > > appropriate image files from a modern PC (internet access) to a classic > > PC (disk drives) using a SCSI hard drive. Not if the modern PC is a > > laptop, I suppose. > > I suspect USB-SCSI interfaces exist but I've not looked into one. Adaptec USB2Xchange is one that kept popping up when I looked for just such a thing years ago. Acquired one some time ago (from EBay, because of course the product has been EoL for years). Haven't used it yet, but it presumably works reasonably well. > Since SCSI is a 'formatted' interface it shouldn't be too hard to make > pseudo disk drive using flash memory. I must look into that to make a > SASI drive for my P2000C. There is a whole collection of SCSI device emulators out there and they usually tend to use SD or CF cards for actual storage. > I suspect it's easier to use CF cards. At least some USB card readers > can handle those. And the interface is essentially the same as the IDE > hard disk It helps that a lot of the pro DSLR cameras used CF as storage for quite some time, so card readers for CF should be easy to find. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: ***SPAM*** Re: ***SPAM*** Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 12:30:52PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 5/25/23 10:06, Guy Sotomayor via cctalk wrote: > > > > > The way SPARK works is that you have code and then can also provide > > proofs for the code. Proofs are you might expect are *hard* to write > > and in many cases are *huge* relative to the actual code (at least if > > you want a platinum level proof). > > ...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX... That was Working As Implemented. Turns out, if you change the way the aircraft behaves under some conditions and you can't be bothered to tell the pilots about it, bad things are eventually going to happen. Bonus points for making safety related features extra-cost items (so your cheaper airlines won't buy them, with predictable results). Extra bonus points for having achieved regulatory capture and so being allowed to handwave "It will be fine, trust us" the certifications. One long term result is that European agencies learned to no longer trust the FAA. The root cause was that Boeing was trying to do things on the cheap, going "This is still your fathers old 737, just a little spruced up" when it was effectively a different plane - but admitting that would have triggered lots of expensive things (certifications, pilot training for a new aircraft, ...). There are businesses where you can get away with being cheap and there are types of business where a little extra profit will be paid for with _someones_ blood. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: MCAS (was: Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.)
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 07:34:19PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > > On May 25, 2023, at 6:29 PM, Christian Kennedy via cctalk > > wrote: > > > > > > On 5/25/23 12:30, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> ...and we still get gems like the Boeing 737MAX... > > > > I get your point, but it's a bad example. MCAS worked precisely as > > specified, and while one could have a discussion regarding if those > > specifications were wrong, the logic was that a MCAS failure was > > indistinguishable from any other 737 trim runaway and was to be handled in > > the same fashion. Perhaps this is an example of Brooks' observation that > > most bugs in software are in fact bugs in specification. > > I'm not sure that observation is true anymore, with the "hack it until it > stops crashing" approach to software development that seems to have been > brought to us by the PC and gaming culture. > > In my work (storage servers) I would from time to time see bug reports closed > by the engineer as "works as designed". I would remind them that they are > only permitted to say that if (a) the program matches the spec, AND (b) the > spec is right. I would say "if you're not able to stand on a conference > center stage and explain to an audience of 1000 customers why the spec is > right, you can't use 'works as designed'. The bug may be in the spec rather > than in the code, but it's still a bug. Fix it." Which is why among the more cynic^Wexperienced SREs (my line of work) we sometimes use the term "Working As Implemented" when the code behaves exactly as written (and ofteni as specified), but still does the wrong thing because it (usually) was written with wrong assumptions. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Thu, May 25, 2023 at 02:47:06PM -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > On 2023-05-25 5:52 a.m., Tony Duell via cctalk wrote: > > ... > > It is not unheard-of for classic PCs -- even ISAbus ones -- to have > > 10Mbps ethernet. Most, if not all, 100Mbps ethernet ports will fall > > back to that. > > Not only that, but all correctly implemented GigE devices will fall back not > just to 100 but also to 10 Mb/s. That's part of standards conformance, and > from what I can tell even low cost devices like D-Link or Netgear do this. > Yes, including half duplex mode. > Yup, had that happen on one of my machines with a 100 MBit/s NIC wired to a GBit switch. It dropped all the way down to 10 MBit/s half-duplex and still lost packets at a hilarious rate - because the cable had gone bad. After replacing the cable it was back to 100 MBit/s. But the point is: the GBit switch followed along all the way down to 10 MBit/s half-duplex "hey, if that's all you can do, fine", just as the spec said it should. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Bubble Memory
