[cctalk] Re: Double Density 3.5" Floppy Disks
On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 at 18:08, Mike Katz via cctalk wrote: > > Does anybody have any extra 720K (double sided, double density) 3.5" > Floppy Disks that could use a good home? > > If so, please email me directly at bit...@12bitsbest.com. In what country? That massively impacts many people's willingness to donate. If in the USA, you could buy some from https://www.floppydisk.com/ « 3.5" floppy DS/DD MF2-DD "Double Density" "Low density" "720K" 50 New Black DS/DD 720K IBM Format $99.95 50 New Black DS/DD NOT FORMATTED $99.95 50 DS/DD 720K disks Recycled disks--Guaranteed 100% $34.95 Recycled disks are tested, reformated, and relabeled in our facility. » -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 21:52, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > Seems like a hormonal problem. No, there is a problem, but it's your knee-jerk reactions. Sorry, man, but it is. Charlie's bang on. Also, he's very British and very sarcastic, in that British way many Americans of my personal acquaintance find hard to parse and hard to handle. I have some very close American friends, but they're the bitter sarcastic type. :-D Try finishing it. It's worth it. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Charles Stross, replay the bubble of 1995, alt history plus retrocomp
On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 at 03:25, Tomasz Rola via cctalk wrote: > > Well, if you are into this kind of stuff (I am)... Stross is an s-f > author, formerly a programmer (ages ago but I think it still shows - > perhaps he secretly writes his own tools in Perl) He wrote the Linux column in the UK version of Computer Shopper from its launch until the late 1990s, when his novel-writing career took off. That's when I met him; I worked for sister mag PC Pro, from the same publisher on another floor of the same building. Charlie's been a mate ever since and I've stayed at his place a few times. I still own 2 of his cast-off Macs. :-) He is very _very_ smart and also extremely technically knowledgeable. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: IBM 360
On Fri, 12 Apr 2024 at 13:31, Paul Koning wrote: > Yes. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2321_Data_Cell . By the > standards of the time it was an unusually high capacity storage device, way > faster than a room full of tapes and much larger than the 2311 disk drive. Fascinating. Thank you. It sounds truly awful. A device that effectively tries to push strips of tape into receptacles? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: IBM 360
On Thu, 11 Apr 2024 at 19:32, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > An IBM salesman convinced them to try out a 360/30 with a Data Cell. No idea what a "data cell" is. I found this: https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/data-cell At the Eastercon last week, I met a chap who learned to code on an IBM 1620. He told me of a terrible, terrible storage device which used a robot to load strips of magtape. Cheap but a horrendous failure rate. Is it this thing? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Problem with Dell Vostro 1700
On Sun, 7 Apr 2024 at 20:43, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > I know the main focus of the list. No, you don't, because then you say: > The Vostro 1700 is almost old enough > to be a semi-antique. And it isn't. > I don't know another list where people might know > why the display flashes once and then goes black. Then you should go join more communities and not complain about this one -- or upset it. > If you shine a very bright light at the display, you can dimly see what > it's trying to show. So the display works, but the backlight doesn't. So you have identified the problem and did not say so? > It's my brother's only computer. He's destitute and lives in a room > slightly bigger than a postage stamp. Sorry to hear that. > He can't afford a new laptop, and > he is picky about where the USB connectors are. He doesn't get to be picky if he's that poor. That's how life is. > (His hobby is complaining that most stuff other people would say is > good enough isn't perfect.) That is a privilege that comes with being able to afford better. TBH, ISTM that you actively want to annoy people here. It's working on me, I can tell you that. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Problem with Dell Vostro 1700
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 at 00:47, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > > Both extremely helpful. Thanks. This is mainly a list for pre-PC era kit. Windows PCs and 64-bit x86 kit are offtopic here, and most members, I suspect, regard them as disposable office equipment with no more personality than a stapler. The Vostro 1700 looks to be a 2007 era 17" C2D laptop. Not much info to go on in your message. You say it boots; how do you know? What OS? Latest firmware? Can you SSH to it when the OS comes up? Can it successfully drive an external screen? Have you opened it up and checked its CPU and GPU fans are clean, unobstructed, spin and it's not overheating? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: How to shutdown RT11?
On Fri, 22 Mar 2024 at 22:46, Diane Bruce via cctalk wrote: > > sync;sync;sync > power off > > I remember it well. In my 1st journalist job, at PC Pro Magazine in 1995, I used that to turn off a review SPARC portable. My new boss was delighted and apparently, unbidden, I thereby proved my xNix credentials. :-) Good thing, really... My vi skills were minimal and they still are today. Didn't like it then, like it less now. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: DEC Processor Books
On Sun, 24 Mar 2024 at 14:50, Alexander Schreiber via cctalk wrote: > > 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. Very nice story. :-) In about 1989 my company sent me to London for a 3 day training course on 3Com 3+Open, 3Com's fancy new NOS based on OS/2 1.0. The airline lost my luggage. I turned up on day 1 in a not-too-fresh T-shirt and jeans. Everyone else was in a suit. I explained: no suitcase. Day 2, no suitcase. T shirt was now "fragrant". Some other students on the course had adopted casual wear. Day 3: my luggage arrives! I turn up in a fresh clean suit. Everyone else, tutor included, is in jeans and tees. :-D My company did _not_ adopt 3+Open or OS/2. On the basis of my experience we moved to Novell instead. At the time, a good choice, I still think today. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: IBM PC-XT
On Sat, 9 Mar 2024 at 14:12, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > > I look back fondly on the IBM PC-XT of 41 years ago. I think I briefly used one at university. I wrote about it recently. Its startling price put the Apple Lisa, launched the same year, into context: « The Lisa flopped partly because it was $9,995, about $30,000 today. A lot, sure, but for comparison, the first version of the original IBM PC to ship with a hard disk as standard, the IBM PC/XT, also launched in 1983 – and thanks to its 10 MB (no, not gig) hard disk, it cost $7,545. That's about $22,500 now. This is why eight-bit kit like the C64 dominated the 1983 market: 64 kB of RAM, audio cassettes for storage, and an analog TV set for a display was all that most home users could afford. The C64 was $595 at launch in 1981. By 1993, inflation meant that was about $1,000, which by then would get you a 486 PC. » https://www.theregister.com/2023/12/19/windows_nt_30_years_on/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 21 Feb 2024 at 09:33, Stefan Skoglund wrote: > > Liam, TriPOS ? > > If i'm not wrong it was a OS developed in Cambridge (Cambridgeshire). > > Did someone port it to other arch than ARM ? I am mystified. This appeared in a thread about the VCF SoCal and apropos of nothing with no quote. Have I said anything about Tripos anywhere? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Fri, 2 Feb 2024 at 21:01, Marvin Johnston via cctalk wrote: > > Note to those people too lazy to update their subject line... Oh come on, you can't say that and not quote properly. For just me, I intentionally don't do it. For better or worse, Gmail is the best webmail I know if, it does plain text and bottom posting, and it works across my 5 ot 6 laptops, 3 phones and a desktop perfectly. But it hates subject line changes and it destroys its threading. So I never, ever do it if I can avoid it. It is not laziness, like bad quoting. It's 100% intentional. As for info... Didn't you just try Google? vcf south california 1st hit: https://www.vcfsocal.com/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 19:15, mark audacity romberg via cctalk wrote: > > BBC BASIC is the best BASIC there ever was, and I feel sad for those who have > never used it to see how powerful BASIC can be with proper structured > programming. It’s honestly like a different language. Strongly concur. I mean, QuickBASIC 4 was a good implementation, but it's on its way to becoming a different language. Whereas BBC BASIC ran from a 32kB 6502 machine up to multi-gigahertz-class Arms in gigs of RAM today, as well as on DOS, Windows, CP/M, Linux, macOS, and lots of other platforms. https://bbcbasic.com/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 19:05, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > Probably because Americans in Futtbuck, Idaho never heard of any British > computers but Brits certainly knew about American computers, eh wot? Oh, yes, naturally! It is something of a national characteristic, though. I had someone very seriously questioning me, over on Fesse Bouc, if I was serious when I said that the ZX Spectrum could remotely be considered a more significant machine than (one model of) TRS-80, and he was incredulous when I absolutely maintained the point. Only after the fall of Communism did we Sinclair fans discover that there was an entire international market in clones and compatibles of the little Spectrum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ZX_Spectrum_clones -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 18:35, Henry Bent via cctalk wrote: To answer a different part of the question that I missed first time around: > As an American it's true that the vast majority of my vintage computer > experience is completely americentric, but I'm aware that Acorn had a > significant presence in the overseas market and that RiscOS is viewed > fondly. Perhaps it's time for me to find an emulator and experience the > system for myself. It natively runs on the Raspberry Pi and a 10 year old R Pi 1 will be fine, and will probably cost nothing nowadays. It's resolutely single-core anyway. