date:20150821


I'm sure its very intersting.
The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in Danish.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:

I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be' yesterday
evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!  They have a very
substantial collection of all sorts of systems, peripherals and
documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I saw (and heard) run.
As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you could
hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound output, no one
can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces of computationally
generated music composed for the machine (on paper tape), but also a
program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in 1-bit audio!

The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much the
entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches, paper
handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered and in large
part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.

Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a large,
well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and there, as well
as a small but appealing lecture/display area.

The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I was
told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a very
well-considered approach for presenting the history of the collection's
machines to visitors.

My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what they do
and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not family.  :-)


Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for sharing
your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong  wrote:


I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We have lots
of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need something, you
are welcome to ask.
I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the P857
CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive, and a 80486
PC for program loading etc.
The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it has a
V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very nice
indeed.
For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in my
system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step through the
instructions, and follow them through the text file on the PC.
I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me by a
Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800 series.
I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series for
4-5 years full time.
The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in Scandinavia,
Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden also in the airline
industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local authorities, PTT, Railway
(ticket printing), and some other small-time projects. In one of the
project it was connected to an ATM (fun project).
I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys who
have no hardware but a lot of knowledge
/Nico
   - Original Message -
   From: tony duell
   To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
   Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:31 AM
   Subject: RE: out-of-mainstream minis


   Not all minis came from the States :-)

   One of my favourite non-mainstream families is the Philips P800 series.
It's
   a 16 bit machine with 16 registers (0 is the program counter and 15
   is the stack pointer, rest are mostly general purpose) and separate
   I/O instructions (not memory-mapped I/O). There were several models
   with various implementations of the architecture, including

   P850 (TTL, hardwired not microcoded)

   P855, P852, P856, P857, P860 (TTL, microcoded)

   P851 (Custom bitslice ICs, microcoded)

   P854 (AM2900 bitslice, microcoded)

   P853 I think (Single chip)

   No, I don't have all of those...

   -tony
   =

Re: 8-inch alignment floppy wanted

2015-08-21 Thread Peter Cetinski


> On Aug 21, 2015, at 2:02 AM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> Does anyone have a spare 8-inch alignment floppy they'd be willing to
> sell?  I'd prefer a double-sided one, but even a single-sided would be
> better than nothing.

You can get new ones from www.accurite.com if you can't find a used one.

RE: out-of-mainstream minis

2015-08-21 Thread Dave G4UGM

Google Translate does a reasonable job...

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url

Dave

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
> Smallwood
> Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> 
> Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis
> 
> I'm sure its very intersting.
> The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in Danish.
> 
> Rod
> 
> 
> On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:
> > I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
> > yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
> > They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
> > peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I saw
> (and heard) run.
> > As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
> > speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
> > program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
> > could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
> > output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
> > of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
> > tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in 1-bit
> audio!
> >
> > The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much
> > the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
> > paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
> > and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.
> >
> > Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
> > large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
> > there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.
> >
> > The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
> > was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
> > very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
> > collection's machines to visitors.
> >
> > My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
> > they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not
> > family.  :-)
> >
> >
> > Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
> > sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong  wrote:
> >
> >> I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
> >> www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We
> have
> >> lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need
> >> something, you are welcome to ask.
> >> I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
> >> P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
> >> and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
> >> The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
> >> has a
> >> V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
> >> nice indeed.
> >> For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
> >> Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
> >> my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
> >> through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on the PC.
> >> I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me
> >> by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800
> series.
> >> I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series
> >> for
> >> 4-5 years full time.
> >> The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
> >> Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden also
> >> in the airline industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local
> >> authorities, PTT, Railway (ticket printing), and some other
> >> small-time projects. In one of the project it was connected to an ATM (fun
> project).
> >> I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys
> >> who have no hardware but a lot of knowledge /Nico
> >>- Original Message -
> >>From: tony duell
> >>To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> >>Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:31 AM
> >>Subject: RE: out-of-mainstream minis
> >>
> >>
> >>Not all minis came from the States :-)
> >>
> >>One of my favourite non-mainstream families is the Philips P800 series.
> >> It's
> >>a 16 bit machine with 16 registers (0 is the program counter and 15
> >>is the stack pointer, rest are mostly general purpose) and separate
> >>I/O instructions (not memory-mapped I/O). There were several models
> >>with various implementations of the architecture, including
> >>
> >>P850 (TTL, hardwired not microcoded)
> >>
> >>P855, P852, P856, P857, P860 (TTL, microco

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Ben Sinclair

Wow, he's found some great stuff!

He also has that same floppy drive tower that I posted about a while
back. His even has the wood top!

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 2:13 AM, jim s  wrote:
>
> I have the following from the gold scrapper guy so far...
> Great tip.  Wonder if anyone else partook of the tipoff.
>
> Thanks
> Jim
>
> http://jimsoldtoys.blogspot.com/2015/08/dec-boards-kdj11-2-kdf11-and-motorola.html
>



-- 
Ben Sinclair
b...@bensinclair.com

Re: out-of-mainstream minis



Hi

Yes I know, but its not the norm to link from an English language email 
to a site in another language with no warning.

I suppose they think everybody speaks Danish.

You could be heading into some real dark places without knowing. Rule 
16b never logon to a site you cant read.


Rod


On 21/08/2015 13:35, Dave G4UGM wrote:

Google Translate does a reasonable job...

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url

Dave


-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
Smallwood
Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts

Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis

I'm sure its very intersting.
The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in Danish.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:

I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I saw

(and heard) run.

As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in 1-bit

audio!

The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much
the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.

Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.

The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
collection's machines to visitors.

My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not
family.  :-)


Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong  wrote:


I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We

have

lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need
something, you are welcome to ask.
I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
has a
V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
nice indeed.
For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on the PC.
I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me
by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800

series.

I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series
for
4-5 years full time.
The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden also
in the airline industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local
authorities, PTT, Railway (ticket printing), and some other
small-time projects. In one of the project it was connected to an ATM (fun

project).

I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys
who have no hardware but a lot of knowledge /Nico
- Original Message -
From: tony duell
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:31 AM
Subject: RE: out-of-mainstream minis


Not all minis came from the States :-)

One of my favourite non-mainstream families is the Philips P800 series.
It's
a 16 bit machine with 16 registers (0 is the program counter and 15
is the stack pointer, rest are mostly general purpose) and separate
I/O instructions (not memory-mapped I/O). There were several models
with various implementations of the architecture, including

P850 (TTL, hardwired not microcoded)

P855, P852, P856, P857, P860 (TTL, microcoded)

P851 (Custom bitslice ICs, micro

Re: out-of-mainstream minis

2015-08-21 Thread Toby Thain


On 2015-08-21 10:30 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:


Hi

Yes I know, but its not the norm to link from an English language email
to a site in another language with no warning.
I suppose they think everybody speaks Danish.

You could be heading into some real dark places without knowing. Rule
16b never logon to a site you cant read.


No "darker" than any English language site.


--Toby




Rod


On 21/08/2015 13:35, Dave G4UGM wrote:

Google Translate does a reasonable job...

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url


Dave


-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
Smallwood
Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts

Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis

I'm sure its very intersting.
The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in
Danish.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:

I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I
saw

(and heard) run.

As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in
1-bit

audio!

The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much
the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.

Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.

The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
collection's machines to visitors.

My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not
family.  :-)


Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong 
wrote:


I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We

have

lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need
something, you are welcome to ask.
I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
has a
V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
nice indeed.
For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on
the PC.
I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me
by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800

series.

I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series
for
4-5 years full time.
The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden also
in the airline industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local
authorities, PTT, Railway (ticket printing), and some other
small-time projects. In one of the project it was connected to an
ATM (fun

project).

I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys
who have no hardware but a lot of knowledge /Nico
- Original Message -
From: tony duell
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:31 AM
Subject: RE: out-of-mainstream minis


Not all minis came from the States :-)

One of my favourite non-mainstream families is the Philips P800
series.
It's
a 16 bit machine with 16 registers (0 is the program counter
and 15
is the stack pointer, rest are mostly general purpose) and
separate
I/O instructions (not memory-mapped I/O). There were several
models
with various implementations of the architecture, including

P850 (TTL, hardwired not

maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Joe Giliberti

Greetings!

I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of what
is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
the group.

I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is currently
running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS makes
the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.

TIA
Joe

Re: out-of-mainstream minis


Yes indeed "danger wears a coat of many colours"

Rod


On 21/08/2015 15:45, Toby Thain wrote:

On 2015-08-21 10:30 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:


Hi

Yes I know, but its not the norm to link from an English language email
to a site in another language with no warning.
I suppose they think everybody speaks Danish.

You could be heading into some real dark places without knowing. Rule
16b never logon to a site you cant read.


No "darker" than any English language site.


--Toby




Rod


On 21/08/2015 13:35, Dave G4UGM wrote:

Google Translate does a reasonable job...

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url 




Dave


-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
Smallwood
Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts

Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis

I'm sure its very intersting.
The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in
Danish.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:

I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I
saw

(and heard) run.
As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit 
to a
speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me 
was a

program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in
1-bit

audio!
The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty 
much

the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.

Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.

The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
collection's machines to visitors.

My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if 
not

family.  :-)


Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong 
wrote:


I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We

have

lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need
something, you are welcome to ask.
I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
has a
V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
nice indeed.
For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on
the PC.
I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent 
to me

by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800

series.
I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 
series

for
4-5 years full time.
The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden 
also

in the airline industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local
authorities, PTT, Railway (ticket printing), and some other
small-time projects. In one of the project it was connected to an
ATM (fun

project).