On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 02:50:49PM -0500, Doc Shipley via cctalk wrote: > On 10/20/22 20:15, Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote: > > Sigh... > > > > Yet another American seler who doesn't understand how simple overseas > > shipping is. > > > Oh, we understand, we really do. We also get really tired of strangers > asking us to lie, on paper, to foreign government agencies. As a foreigner myself: please don't do that. Fill in the forms correctly and be done with it. I've seen this a lot with chinese sellers - utterly unasked for, mind you. Item declared as something _completely_ different, with a declared price usually in 1..5 USD rangem, even if I paid USD 100+ for it. The one case where the declared item type came closes to the actual item was a laser pointer that was declared as a flashlight. > We understand why that's "necessary". We understand that customs duties in > most other countries are insane. We understand that the chances of getting > caught twiddling our declaration is minimal, and the odds of prosecution are > even less. Still not worth it. > NONE of that makes taking that risk tenable for a person who hasn't earned > my trust. Agreed. > My main, issue, though, is the response from prospective recipients when I > say I won't falsify customs forms. It's usually something like "Don't be > such a wimp." "Have you tried not being a criminal?" would be an appropriate response. > That's the behavior that makes me REALLY want not to ship overseas. Sorry for that trouble, not all are like that. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Bubble Memory
On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 08:44:41PM -0500, Jim Brain via cctalk wrote: > On 10/21/2022 4:55 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2022 at 12:15:02PM +1100, Doug Jackson via cctalk wrote: > > [...] > > > Yet another American seler who doesn't understand how simple overseas > > > shipping is. > > As far as I can tell, the price to ship anything overseas from the USA is > > twice the value of the item, plus fifty bucks, plus ten bucks per ounce. > > Whether USPS actually charge this much or it's just sellers trying it on, I > > neither know nor care. > > > > So I don't bother even looking at American sellers any more. > > > I ship all the time all over the world, and overseas shipping is a bit > pricey, but I don't think it's quite that bad. I think that's an eBay > thing. > > As another posting noted, though, requests to modify customs forms is a > problem. The most vocal concerns I've heard are folks who buy outside the > US, have t pay customs, and then complain to me that I should have shown the > price of the item including customs and VAT and such costs. I agree it'd be > nice, but it's untenable at times to pre-figure those fees. That IMHO a bit unreasonable to expect, given that every country has different rules and rates when it comes to applying VAT and customs fee to imported goods. A note along the lines "For international shipping, VAT and customs fees on import may apply" should frankly be sufficient. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Re: Great Vintage Computer Heist of 2012
On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:36:58AM -0400, William Donzelli via cctalk wrote: > Don't be pedantic. You know what I mean. > > Anyway, in the US, there are *significant* barriers to cross for > people taking your land. Owe the local government a few bucks in unpaid tax? They steal your house (well, technically not - they put a lien on it and then foreclose). Lowest amount I've read about was around $9 in unpaid taxes resulted in a 25k $ house being grabbed. Was apparently later ruled as "nope, can't do that" for this case, but still, not a fun time. Florida seems to be particularly creative, too: pay your contractor, contractor doesn't pay their supplier, supplier puts lien on _your_ house for the money owed. Want to keep your house? Better pay again and then try to extract that money from the contractor later by way of the courts. And then there is the legal fun bag of the forfeiture related laws. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
[cctalk] Sun Fire V100 CPU not coming up on poweron