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 18:52, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > That would be very interesting. I always thought Apricot made some beasts and > remeber the cover of Byte for the first 486 system being an Apricot VX. I > would love to see that machine in person. I put one of those in. First and only SCO *UNIX* (as opposed to SCO Xenix) box I ever installed. But before we turned it into a server, we put DOS and Doom on it, very briefly. The built in UPS could power a VGA monitor and we had a bit of fun pushing each other along a corridor, one pushing the AVX/FT and one a wheelie chair, while running Doom on a PC that wasn't connected to mains power. The world's biggest "laptop". -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 18:35, Henry Bent via cctalk wrote: > Surely by this definition UNIX would take the crown? The "core of the OS" > dates from 1969 and modern derivatives are everywhere. Good point, but the OS I was referring to is RISC OS, *the* original ARM OS and it has only ever run on ARM and nothing else. Nobody is making PDP-7s any more, are they? :-) I think the first C-based Unix was 4th edition. Are there any new PDP-11s? If that makes my point any clearer? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 19:40, Wouter de Waal via cctalk wrote: > Computers are much like motorcycles: many of the most interesting > ones were TERRIBLE! Oh, very good. I may quote that. :-D -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Wed, 31 Jan 2024 at 14:23, Christopher Satterfield via cctalk wrote: > > I'm going to be presenting a (fine? idk) collection of British Computers. > Dragging along at least an Acorn RiscPC 700, a Castle Iyonix, Sinclair > Spectrum 48k and a Q68. Possibly static Apricot FP1/F1 if I can be bothered > to reassemble them despite their non-functional states. As a Brit, can I just express my appreciation of this? :-) I write for an international audience and sometimes people from the USA are openly and repeatedly incredulous that "obscure" British computers -- that means they've never heard of them -- can be considered significant or important, even compared to American machines that were on sale in East Futtbuck Idaho for 6 weeks in Spring 1973 and have never been mentioned since. The biggest selling CPU in history is a British design from a British company. Its native OS is still updated and is FOSS today, and provided the inspiration for a key part of the Windows 95 user interface now used by billions. The core of the OS dates from the late 1970s or so and may be the oldest OS of which a modern derivative still can run on the bare metal of new hardware in 2024. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCF SoCal
On Fri, 26 Jan 2024 at 07:30, Andrew Diller via cctalk wrote: > > Hope this helps, I put it together to keep track of them all. I think you forgot something. There was no link or anything there, and the list doesn't allow attachments. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: The Mac at 40
On Thu, 25 Jan 2024 at 03:56, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > Besides, most of us had solidified our wrong perspectives and incorrect > beliefs and assumptiond long before Wikipedia came along. Ha! Excellent. Well said. As it happens I'm trying to do a quick retrospective for El Reg right now, focussing on myth busting. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] The Sinclair QL's legacy at 40
My 1st contribution to the Register's "retro tech week" may amuse... https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/16/ql_legacy_at_40/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] RIP: Software design pioneer and Pascal creator Niklaus Wirth
Evangelist of lean software and devisor of 9 programming languages and an OS was 89 https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/04/niklaus_wirth_obituary/ The great man has left us. I wrote an obituary. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: (no subject)
On Wed, 13 Dec 2023 at 21:18, brian--- via cctalk wrote: > > > > > The one I haven't found yet is: > > f29bdg00.boo > > > The Google suggests: > http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Common_User_Access > which has working links to f29al000.boo and f29bdg00.boo on IBM servers Well spotted. If I was unclear: I have downloads of both. I failed to make a note _where_ I downloaded them from. There are quite a few pages with download links that no longer work. This may have been where I found it! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: IBM .BOO format
On Tue, 12 Dec 2023 at 22:06, David Schmidt via cctalk wrote: > > I ran the Windows reader over the f29al000.boo file, and the results weren't > as good as the ones that IBM printed out in 1992 as available on the Internet > Archive; the main problems I can see is the lack of font support (everything > in my PDF was basically Courier) Agreed -- same here. > and most tables were broken in both (even the old IBM one) TBH I didn't notice that! > So if you want to make the f29bdg00.boo file available I can at least get a > Courier version of it back to you. That would be wonderful -- thank you! Would a ~6.5MB email attachment be OK? > Related to IBM CUA/Workplace Shell stuff... I do have a demonstration floppy > around here somewhere of early CUA ideas that IBM put out BITD, if that's > part of the itch you're trying to scratch.) It's not but it certainly sounds fun. :-) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: IBM .BOO format
On Mon, 11 Dec 2023 at 18:48, David Schmidt via cctalk wrote: > > I have it running in a Windows NT VM, and it prints to PDF using BullZip > just fine. Do you want to point to the library you want to convert, and > I can run this over them? Thank you! I found one on the Internet Archive already -- it's here: https://archive.org/details/sc34-4399-00 This is: f29al000.boo The one I haven't found yet is: f29bdg00.boo I have a local copy but I did not record where I got it... >_< -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] IBM .BOO format
Does anyone have any experience with the IBM BookManager format and the tools to read it? I've not found any way to open them on a Mac. No joy on Linux yet either; there's an old unmaintained tool that uses a 32-bit Java app. I found 2 Windows tools. One, IBM Library Reader, won't install on Win11. https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-library-reader-windows The other a Java app, IBM Softcopy Reader. https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/ibm-softcopy-reader It installs and runs on Win11 and I can print to PDF -- but only 1 page at a time. Selecting multiple pages give me an empty PDF. I found the original IBM CUA documentation and want to convert it to some more modern, open format, but I am not having much luck... -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven IoM: +44 7624 227612 ~ UK: +44 7939-087884 ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
[cctalk] Re: Looking for NORTRONICS Read/Write head for IBM 5100/5110/5106 tape unit
On Tue, 24 Oct 2023 at 06:27, Mark Perullo via cctalk wrote: > > Hey Steve You're not talking to Steve, but a whole mailing list of hundreds of people. The rest of us don't know which Steve you mean. > I know this is a year later but I have the Nortronic Read Write heads you > were looking for. Well, you may know, but we don't, because you didn't quite the message you were replying to. > They are currently on eBay. The listing is below. It isn't. You didn't provide a link. > Just do a search and they will come up. I did. It didn't. « 0 results for Nortronics Magnetic Head Assembly. NOS Part 9164-0068. Radio Cart Machines. Save this search Postage to: IM14AY Shop on eBay Opens in a new window or tab Brand New $20.00 or Best Offer Sponsored No exact matches found Save this search to receive email alerts and notifications when new items are available. » This is what happens when you don't provide a link, or an auction number. > Hope this helps. > Mark It doesn't. > Sent from my iPhone Well that was a bad move for a start. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: WTD: transputer multi-cpu isa card