I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys
who have no hardware but a lot of knowledge /Nico
- Original Message -
From: tony duell
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:31 AM
Subject: RE: out-of-mainstream minis


Not all minis came from the States :-)

One of my favourite non-mainstream families is the Philips P800
series.
It's
a 16 bit machine with 16 registers (0 is the program counter
and 15
is the stack pointer, rest are mostly general purpose) and
separate
I/O instructions (not memory-mapped I/O). There were

Re: maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Cory Heisterkamp

Does the 5300 have SCSI? An external CD drive would be one option. Also, if
there's enough HD space (and you're patient enough for the transfer) you
could set up a Telnet connection and file share. -C

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 9:45 AM, Joe Giliberti  wrote:

> Greetings!
>
> I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of what
> is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
> the group.
>
> I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
> processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is currently
> running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
> my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS makes
> the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
> only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
> install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.
>
> TIA
> Joe
>

Re: maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Sean Caron

Hi Joe,

System 8 and subsequent were only available on CD-ROM. I think newest you
can get on floppies is 7.5.3 or 7.5.5. You should be able to do the
installation no problem with an external [Apple] SCSI CD-ROM. Might also
work from a Localtalk share, if you have another Mac available? I don't
know if I've ever tried that.

Best,

Sean

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Joe Giliberti 
wrote:

> Greetings!
>
> I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of what
> is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
> the group.
>
> I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
> processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is currently
> running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
> my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS makes
> the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
> only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
> install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.
>
> TIA
> Joe
>

Re: More on manuals plus rescue



Years ago I needed a HP service manual for a plotter I was trying to 
repair that I owned. HP of course wouldn't let me have it, so I had to 
buy a PDF copy from someone on eBay. I ended up removing the password 
and posting it on my website.


That's called "stealing".


The more of it turned free, the better.


True, but you can't just take the law into your own hands.

Re: maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Zane H. Healy


> On Aug 21, 2015, at 7:45 AM, Joe Giliberti  wrote:
> 
> Greetings!
> 
> I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of what
> is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
> the group.
> 
> I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
> processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is currently
> running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
> my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS makes
> the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
> only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
> install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.
> 
> TIA
> Joe

If I remember right your limited to CD.  Even on my 520c, I was able to attach 
an external SCSI CD-ROM drive.  It was pretty much a requirement.  I'd say, 
definitely get it onto 8.x.

I'm not sure how this is on the fringes for the list, as the system is nearly 
20 years old.

Zane

Re: More on manuals plus rescue




Copyright violation is not theft. ... The PDF "sellers" are not selling their 
property; they are selling
right-to-copy.


And "escorts" aren't hookers because they sell their time, not the sex, 
right?

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


That's called "stealing".


The person I had to buy the CD from off of ebay wasn't authorized to sell 
it. They're "authorized service center employees" (often times in Russia) 
that have access to special web portals of all the service documents. They 
then sell them.


*Shrug* I bought the manual and freed it. Then bought the belt from HP by 
part number, which is all I needed from the manual in the first place.



True, but you can't just take the law into your own hands.


I don't see it as that dire. If I were the law, I'd make it so the service 
manual has to be included with every product!

Re: More on manuals plus rescue




That's called "stealing".


The person I had to buy the CD from off of ebay wasn't authorized to 
sell it.


That's a cop-out. "Someone else did it first" doesn't change the law.



and freed it


"Freed" is a euphemism.

I'm not saying you should be in federal lock-up with Jared from Subway. 
:)  But don't pretend to not understand that what you did is illegal.

Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Peter Cetinski

This discussion on the legality of sharing manuals, PDFs, etc. leads me to 
think about the vintage computing hobby as a whole.  While we all encourage the 
hobby to grow, the downside is that as it does, the software copyright holders 
may start to take notice.  As a developer of modern systems who expects to be 
paid for my work (except what I share with the community of course) I am in a 
conundrum because the hobby cannot succeed without the large collection of 
easily accessible vintage software available yet there is no way to “buy” most 
of it today.  But, we would also not expect or would we pay 1980s retail 
prices.  I know some generous copyright owners have allowed unrestricted use of 
their old software, like Roy Soltoff from Misosys, but many others have not or 
have disappeared.  I’m fairly new to the hobby so maybe this has already been 
hashed out years ago.  Just wondering what the community thinks.

Re: R: DECdatasystem 534 (11/34) and VT52 for sale at VCF Midwest 10

2015-08-21 Thread Julian Wolfe

The VT52 and DECdatasystem are spoken for.  Please, no more offers.

On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 3:59 PM, william degnan 
wrote:

> Working on my vt50 yesterday. 50 and 52's are nice giant glass terminal
> replacements to asr33.  From the perspective of the teletype small, zenith
> 19 or vt100, huge!  The last great old school terminal.
>
> Bill Degnan
> twitter: billdeg
> vintagecomputer.net
> On Aug 20, 2015 3:02 PM, "Jason T"  wrote:
>
> > On Aug 20, 2015 12:37 PM, "supervinx"  wrote:
> > >
> > > Location?
> >
> > Near Chicago, Illinois, USA.
> >
>

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On 2015-08-21 17:21, Peter Cetinski wrote:

This discussion on the legality of sharing manuals, PDFs, etc. leads me to 
think about the vintage computing hobby as a whole.  While we all encourage the 
hobby to grow, the downside is that as it does, the software copyright holders 
may start to take notice.  As a developer of modern systems who expects to be 
paid for my work (except what I share with the community of course) I am in a 
conundrum because the hobby cannot succeed without the large collection of 
easily accessible vintage software available yet there is no way to “buy” most 
of it today.  But, we would also not expect or would we pay 1980s retail 
prices.  I know some generous copyright owners have allowed unrestricted use of 
their old software, like Roy Soltoff from Misosys, but many others have not or 
have disappeared.  I’m fairly new to the hobby so maybe this has already been 
hashed out years ago.  Just wondering what the community thinks.


My opinion is that people should not try to pretend that their actions 
are legal when they are not. While I support work to preserve things, we 
really need to get permission from copyright owners before just letting 
thing out freely.


I know DEC made a general permission to copy and distribute out-of-print 
manuals. They also made some software freely available. I believe pretty 
much all PDP-8 software is in there. Some restricted distributions of 
PDP-11 software was also made available, but the majority of PDP-11 
software is still under copyright and with no permission to redistribute 
(DEC sold it). PDP-10 software I think were sold off as well. Not sure 
about other parts.


And I don't know much about anything for non-DEC stuff. So while I hope 
there are copies of stuff around, think some before redistributing it.


Johnny

Re: maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Joe Giliberti

I guess I'll be trolling ebay for a bit for a drive. Thanks Guys!

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Zane H. Healy  wrote:

>
> > On Aug 21, 2015, at 7:45 AM, Joe Giliberti  wrote:
> >
> > Greetings!
> >
> > I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of
> what
> > is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
> > the group.
> >
> > I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
> > processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is
> currently
> > running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
> > my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS
> makes
> > the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
> > only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
> > install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.
> >
> > TIA
> > Joe
>
> If I remember right your limited to CD.  Even on my 520c, I was able to
> attach an external SCSI CD-ROM drive.  It was pretty much a requirement.
> I'd say, definitely get it onto 8.x.
>
> I'm not sure how this is on the fringes for the list, as the system is
> nearly 20 years old.
>
> Zane
>
>
>

RS-232 Tx / Rx monitoring LEDs?

2015-08-21 Thread dwight

I was going to add something but it has already been
said several times.
I will add that if using a LED on an AC like signal of high voltage,
one should use a diode.
I recommend using a shunt diode rather than a series diode when
high voltages are being dropped by the resistor. It reduces the need
for a high voltage diode but makes the resistor hotter.
Some red LEDs glow orange when not protected from 12VAC.
You can ask how I know.
Dwight

RE: RS-232 Tx / Rx monitoring LEDs?

> for a high voltage diode but makes the resistor hotter.
> Some red LEDs glow orange when not protected from 12VAC.

I discovered (over 35 years ago) that green LEDs glow orange if massively 
overcurrented (you know what I mean). No they don't last long like that. It
doesn't appear to be a thermal effect though.

-tony

Re: RS-232 Tx / Rx monitoring LEDs?

2015-08-21 Thread Charles Anthony

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 8:36 AM, dwight  wrote:

> I was going to add something but it has already been
> said several times.
> I will add that if using a LED on an AC like signal of high voltage,
> one should use a diode.
> I recommend using a shunt diode rather than a series diode when
> high voltages are being dropped by the resistor. It reduces the need
> for a high voltage diode but makes the resistor hotter.
> Some red LEDs glow orange when not protected from 12VAC.
> You can ask how I know.
> Dwight
>
>

You can also turn on all of the pretty blues lights in a UV-erasable PROM
by putting it in the PROM burner the wrong way around.

-- Charles

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

2015-08-21 Thread Antonio Carlini

> That's a cop-out. "Someone else did it first" doesn't change the law.

In the general case both of the parties involved are breaking copyright
law, and the injured party is whoever holds the copyright (which isn't
likely to be the seller or the buyer in this case).

In this specific case though, as it's an HP manual, if it's one of the ones
that went with Agilent (now Keysight) then they seem to have an enlightened
attitude and make their old manuals available and also point to a whole
bunch of other places that do the same. So they may well be OK with someone
making a manual available ... although I don't see any explicit evidence
that they'd be OK with someone *selling* a PDF of one of their historic
manuals.

Antonio

On 21 August 2015 at 16:18, Evan Koblentz  wrote:

>
> That's called "stealing".
>>>
>>
>> The person I had to buy the CD from off of ebay wasn't authorized to sell
>> it.
>>
>
> That's a cop-out. "Someone else did it first" doesn't change the law.
>
>
> and freed it
>>
>
> "Freed" is a euphemism.
>
> I'm not saying you should be in federal lock-up with Jared from Subway.
> :)  But don't pretend to not understand that what you did is illegal.
>

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Paul Koning

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:27 AM, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
> On 2015-08-21 17:21, Peter Cetinski wrote:
>> This discussion on the legality of sharing manuals, PDFs, etc. leads me to 
>> think about the vintage computing hobby as a whole.  While we all encourage 
>> the hobby to grow, the downside is that as it does, the software copyright 
>> holders may start to take notice.  As a developer of modern systems who 
>> expects to be paid for my work (except what I share with the community of 
>> course) I am in a conundrum because the hobby cannot succeed without the 
>> large collection of easily accessible vintage software available yet there 
>> is no way to “buy” most of it today.  But, we would also not expect or would 
>> we pay 1980s retail prices.  I know some generous copyright owners have 
>> allowed unrestricted use of their old software, like Roy Soltoff from 
>> Misosys, but many others have not or have disappeared.  I’m fairly new to 
>> the hobby so maybe this has already been hashed out years ago.  Just 
>> wondering what the community thinks.
> 
> My opinion is that people should not try to pretend that their actions are 
> legal when they are not. While I support work to preserve things, we really 
> need to get permission from copyright owners before just letting thing out 
> freely.
> 
> I know DEC made a general permission to copy and distribute out-of-print 
> manuals. They also made some software freely available. I believe pretty much 
> all PDP-8 software is in there. Some restricted distributions of PDP-11 
> software was also made available, but the majority of PDP-11 software is 
> still under copyright and with no permission to redistribute (DEC sold it).