Hi, I've got Sun Fire V100 that I'm pretty sure at some point in time actually worked, since I loaded the board with the maximum amount of memory supported (2G). Now, however, when powering on, the LOM comes up but upon issuing the poweron command the main CPU apparently doesn't, all I get is either 1. print_message: Wrong message ID 2. or continuous scrolling of what look like blocks of register dumps I can reliably get effect 1, but the effect 2 is not easy to reproduce. The memory itself seems ok - transplanted it into a known good V100 board and that booted up to readiness (no OS installed yet), included full memory init. Just on general principle (i.e. try the obvious things first) I also retried with known good PSU, same result. There are no obvious signs of trouble (e.g. bulked up or leaky electrolytic capacitors, scorch marks). Any ideas what that message wants to tell me? Full bootup transcript below, note the fan failure is due to this being run as a naked board removed from the case, so the case fans are 'missing'. -- cute here for new monitor LOMlite starting up. CPU type: H8/3437S, mode 3 Ram-test: 2048 bytes OK Initialising i2c bus: OK Searching for EEPROMs: 50(cfg) I2c eeprom @50: OK i2c bus speed code 01... OK Probing for lm80s: none Probing for lm75s: 48 Initialising lm75 @48: OK System functions: PSUs fans breakers rails gpio temps host CLI ebus clock Power restored LOMlite console lom> LOM event: +0h0m0s LOM booted lom> LOM event: +0h0m0s host power on � LOM event: +0h0m7s Fan 1 FATAL FAULT: failed 0% LOM event: +0h0m7s Fault LED 3Hz print_message: Wrong message ID lom> lom>poweroff lom> LOM event: +0h0m50s host power off lom>poweron lom> LOM event: +0h0m55s host power on � LOM event: +0h0m56s Fan 1 recovered LOM event: +0h1m2s Fan 1 FATAL FAULT: failed 0% print_message: Wrong message ID lom> lom>poweroff -- cute here for new monitor Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Linearizing PDF scans
On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 06:15:21PM -0400, J. David Bryan via cctech wrote: > On Friday, August 13, 2021 at 17:23, Alexandre Souza wrote: > > > Is any kind of standard, recomendation, group, mail list, to discuss > > the subject? > > I am not aware of any. I started with Al Kossow's basic recommendations, > modified slightly: > > - scan at 600 dpi > - use TIFF G4 where feasible > - use tumble to convert to PDF My current toolchain for that: - scans at 600 dpi grayscale - compresses the raw scans with zip for archival and possible reruns (yes, I got bit by overly aggressive compression optimization in djvu, ask me about it, *grr*) - runs them through gm convert input.tiff -normalize -despeckle +dither -type bilevel output.tiff - uses tiff_findskew and pnmrotate to deskew them - compresses the tiff files with G4 for feeding into tesseract - uses tesseract to create PDFs with overlaid OCRed text per page and separately dump the OCR text into a txt for later indexing - bundles the per-page PDFs into a single PDF with pdfunite - finally archives, as a single commit into a git repo - the zip compressed raw scans - the OCR overlaid PDF - the OCRed txt While tesseract isn't perfect, it does a pretty good job. Copy-pasting OCRed text from one of those PDFs opened in evince works remarkably well. It is mostly used to avoid piling up mountains of paper from stuff like invoices, tax bills as well as the occasional "I'm not sure if I'm ever going to look at this manual again, let's archive it just in case". I probably should bundle the whole mess of scripts up and put it on github some day. > > I then wrote and use a couple of simple image-processing utilities based on > the Leptonica image library: > > http://www.leptonica.org/ Thanks for the pointer, I'm going to take a look - apparently tesseract uses leptonica for some image processing work. > > ...to clean up the scans (the library makes the programs pretty trivial). > They start with the raw scans and: > > - mask the edges to remove hole punches, etc. > - size to exactly 8.5" x 11" (or larger, for fold-out pages) > - remove random noise dots (despeckle) > - rotate to straighten (deskew) > - descreen photos on pages into continuous-tone images > - quantize and solidify screened color areas into solid areas > - assign page numbers and bookmarks in the PDF > > A good example PDF produced by these programs is: > > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64000/software/64500-90912_Mar-1986.pdf That is a very nice and clean scan! > > The cover is a "solidified" black/gray/white image, manual pages 1-2 and > 1-4 are continuous-tone JPEG images overlaying bilevel text images, and the > rest of the pages are masked, deskewed, bilevel text images. The PDF > bookmarks and logical page numbers are auto-generated from the original > scan filenames. > > The final step is linearizing the PDFs, but I'm wondering whether this is > still useful. What is that? Never heard of linearizing PDF before, I've so far been concerned to eventually adjust my pipeline to properly support PDF/A (the archival version), but haven't gotten around to look into it. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Writings on AI from 17 years ago....