On Sat, 16 Sept 2023 at 01:45, Tony Jones via cctalk wrote: > > Suggestions on what to look for welcomed. Just FWIW there is now a bare-metal Transputer emulator for the Raspberry Pi Pico which is accurate enough that you can interconnect several Pi Picos *using the original INMOS silicon* for the fabric interconnect. I wrote about it: https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/06/pi_pico_transputer_code/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 18:49, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote: > One unusual and interesting thing about the Amstrad PCW is how it uses a > display list system, unlike basically any other home computer of the era > apart from the Atari 8-bits and the Amiga. Fascinating... thanks for that. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 23:12, Will Cooke via cctalk wrote: > I make an official motion that Fred write his own "Everything I Know About > Floppy Disks" page / book /encyclopedia. > > I suspect that what is inside his head is the greatest collection of > knowledge about floppies on the planet. > > Fred, you will be paid with great admiration and appreciation. Sorry, all I > can offer. :-) > > Anyone with me? I second that motion. I defer to Fred's deference to others, but that notwithstanding, Mr Grumpy here has a knack for communicating with wit and flair. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 16:09, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > UK readers are certainly > familiar with 3.0 inch CF drives used on Amstrads. Oh yes indeed. I think I have, in my basement in Prague, two Amstrad PCW 9512 machines, an original 9512 (1987, one 3" drive) and a 9512+ (1991, one 3.5" drive). Both DS/DD and 720 kB. I believe -- not tried it -- that the 9512+ can read/write DOS floppies. (The second was a kind gift from a list member -- thanks Roger!) I suspect that the 9512+ was the last ever new CP/M machine (excluding 21st century hobbyist kit). They had a volatile ~450kB RAM disk as drive M: and 720x256 mono graphics, with a text resolution of 90*32. As CP/M machines they are pretty nice kit. No slots and not very expandable, but very capable spec. You could load all the nonresident CP/M commands into the M: drive and then it was a capable single-floppy machine which never needed the boot disk again. No idea of the CPU performance. 4MHz Z80A but whether there was any contention or anything I have no idea. I believe one of the interesting bits of the design is that there's no ROM at all. They came with a dedicated printer (as well as a Centronics port) and masked into a corner of the printer controller chip was a tiny bit of bootstrap code. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Sun, 10 Sept 2023 at 15:16, Jay Logue via cctalk wrote: > > Has anyone reached out with corrections? Yes, me. I pointed him at Fred's response, he was very pleased, and he's updated it. (I can't see much difference but I am not so expert as Mr Cisin at this stuff. There's a revision history on Github. Aside: Also on Github if you know where to find me is my own 25YO website, which I recently recovered from the Internet Archive, fixed a few links, and re-uploaded. I am wondering what to do with it. It needs 23 years of maintenance and who has the time? I saw a post somewhere -- can't find it now -- on hosting a homepage _without using HTML_ which was very impressive. I am considering doing this, and rather than trying to update my awful 1990s HTML, actually downgrading it. Did anyone see that site? It was a mixture of plain text and a tiny bit of Unicode cleverness, I think. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Fri, 8 Sept 2023 at 22:53, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > When Ronald Reagan got into politics, I wrote him a postcard pleading him > NOT TO. I said, "Hollywood needs you." It's a real shame that didn't work. AIUI the repeal of Glass-Steagal caused a lot of the problems we're in today, and while that happened under Clinton, the process _started_ under Ronnie. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/wallstreet/weill/demise.html -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Fri, 8 Sept 2023 at 22:41, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > He has an "About Me" page,and even his CV, but goes to some effort to > avoid stating his NAME! (Jonathan Pallant) I noticed that, too. I think it's [a] the modern internet way, and [2] may be connected with his efforts to get into politics... maybe? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
On Fri, 8 Sept 2023 at 22:24, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > It's got some really good stuff, but some things that are awkward, > although few totally WRONG. [...] > Overall, a good start, for MOST aspects. That is high praise indeed, I think! :-) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] For Fred, especially: "Everything I know about floppy disks"
« Everything I know about floppy disks 2023-08-28 Floppy disk drives are curious things. We know them as the slots that ingest those small almost-square plastic "floppy disks" and we only really see them now in Computer Museums. But there's a lot going on in that humble square of plastic and I wanted to write down what I've learned so far. » https://thejpster.org.uk/blog/blog-2023-08-28/ -- Liam Proven - Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk - Google Mail/Hangouts/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven - Skype/LinkedIn: liamproven IoM: +44 7624 227612 ~ UK: +44 7939-087884 ČR (+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal): +420 702 829 053
[cctalk] Re: NewtonOS
On Fri, 8 Sept 2023 at 19:23, Wayne S wrote: > > I have an ipad 3 and it was absolutely great. Everything worked well on it > until apple made IOS 10 which doesn’t run on it. Then, gradually, some > apps, like Amazon Prime TV, were upgraded to use 10 and above and simply > stopped working. It is funny you should say that: I have one too, and just today, I dug it out of its pouch for the first time since July. I had left it on! But it was in airplane mode, and so still had 15% battery. Amazing. I am trying to work out how to put my assortment of PDFs onto it so I can use it as an ebook reader. This is... not trivial. It was my mother's. When it was no longer able to run Skype, I bought her an iPad 5th Gen instead. This is the first model with the iPad Air form-factor. Her eyesight is very bad now -- retinal haemorrhage plus macular degeneration -- so then I got her a first-model iPad Pro. But, to my surprise, she prefers the smaller one, as it's much lighter to hold. I asked for and was given the cast-off iPad 3. > I probably won’t buy another Ipad just because of that. Well, I see your point. The device is badly crippled now, yes. Especially as I preferred iOS 9 -- the newer ones have a lot of bloat, like window tiling and pop-up floating windows, that just confuse her. I can see being aggrieved by the discontinuation of support. Personally I don't like the things much but I am trying to find a use for this old one. But if I _liked_ it, that's different. FWIW I always buy them used, from these guys: https://webuy.com/ The company was founded by a friend of mine, sadly long dead now. > Liem, sorry about your forearm. Get well and keep writing ✍️ Thank you! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: VCFMW vendor tables
On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 17:25, Seth Morabito via cctalk wrote: > > I swear to God, Discord will be the end of the open Internet, it's where > information goes to die. I hate it with every fiber of my being. And yes, I > use it, I'm on many servers. I'm still allowed to detest it. 100% agreement from this end. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: NewtonOS
On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 02:59, Wayne S via cctalk wrote: > > I used a newton and still have it a box. I have 2 of them myself. > It was heavy and very slow. Graffiti didn’t work very well either. The OMP was. I later bought a Newton 2100 and it's a very different beast. It's quite usable by comparison. Last year I played with a friends ReMarkable e-ink tablet, and I nearly wept. It is so utterly braindead by comparison. We have gone backwards, not forwards. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: OT: Moon (Was: PDP-8/L $15,000
On Wed, 30 Aug 2023 at 01:29, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Then, one of the Sci-Fi magazines [...] in which the capsule settled down > onto the moon, and > immediately sank irrevocably below kilometer thick layer of dust. I am strongly reminded of _A Fall of Moondust_ by Arthur C. Clarke. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: SCO on Virtualbox
On Fri, 25 Aug 2023 at 01:05, KenUnix via cctalk wrote: > > I have been experimenting with GhostBSD 64bit. It runs quite well under > Virtualbox Sorry for the very slow reply... Work is burying me, and I am somewhat crippled due to a pulverised right forearm. I am glad you've found something you're happy with! I do actually have GhostBSD on a Thinkpad here. I personally wasn't very impressed by it, but I have got somewhat more used to real FreeBSD and do occasionally use that these days. But if you're happy with it, great! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: SCO on Virtualbox
On Thu, 3 Aug 2023 at 19:21, KenUnix via cctalk wrote: > > Has anyone got SCO Unix to successfully install and run on Virtualbox? > > My efforts have failed. My host is Ubuntu 22.04 with Virtualbox 7.0.10. No, but I have read that it is doable, with a very constrained VM. Some more info: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/366048/xenix-sco-v-running-in-contemporary-machines-as-vms There are also quite a few Youtube video demos. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Can't access
On Fri, 21 Jul 2023 at 01:10, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote: > > Dear sir; > > I can't access your site. Not sure why! It mat be due to the email > address I employ. Wrong email address, Murray? I am sure none of us have any idea what you're talking about... -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: WTB XVR-4000
On Fri, 14 Jul 2023 at 10:03, silcreval via cctalk wrote: > > I recently dug out my V880 and all seems to be working brilliantly. I've > always liked these machines and it would be nice to upgrade this to the V880z > spec, ie by adding the mighty > XVR-4000 graphics module. I had no idea what a V880 or V880z was, so I went Googling. After a bit of hunting around, and skimming a dozen pages of a few PDFs, I found this, with some specs and pictures and details of what it's for. https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?threads/the-sun-fire-v880z.332/ « The Sun Fire V880Z [...] This is the largest machine I currently have in my collection! (All 157kg of it!!!) I received this little monster brand new in box!!! (So I've been lucky enough to experience the unboxing of such a piece of equipment!) It has the following spec: 6x UltraSPARC III Cu 1.2GHz, XVR-4000, 48GB of RAM (It's at max spec) » -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Is the list broken again?