Please remember that, in general, a general permission to copy is NOT a waiver 
of copyright.  So those manuals for which there is a permission to copy ARE 
still under copyright (assuming they were in the first place, which is likely). 
 What you have there is a specific permission granted by the owner (the 
copyright holder), which allows you to do the things granted, but doesn't allow 
you to do other things.  For example, there may be permission to copy and 
distribute the document as it stands; that permission may (or may not) include 
permission to OCR it and distributed the resulting text in different forms.  
But it may very well disallow creating derived works.

On the other hand, if an owner did indeed release a work to the public domain, 
then you can do anything you want with that work.

This may not matter very much in practice, but if you want to apply copyright 
correctly, you'll want to be careful to use terms like "public domain" and 
"still under copyright" accurately.

paul

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Ethan Dicks

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 2:13 AM, jim s  wrote:
>
> I have the following from the gold scrapper guy so far...
> Great tip.  Wonder if anyone else partook of the tipoff.

I did not, but I looked at some things long and hard.  I was staring
at the A614 trying to figure out which analog card it was (thinking of
the A618s used here... http://www.chdickman.com/pdp8/VC8/VC8.txt)

Looking at the 3rd-party memory cards, it appeared to me that the
large one with the large chips was for an LSI-11 with the 4K on the
CPU card (which is why that card was "missing a row") and the Motorola
cards weren't particularly large.  They are just fine if you don't
have any RAM, but I have a sufficiency of small RAM - what I need is
big cards 1MB, 2MB and 4MB to load some machines up for 2BSD (anything
I do with RT-11 doesn't really need more than

That looks like a great haul.  I hope they are working cards.  That
also held me back from buying... I don't need more DEC projects right
now.  I have plenty to fix already.

-ethan

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

On 2015-08-21 17:42, Paul Koning wrote:

On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:27 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

On 2015-08-21 17:21, Peter Cetinski wrote:

This discussion on the legality of sharing manuals, PDFs, etc. leads me to
think about the vintage computing hobby as a whole. While we all encourage the
hobby to grow, the downside is that as it does, the software copyright holders
may start to take notice. As a developer of modern systems who expects to be
paid for my work (except what I share with the community of course) I am in a
conundrum because the hobby cannot succeed without the large collection of
easily accessible vintage software available yet there is no way to “buy” most
of it today. But, we would also not expect or would we pay 1980s retail
prices. I know some generous copyright owners have allowed unrestricted use of
their old software, like Roy Soltoff from Misosys, but many others have not or
have disappeared. I’m fairly new to the hobby so maybe this has already been
hashed out years ago. Just wondering what the community thinks.

My opinion is that people should not try to pretend that their actions are
legal when they are not. While I support work to preserve things, we really
need to get permission from copyright owners before just letting thing out
freely.

I know DEC made a general permission to copy and distribute out-of-print
manuals. They also made some software freely available. I believe pretty much
all PDP-8 software is in there. Some restricted distributions of PDP-11
software was also made available, but the majority of PDP-11 software is still
under copyright and with no permission to redistribute (DEC sold it).

Please remember that, in general, a general permission to copy is NOT a waiver
of copyright. So those manuals for which there is a permission to copy ARE
still under copyright (assuming they were in the first place, which is likely).
What you have there is a specific permission granted by the owner (the
copyright holder), which allows you to do the things granted, but doesn't allow
you to do other things. For example, there may be permission to copy and
distribute the document as it stands; that permission may (or may not) include
permission to OCR it and distributed the resulting text in different forms.
But it may very well disallow creating derived works.

On the other hand, if an owner did indeed release a work to the public domain,
then you can do anything you want with that work.

This may not matter very much in practice, but if you want to apply copyright correctly, you'll
want to be careful to use terms like "public domain" and "still under
copyright" accurately.

Right. Thanks for pointing it out, Paul. The DEC permission to reproduce
and distribute out-of-print manuals was in no way a waiver of DECs
copyright, and the documents are all still under copyright.

Johnny

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

2015-08-21 Thread william degnan

As a musician sometimes the bar pays the ASCAP fees sometimes they
don't but at least there is a way to compensate the song copyright
owner when a band plays a cover song on stage at a bar.  I wonder if
some sort of ASCAP for out of print manuals could workthis way
owners could register their manuals and make it public where to send
fees AND the fees would be low enough that people would not mind
paying them.  This puts some responsibility on the manual owner to
make their claim I suppose.  Then you have international vs. domestic
copyright, etc.

This thread comes up every so often, nothing changes though.
b

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:18 AM, Evan Koblentz  wrote:
>
>>> That's called "stealing".
>>
>>
>> The person I had to buy the CD from off of ebay wasn't authorized to sell
>> it.
>
>
> That's a cop-out. "Someone else did it first" doesn't change the law.
>
>
>> and freed it
>
>
> "Freed" is a euphemism.
>
> I'm not saying you should be in federal lock-up with Jared from Subway. :)
> But don't pretend to not understand that what you did is illegal.

-- 
Bill
vintagecomputer.net

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

> This discussion on the legality of sharing manuals, PDFs, etc. leads me to t$

Personally, I'm ambivalent about it.  Or, more precisely, my opinion
varies depending on factors not stated in what you wrote.

> I know some generous copyright owners have allowed unrestricted use
> of their old software, like Roy Soltoff from Misosys, but many others
> have not or have disappeared.

The major cases where I consider such things acceptable are where the
successors-in-interest of the original copyright holder either can't be
identified or located (and I mean with a reasonable level of effort,
not "oh, I did a quick Google and didn't find anyone") or demonstrate
convincingly that they don't care.  That last can take many forms; in
roughly decreasing levels of comfort (for me), it can be a rerelease
with a more liberal license, it can be a letter from the relevant
department to someone like bitsavers, or it can be just continued
inaction in the face of well-publicized and highly accessible copies on
things like bitsavers.

There is also - to me! - a difference between something like ripping
off a manual and redistributing it with the "justification" of "they
did it first" or "they did worse", on the one hand, or keeping a
private archive of such things, to make sure the information is not
actually lost for the future, on the other.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


In this specific case though, as it's an HP manual, if it's one of the ones
that went with Agilent (now Keysight) then they seem to have an enlightened
attitude and make their old manuals available and also point to a whole
bunch of other places that do the same. So they may well be OK with someone
making a manual available ... although I don't see any explicit evidence
that they'd be OK with someone *selling* a PDF of one of their historic
manuals.


This was a HP plotter at the end of it's service life (not a current 
model), and this entire thing happened some 12 years ago :-) But the file 
might still be on my broken home page... hmmm


Hah, yep:
https://users.757.org/~ethan/me_bookshelf/

Looks like my notes on it were HP said it's discontinued and wouldn't talk 
about the machine at all. Zero. Zilch. 650C was the model.


I also posted on the same web page all of the Lucent Legend manuals. At 
the time Lucent had them all available for download for free from their 
ELMO system, but it wasn't picked up by google or the like. BUT, there was 
a lot of people charging $100-$200 for the pdf files that they downloaded 
from ELMO, telling people it wasn't freely available and for purchase 
only.


The only one who gets use of the manuals is someone who owns the hardware, 
and the hardware comes with the manuals. *Shrug*

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

>> Copyright violation is not theft. ... The PDF "sellers" are not
>> selling their property; they are selling right-to-copy.

(A perhaps better way for me to have phrased that might be, they are
selling right-of-access to their (intellectual) property.)

> And "escorts" aren't hookers because they sell their time, not the
> sex, right?

Possibly, in some cases - I don't know either industry (either the
escort trade or the sex trade) well enough to be competent to comment.

But what's your point?  It looks to me as though you are trying to draw
another analogy between copyright violation (and non-violation, eg,
paying for a legitimate PDFed manual) and another industry, a service
industry in this case - and, while I'm speculating here, your phrasing
sounds to me as though it's trying to invoke disapproval by appealing
to a culture in which the sex trade is illegal, or at least sub rosa.

Any such analogy is bound to be flawed; if copyright violation were
theft (of either property or service), we wouldn't need special
intellectual property law.  It's a fundamentally different thing and
any attempt to shoehorn it into a framework designed for other things
is bound to be a bad fit.

That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation as
other things, such as theft: it's an appeal to emotions, trying to
equate "thing I want people to oppose" with "very different thing I
expect people already consider bad".  It's a fundamentally dishonest
bit of oratory.

I don't support copyright violation.  But I also don't support attempts
to bias people against it by depicting it as something it's not,
whether the "something" is theft or selling sex.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: RS-232 Tx / Rx monitoring LEDs?


On 08/21/2015 08:36 AM, dwight wrote:

I was going to add something but it has already been said several
times. I will add that if using a LED on an AC like signal of high
voltage, one should use a diode. I recommend using a shunt diode
rather than a series diode when high voltages are being dropped by
the resistor. It reduces the need for a high voltage diode but makes
the resistor hotter. Some red LEDs glow orange when not protected
from 12VAC. You can ask how I know. Dwight


Ever take a close look at a string of Christmas-tree LEDs?  Most are 
composed of a string of LEDs  hooked directly across the AC line--no 
rectifier diode to be found.


Some seek to reduce the 60Hz flicker by employing two strings to 
illuminate on both half-cycles, reducing the flicker somewhat.   Since 
my eyes react to the flicker (it's like ants crawling over the string), 
I found that simply employing a full-wave bridge rectifier can reduce 
the appearance of flicker tremendously.