On Mon, May 24, 2021 at 04:22:52PM -0400, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > Ah however in the door pocket there is a letter stating that if Paul ever > got tired of the system or the museum closed that I would come and pick it > up again. > > Done this a number of times. It kind of gets old, but I really thought Paul > Allen wouldn't run out of money or interest. Go figure. Neither of that happened, he sadly ran out of life. And apparently hadn't set up things to enable them to survive him (whatever an appropriate legal structure would have been - IANAL). Kind regards, Alex. > > C > > On 5/24/2021 4:07 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote: > > On Mon, 24 May 2021, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > Considering there is no staff as they were all laid off and have now > > > > all found other jobs, I'd guess that's a hard no. They'd basically > > > > need to spin up from 0 again -- considering Vulcan shut down LCM, > > > > Cinerama and the Flying Heritage Museum as soon as they could after > > > > Paul's death -- I put my money on asset dispersal, rather than > > > > reopening. > > > > > > > > I say with a pit in my stomach as a former member and regular visitor. > > > > > > Well, if this happens I guess I'll have to schedule a trip out there > > > and a long ride back in a U-Hack. Then what do I do with it? > > > > > You think they'll give it back? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Five bucks says it > > all goes to a recycler because it's "easier" for his lazy f*cking sister > > to do it that way. > > > > g. > > -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: 920M - and also the Argus 200 / 700
On Tue, May 04, 2021 at 10:01:22AM +0200, jos via cctalk wrote: > Yep, Europe was also active at the time. > > in the UK around 1960 the Argus 200 was developed to control the Bristol > Bloodhound anti-aircraft rocket. This computer was one of the very first > transistor-based control computers. > > In Switzerland the Bloodhound was on duty until 1999 ! One of the sites, > once top secret, is now a museum, and well worth a visit. > > Check out https://www.museums.ch/org/de/Bloodhound-Lenkwaffenstellung There is also https://www.afc-fliegermuseum.ch/en/ which has a Bloodhound on display as well as the electronics cabinets of the radar installation behind it, if I remember correctly. Of course they also have tons of stuff that flies (starting with balloons and ending with jets) as well as stuff designed to stop flying stuff from doing so. At the bottom of the photos on https://www.afc-fliegermuseum.ch/en/image-gallery/hall-2/ you can see the Bloodhound in the foreground and its operator console in the background. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Emails going to spam folder in gmail
On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 10:18:56AM -0500, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > Attempting to pull in this thread a tad, there are relatively simple > > measures that can be taken to bring a private mail server into compliance > > with gmail, Amazon, Microsoft level mail server protocol and > > authentication. Its not just gmail. The simplest measures are done with > > DNS and TLS. Most of the mail that I see routinely falling into spam > > folder is from what appears to be spoofed domains. Many of these are legit > > messages that dont have a properly configured DNS record, preventing the > > receiving server from authenticating the FROM domain as owned by the > > sender. A simple fix. > > Well, even with proper DKIM mail and SPF records, Google still sometimes > shafts my mail. No idea why, no one to talk to on how to make it better, no > options other than "Get a Google mail account". Why not both? I run my own mailserver which handles most of my email (both incoming and outgoing) and I have a GMail account, mostly for the GSuite, calendar and such. There is one mailing list that I forward via procmail from my private email to my GMail account (for reading on the go) and that works - so far, about 2-4 mails from that setup ended up tagged as spam this year (out of several mails per day, so while annoying, that is below the noise threshold). My mailserver has SPF records and TLS enabled for ... ages. I couldn't be bothered to setup DKIM yet. The only problems I had was when I was responding to an email from someone using hotmail and hotmail refused my reply ... well, I probably don't want to talk to Hotmail users anyway. ¯\_(ö)_/¯ Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: HPE OpenVMS Hobbyist license program is closing
On Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 08:08:43AM -0700, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: > > > Years ago us SGI hobbyists were able to talk to SGI about this and a huge > > problem SGI had with any kind of hobbyist > > license for IRIX or turning it free is it's fully of licensed 3rd party > > stuff. But maybe now that's it's expired, or all > > the companies things were licensed from are gone. > > Release of Classic HP3000 died for the same reason from the same company. > > HP has no motivation to spend time/money to release this. Also, the only way > CHM > was able to release what we did (HP1000, 68K 9000 and Apollo) was having > us release it only for non-commercial research/hobby purposes. Which would be great - anyone still running OpenVMS on VAX for business purposes presumably has the appropriate (non-expiring) licenses anyway. So having OpenVMS VAX (and maybe even Alpha) released with an eternal hobbyist license (strictly non-commercial research/hobby purposes) would not only be a great win, but all we can really ask for. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Searching cctalk/cctech