On Thu, 6 Jul 2023 at 15:42, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > I doubt this will go thru either but other attempts to send to the list are > now getting rejected as SPAM. Doesn't the list check addresses to see if > the poster is a member? I am hearing you loud and clear. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Tue, 30 May 2023 at 19:56, Jeff Woolsey via cctalk wrote: > > I'm also amazed that I can put together a still reasonably impressive > 14-year-old MacBook Pro for < $100. That's $40 for the empty laptop > as-is at a flea market, ~$15 for 8GB RAM, ~$45 for 960GB SSD. I lucked > out in that there was nothing wrong with the laptop. My 2009 13" MBP was free, and that was in Czechia, not a rich land. Dead HDD. I put a spare in, installed a new copy of the latest OS, and after over 2 hours and dozens of reboots and several firmware updates, had a working Macbook. I copied the HDD onto an old SSD a friend gave me, and it was still in use til we left the country. Battery lasted a couple of hours, too. I'm currently working on Hackintoshing a newer laptop for my partner to use... -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Mon, 22 May 2023 at 10:40, Tony Duell wrote: > > I am sorry, but I think this is a stupid suggestion for many reasons. I forgot whom I was dealing with. > > I am not sure I > would want to trust something from an unknown seller on the web. That is unreasonable, IMHO, but it is on-brand. > And > of course it has to have the right type of disk controller, I > certainly need to be able to handle single-density (FM) reading and > writing correctly. Some machines can, some can't. I am hardly going to > be able to test it before I buy it This is a normal ability for a machine of the 486 era, I think. > Next there's the problem of me getting it home. I don't drive. Neither did I when I lived in the UK. I picked up PCs from various points in South London by simply bungeeing them onto the luggage rack of my bicycle. Monitors, I carried on public transport a few times. Easy now that flatscreens are the rule. The last one I bought, in September, I carried across Prague for over 1h on bus, metro and tram, in a backpack, while also pushing my then 3YO daughter in a pram... and that is a big 27" screen, too. > I'll go > on public transport for things that interest me and which I actually > want. An PC is not in that category. I am sorry but that is simply rude, and in context, it is adding an insult to the prior insult. If you want the ability, get off your backside. If you don't, then suffer in silence. Don't call people stupid and then add "that is stupid because I can't be bothered." > Not to mention the fact that I > doubt I could carry the system box, monitor and keyboard in one go. Why would you have to? Who said you did? Nobody. You made this up, then called me stupid for words you put in my mouth. > Having it sent to me is inconvenient Nonsense. The bulk of commerce these days is mail order because it is *more* convenient. > Then there's the problem of keeping it going. Who said you had to? Nobody. But you said it was not of interest. If it fails, replace it. Problem solved. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Fri, 19 May 2023 at 23:40, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Fri, 19 May 2023, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: > > I do remember that, because I carried around a USB key with an > > Thanks, everybody for the reminders of the Windoze history. ;-) > > I hereby formally retract my erroneous suggestion of a "386 98,SP2 desktop > with floppies and USB", > and replace my suggestion with: > "a PC with USB and floppies", and let Tony decide what vintage to use. Fully concur. If it were me, I'd probably suggest some box with from the end of the era which came with an onboard floppy controller, and dual-boot 98SE and some old Linux that can handle such a thing, like Slackware or Debian. That would cover the most bases. I was startled to discover my (long gone) Athlon XP box could only handle a single floppy drive. The BIOS has no option for a 2nd. I can't imagine that was a significant cost saving. > I still suggest the possibility of a current machine for the interwebs, > with thumb drive sneaker-net to an alder machine with USB and floppies. Concur. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Fri, 19 May 2023 at 17:00, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: > > The Intel Enhanced Host Controller Interface (EHCI) specification revision > 1.0 is dated March 12, 2002, almost 2 years after Windows Me RTM. > > Windows XP SP1 was released on September 9, 2002, which was the first time > Microsoft released any USB 2.0 support. > > Windows 2000 SP4 was released on June 26, 2003, which is when Microsoft > released USB 2.0 support ported back to Windows 2000. I do remember that, because I carried around a USB key with an assortment of service packs, IE installers, etc. and it was sooo slow to copy W2K SP4 onto a machine -- until you had SP4 installed... > At that point in time Windows Me was essentially dead and had been for a > while. No one at Microsoft was interested in the effort required to port > USB 2.0 support back to Windows Me. OK, fair enough. I concede. I stand by the 95 stuff, though. 95/95A: FAT16 only, no USB. 95B: FAT32, USB, no IE4, no standard upgrade path. 95C: USB + IE4. 98 onwards: USB as standard; upgrades from 95 supported. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Fri, 19 May 2023 at 13:42, Glen Slick via cctalk wrote: > > On Fri, May 19, 2023, 4:36 AM Liam Proven via cctalk > wrote: > > > > > [3] Win98SE was, I _think_, maybe the first version to support USB _2_ > > and maybe the first version with USB key support as standard. This > > needed a driver on original 98. > > > [4] Microsoft didn't add USB 2.0 support until Windows XP SP1. That USB 2.0 > support was also back ported to Windows 2000 SP 4. Microsoft never added > USB 2.0 support to Windows 98SE or Windows Me. https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000603.htm I I think that Windows ME had USB 2 at launch. Not sure. ME did support FireWire which cost me quite a lot of money on one job because I did not realise that was a difference between ME & 98 SE. > [5] Microsoft first added USB mass storage support to Windows 2000. That > was back ported to the original Windows Me release, but never to Windows > 98SE. Happy to accept that. It was easily added via any number of third-party drivers though. These were commonly available and in the early days of USB memory keys, it was not unusual for them to come with a floppy with Windows 9x driver. > > [6] Any USB 2.0 support on Windows 98SE or Me would have been provided by > third-parties, same with any USB mass storage support on Windows 98SE. For windows 98, that sounds very plausible. For Windows ME, I think it was built in. My apologies for poor capitalisation etc– I am dictating these responses into my Mac as I have a broken right arm. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Getting floppy images to/from real floppy disks.
On Thu, 18 May 2023 at 20:10, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > a 386 desktop running Win98SE (first version to support USB) Hang on a minute. [1] Win98 on a 386? Really? It might work but it will be horribly horribly slow. Win95 was just barely usable on a 386; I benchmarked it at release. [2] I don't think I ever heard of a 386 with USB, or a 386. with PCI slots to add a USB card. [3] Win98SE was, I _think_, maybe the first version to support USB _2_ and maybe the first version with USB key support as standard. This needed a driver on original 98. However it 100% definitely was _not_ the 1st ver with USB 1 support. That was Win95 OSR2, a.k.a. Win95B, in about 1996. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: ST-251 Data Recovery for Glenside Color Computer Club (GCCC)
On Wed, 17 May 2023 at 05:29, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Have they stopped making ones that include 720K? I have 2 USB floppy drives and have successfully read 720 kB disks with them, and also MacOS 1.4 MB disks. I think they should also write 720 kB disks. What they won't handle are DD formats that don't use the standardPC disk controller: Amiga disk, DD Mac disks, etc. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: The World Wide Web
On Fri, 5 May 2023 at 21:26, Mike Stein via cctalk wrote: > > No doubt many folks do have a need for speed but FWIW I get by fine with 6 > Mbps D/L speed, streaming Youtube and local cable channels, browsing the > web, email & fora, etc.; ... wow. I had 500Mb/s for ~CzK 1000/mth in Prague. Ballpark ₤30. Here in the Isle of Man I'm on 100Mb/s and it's a moderate pain. But for my 1st 2 months here, I had only 16Mb/s at my mum's, and it was horrible. > I've also got a fall-back 56K toll-free dial-up > option which is still good for email and messaging when broadband is not > available. I kept a POTS modem around for years but after 2002 or so, it just didn't seem worth it. Even from 512kb/s, dropping an order of magnitude felt like not being online at all. By the time I was on a few megabits/sec I mothballed the dialup device. I haven't had a landline since 2014 now. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: The World Wide Web
On Thu, 4 May 2023 at 18:49, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote: > > Unfortunately my local ISP doesn't run a server any more. :( I use Eternal September, via Thunderbird. Works very well. Password requirements are annoying, and the initial setup is very non-intuitive, but follow the documentation and it works. https://www.eternal-september.org/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Looking for datasheet of RTC M3001 ...