--Chuck

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Evan Koblentz wrote:



Years ago I needed a HP service manual for a plotter I was trying to repair 
that I owned. HP of course wouldn't let me have it, so I had to buy a PDF 
copy from someone on eBay. I ended up removing the password and posting it 
on my website.


That's called "stealing".

No it's not.  At *worst* you're voilating the copyright of someone elses 
copyright violation. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS. NOT. THEFT.  This is not 
my opinion, it's decided case law by the Supreme Court.



The more of it turned free, the better.


True, but you can't just take the law into your own hands.


Well until we get together enough people together to buy a Senator or 
three like the likes of Disney does, we're not left a whole lot of options.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On 2015-08-21 17:52, et...@757.org wrote:

There is also - to me! - a difference between something like ripping
off a manual and redistributing it with the "justification" of "they
did it first" or "they did worse", on the one hand, or keeping a
private archive of such things, to make sure the information is not
actually lost for the future, on the other.


Why private? More risk of loss if it isn't distributed.


It's a balance between data being lost, and violating copyrights. I am 
sortof aligned with der Mouse here. If I have something that is 
copyrighted, I do not want to contribute to spreading it without 
permissions. But I also do not want it to be lost. Many times it is 
things which I do have legally myself, so I don't even feel bad about 
it. If, at some point, the copyright holder decides that it's ok to 
redistribute, then I can help people who are looking for it.


Johnny

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, william degnan wrote:


As a musician sometimes the bar pays the ASCAP fees sometimes they
don't but at least there is a way to compensate the song copyright
owner when a band plays a cover song on stage at a bar.  I wonder if
some sort of ASCAP for out of print manuals could workthis way
owners could register their manuals and make it public where to send
fees AND the fees would be low enough that people would not mind
paying them.  This puts some responsibility on the manual owner to
make their claim I suppose.  Then you have international vs. domestic
copyright, etc.

...but unlike with ASCAP, the creator of the manual would actually see 
some money? ;)


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Noel Chiappa

> From: Ethan Dicks

> That looks like a great haul.

We're talking about the guy on eBay whom I posted a pointer to a couple of
days back, the one with large lots of QBUS CPUs, memory, DLV11s, etc?

> I hope they are working cards.

All the ones I've gotten from the guy above which I was able to test (couldn't
test, e.g. the RK05 cards 'cause I don't have a working RK05 yet) were OK -
QBUS memory, 11/23's, etc.

Noel

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


There is also - to me! - a difference between something like ripping
off a manual and redistributing it with the "justification" of "they
did it first" or "they did worse", on the one hand, or keeping a
private archive of such things, to make sure the information is not
actually lost for the future, on the other.


Why private? More risk of loss if it isn't distributed.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

>> There is also - to me! - a difference between something like ripping
>> off a manual and redistributing it [and] keeping a private archive
>> of such things, to make sure the information is not [lost]
> Why private?  More risk of loss if it isn't distributed.

What Johnny said, essentially: it's where I fall on the tradeoff
between copyright violation and risk of loss.  (For some things.  Where
I fall on that spectrum varies from case to case, as I outlined, all
the way from things like currently-live commercial licensed binary-only
software, which I don't tolerate on my machines, to things like
software I wrote and released to the public domain, which of course I
have no question about keeping around.)

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: Vintage Software Copyright



So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?



On 21/08/2015 17:25, Mouse wrote:

There is also - to me! - a difference between something like ripping
off a manual and redistributing it [and] keeping a private archive
of such things, to make sure the information is not [lost]

Why private?  More risk of loss if it isn't distributed.

What Johnny said, essentially: it's where I fall on the tradeoff
between copyright violation and risk of loss.  (For some things.  Where
I fall on that spectrum varies from case to case, as I outlined, all
the way from things like currently-live commercial licensed binary-only
software, which I don't tolerate on my machines, to things like
software I wrote and released to the public domain, which of course I
have no question about keeping around.)

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
  X  Against HTML   mo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Paul Koning

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Rod Smallwood  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?

The same as any other copyright.  It depends on the country, but in general the 
answer is "very long".  In the USA, recently copyrights have been extended 
repeatedly, in what has been referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".  
(It's called that because it was crafted to ensure that no Disney movie 
copyright will expire.)

paul

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

If you have some equipment surely it would reasonable to have the 
manuals for it.
How the manuals are obtained is open to debate but  not if you have the 
right to own them.


Rod




On 21/08/2015 17:00, geneb wrote:

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Evan Koblentz wrote:



Years ago I needed a HP service manual for a plotter I was trying to 
repair that I owned. HP of course wouldn't let me have it, so I had 
to buy a PDF copy from someone on eBay. I ended up removing the 
password and posting it on my website.


That's called "stealing".

No it's not.  At *worst* you're voilating the copyright of someone 
elses copyright violation. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS. NOT. THEFT. This 
is not my opinion, it's decided case law by the Supreme Court.



The more of it turned free, the better.


True, but you can't just take the law into your own hands.


Well until we get together enough people together to buy a Senator or 
three like the likes of Disney does, we're not left a whole lot of 
options.


g.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

It's a balance between data being lost, and violating copyrights. I am sortof 
aligned with der Mouse here. If I have something that is copyrighted, I do 
not want to contribute to spreading it without permissions. But I also do not 
want it to be lost. Many times it is things which I do have legally myself, 
so I don't even feel bad about it. If, at some point, the copyright holder 
decides that it's ok to redistribute, then I can help people who are looking 
for it.


In the case of hoarding crusty computer stuff, it's by far and large past 
the end of it's useful life. The equipment isn't being run commercially, 
it isn't being used to make money, and the software authors aren't around 
to support sales of software for the machines. IF they were, I doubt many 
people would buy it because once again, end of it's useful service life.


It's now museum relics, and a handful of people trying to preserve the 
stuff before it is gone.


The internet doesn't remember all either, stuff is lost from the internet. 
Wikipedia deletes pages they find boring or low traffic. Privately owned 
servers crash, get hacked, or owners loose interest and move on to other 
projects.


I don't really see archiving old paper manuals and magnetic media as a big 
deal.


I *DO* have friends that are interested in vintage computing but work in 
jobs where any copying of any software that isn't strictly allowed by law 
is a no-no, and they're pretty much stuck. Own a couple of computers but 
can't do much because it's difficult to buy software for Commodore 
64 (especially development tools) and stuff. I think it's madness but 
gotta feed the landlord/bankers.


 -- Ethan O'Toole

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


Yes OK and "very long"  would be?

On 21/08/2015 18:03, Paul Koning wrote:

On Aug 21, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Rod Smallwood  
wrote:


So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?

The same as any other copyright.  It depends on the country, but in general the answer is 
"very long".  In the USA, recently copyrights have been extended repeatedly, in what has 
been referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".  (It's called that because it was 
crafted to ensure that no Disney movie copyright will expire.)

paul

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Paul Koning

Wikipedia has a lot more detail, but from what it says, in the USA the answer 
is 75 years from publication, if copyright was in effect at the beginning of 
1978 or if the work was created since then.

paul

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 1:11 PM, Rod Smallwood  
> wrote:
> 
> Yes OK and "very long"  would be?
> 
> On 21/08/2015 18:03, Paul Koning wrote:
>>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Rod Smallwood  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?
>> The same as any other copyright.  It depends on the country, but in general 
>> the answer is "very long".  In the USA, recently copyrights have been 
>> extended repeatedly, in what has been referred to as the "Mickey Mouse 
>> Protection Act".  (It's called that because it was crafted to ensure that no 
>> Disney movie copyright will expire.)
>> 
>>  paul
>> 
>

RE: More on manuals plus rescue


> If you have some equipment surely it would reasonable to have the
> manuals for it.
> How the manuals are obtained is open to debate but  not if you have the
> right to own them.

I would agree (although doubtless lawyers wouldn't :-)).

A problem, though is when a service or technical manual was an optioanl 
accessory, which
had to be paid for separately. In that case it is going to be very hard to 
prove you had a right
to own it. And yet the manufacturers can no longer supply it, and you want to 
fix the .

A case in point. I have a 1980s colour graphics terminal here. The user manual 
was supplied with it (and
I am pretty sure I have the original), the service manual was an option and I 
am pretty sure the previous
owners never had it. But of course I need the schematics, etc to sort out an 
EHT fault in it.

In this particular case there is no problem. It's a Tektronix and comes under 
(AFAIK) the agreement 
posted on bitsavers. And bitsavers had the 2 volumes of service manual 
available. So I do not feel
there is anything wrong in this case. But for other manufacturers it could be a 
problem.

-tony

RE: Vintage Software Copyright


> Yes OK and "very long"  would be?

I am pretty sure that the original software for EDSAC would still be under 
copyright

-tony

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On 2015-08-21 19:18, Paul Koning wrote:

Wikipedia has a lot more detail, but from what it says, in the USA the answer 
is 75 years from publication, if copyright was in effect at the beginning of 
1978 or if the work was created since then.


I believe the USA signed the Berne convention (although pretty recently 
compared to when it was written). And then it's 75 years from 
publication (I think) for companies, but 75 years from the death of the 
author when the copyright owner is a person.


(It used to be 50 years, but when the 50th anniversary of Hitlers death 
came about, they extended it to 75 years, to keep Mein Kampf away from 
the presses... :-) )


Johnny



paul


On Aug 21, 2015, at 1:11 PM, Rod Smallwood  
wrote:

Yes OK and "very long"  would be?

On 21/08/2015 18:03, Paul Koning wrote:

On Aug 21, 2015, at 12:58 PM, Rod Smallwood  
wrote:


So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?

The same as any other copyright.  It depends on the country, but in general the answer is 
"very long".  In the USA, recently copyrights have been extended repeatedly, in what has 
been referred to as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act".  (It's called that because it was 
crafted to ensure that no Disney movie copyright will expire.)

paul

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On 08/21/2015 10:11 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:

Yes OK and "very long"  would be?


It varies by country.  In the case of the USA, 95 years from publication 
(for older works)  Other countries employ the author's life+x years 
(usually 50 or 70)--live to a ripe old age and your copyright can run 
for a very long time.