On Mon, Sep 02, 2019 at 09:13:40PM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 9/2/19 7:37 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Mon, 2 Sep 2019, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> Anent that--Google does have a search language of sorts: > >> https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/ > >> These elements can reduce the eyestrain from looking at too many results. > > > > Q: WHY does GOOGLE.COM not have a comparable summary? > > Because the programmers for Google like to screw around. > > Don't believe me? Do a search for the word "askew". Hehe, didn't know that one. But there a few of them. Search for "do a barrel roll" ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Raspberry Pi write cycles
On Fri, Aug 09, 2019 at 02:43:38PM -0700, Adam Thornton via cctalk wrote: > I did have a case where the Pi I was using as secondary DNS/DHCP and as the > secondary backup server (using USB spinning disk) destroyed its SD card. > > But then it turned out not to be the load at all. No matter what I ran on > that Pi, it would corrupt its SD cards in a matter of weeks (the symptom > was that the fourth bit of some bytes would just stick on). I assume it > was just something broken in the Pi itself. The two usual suspects: - standard consumer sd cards don't do so well outside of their design use case (mostly cameras and media players) and I suspect a journaling FS (which is a perfectly reasonable default, usually ext4 these days, for Linux) is probably especially bad - so I recommend looking for industrial grade SD cards, they cost a little more, are usually only available in smaller sizes (I've seen 8, 16, 32 GB) but they tend to last a lot longer - sub-par power supply, having the power brown out a little is _bad_ for basically any kind of reliable operation - make sure your PSU can actually reliably deliver enough juice (ISTR the recommendation being 3+ amps), I suppose the "official" ones from the Pi foundation should be up to the job > (Traffic encryption via simh is incredibly painful. You have to turn login > delay way up to run NetBSD on VAX on a Pi if you want to be able to ssh > into it; the machine itself runs fine-ish, but the zillions of cycles to > encrypt the traffic swamps it in no time.) If you want to stick with the Raspberry Pi platform, what kind of Pi are you currently using? If it is a Pi 3, maybe try a Pi 4, that is noticeably beefier. Note: with the Pi 4, you have to use the official power supply and cable as they screwed up the USB-C side (by _not_ exactly copying the schematic in the specs, saving one resistor on the BOM with the result that high end cables will mis-recognize the Pi as an 'audio accessory' and not power it). > And, you know, if you manage to cause my SD cards in those machines to > fail, well, gosh, guess I'm out $10 or so for a new one. I'm not bothering > to back up any of the stuff inside 'em, I assume you've got a master image that you just write to a new SD card, replace card, power cycle Pi, done? Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: SCSI2SD: Is it worth a try?
On Wed, Mar 20, 2019 at 11:37:49AM -0400, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote: > I've used the SCSI2SD with great success with vintage DEC computers. > On QBUS machines, both vax and pdp-11, it has worked with Emulex UC07, TD > systems Viking, Andromeda SCDC and the DEC RQZX1 controllers. > I have used it on native SCSI controllers in VAX 3100, VLC 4000 and 64 bit > ALPHA machines. > > The only other point I would make is that you need a linux system with a > SCSI controller to move data in/out of the SCSI2SD. I am using a 64 bit > Debian system and I found that the 32 bit SCSI2SD utility wouldn't run on > the 64 bit machine and needed to be recompiled. However, I still use a > Windows 7 computer to setup the SCSI2Sd via USB. That is most likely due to missing libraries. On a 64 bit Linux system, by default only 64 bit libraries are installed (duh), but usually you can install 32 bit libraries to support 32 bit binaries. Exactly how to go about it of course depends on your distribution. Kind regards, Alex. > On 3/18/2019 10:15 PM, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > What is the experience with the SCSI2SD with old computers? It looks to be > > SCSI-1 and SCSI-2 compatible and I see a lot of reports of usage on this > > list. I am curious about how well it works and which version to get. > > > > Versions up to 5 seem to be GPLed and reasonably available. V6 does not > > seem to have schematics or boards open sourced and I haven't seen a > > supplier for them. The web page lists some sources, but they don't have the > > V6 available. > > > > It looks like the V6 is not open because someone used the design without > > following the GPL. > > > > V6 claims synchronous transfers, but I don't think most of my hardware > > supports it. That consists of VAXstations and qbus scsi cards. If I was > > after speed I wouldn't be using old hardware, but the speed has to be > > consistent with the era. > > > > Chuck > -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: how good is the data reliability with CD ROM and DVD RAM?