On Tue, 11 Apr 2023 at 17:41, Bernd Kopriva via cctalk wrote: > Does anyone have a pointer to the datasheet ? A comment on book said: « For me, 'National Semiconductor' and 'RTC' together mean their own design of the MM58167 that was used on the AST multi-I/O and memory expansion adapters for the PC and the PS/2 Model 30. I guess that RTC was sourced differently later. » -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Store with "vintage" computers and parts
On Thu, 9 Feb 2023 at 23:27, ben via cctalk wrote: > > I wish a custom clock made. A nixie tube alarm clock > with a real bell. Ben. Talk to Dalibor Farny: https://www.daliborfarny.com/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven IoM: (+44) 7624 277612: UK: (+44) 7939-087884 Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Computer of Thesus (was: Re: Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man)
On Tue, 31 Jan 2023 at 13:14, Chris via cctalk wrote: > > I take pains to clearly differentiate what I'm saying from what I'm quoting > (and usually on a phone). All the while I have to struggle readimg others > mish mosh, often there not even being a single line separating the 2. So > please stop complaining. Learn to adapt and overcome. Well, frankly: no. Get better tools, such as K9 Mail which bottom-posts fine on Android devices. Or do what I do: occasionally read mailing lists on my phone, but I don't respond from my phone unless it's an emergency. I mark-unread stuff I want to read later. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Computer of Thesus (was: Re: Re: Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man)
On Wed, 25 Jan 2023 at 08:09, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: > > Chris, can you *please* correctly indent and cite messages you are > referring to? I am getting annoyed by guessing what part is from whom. Agreed. It's dead easy if you're using Gmail. I am doing it right now in the standard web client. If you use Yahoo or other Oath services, or any MS client, then point Thunderbird at it. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Computer of Thesus (CRT Risk)
On Tue, 24 Jan 2023 at 21:26, Doc Shipley via cctalk wrote: > >This Subject: line is damaging my brain. It's such an old name, the 2nd E has worn right out of it. I mean it is the most commonly-used letter. It was always likely to fail first. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: the mouse vs. touch sensitive devices
On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 at 21:59, Angel M Alganza via cctalk wrote: > > Well, nobody teaches that... At least, nobody has taught me that, nor > have I ever seen anybody do that. In the early days, Apple did when it first introduced them, and some of the 1st PC laptops with them played little tutorial videos. But that was last century now. > And I have seen many people > complaining about how useless they are... Me too, but more seem to like than dislike them. :-( And they are solid-state and take no maintenance or cleaning, so they save manufacturers money. :-( Also, they support gestures, for people weaned on touchscreens, so I think their grip will not easily be broken. I dislike gestures and turn them off. As I type, on a circa 14 year old Thinkpad, which got a RAM upgrade yesterday, my trackpad is disabled and I have only a CLIT mouse. (Centrally Located Input Tool, of course.) > Now, for the first time in my life, have I access to this extremely > important information. :-D > Acceptably by which measurement? I hate them! I hate them! I hate them > with all my might! I disable them in all laptops when possible, either > by hardware or by software. > > But I'm trying one right now and, for the first time in many years, > thanks to this very email of yours, I'm seeing the point of this > freaking thing. I might even start to use it now instead of reaching for > a mouse when keyboard shortcuts don't cut it (almost exclusively while > browsing some very badly designed or heavily graphics loaded web sites). > > Thank you! Oh, well, great. I am very happy I was able to help! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: in need of 2.5" disks
On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 at 20:38, Angel M Alganza via cctalk wrote: > > On 2023-01-23 20:59, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote: > > There was the Amstrad floppy. I think it was 3". Hopefully didn't get > > out > > of the UK. > > Why would you say such a thing? Of course it got out of the UK and came > into Europe, where I could get them, use them, and enjoy them Exactly so! They were a good design. Exceptionally robust, and designed to be posted directly, without an envelope, as the shutter can't be opened by hand, only by the drive. Hitachi's mechanical design was IMHO superior to Sony's of the 3½" diskette. > I was never lucky enough to own a PCW, but I still haven't lost the hope > to get one some day. I need to check some boxes but I think I have 2 PCW9512s. I could be persuaded to part with one. But you'd save money driving to Prague to collect it, rather than shipping the 3 large boxes! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: the mouse vs. touch sensitive devices
On Mon, 23 Jan 2023 at 00:00, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > I am the exact opposite. I love my track point. Agreed. Trackpads are tolerable, but I preferred the era of trackballs. But if my laptop is on my actual lap, I turn off the trackpad and just use the trackpoint. Easier, less arm and hand movement, keeps your hands on the keyboard, and generally less hassle. I find it interesting watching people using trackpads. Most don't know *how* to use them effectively. The core trick is that you should only move your fingertip for large pointer movements, and for small precision movement, keep your fingertip stationary on the trackpad and _roll_. Increase the finger-to-laptop angle for vertical movement (pointer away from you or toward you) and rotate your finger along its axis for small left/right movements. Few seem to know this. If you don't know what you're doing, and do it by trial and error, then trackpads kinda sorta work, not great but acceptably. Which I think is also the point about MS Office 2007 and later. Before, with menus and toolbars, it was efficient once you memorised the layout of the menus and the hotkeys, and you could customise the toolbars as you saw fit. (I used to place them vertically at left and right of the workspace, add a bunch of my own buttons, remove some, and then I worked out it was quicker to memorise the hotkeys and just hide the toolbars completely.) I speedread. Recently someone on lobste.rs expressed incredulity I'd read a 5000 word article in 5 minutes. For me that is not even hurrying. Menus are fast. Most people can't read that fast, and can't memorise a complex menu layout. So for most people, the horrible ribbon introduced in Office 2007 is easier. They can't read fast, they lack comprehension, and so they search, every time, looking at groups of icons and then within them. For youngsters this is preferable. For grumpy old gits like me, it's worse. *MUCH* worse. I find Office 2007 & later unusable. I can't even put the big fat waste of space vertical. So, I keep some old copies of Office around, and I use LibreOffice and other tools. For now, I have the choice. But modern versions of Windows and Linux are removing menu bars, which are an old-people tool, and replacing them with icons and visual controls. For me, idiot lights, for idiots. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: USB Attached 5.25" drives?
On Fri, 20 Jan 2023 at 19:52, Zane Healy via cctalk wrote: > > I’m now aware of the GreaseWeazle, but what I’ve not seen is if it allows > standard access to the data on a floppy, or only provides a way to image the > disk. With an USB attached 3.5” floppy the disk mounts on my Mac, and I can > easily pull files off the disk. Does this work with the GreaseWeazle and a > 5.25” floppy drive? Just FWIW, this was a FAQ and so someone has made a gizmo. It's not cheap but it works, apparently. https://shop.deviceside.com/prod/FC5025 It's read-only but it handles, in theory, DS/DD 40 track, DS/DD 80 track, and DS/HD 80 track. It attaches to a PC floppy drive, so if a PC floppy controller can't read the format without hardware assistance, this won't either. An alternative method is described here: https://blog.adafruit.com/2021/12/08/how-to-build-a-working-external-5-25-usb-floppy-drive-vintagecomputing-ibmpc/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Reading Old Floppies
On Mon, 9 Jan 2023 at 17:02, Doc Shipley via cctalk wrote: > >Short version is that the GUI Disk Utility hides too much of what > it's doing AND, more to the point, makes assumptions by default. Yes, > it's possible to override the default but after [holy crap!] 2 decades > of using it I still have to fumble around. This is a good point. Disk Utility was pretty good up until Yosemite (10.10 for non-Illiminati). Then Apple castrated it and ripped out most of the facilities to specify partition sizes exactly and so on. Up to High Sierra (10.13) it used a fairly standard *nix partitioning layout, only on the non-case-sensitive Apple HFS+ filesystem from Classic MacOS 8.1 back in 1998. (Apple's equivalent to FAT32, so to speak.) Mojave (10.14) switched to the new APFS. Since then, Apple has been devising an increasingly complex set of disk containers with limited or no write permissions, in efforts to make the system more resilient. It is also worth noting that the disk layout of Arm Macs is _substantially_ more complicated than that of Intel ones. Here's a guide to the structure in macOS 12, Monterey: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/12/16/boot-disk-layout-in-macos-monterey/ The forthcoming version 13 is anticipated to be a lot more complex than that. For my venerable Intel Macs, I have been known to just boot Ubuntu off a USB key and use Gparted to set up the partitions, then reboot off a macOS USB key and install onto the result. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?