In the USA, the rule of thumb is that you're generally safe with works 
published before 1923, which, I imagine does not include much computer 
software.


--Chuck

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


Excellent!
  EEC (Europe) is 70 years from the death of a known 
author or 70 years from publication if the author is unknown



On 21/08/2015 18:19, tony duell wrote:

If you have some equipment surely it would reasonable to have the
manuals for it.
How the manuals are obtained is open to debate but  not if you have the
right to own them.

I would agree (although doubtless lawyers wouldn't :-)).

A problem, though is when a service or technical manual was an optioanl 
accessory, which
had to be paid for separately. In that case it is going to be very hard to 
prove you had a right
to own it. And yet the manufacturers can no longer supply it, and you want to fix the 
.

A case in point. I have a 1980s colour graphics terminal here. The user manual 
was supplied with it (and
I am pretty sure I have the original), the service manual was an option and I 
am pretty sure the previous
owners never had it. But of course I need the schematics, etc to sort out an 
EHT fault in it.

In this particular case there is no problem. It's a Tektronix and comes under 
(AFAIK) the agreement
posted on bitsavers. And bitsavers had the 2 volumes of service manual 
available. So I do not feel
there is anything wrong in this case. But for other manufacturers it could be a 
problem.

-tony

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


And...
   We have a new question. What would have been the first piece of 
copyrightable software?


Rod


On 21/08/2015 18:31, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/21/2015 10:11 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:

Yes OK and "very long"  would be?


It varies by country.  In the case of the USA, 95 years from 
publication (for older works)  Other countries employ the author's 
life+x years (usually 50 or 70)--live to a ripe old age and your 
copyright can run for a very long time.


In the USA, the rule of thumb is that you're generally safe with works 
published before 1923, which, I imagine does not include much computer 
software.


--Chuck

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Rod Smallwood wrote:



So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?

You're going to die before it expires.  Quite possibly your grand children 
as well.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Tothwolf


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/21/2015 10:11 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:


Yes OK and "very long"  would be?


It varies by country.  In the case of the USA, 95 years from publication 
(for older works)  Other countries employ the author's life+x years 
(usually 50 or 70)--live to a ripe old age and your copyright can run 
for a very long time.


In the USA, the rule of thumb is that you're generally safe with works 
published before 1923, which, I imagine does not include much computer 
software.


...and works published before 1964 which were either not registered with 
the US copyright office or which did not have their copyrights renewed. 
Those require some research to determine their status.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, et...@757.org wrote:

I *DO* have friends that are interested in vintage computing but work in jobs 
where any copying of any software that isn't strictly allowed by law is a 
no-no, and they're pretty much stuck. Own a couple of computers but can't do 
much because it's difficult to buy software for Commodore 64 (especially 
development tools) and stuff. I think it's madness but gotta feed the 
landlord/bankers.


They must be getting paid pretty well if they're allowing their employer 
to perform random inspections of their homes and personal computers.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

On 8/21/2015 10:27 AM, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> 
> And I don't know much about anything for non-DEC stuff. So while I hope
> there are copies of stuff around, think some before redistributing it.
> 
> Johnny
> 

Some other licenses (or lack thereof) that make software readily
available that I am aware of include:

Most IBM Software through MVS 3.8j was issued without copyright.  Once
the Amdahl 470 came along, IBM started adding IP to their operating
system, and licensed it.  So, this includes software for the
709/7090/7094, 1401, 1410, 1130 and System/360 and System/370.

Most of the System/360 and System/370 software can be found on links
from various Hercules emulator sites.  Older software can be harder to
track down, but usually responds well to Google.

The DEC VMS Hobbyist license (though this gets a little confusing with
respect to the PAKs and obtaining media sometimes).

Burroughs MCP MARK XIII Hobbyist license, via UNISYS:
http://www.phkimpel.us/B5500/webSite/Unisys-B5500-Software-License.pdf

The licenses involved in the SimH software sets for various machines.
(See each software "pack").

The Unix archive at the Unix Heritage Society / PDP Unix Preservation
Society, via a non-commercial use license negotiated with SCO.

http://www.tuhs.org/  (but the link to the SCO license page is broken,
because SCO is gone).

http://www.mckusick.com/csrg/calder-lic.pdf  (BSD)

And probably many many more.

JRJ

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On 08/21/2015 10:41 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:

Excellent! EEC (Europe) is 70 years from the death of a known author
or 70 years from publication if the author is unknown


This leads to some interesting situations.  Archibald Joyce wrote his 
"Autumn Dreams" waltz in 1908 and it has been reported to be the tune 
the orchestra was playing as the Titanic sank in 1912 (contrary to 
popular belief, it is extremely unlikely that the band played "Nearer My 
God to Thee" as they would not have been familiar with the hymn).


As Joyce lived to a ripe old age and died in 1963, the work is still 
very much under copyright protection in the UK.  However, the same work 
was published in 1921 in the USA, so it is public domain there.


On the other hand, George Butterworth, who set A.E. Houseman's "A 
Shropshire Lad" to music (1912) was born 12 years after Joyce, but 
killed in 1916 at the battle of the Somme, had his copyright protection 
expire in 1986.


Laws vary from country to country.  George Orwell's "1984" is PD in 
Australia, but protected in the UK.


Iran, on the other hand, recognizes no foreign copyright.

As mentioned before, works of Soviet writers and composers were 
considered to be PD (unless copyright was obtained outside of the USSR) 
by the US during the Cold War--similarly, the USSR did not recognize 
foreign copyright.  So you could purchase the sheet music of 
Shostakovitch for a pittance.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, the 
US moved to "restore" Soviet copyright and so removed works back into 
copyright status.  If you want to publish Shostakovitch, you now must 
deal with his estate--and copyright will endure to about 2050.


--Chuck

Re: out-of-mainstream minis

2015-08-21 Thread Ian S. King

My email wasn't 'go look at this site', it was 'I visited these nice
people' with the link as a courtesy.  What 'norm'?
On Aug 21, 2015 4:51 PM, "Rod Smallwood" 
wrote:

> Yes indeed "danger wears a coat of many colours"
>
> Rod
>
>
> On 21/08/2015 15:45, Toby Thain wrote:
>
>> On 2015-08-21 10:30 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> Yes I know, but its not the norm to link from an English language email
>>> to a site in another language with no warning.
>>> I suppose they think everybody speaks Danish.
>>>
>>> You could be heading into some real dark places without knowing. Rule
>>> 16b never logon to a site you cant read.
>>>
>>
>> No "darker" than any English language site.
>>
>>
>> --Toby
>>
>>
>>
>>> Rod
>>>
>>>
>>> On 21/08/2015 13:35, Dave G4UGM wrote:
>>>
 Google Translate does a reasonable job...


 http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url


 Dave

 -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
> Smallwood
> Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> 
> Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis
>
> I'm sure its very intersting.
> The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in
> Danish.
>
> Rod
>
>
> On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:
>
>> I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
>> yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
>> They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
>> peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I
>> saw
>>
> (and heard) run.
>
>> As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
>> speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
>> program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
>> could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
>> output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
>> of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
>> tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in
>> 1-bit
>>
> audio!
>
>> The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much
>> the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
>> paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
>> and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.
>>
>> Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
>> large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
>> there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.
>>
>> The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
>> was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
>> very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
>> collection's machines to visitors.
>>
>> My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
>> they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not
>> family.  :-)
>>
>>
>> Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
>> sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong 
>> wrote:
>>
>> I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (
>>> www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We
>>>
>> have
>
>> lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need
>>> something, you are welcome to ask.
>>> I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
>>> P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
>>> and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
>>> The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
>>> has a
>>> V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
>>> nice indeed.
>>> For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
>>> Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
>>> my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
>>> through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on
>>> the PC.
>>> I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me
>>> by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800
>>>
>> series.
>
>> I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series
>>> for
>>> 4-5 years full time.
>>> The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
>>> Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfr

Re: More on manuals plus rescue




That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation as other things, such as 
theft: it's an appeal to emotions, trying to equate "thing I want people to oppose" with 
"very different thing I expect people already consider bad".  It's a fundamentally 
dishonest bit of oratory.


I write for a (meager) living. If someone were to take my work and 
decide for themselves that it should be online for free, then they ARE 
stealing from me. That is reality, not the semantics of case law.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

Wanted to add that my opinion of "freeing" manuals, etc. does not mean I 
am against Bitsavers or Internet Archive -- work that's done the right 
way by professionals. My main gripe is when an individual takes 
something that is still actively * for sale * (by the original 
developer, no less) and the takes it upon themselves to give it away. 
Whether people or the courts decide it's a "violation" or a crime, 
either way, it's wrong.

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Mark G. Thomas

Hi,

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 11:54:52AM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> > From: Ethan Dicks
> 
> > That looks like a great haul.
> 
> We're talking about the guy on eBay whom I posted a pointer to a couple of
> days back, the one with large lots of QBUS CPUs, memory, DLV11s, etc?
> 
> > I hope they are working cards.
> 
> All the ones I've gotten from the guy above which I was able to test (couldn't
> test, e.g. the RK05 cards 'cause I don't have a working RK05 yet) were OK -
> QBUS memory, 11/23's, etc.

I picked up a bunch of the boards too. My results have been mixed, but
for the price and description, I expected some wouldn't work.

1x M8028 - DLV11-F SLU works.
1x Plessey 32kW memory, works.
2x M8186-YA - KDF11-AA, works.
4x M8192 - KDJ11 (AA or AB?) -- two work, two fail POST, with LEDs lit.
4x MMS1132-N3-128 Motorola 128kW memory - undetermined if works.
1x MMS1102-34 Motorola 32kW memory - undetermined if works.

I haven't figured out the jumpers on the Motorola memory boards yet.
As provided, if I plug one in with the KDF11-AA, I fail to even get 
an ODT prompt.

I picked up a chassis with bridged 2x8 and 2x12 Qbus backplanes in it
at a hamfest (with a good KDF11-AA and 4xM8044s), so my goal is to 
make a pair of small working 11/23 or 11/73 systems. So far, I've got
PDP11GUI successfully running memory tests using microODT via the SLU and 
a Windows PC, enough to test out the hardware as per above.