On Wed, Jul 25, 2018 at 04:28:54PM -0700, Chuck Guzis wrote: > On 07/25/2018 02:56 PM, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > > Of course there are. Since both SD cards and µSD cards have identical > > electrical and protocol interfaces, those adapters are just passive pieces > > of plastic and wires. In fact, a lot of µSD cards sold these days come > > packaged with a µSD to SD card adapter. > > Again, I've been misunderstood. I'm looking for an adapter that allows > one to use standard size SD cards in a MicroSD slot. Ah, sorry. > I can find only one incarnation of this idea in a rather shoddy-locking > hunk of F44 PCB with a uSD socket mounted on it. > > If someone knows of a slicker, better-designed adapter, I'd like to see it. I'm not very optimistic here, given that the µSD card end of such an adapter is going to be quite mechanically weak due to size and thickness constraints. It would just be something that waits for a gentle accidental push to break it to pieces. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: how good is the data reliability with CD ROM and DVD RAM?
On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 10:54:26AM -0700, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 07/22/2018 09:05 PM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: > > Throughout this whole thread, I've been tempted to say that you get better > > data fidelity if you take a green magic marker and mark the edges of the > > disk... > > On the other hand, information on MicroSD cards is likely to end up in > the sewer system, lost between floorboard cracks or vacuumed or swept > into the rubbish bin accidentally. > > IMIHO, a grievous error by making things too physically small. The > standard SD card is easy enough to pick out in a deep-pile carpet. Not > so, the usual black-colored MicriSD. The dog might well eat it without > even being aware of having done it. > > Are there such things as "microSD" to "standard SD" adapters that allows > for insertion of standard SD into mcroSD slots? Of course there are. Since both SD cards and µSD cards have identical electrical and protocol interfaces, those adapters are just passive pieces of plastic and wires. In fact, a lot of µSD cards sold these days come packaged with a µSD to SD card adapter. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: how good is the data reliability with CD ROM and DVD RAM?
On Sun, Jul 22, 2018 at 08:06:24PM +0200, Carlo Pisani via cctalk wrote: > thus DDS4, LTO2, DLT: which is the best tape? If you even remotely care about your data, stay far away from DDS. In a previous job we used DDS3 tapes as system backup and restore tapes (since the machines could boot from them). Those were written at most once a month and in 1.5 years there I accumulated a nice stack of 'dead' (hard read errors) tapes. I think none survived more than half a dozen write cycles and they got read not much more. Generally, avoiding any helical scan tape technology (DDS, AIT) is probably a good idea on account of increased head & tape wear this causes. Personally, I have good experience with both DLT and LTO, both are linear scan technologies and IIRC are specified to last at least 1-2 decades given proper storage. Of course, you still want several generations and copies of your backups. Another thing to keep in mind: it is nice if your backup medium lasts decades, but what about the reader for it? Will that be available down the road as well and usable? And, not to forget: what format are your backups written in. Something standard like POSIX tar or some proprietary format used by some commercial software, which might have availability issues in the future. Kind regards, Alex. > > 2018-07-22 18:11 GMT+02:00 Jon Elson via cctalk : > > On 07/22/2018 10:52 AM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > >> > >> On 07/22/2018 06:33 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > >>> > >>> > On Jul 21, 2018, at 3:25 PM, Carlo Pisani via cctalk > wrote: > > ... > and what about magnetic-tapes? (e.g. DDS4, DLT, LTO2) > > which of them lasts for the most? > >>> > >>> I don't know specifically. I do know that plain old audio tapes may fail > >>> -- I have perhaps 100 cassettes recorded in the 1970s. Most of them are > >>> fine, but essentially all of them that are Fuji brand have failed utterly. > >> > >> Half-inch open-reel tape at 1600 PE density. Should be good for 50 > >> years at least. > >> > >> > > Well, you are one of the experts in this, but it all depends on storage > > conditions. Also, the extended-length tapes were too thin, and suffered > > from creasing and print-through. Badly stored, and you can kiss your data > > goodbye in less than 5 years. > > > > Jon -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone?