On Mon, 9 Jan 2023 at 03:45, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote: > I have a memory of installing Windows 95 on a monochrome 386SX laptop > w/4MB of RAM in August, 1995 at McMurdo because that's the equipment > we had on hand when Win95 arrived on the continent. It was > unpleasantly slow but it did run. > > Way better on a 486 w/8MB. Oh my word yes. But the surprising thing was that it did work, my careful benchmarking, using MS Office, Photoshop and some other real apps, automated with macros, showed that MS' optimization work had gone in the right places. WfWg 3.11 with 32-bit disk access and 32-bit file access had a fast disk subsystem, but it wasn't able to adjust cache sizes on the fly. You set min/max sizes and that was that. W95 could shrink them to next to nothing if it needed. Result: W95 started slower and felt slower on a very low-end machine, such as a 386 with 4MB, the min spec. WfWg 3.11 started quicker and was much more responsive. But put both through the same set of demanding exercises in real apps, doing a lot of work, generating documents, outputting info over OLE into other apps and things, and W95 ran the whole benchmark suite quicker. It _felt_ slower but it actually traded off responsive feel for doing big demanding jobs faster overall. In comparison, an OS that went the other way was BeOS, which was tuned to feel maximally responsive at all times... and for the most part it didn't _have_ big demanding apps that could be scripted into long heavy workloads, so BeOS felt much massively quicker on turn-of-the-century PCs. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: WTB: IBM 700/c
On Sat, 7 Jan 2023 at 06:05, skogkatt007--- via cctalk wrote: > > preferably working. Or known screen issues but otherwise working. > the mono version intrigues me (model 700). But I need a color unit to test > out all these screens I have sitting here. > Now if anyone should need a NOS screen for a 700c, email me directly. No flim > flam on everyone's screen. The folks behind this site may help? https://www.701c.org/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?
On Fri, 23 Dec 2022 at 07:54, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Well, if you want to pedantic about it, you certainly could emulate a > 32-bit processor on any reasonably Turing-equivalent processor, given > sufficient memory. It might be incredibly slow, but you could do it. Noted Australian Mac hacker Dana Silbera -- "nanoraptor" on Twitter -- got Mac OS X to boot on a 68040 Mac this way. EXTREMELY slowly, in the PearPC PowerPC emulator, compiled on 680x0 Linux, IIRC. It took 2 days to show the desktop or something. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: [SPAM] Re: what is on topic?
On Thu, 22 Dec 2022 at 23:41, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > On Thu, 22 Dec 2022, Sellam Abraham via cctalk wrote: > > You've apparently never heard of Tony Duell: last I read he was running > > Windows 98 on an IBM PC/XT or something like that :) Linux on a heavily-upgraded PC-AT with a '386 board in it, I believe. > Tony, > are you around? He is, still posts occasionally, and I believe he has a more modern PC now. :-) > Win95/Win98 would be happy with a PC/AT 286, with appropriate RAM Nope. 32-bit only. 386DX or later. I tried it and benchmarked it at the time of release. And it beat WfWg 3.11 by a significant margin, to everyone's amazement. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Beehive Topper help needed
On Sun, 6 Nov 2022 at 00:05, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > > > One of these? > > > > https://www.reddit.com/r/retrocomputing/comments/vud92z/weve_found_a_beehive_international_bee_1_or_b1_in/ > > Isn't that just a B1 terminal? > > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/beehive/ads/Beehive_Micro_B1.jpg Could well be. I had to go out and didn't have time to write a longer message. As indeed I don't know. I found that quickly and merely wanted to demonstrate that, yes, there is quite a lot of reference to the Beehive Topper on the WWW, but yes, as OP said, most relates to the Topper II. I just searched for beehive topper "cp/m" and found dozens to hundreds of pages with links and downloads, but most referred to the Topper II. All I am saying is that it is out there but some Google Fu may be required. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Beehive Topper help needed
On Sat, 5 Nov 2022 at 17:17, Harten via cctalk wrote: > > Hi folks! > > Is there anyone out there, who can help me with my Beehive Topper > CP/M machine? One of these? https://www.reddit.com/r/retrocomputing/comments/vud92z/weve_found_a_beehive_international_bee_1_or_b1_in/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Disk imaging n00b
On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 at 23:52, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > Such as the classic Montezuma Micro CP/M for TRS80 Model 3, with "JOHN, > EAT SHIT AND DIE" in some sectors? ?! Do tell... -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Disk imaging n00b
On Thu, 3 Nov 2022 at 23:47, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > Please expand "GCR". Group-coded recording. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_coded_recording Specifically: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_coded_recording#Apple As opposed to Modified Frequency Modulation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_frequency_modulation In ST-506 hard disks, MFM was supplemented by RLL, Run-length Limited: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-length_limited -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Does anyone have a copy of DAEMON Tools Ultra 4.x install file(s)?
On Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 17:01, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > I will give that a try. > > Thank you for the pointer. I hope it helps. There seem to be multiple versions there. > I'm also exchanging emails with DAEMON Tools support. They /are/ > responding and /trying/ to help. Sadly XP is being problematic. Ah well. It's almost exactly 20Y since it came out. I dareasay that this was in the relatively early childhood of most people working in tech support in 2022. > My personal choice is to use Linux. My Year of the Linux Desktop was > last century. Same here. Well, my home desktop is a Mac, but work and laptops are all Linux. > Windows is relegated to the things that need to be done on Windows; an > old game (Yoda Stories) from the '90s, a specific version of QuickBooks > to appease my wife, things that don't have a Linux / macOS counterpart. OK, I can see that. I keep it around for occasionally rooting and reflashing smartphones and the like, and sometimes for firmware updates. That is mostly it now. Saying that, I did reinstall TinyXP on a Sony Vaio P last month and it's striking how much quicker than Windows Thin PC (the allegedly cut-down Win7) it is. I haven't got all my drivers and things working yet, though, and the Intel Poulsbo drivers seem to nix Windows' large fonts setting, and its tiny letterbox screen really needs that. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Does anyone have a copy of DAEMON Tools Ultra 4.x install file(s)?
On Sun, 30 Oct 2022 at 00:36, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: > > Does anyone have a copy of DAEMON Tools Ultra 4.x install file(s)? Any use? http://www.oldversion.com/windows/daemon-tools/ I don't really use Windows any more here, so I haven't seen or tried this myself. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Apple G5 Rebuild
On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 at 22:54, Doc Shipley via cctalk wrote: > > Liam, don't be a d**k. I am sorry. :-( I did not think that calling out a bogus claim was a nasty thing to do, but I sit corrected, and I apologise. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Apple G5 Rebuild
On Mon, 10 Oct 2022 at 08:20, Kevin Parker via cctalk wrote: > > Problem is my GoogleFoo can't find any diagrams, illustrations etc on how > the internals are put together What? I am *amazed*. I don't know how you could _not_ find the info. There is loads of it. This is the first hit on "apple powermac g5 disassembly" -- https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Disassembling+Power+Mac+G5+Motherboard/7579 This is the 2nd: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Power_Mac_G5 It's one of the easiest machines ever to assemble or disassemble and there's tons of info, videos, walkthrough, step by step guides etc. 4 words is not "Google-fu". -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Project Monterey booting in 2022
https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2022/09/24/ibm-aix-for-ia64-itanium-aka-project-monterey-runs-again/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: i860 vs. i960 WAS Intel's i860, Cray-On-A-Chip
On Sat, 24 Sept 2022 at 05:50, Ali via cctalk wrote: > > I always thought the i960 was an upgrade to the i860 (sort of like i386 to > i486 upgrade). However, based on the info on wiki it seems as if the i960 > actually came first and although a RISC chip it was in no way in the same > league as the i860. Yes, me too. This has come as a bit of a surprise to me in fact. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Intel's i860, Cray-On-A-Chip
On Fri, 23 Sept 2022 at 23:57, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > I believe (I'll have to check) that in the Osborne-McGraw-Hill/Intel > i860 book there's a quote from BillG saying that Microsoft was committed > to developing for the 860 as a personal computer CPU. > > I think that never happened...it would have been interesting, however. The closest I know of is that the early (late-1980s) versions of what was then OS/2 NT were built on i860 boards, codenamed "Razzle". The Smithsonian has one: https://www.si.edu/object/microsoft-windows-nt-development-board-pcr1-rev1-intel-i860-processor%3Anmah_742558 There are a handful of mentions of them here and there: https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=32510 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20181224-00/?p=100545 The codename of the first version of the i860 was "N-Ten" which is where the "NT" product name originated: https://web.archive.org/web/20110720042038/http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-server/windows-server-2003-the-road-to-gold-part-one-the-early-years-127432 -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: 9-pin mini-DIN serial?