1) I was hoping I could boot XXDP or RT11 from an RX33/RQDX3. The RX33/RQDX3
works in my 11/53, but so far I'm not having much luck with the KDF11 above.
I picked up a M9058 RQDX3 signal distribution board on e-bay from seller efi
(he has one more listed). It's only got one jumper on it, labelled RX50,
which I have in the non-RX50 position. Since none of this has a bootstrap,
I run the bootstrap from ROM provided by a Dilog SCSI card here, but typing 
"DU" or "DU0" at the * prompt spins the floppy ever-so-briefly, then kicks 
out an error about no boot media found. Suggestions? Maybe I should try
other bootstrap?

2) I could use PDP11GUI, or other tools to load XXDP via the SLU. If anyone 
has already done this and wants to talk to me about it, I welcome some help.

I'm a little confused about what should work and what should not work, with
just the 18 bit qbus. Do I need to wire wrap the additional address lines
to be able to do anything with these KDJ11 CPUs? Does anyone have good
instructions for this modification -- I'll probably want to do it. Do I just
add the additional address lines, or are there other considerations?

Mark

-- 
Mark G. Thomas (m...@misty.com), KC3DRE

De-yellowing

Going to be de-yellowing a //e Platinum this weekend. Check out this 
picture of the top cover. You can see the non-yellowed part on bottom. 
Big difference! I'll post "after" pictures.


http://snarc.net/yellowing.jpg

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

2015-08-21 Thread Tothwolf


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, geneb wrote:

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Evan Koblentz wrote:

On Wed, 19 Aug 2015, et...@757.org wrote:

Years ago I needed a HP service manual for a plotter I was trying to 
repair that I owned. HP of course wouldn't let me have it, so I had to 
buy a PDF copy from someone on eBay. I ended up removing the password 
and posting it on my website.


That's called "stealing".


HP no longer had the manual in their archives so they couldn't provide it.

No it's not.  At *worst* you're voilating the copyright of someone elses 
copyright violation. COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS. NOT. THEFT.  This is not 
my opinion, it's decided case law by the Supreme Court.


Sigh. I'm just going to leave these here...

Release of copyright
http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=download&file=Tektronix/Tektronix_-_Miscelaneous/Tek_Copyright_Release.pdf

Tektronix Policy on Copying of Out-of-date Materials
http://www.tek.com/dl/Tektronix_Policy_on_Copying.pdf

To put this more back on the original subject, Manuals Plus also had 
explicit permission from both Tektronix and HP/Agilent/Keysight to 
actually duplicate/reprint their manuals. This is why some manuals were so 
expensive...they were copied as needed to fill an order, and according to 
Becky, it was a very labor intensive process. Jason will know exactly what 
I'm talking about here too, as he got their Master (Reprint) manuals.

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On 2015-08-21 20:09, Evan Koblentz wrote:



That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation
as other things, such as theft: it's an appeal to emotions, trying to
equate "thing I want people to oppose" with "very different thing I
expect people already consider bad".  It's a fundamentally dishonest
bit of oratory.


I write for a (meager) living. If someone were to take my work and
decide for themselves that it should be online for free, then they ARE
stealing from me. That is reality, not the semantics of case law.


Well, technically I would argue that they are denying you the 
compensation that you should be entitled to. It's not the same as 
stealing from you.


(Sorry for disagreeing with you, but I think using the correct terms are 
important.)


Stealing implies that you loose something you had possession of.

All that said, the action of denying you something that is your by right 
is also illegal.


Johnny

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

On 2015-08-21 20:31, Ian Finder wrote:

I should add- although I thought this was obvious, some people here take
pedantry to the next level:

*** I am strictly referring to software which is no longer generally available
commercially, which is the 98% case for the software for our machines.

Hmm, I didn't know that PDP-11 software was less than 2% of the software
under discussion here.

Johnny

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:26, Ian Finder wrote:

I think in response to sharing bits, a "better to ask for forgiveness rather than
permission" policy is as best as can be done, otherwise the hobby is completely
doomed.

I like how archive.org deals with it. If someone wants something taken down, do
it by all means!

Many current rights holders for this stuff may not even KNOW they are rights
holders, and for others, they may *want* to release something but cross
licensing issues with other companies (e.g. Licensed libraries) may prevent
them.

By the time we get permission to share this stuff, much of it will be
permanently lost.

So for now, I'll totally do illegal things. Because the law is shortsighted.
And if a rights holder asks me to stop, I'm happy to. And sometime when society
sees the value in all this, maybe we will get copyright reform.

Yar, mateys, I'll see you all on the high seas!

- Ian

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:13, Evan Koblentz wrote:

Wanted to add that my opinion of "freeing" manuals, etc. does not mean I am against
Bitsavers or Internet Archive -- work that's done the right way by professionals. My main gripe is
when an individual takes something that is still actively * for sale * (by the original developer,
no less) and the takes it upon themselves to give it away. Whether people or the courts decide it's
a "violation" or a crime, either way, it's wrong.

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Ethan Dicks

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 2:13 PM, Mark G. Thomas  wrote:
> I picked up a bunch of the boards too. My results have been mixed, but
> for the price and description, I expected some wouldn't work.

Sure.

> 1x M8028 - DLV11-F SLU works.
> 1x Plessey 32kW memory, works.
> 2x M8186-YA - KDF11-AA, works.

Cool.

> 4x M8192 - KDJ11 (AA or AB?) -- two work, two fail POST, with LEDs lit.

That was my concern.  $50 is a fine price for a KDJ11, but not for a busted one.

Did you scope out the POST code yet?

> 4x MMS1132-N3-128 Motorola 128kW memory - undetermined if works.
> 1x MMS1102-34 Motorola 32kW memory - undetermined if works.
>
> I haven't figured out the jumpers on the Motorola memory boards yet.
> As provided, if I plug one in with the KDF11-AA, I fail to even get
> an ODT prompt.

They might not be strapped for 000.  Since they are not DEC, it
might take unearthing manuals or tracing out the circuit around the
jumpers and the upper Qbus memory bits.

> Since none of this has a bootstrap,
> I run the bootstrap from ROM provided by a Dilog SCSI card here, but typing
> "DU" or "DU0" at the * prompt spins the floppy ever-so-briefly, then kicks
> out an error about no boot media found. Suggestions? Maybe I should try
> other bootstrap?

Hmm... maybe you could enter the real DEC DU boot from ODT?  I
wouldn't trust a Dilog boot to work with a DEC card until I inspected
the code to see what it was doing.  If the Dilog card is fully
register-compatible with an RQDX3, it could work, but I'd not assume
it does.

I've always had a BDV11 with my KDF11s, so that's the bootstrap I've
used.  I don't think it covers MSCP (I have RL02s and RX02s) so I
haven't been in your exact position of trying to boot an RQDX3 on a
KDF11.

> 2) I could use PDP11GUI, or other tools to load XXDP via the SLU. If anyone
> has already done this and wants to talk to me about it, I welcome some help.

I have no experience with PDP11GUI.  Sorry.

> I'm a little confused about what should work and what should not work, with
> just the 18 bit qbus. Do I need to wire wrap the additional address lines
> to be able to do anything with these KDJ11 CPUs? Does anyone have good
> instructions for this modification -- I'll probably want to do it. Do I just
> add the additional address lines, or are there other considerations?

If you want to stick more than 128kW of memory on any of your
processors, you'll need the upper 4 address lines.  I've added them.
It's not particularly difficult.  If you don't need more than that
128kW, you don't need it.  Any 22-bit processor will work on an 18-bit
bus.

-ethan

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Ian Finder

I think in response to sharing bits, a "better to ask for forgiveness rather 
than permission" policy is as best as can be done, otherwise the hobby is 
completely doomed.

I like how archive.org deals with it. If someone wants something taken down, do 
it by all means!

Many current rights holders for this stuff may not even KNOW they are rights 
holders, and for others, they may *want* to release something but cross 
licensing issues with other companies (e.g. Licensed libraries) may prevent 
them.

By the time we get permission to share this stuff,  much of it will be 
permanently lost.

So for now, I'll totally do illegal things. Because the law is shortsighted. 
And if a rights holder asks me to stop, I'm happy to. And sometime when society 
sees the value in all this, maybe we will get copyright reform.

Yar, mateys, I'll see you all on the high seas!

- Ian

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:13, Evan Koblentz  wrote:
> 
> Wanted to add that my opinion of "freeing" manuals, etc. does not mean I am 
> against Bitsavers or Internet Archive -- work that's done the right way by 
> professionals. My main gripe is when an individual takes something that is 
> still actively * for sale * (by the original developer, no less) and the 
> takes it upon themselves to give it away. Whether people or the courts decide 
> it's a "violation" or a crime, either way, it's wrong.

Re: More on manuals plus rescue




Sigh. I'm just going to leave these here...

Release of copyright
http://www.ko4bb.com/getsimple/index.php?id=download&file=Tektronix/Tektronix_-_Miscelaneous/Tek_Copyright_Release.pdf 



Tektronix Policy on Copying of Out-of-date Materials
http://www.tek.com/dl/Tektronix_Policy_on_Copying.pdf


Err  carry on, then.  :)

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Ian Finder

I should add- although I thought this was obvious, some people here take 
pedantry to the next level: 

*** I am strictly referring to software which is no longer generally available 
commercially, which is the 98% case for the software for our machines. 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:26, Ian Finder  wrote:
> 
> I think in response to sharing bits, a "better to ask for forgiveness rather 
> than permission" policy is as best as can be done, otherwise the hobby is 
> completely doomed.
> 
> I like how archive.org deals with it. If someone wants something taken down, 
> do it by all means!
> 
> Many current rights holders for this stuff may not even KNOW they are rights 
> holders, and for others, they may *want* to release something but cross 
> licensing issues with other companies (e.g. Licensed libraries) may prevent 
> them.
> 
> By the time we get permission to share this stuff,  much of it will be 
> permanently lost.
> 
> So for now, I'll totally do illegal things. Because the law is shortsighted. 
> And if a rights holder asks me to stop, I'm happy to. And sometime when 
> society sees the value in all this, maybe we will get copyright reform.
> 
> Yar, mateys, I'll see you all on the high seas!
> 
> - Ian
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:13, Evan Koblentz  wrote:
>> 
>> Wanted to add that my opinion of "freeing" manuals, etc. does not mean I am 
>> against Bitsavers or Internet Archive -- work that's done the right way by 
>> professionals. My main gripe is when an individual takes something that is 
>> still actively * for sale * (by the original developer, no less) and the 
>> takes it upon themselves to give it away. Whether people or the courts 
>> decide it's a "violation" or a crime, either way, it's wrong.