On Wed, Mar 28, 2018 at 01:17:08PM -0400, Ethan via cctalk wrote: > > I know of no RAID setup that can save me >from stupid. > > I use rsync. I manually rsync the working disks to the backup disks every > week or two. Working disks have the shares to other hosts. If something > happens to that data, deleted by accident or encrypted by malware. Meh. > > Hardware like netapp and maybe filesystems in open source have those awesome > snapshot systems with there is directory tree that has past time version of > data. A directory of 15 minutes ago, one of 6 hours ago, etc is what we had > setup at a prior gig. At a prior job, I replaced the standard NFS+Samba filesharing mess (with the regular "I need you to twiddle permissions" fun) with an AFS server. Native clients for both Linux and Windows2000. With access to the ACLs built right into the native interfaces, so that regular call went away. Also, AFS is built around volumes (think "virtual disks") and you have the concept of a r/w volume with (potentially) a pile of r/o volumes snapshotted from it. So one thing I did was that every (r/w) volume had a directory .backup in its root where there was mounted a r/o volume snapshooted from the r/w volume around midnight every day. That killed about 95% of the "I accidently deleted $FILE, can you please dig it out of the backup" calls. Plus, it made backups darn easy. Last I heard, after I left that place, they setup a second AFS server. Oh, AFS as in: the Andrew File System Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone?
On Tue, Mar 27, 2018 at 10:26:53PM -0300, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote: > > > On 2018-03-27 10:05 PM, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > > > > > Original message > > From: Fred Cisin via cctalk > > Date: 3/27/18 5:51 PM (GMT-08:00) > > To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" > > > > Subject: RAID? Was: PATA hard disks, anyone? > > > > How many drives would you need, to be able to set up a RAID, or hot > > swappable RAUD (Redundant Array of Unreliable Drives), that could give > > decent reliability with such drives? > > 10 - > > Two sets of 5 drive RAID 6 volumes in a RAID 1 array. > > You would then need to lose 5 drives before data failure is imminent. The > > 6th one will do you in. If you haven't fixed 50 percent failure then you > > deserve to lose your data. > > Disclaimer: this is my totally unscientific unprofessional and biased > > estimate. My daily activities of life have nothing to do with the IT > > industry. Proceed at your own peril. Etc. Etc. > > -Ali > > > > > To meet Fred's original criteria you would only need 4 to create a minimal > RAID 6 array. In theory a RAID 1 array (mirrored) of 4 or more disk could > also survive a second disk failure as long as one copy of all the pairs in > the array survive but you are starting to play the odds, and I know of some > cases where people have lost . You can improve the odds by having a hot > spare that automatically take over for a failed disk. One of the most > important things is the array manager has to have some way of notifying you > that there has been a failure so that you can take action, however my > observations as a hardware support person is that even when there is error > notification it is often missed or ignored until subsequent failures kill > off the array. It also appears to be a fairly common notion that if you > have RAID there is no need to ever backup, but I assure you RAID is not > foolproof and arrays do fail. Repeat 10 times after me: "RAID is NOT backup". If you only have online backup, you don't have backup, you have easy to erase/corrupt copies. If you don't have offline offsite backup, you don't have backup, you have copies that will die when your facility/house/datacenter burns down/gets flooded/broken into and looted. And yes, in a previous job I did data recovery from a machine that sat in a flooded store. Was nicely light-brown (from the muck in the water) until about 2cm below the tape drive, so the last backup tape survived. It missed about 24h of store sales data - which _did_ exist as paper copies, but typing those in by hand ... yuck. So we shipped the machine to the head office, removed the covers, put it into a room together with some space heaters and fans blowing directly on it and left if for two weeks to dry out. Then fired it up and managed to scrape all the database data off it while hearing and seeing (in the system logs) the disks dying. Why didn't they have offsite backups? Well, that was about 12 years ago and at that time, having sufficiently fat datalinks between every store (lots of them) and the head office was deemed just way too [obscenity] expensive. We did have datalinks to all of them, so at least we got realtime monitoring. There are good reasons why part of my private