On Fri, 16 Sept 2022 at 21:37, Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk wrote: > > Psion bought my former employer, Teklogix, Inc., of Mississauga, ON., to > provide early wireless connectivity for industrial warehouse and > inventory control. And Zebra bought Psion Teklogix: https://www.zebra.com/us/en/products/mobile-computers/handheld.html -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: Flipping an 8" diskette
On Thu, 1 Sept 2022 at 16:36, Chris Zach via cctalk wrote: > > Are they IBM preformatted? If so they could work in someone's RX01/RX02. Doesn't say so on the box. Thanks for all the info and clarification, folks! -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Flipping an 8" diskette
Someone on Fesse Bouc just found a sealed box of SS/SD 8" floppies in their garage. Most FB types are too young to know 8" disks existed, of course. Someone suggested punching a notch in them and using both sides. Was that even possible on 8" disks? (TBH single-sided actually-floppy floppies are before my time and I never used 'em. When they were on low-end American 8-bit home computers, this impecunious young Brit couldn't afford floppy drives at all. By the time I could, 5.25" DS/DD was the cheapest drive and cheapest media.) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: "Revival" of a dedicated Micropolis webpage on internet
On Tue, 16 Aug 2022 at 23:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > 1) because they need to keep reinforcing until the very last SA400 is > buried. > > 2) It became the recognizable indicator for which disks were which, > especially for those who wouldn't read the label. > With a hib-ring is prob'ly a low density; > without a hub-ring was either early low density, or "HD". This became a big argument on Fesse Bouc a few months back, with some people ferociously and insistently telling me that the presence or absence of a hub ring was an absolutely foolproof, categorical, 100% correct was to tell 360kB from 1.2MB disks, always, no exceptions, and everyone in the world knew that, apart from me. I should have thought to consult with The Guru. I had to look up SA400. I'm too young. The Smithsonian has one. They say it's a 3¼ inch drive. https://www.si.edu/object/microcomputer-peripheral-shugart-sa400-disk-drive:nmah_334325 *Sigh* -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: DECnet to be dropped from Linux
On Sun, 7 Aug 2022 at 00:02, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: > > People who have never actually tried doing it constantly claim that you > can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. :-D I see what you did there. Depends on the flies, of course. I discovered it by accident. I'm a Brit (and Irish now). We're not all that big on pickled cucumbers -- gherkins -- in the UK. A lot of people pick the slices out of their burgers and throw them out. (We pickle lots of other vegetables, especially onions and hard-boiled eggs, so "pickles" in British English is a generic term for anything pickled, and we very rarely use it because it's too vague. "The pickles aisle in the supermarket" maybe.) I love gherkins. Now I live in central Europe where they're big on gherkins and they eat loads of the things. So I do, with pleasure. You can buy *really big* jars of gherkins in ordinary supermarkets. I am hazy on US liquid units, as I never really knew the Imperial ones and yours are different anyway. So US ones make no sense to me, but maybe a gallon jar, or even 2 gallon jars? 8 pints is a UK gallon but I think 4 pints is a US gallon? Yeah well. I bought a ?2? ?gallon? jar of gherkins. It was too big to fit into the refrigerator. But they're pickled, right, so preserved, so I left them out. Mistake. You *do* attract fruit flies with vinegar. *Lots* of them. And their maggots can live in vinegar if they are at the surface and can breathe air. What happened to my gherkins was very _very_ nasty and I never bought such a big jar again. I might be able to keep a goldfish in the jar, though... Britain's a bit cold for fruit flies. Until I moved here they were _Drosophila melanogaster_ to me, a lab animal. The maggots' salivary glands have some of the biggest chromosomes in nature: you can see and count genes down an optical microscope. And a student can be taught how to anaesthetise and sort the sexes of fruit flies using an easy-to-use binocular microscope. https://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/curriculum/units/1996/5/96.05.01.x.html -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] Re: DECnet to be dropped from Linux
On Tue, 2 Aug 2022 at 21:56, Wayne S via cctalk wrote: > > Does dropping Decnet mean the the commercial versions like Redhat and any > others that you pay support for will also lose Decnet? When they eventually upgrade to that or later versions of the kernel: yes. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
[cctalk] DECnet to be dropped from Linux
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-DECnet-2022-Removal https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220731190646.97039-1-step...@networkplumber.org/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Xerox 800 Word Processor 1974 promo film
On Sun, 10 Jul 2022 at 10:10, Christian Corti via cctalk wrote: > Actually I knew them only as Rank Xerox many years ago, when they were > commonly known as office suppliers, e.g. photo copiers and printers. Ditto. I think this may be another of those US/rest-of-world things. To this Brit, the only company I knew of with this name was "Rank Xerox" and I had never heard of "Xerox" as a company (nor as a verb) until I was an adult working in the tech industry and learned of Xerox PARC and its role in the development of Smalltalk, OOPS, the GUI etc. So probably roughly in my late 20s or early 30s. "To xerox" meaning "to make a photocopy" was something I learned around the same time. This is not a verb in British English, nor I think in any non-North-American dialects of English. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Lisp machine PCBs
A chap I know -- not on the list -- has some old LispM bits that he would like to find good homes for. Quote: « LISP Machine boards - attached are a couple of pictures of the two sizes of boards we have. The smaller boards are two ESDI "paddles" and two console boards. The larger boards are six colour memory boards, two 512kW memory boards, two NBS FEP-IO boards and a colour controller board. AFAIK they're all from 3600-series machines. No idea if they work or not, clearly. The LISP Machine keyboards we have in the cupboard are 364000 models, complete with cables. » https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJt5NBYG2YEiiJYJMMYFmQN7TlefU1CW/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xHAQPuFh4OCW_IGX1V6J1SnE2blNzFPN/view?usp=sharing I know that the keyboards are seriously valuable (~USD 1500 each at a guess) but he would prefer that they went to actual LispM owners and not to random keyboard collectors. I am looking for pointers to anywhere that I might find such LispM owners, and anyone who might be interested in the PCBs. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: PCI floppy controller
On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 19:11, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > Back in the 90s, we bought these things by the carton, modified them to > work with Japanese DOS 2.0 format (PC98) 3.5" floppies, rewrote the > drivers, added a VxD for Win3.1 compatibility and sold a bunch of them. > Popular with some segments of the CNC and other crowds. Huh! Nice work if you can get it. > A not well-known fact is that the thing supports up to 4 drives and that > the configuration NVRAM stores not only the "ID" of the unit but also > the types of the 4 drives connected. You mean, in principle 1 interface could control 4 drives? Wow! > It's rare (and perhaps impossible) to find a real parallel port on a > modern system--usb parallel dongles don't work No, I wouldn't expect 'em to. > and neither do the PCIe > parallel port cards. OK, now that surprised me. But on consideration, I suppose that they appear at different locations. 0x378 for I/O and IRQ 7, wasn't it? :-) 0x3BC and 0x278 for LPT2 and LPT3. I guess PCI[e] ones appear elsewhere and DOS doesn't know about the addresses. A Linux driver might have a shot. Any Windows driver old enough to drive a parallel port won't work on any currently-supported version of Windows. > Along with the legacy floppy interface, the > legacy serial and parallel ports may have been the last vestiges of the > ISA architecture to be discarded. Yup. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: PCI floppy controller
On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 13:44, Liam Proven wrote: > 5¼": > https://www.amazon.com/MICRO-SOLUTION-1-44MB-Backpack-Parallel/dp/B512MS Oops, sorry, badly-chosen link. Both of those are, of course, 3½ drives. The company *did* also offer 5¼" units, though, as did others... https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=72333 https://picclick.com/MicroSolutions-BackPack-525-Parallel-Port-Floppy-Drive-Rare-283066058252.html Here's the manual: http://minuszerodegrees.net/manuals/MicroSolutions/Micro%20Solutions%20-%20Backpack%20Diskette%20Drive%20-%20Users%20Guide%20-%201997.pdf -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: PCI floppy controller
On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 at 01:48, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote: > > Were there ever any floppy controllers for the (parallel) PCI bus? Floppy *controllers*, no. Floppy *drives*, yes. The Backpack range were the most well-known, I'd say. e.g. 5¼": https://www.amazon.com/MICRO-SOLUTION-1-44MB-Backpack-Parallel/dp/B512MS 3½": https://www.ebay.com/itm/384823809302 The company did a range of parallel-port storage drives: CDs, tape drives and so on. Most were slow but worked, but the floppy drives were quite a good option at the time for things like laptops which couldn't accept another drive or controller, or for adding drives unsupported by the built-in controller. I used them for emergency backups, data transfer, data recovery and so on. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Looking for Atari Mega ST peripherals
On Wed, 13 Apr 2022 at 03:42, Ryan Eisworth via cctalk wrote: > > Hi folks, > > I'm looking for a keyboard and mouse for a Mega ST. Please contact me if you > have either available. I'm in Texas, USA, 77833. I have a keyboard. Possible snag: I live in Prague, Czechia. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Glass memory?