Re: maybe OT: Powerbook 5300 OS upgrade

2015-08-21 Thread Brent Hilpert

Yesterday I sent a power book 5300 to recycling.
The display hinge was quite broken, it was given to me a while ago and I didn't 
see accomplishing anything with it.

What's still kicking around here is:
- the funky special HDI30-to-SCSI-DB25 adapter to get from the 5300 to 
normal SCSI
- SCSI DB-25 to SCSI 50 cable
- SCSI CDROM drive in case w power supply

Also still have:
- the 5300 power adapter/charger:  Model No. M3037(APS-76)

I think the following also came with it (pile of stuff came jumbled together):

- Global Village/teleport 56 fax/modem model A8245 (mini-DIN-8 
connector)

- PowerPrint adapter: mini-DIN-8 to Centronics parallel
- PowerPrint software on floppies

- MS office and MS word on about 30 floppies

Might be some other software as well.

Any or all is free for shipping if you like.
Location is Vancouver BC Canada.
Might be able to ship from the Washington border if you're patient.

I plugged the bare CD-ROM drive in (i.e. no SCSI bus connection).
Powers up, door opens and closes, LED flashes, spins with a random disk 
inserted but doesn't seem to come ready - not sure what one would expect with 
no host on the bus.



On 2015-Aug-21, at 8:30 AM, Joe Giliberti wrote:

> I guess I'll be trolling ebay for a bit for a drive. Thanks Guys!
> 
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Zane H. Healy  wrote:
> 
>> 
>>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 7:45 AM, Joe Giliberti  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Greetings!
>>> 
>>> I know that many of my posts to this list tend to be on the fringes of
>> what
>>> is normally discussed here. I apologize in advance if this is too new for
>>> the group.
>>> 
>>> I am trying to get my Powerbook 5300 up and running as a usable word
>>> processor (with portable printer) for school and for email. It is
>> currently
>>> running System 7.5.2. The machine is capable of supporting MacOS 9.1, but
>>> my goal is 8.6. I see them talking on lowendmac that upgrading the OS
>> makes
>>> the machine more solid, but it doesn't explain how to do it. The machine
>>> only has a floppy drive and no networking. Were there any system 8.6
>>> install floppies? I can't think of another way to get it on there.
>>> 
>>> TIA
>>> Joe
>> 
>> If I remember right your limited to CD.  Even on my 520c, I was able to
>> attach an external SCSI CD-ROM drive.  It was pretty much a requirement.
>> I'd say, definitely get it onto 8.x.
>> 
>> I'm not sure how this is on the fringes for the list, as the system is
>> nearly 20 years old.
>> 
>> Zane
>> 
>> 
>>

RE: More on manuals plus rescue

> 
> I write for a (meager) living. If someone were to take my work and
> decide for themselves that it should be online for free, then they ARE
> stealing from me. That is reality, not the semantics of case law.

I am not convinced they are stealing from you. Depriving you of income, sure. 
But
not really theft.

If I steal your car then you have no use of that car until it is taken back 
from me and
returned to you, its rightful owner. But if I decide to make a piece of your 
work available
for free download then you still have that work, nothing stops you from selling 
it (although
alas you would have difficulty getting customers if it is available for free). 
When I am caught
I do not have to return anything to you to enable you to start selling again.

I will happily agree that it is both morally and legally a crime to distribute 
somebody else's
work that they get income from. The discussion of manuals and software here 
refers to 
items that the original author/company cannot or will not provide any longer. 
It is 
still a legal crime to distribute such work without permission I think, but I 
don't feel it is a
moral crime. Nobody is really losing money as a result (which is probably why 
some 
companies specifically allow it and many more turn a blind eye.)

-tony

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Ian Finder

I would hazard a guess, Johnny, that whatever PDP-11 software you're referring 
to is *indeed* well under 2% of the body of all the copyrighted software ever 
written for computers we consider "vintage."

But if you'd like to maintain your tunnel vision on your specific interests and 
cases, that's your prerogative.

This is an issue for all vintage computers.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:33, Johnny Billquist  wrote:
> 
>> On 2015-08-21 20:31, Ian Finder wrote:
>> I should add- although I thought this was obvious, some people here take 
>> pedantry to the next level:
>> 
>> *** I am strictly referring to software which is no longer generally 
>> available commercially, which is the 98% case for the software for our 
>> machines. 
> 
> Hmm, I didn't know that PDP-11 software was less than 2% of the software 
> under discussion here.
> 
>Johnny
> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>>> On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:26, Ian Finder  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I think in response to sharing bits, a "better to ask for forgiveness 
>>> rather than permission" policy is as best as can be done, otherwise the 
>>> hobby is completely doomed.
>>> 
>>> I like how archive.org deals with it. If someone wants something taken 
>>> down, do it by all means!
>>> 
>>> Many current rights holders for this stuff may not even KNOW they are 
>>> rights holders, and for others, they may *want* to release something but 
>>> cross licensing issues with other companies (e.g. Licensed libraries) may 
>>> prevent them.
>>> 
>>> By the time we get permission to share this stuff,  much of it will be 
>>> permanently lost.
>>> 
>>> So for now, I'll totally do illegal things. Because the law is 
>>> shortsighted. And if a rights holder asks me to stop, I'm happy to. And 
>>> sometime when society sees the value in all this, maybe we will get 
>>> copyright reform.
>>> 
>>> Yar, mateys, I'll see you all on the high seas!
>>> 
>>> - Ian
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> 
 On Aug 21, 2015, at 11:13, Evan Koblentz  wrote:
 
 Wanted to add that my opinion of "freeing" manuals, etc. does not mean I 
 am against Bitsavers or Internet Archive -- work that's done the right way 
 by professionals. My main gripe is when an individual takes something that 
 is still actively * for sale * (by the original developer, no less) and 
 the takes it upon themselves to give it away. Whether people or the courts 
 decide it's a "violation" or a crime, either way, it's wrong.
>

Re: Cheap board guy

2015-08-21 Thread Noel Chiappa

> From: Mark G. Thomas

> 4x M8192 - KDJ11 (AA or AB?) -- two work, two fail POST

And alas, we don't seem to have any prints for that card (although we do have
what amounts to a tech manual, so maybe we can create a set, with a certain
amount of tracing with an ohmmeter), so at the moment, at least, fixing them
isn't so easy.


> I was hoping I could boot XXDP or RT11 from an RX33/RQDX3. The
> RX33/RQDX3 works in my 11/53

Well, that's a very good sign...

> Since none of this has a bootstrap, I run the bootstrap from ROM
> provided by a Dilog SCSI card here, but typing "DU" or "DU0" at the
> prompt spins the floppy ever-so-briefly, then kicks out an error about
> no boot media found. Suggestions? Maybe I should try other bootstrap?

Definitely; the code on the Dilog card might not support that controller
properly (even though it seems to recognize "DU").


> I'm a little confused about what should work and what should not work,
> with just the 18 bit qbus.

If you have less than 256KB of memory (so Q22 processors won't wrap around,
when trying to size memory, and think there's memory there above 256K -
although Q18 memory probably will stop responding at 248KB, anyway), pretty
much everything _should_ work, I would think. The high address lines being
put out by the processor, DMA devices, etc should just have no effect.
Although the details get tricky...

E.g. if you don't have BDAL18-21 for a Q22 memory card, what will its bus
interface do when faced with those lines, which aren't driven in any way -
_especially_ not pulled up by terminators? Some DEC memory cards (e.g.
MSV11-L, M8059) have jumpers to run in either Q18 or Q22 mode, to work around
this.

> Do I need to wire wrap the additional address lines to be able to do
> anything with these KDJ11 CPUs?

No, if you have less than 256KB of memory, the high bits should just be
ignored (I think - I haven't actually tried this, to be absolutely sure).

> Does anyone have good instructions for this modification -- I'll
> probably want to do it. Do I just add the additional address lines, or
> are there other considerations?

I have modified an H9273 backplane (Q18) to H9276 (Q22), and it works fine;
all I did was bus all the BDAL18-21 pins together: pretty easy, as it's a
Q/CD backplane, not a Q/Q - just run a wire down, and solder it to each pin
as it goes (those backplanes don't have the pins stick out far enough for
wire wrap).

Q/Q will be only slightly more complicated (since you have to bus down one
side, then run the signals up and across to the top of the other side, and
then bus them in turn - do it this way, to avoid creating a branch in the bus
which will encourage reflections); I have done this mod on a Q18/Q18
backplane (a Sigma Q18/Q18), but have yet to actually try it.

The only complication might come with termination/pull-ups. Not all
backplanes have these built in (e.g. the DEC H9273/H9276 don't). But you
might not need them - IIRC both the 11/23 and 11/73 have on-board termination
which will pull the lines up. But if you _do_ need them... best bet, unless
you want to start soldering resistors to the backplane, is a terminator board
with Q22 pullups. That's a whole separate discussion which I will leave for
the moment... :-)

Noel

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Evan Koblentz wrote:



That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation as 
other things, such as theft: it's an appeal to emotions, trying to equate 
"thing I want people to oppose" with "very different thing I expect people 
already consider bad".  It's a fundamentally dishonest bit of oratory.


I write for a (meager) living. If someone were to take my work and decide for 
themselves that it should be online for free, then they ARE stealing from me. 
That is reality, not the semantics of case law.