backup strategy is tapes sitting in a bank vault. I'm also currently dumping a it-would-massively-suck-to-lose-this dataset to mdisc BD media. There I'm reasonably confident about the long term survival of the media, what worries me is the long term availability of the _drives_. Ah well, if you care about the data, you'll eternally have to forward-copy anyway. > One of the big problems facing using large > disks to build arrays is the number of accesses just to build the array may > put a serious dent in the speced number of accesses before error or in some > cases even exceed it. That is actually becoming a problem, yes. Moreso, for rebuild - with RAID5, you might encounter a second disk failure during rebuild, at which point you are ... in a bad place. Forget about RAID5, go straight to RAID6. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: [RESOLVED] Re: EPROM baking
On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 11:06:29AM -0800, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > On 02/05/2018 10:20 AM, Mark G Thomas via cctalk wrote: > > > 2) Many of the chips were failing to program because my Batronix > >programmer apparently requires more current than my USB port provides. > >This surprised me because I have been programming chips for years > >using this programmer on this computer port successfully, and this > >is the first I have had the problem. Using a Anker powered USB hub solved > >things. My Batronix programmer even arrived with a cheap powered hub > >when I ordered it, but I never used it because it was shipped with an > >incompatible wall wart, but looking at it in the box gave me the idea > >that this might be the issue. > > You should be aware that many "thin" Far East USB cables will not pass > the full USB 1.5A current without substantial voltage drop. I recently Maximum current from a standard USB 2.0 port is 500 mA, USB 3.0 ups that to 900 mA. To really get some power via USB, you have to go all the way to USB C connectors and PD (power delivery), where you easily get 65 W, at the expense of quite bit of complexity on both ends of the cable. Of course there are plenty of USB chargers that are all over the map - and they usually just abuse USB cabling as power wiring, trying to cram 2 A or more down it - which might not work if whoever made the cable "saved" a bit too aggressively on the copper. > ran into this with a new LG portable DVD drive. It refused to operate, > even though I'd just taken it out of the box. I replaced the "thin" > USB cable with several other "thin" ones that I had with the same > result. Finally, in desperation, I located a "thick" USB cable, plugged > the drive in, and discovered that it worked just fine. > > Moral: There's a lot of garbage out there. Is there ever, sadly. Including dangerous garbage - with the power levels of USB C and PD, bad cables (and chargers) can actually by a serious fire risk. Fortunately, Benson Leung is on a crusade against this: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/11/05/a-google-engineer-is-reviewing-usb-c-cables-on-amazon-and-its-awesome/ Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Large discs (Was: Spectre & Meltdown
On Thu, Jan 04, 2018 at 06:38:10PM -0800, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > On Thu, 4 Jan 2018, TeoZ wrote: > >Hard drives NEVER keep up. Bragging about how many DVD's (90's technology) > >you can store on current HD means little to people who have ultra HD > >Blueray videos that take up to 100GB of space. Heck even a single game > >download can be 50GB these days. > > I'd be interested in hearing about opinions of the 100GB "M-disc". I've > heard that they have decent longevity, and, the "low" capacity ones are > interchangeable with conventional DVDs. I've recently turned to using 25 & 100 GB M-disc BD discs for archival storage (mostly my digital camera image archive, so data that doesn't change). One downside of the 100 GB ones: they forever to write (with the defaults on growisofs, IIRC ~3h or so). > I can still put 20 100GB DVDs (2017 technology) on a 2TB 2.5" Thin SATA. > However, I'm also looking for multi-terabyte storage. > Are higher capacity DVDs on their way? > Howzbout multi-TearByte SSDs? I wouldn't trust SSDs (or any flash based storage) for archival purposes, those are strictly for online storage. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
Re: Bitsavers size
On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 05:49:20PM +, Shoppa, Tim via cctalk wrote: > Ben asks: > > Just how big is the server? > > As a wish list, I've always wanted that as a offline set of DVD's for the > > common stuff. > > The bitsavers archive is 267 Gbytes. > > So at 4.7G per DVD, it comes out to almost 60 DVD's. Or a single LTO3 cartridge, with room to spare ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