On Sat, 2 Apr 2022 at 00:34, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: > > And, as you say, an Arduino or a Pi that fits in my pocket is orders > of magnitude more powerful and costs pocket money. The comparisons of size, power, storage, cost, power usage, heat output and so on are often made. What is less often observed are the facts that a machine that takes multiple trailers can be repaired with spare parts. Anything made from ICs basically can't, except by replacing the ICs. What if you can't make ICs any more? Or rather, what level of IC fabrication would it be possible to construct from scratch? And if the war were long (sticking to the military context) or the conditions extreme (say, radical rapid global warming and a retreat to polar regions) and so all the factories and infrastructure were lost or had to be abandoned... I'm thinking of the current global chip shortages, and the floods in Thailand that screwed up supplies of hard disks a decade ago. What could be constructed from scratch, given copious amounts of scrap and waste for source materials? And aside from the hardware: Yes, modern computers have vast amounts of storage and power, but we use them all on OSes and apps that need millions of lines of code in dozens of languages, and gigabytes of storage. As a result, although they are vastly quicker, latency is arguably _worse_ now: https://danluu.com/input-lag/ What if... we had to reconstruct entire OSes and software stacks from scratch? Maybe because the authors were dead. Maybe because the computers they needed didn't work any more and couldn't be repaired. Maybe because we had to make new computers and they were smaller and slower. How much could be rebuilt? What could be learned from the mistakes of old? I recently wrote these pieces, which were fun to research: https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/29/non_c_operating_systems/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/31/serenityos/ There are so many UNIX-like kernels in C on Github I couldn't count them all. In the many dozens, maybe hundreds. This is doable. But there are fewer in C++. Fewer still in Rust or Go. Very few in anything Wirthian or with garbage-collection. > Of course, sometimes I still miss the old days and old ways. :-) > But then, isn't that why we are all here? Well indeed! http://collapseos.org/ is relevant to this. But is an 8-bit the biggest we could realistically construct if all the IC fabs were destroyed? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Looking for computer and individual to read old floppy disks
On Fri, 11 Mar 2022 at 22:38, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > > I could do it, but I'm a little squeezed for time and energy right now. > > Spending my mornings under the LINAC. Oh no. :-( Very sorry to hear that. I hope it's worth it and it works! (So far they've got 'em all early, but had another nasty little polyp carved out of my colon on Tuesday morning. There were 5 last year. One of these years they're going to miss one, and my ticket will come up.) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: 11/83 operating system load update -2
On Wed, 23 Feb 2022 at 19:04, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote: > Maybe for Win95, but Win98 and later uses its own 32-bit port drivers > (I'm not certain about 95 OSR2). 98 and 98SE are still loaded from DOS and you can shut down and exit to DOS again too, if you know how. There's no functional difference. > If running 98 or 95, just do a "shutdown to MS-DOS prompt", rather than > opening a DOS Window and you'll be fine. I don't think 98 has that option. I know WinME does not. I would recommend booting to DOS (pressing F5 at startup should be enough). -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: 11/83 operating system load update -2
On Wed, 23 Feb 2022 at 15:50, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > I think you're unnecessarily limiting your options by refusing to use Linux, > which as we've pointed out is something you can do on your existing PC > without overwriting the OS that is on it now. I agree. The same thought crossed my mind, in fact. A small distro such as Slax – https://www.slax.org/ – would fit onto a single CD-ROM, boot and run entirely from that disk and does not need to touch the hard disk. If the machine has a DVD-ROM, then a larger distro such as PC Linux OS will do the job too. No installation needed. https://www.pclinuxos.com/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Origin of "partition" in storage devices
On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 at 14:50, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote: > > With contemporary ATA hard disks (and also SCSI disks) obviously the > opposite was the case, due to the ZBR sector mapping scheme. Zone bit recording? > The outer > cylinders had the fastest transfer speeds. Ah, OK. Also bearing in mind Paul K's similar point: On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 at 15:20, Paul Koning wrote: [...] > And very obviously wrong -- elementary geometry. [...] > The bits are physically longer, of course. That's why later drives put more > sectors per track as you move outward, and that means that the transfer rate > on outer tracks is *higher* than for inner tracks. And some storage systems > indeed use that knowledge. So, taking both these in mind and checking my references, I think I had it backwards. According to: https://www.file-recovery.com/recovery-hard-disk-drive-basics.htm#:~:text=Tracks%20and%20Cylinders=Track%20numbers%20start%20at%200,track%20would%20typically%20be%201023. Track 0 is the _outermost_ track. So the upshot is the same: Panrix were concerned that putting a swap partition on the highest-numbered tracks would mean it was on the slowest part of the disk. But I had it backwards -- that means, at the centre of the platters: inner tracks, not outer. Anyway, I took a virgin machine of theirs, defragged it, benchmarked it, created a swap partition at the end of the drive, moved the swap there, defragged both drives, and benchmarked it again. No consistent measurable difference to 2 decimal places. This was a real-world benchmark using MS Office, Photoshop and other tools. A full run took 20min or so on a fast PC for 1996. What I was able to demonstrate was that location on the hard disk of the swap file made no measurable impact. They were very surprised by this. My personal takeaway from running that magazine's labs for a couple of years is that a lot of PC performance lore had about as much validity as astrology, homeopathy or the Myers-Briggs test. I.e. none at all. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: Origin of "partition" in storage devices
On Tue, 1 Feb 2022 at 10:14, Joshua Rice via cctalk wrote: > Of course, doing it that way has many disadvantages, not least the > fragmentation issue (which was the root cause of much periodic slowdown > on Windows machines in the mid 00's), but also the overheads involved > with transferring rather scattered and unorganised RAM contents into > nice, neat blocks understood by the filesystem. Though i have no numbers > to back up my claims, i'm sure the overheads involved in translating RAM > contents to a file was much more significant than just dumping the RAM > contents into a SWAP partition. Yeah... there were folk beliefs about how positioning on the disk made a big difference, too. When PartitionMagic came out, it caused me some fun. When I joined _PC Pro_ magazine (at Issue 8) we had a copy of v1 in the cupboard. Its native OS was OS/2 and nobody cared, I'm afraid. I read what it claimed and didn't believe it so I didn't try it. Then v2 arrived. It ran on DOS. Repartitioning a hard disk when it was full of data? Preposterous! Impossible! So I tried it. It worked. I wrote a rave review. It prompted a reader letter. "I think I've spotted your April Fool's piece. A DOS program that looks exactly like a Windows 95 app? Which can repartition a hard disk full of data? Written by someone whose name is an anagram of 'APRIL VENOM'? Do I win anything?" He won a phonecall from me, but he did teach me an anagram of my name I never knew. It led me to run a tip in the mag... At the time, a 1.2 GB hard disk was the most common size (and a Quantum Fireball the fastest model for the money). Format that as a single FAT16 partition and you got super-inefficient 16 kB clusters. (And in 1995 or early 1996, FAT16 was all you got.) With PartitionMagic, you could take 200 MB off the end, make it into a 2nd partition, and *still fit more onto the C: drive* because of far more efficient 8 kB clusters. If you didn't have PQMagic you could partition the disk that way before installing. The only key thing was that C: was less than 1 GB. 0.99 GB was fine. I suggested making a D: drive and putting the swap file on it -- you saved space and reduced fragmentation. One of our favourite small PC builders, Panrix, questioned this. They reckoned that having the swap file on the outer, longer tracks of the drive made it slower, due to slower access times and slower transfer speeds. They were adamant. So I got them to bring in a new, virgin PC with Windows 95A, I benchmarked it with a single big, inefficient C: partition, then I repartitioned it, put the swapfile on the new D: drive, and benchmarked it again. It was the same to 2 decimal places, and the C drive had about 250MB more free space. Panrix apologised and I gained another geek cred point. :-) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
Re: simulation of an entire IBM S/360 Model 50 mainframe
On Thu, 27 Jan 2022 at 17:20, Guy N. via cctalk wrote: > > This might be old news to a lot of people here, but I noticed a fun > article on The Register today: Oh cool. Thanks for the link -- that's one of my stories. Glad to hear people enjoyed it. :-) -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053