No, they're not stealing from you.  Quit taking talking points from the 
RIAA.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

2015-08-21 Thread Al Kossow


On 8/21/15 10:58 AM, Jay Jaeger wrote:


And probably many many more.



CHM has educational non-commercal agreements for the following:

Apollo software from HP
68K based 9000 software from HP
21xx/1000 software from HP

BTOS from Unisys

Alto software from Xerox PARC

And there are a string of source code releases that Len Shustek
has spearheaded, including MacPaint/Quickdraw, Apple 2 DOS, APL
Word for Windows, EA Deluxe Paint, Photoshop, and MSDOS, which
can be found at http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

>> That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation as oth$

Please don't misquote me.  That was not all one line when I wrote it,
it was not all one line when I saw it come back on the list, and it was
not all one line when someone else quoted it; for you to quote it that
way is misleading at best, giving the impression I don't know any
better.  I would think you, as a writer, would be especially aware of
the hazards of misquoting.

> I write for a (meager) living.  If someone were to take my work and
> decide for themselves that it should be online for free, then they
> ARE stealing from me.

You might prefer that were true.  You might attempt to Humpty-Dumpty
"stealing" in such a way.

But that is not what the word means in law and it is not what the word
means in ordinary usage.  There is nothing you had before such an event
that you no longer have after, except a higher chance that people
willing to pay your price would do so.  They are stealing from you
about as much as someone who sets up shop selling apples for $0.90 a
pound is stealing from someone next door selling apples for $2.00 a
pound.

It's illegal (the copyright infringement, that is, not the
apple-seller).  It's unethical and/or immoral (to most people).  But
stealing it is not.

> That is reality, not the semantics of case law.

Perhaps you would like others to believe that.  Perhaps you believe it,
even.  But it is still false.

/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
 X  Against HTMLmo...@rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email!   7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

2015-08-21 Thread Christian Gauger-Cosgrove

On 21 August 2015 at 14:08, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> This leads to some interesting situations.  Archibald Joyce wrote his
> "Autumn Dreams" waltz in 1908 and it has been reported to be the tune the
> orchestra was playing as the Titanic sank in 1912 (contrary to popular
> belief, it is extremely unlikely that the band played "Nearer My God to
> Thee" as they would not have been familiar with the hymn).
>
They might have been familiar with a different arrangement of the hymn
tune; though no one really knows what was played during the sinking of
the Titanic.


> As Joyce lived to a ripe old age and died in 1963, the work is still very
> much under copyright protection in the UK.  However, the same work was
> published in 1921 in the USA, so it is public domain there.
>
You want fun with music copyrights? Please go look at the IMSLP
project. Here's their page on how copyrights work with regards to the
sheet music/scores they are archiving:



> As mentioned before, works of Soviet writers and composers were considered
> to be PD (unless copyright was obtained outside of the USSR) by the US
> during the Cold War--similarly, the USSR did not recognize foreign
> copyright.  So you could purchase the sheet music of Shostakovitch for a
> pittance.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US moved to "restore"
> Soviet copyright and so removed works back into copyright status.  If you
> want to publish Shostakovitch, you now must deal with his estate--and
> copyright will endure to about 2050.
>
> --Chuck
>
2026 is when IMSLP will allow you to start uploading works by
Shostakovitch to their archive. (Canadian servers only! The US and EU
need to wait.)


Regards,
Christian
-- 
Christian M. Gauger-Cosgrove
STCKON08DS0
Contact information available upon request.

Re: More on manuals plus rescue



So when is the scanning party?

--
Ethan O'Toole

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On 08/21/2015 01:49 PM, Christian Gauger-Cosgrove wrote:


You want fun with music copyrights? Please go look at the IMSLP
project. Here's their page on how copyrights work with regards to the
sheet music/scores they are archiving:



I'm very, very familiar with IMSLP as well as various other collections. 
 I confess to have used a Canadian proxy server to get at some of the 
(non-PD, PD-Canada) scores for inspection.


Dover, at one time, had quite a collection of Shostakovitch 
published--and then subsequently withdrew all of it when the copyrights 
were restored.  The shame of it all is that this business extended to 
works for study that had been PD for several decades.  My own 
collection, for example, includes scores for Shosti Symphonies 1-15. 
Can't arrange the stuff; can't republish it or duplicate it and probably 
not perform it without a "by your leave" from the estate (is Dmitry's 
widow still alive?).


Sometimes, this business can get in the way, but you're stuck.  For 
example, you'd think that the hymns of the US Armed Services would be 
all in the public domain.  Not so!  "Semper Paratus" for the USCG is 
used by them only by permission.  The estate holding the rights firmly 
refuses to grant permission for arrangement.


You want to see copyright and hungry lawyers?  Cast a glance toward the 
music biz.



--Chuck

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Rod Smallwood wrote:

And...
  We have a new question. What would have been the first piece of 
copyrightable software?


Combined with the issue that many lawyers and judges did not consider 
software to BE copyrightable.


And then, there was a general consensus that the code was copyrightable, 
but not the performance.  You could legally create your own Puckman 
program, so long as you didn't use any of their code.  That led to 
projects such as Adam Osborne's Paperback Software, which did clean-room 
writing of duplicates of popular software.  Until Lotus stomped him.
That led to Look&Stink protection, sometimes extending to the sequence and 
names of the choices in a normal "Files" menu.


At the time, if Adam were to have been a few months earlier in acquiring 
any of the rubble of VisiCorp, it could have been all over!
Delrina was not upheld on their "parody" defense of Opus & Bill shooting 
flying toasters, in which the "victim" was an infringer of an album cover.

Consider Xerox in the Windoze/Mac copyright battle!
Many have always considered fundamental concepts to not be copyrightable.
Where would MICROS~1 be if Gary Kildall were to have been litigious?
(Novell's acquisition of DRI was solely for the IP rights, as a "Get Out 
Of Jail Free" card against any Microsoft attack)

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

On 8/21/2015 1:50 PM, tony duell wrote:

> 
> I will happily agree that it is both morally and legally a crime to 
> distribute somebody else's
> work that they get income from. The discussion of manuals and software here 
> refers to 
> items that the original author/company cannot or will not provide any longer. 
> It is 
> still a legal crime to distribute such work without permission I think, but I 
> don't feel it is a
> moral crime. Nobody is really losing money as a result (which is probably why 
> some 
> companies specifically allow it and many more turn a blind eye.)
> 
> -tony
> 

To that last part - a few years back I corresponded via e-mail one of
IBM's legal counsel, to see if I could get permission to provide scanned
copies of IBM 1410 manuals. (Really, it was pretty amazing that he even
took the time to correspond with me).  IBM never gave the permission. I
got the feeling that the issue was that nobody was willing to sign off
internally that IBM could never derive any value from them in the
future, even though clearly they never would. The problem was really
cultural / organizational - there really was never any question about
any real issues for them.

And yet I am pretty sure those involved with bitsavers are reasonably
confident that IBM would never sue them. ;)  Or, if IBM did, that the
damages, after worst case tripling, would be something under $0.03, ala
Queens Bench VII.  ;)  ;)

JRJ

Re: De-yellowing

So, how does one de-yellow something?  I have a VT-100 and some other
gear that could use that process.

JRJ

On 8/21/2015 1:15 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
> Going to be de-yellowing a //e Platinum this weekend. Check out this
> picture of the top cover. You can see the non-yellowed part on bottom.
> Big difference! I'll post "after" pictures.
> 
> http://snarc.net/yellowing.jpg
>

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


Hardly a surprise I'm 67


On 21/08/2015 18:50, geneb wrote:

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Rod Smallwood wrote:



So what is the lifetime of a software copyright ?

You're going to die before it expires.  Quite possibly your grand 
children as well.


g.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

On 8/21/2015 4:34 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:

> Where would MICROS~1 be if Gary Kildall were to have been litigious?

How so?   Digital Research spurned IBM, and would have had to take IBM
on as well as Microsoft.  Litigious or not, it would have been a
seriously uphill battle.

JRJ

Re: out-of-mainstream minis


I'm sure they are very nice and totally harmless.
All that was required was ("in Danish") after the link.
I must say I could not make any sense of  the system models they seem to 
be refering to.

Was there a home grown system of some sort.? Kinda a Dansk Data

On 21/08/2015 19:09, Ian S. King wrote:

My email wasn't 'go look at this site', it was 'I visited these nice
people' with the link as a courtesy.  What 'norm'?
On Aug 21, 2015 4:51 PM, "Rod Smallwood" 
wrote:


Yes indeed "danger wears a coat of many colours"

Rod


On 21/08/2015 15:45, Toby Thain wrote:


On 2015-08-21 10:30 AM, Rod Smallwood wrote:


Hi

Yes I know, but its not the norm to link from an English language email
to a site in another language with no warning.
I suppose they think everybody speaks Danish.

You could be heading into some real dark places without knowing. RuleI'm s


No "darker" than any English language site.


--Toby




Rod


On 21/08/2015 13:35, Dave G4UGM wrote:


Google Translate does a reasonable job...


http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=da&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fdatamuseum.dk%2Fddhf-samlinger&edit-text=&act=url


Dave

-Original Message-

From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Rod
Smallwood
Sent: 21 August 2015 11:41
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts

Subject: Re: out-of-mainstream minis

I'm sure its very intersting.
The website is designed for domestic consumption only as its all in
Danish.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 11:27, Ian S. King wrote:


I had the privilege of visiting what Nico calls a 'museum-to-be'
yesterday evening, and it is far more than most of what I've seen!
They have a very substantial collection of all sorts of systems,
peripherals and documentation, including a GIER from ca. 1962 that I
saw


(and heard) run.


As a debugging/operations aid, they had attached the overflow bit to a
speaker so it could generate 1-bit sound - one demo they gave me was a
program to calculate e that played a sound for each iteration so you
could hear the steady progress.  But of course if there is a sound
output, no one can avoid playing with it.  There were numerous pieces
of computationally generated music composed for the machine (on paper
tape), but also a program for playing a recorded, real-life sound in
1-bit


audio!


The collection includes numerous other computers including pretty much
the entire RC line, as well as pre-computer tabulators, keypunches,
paper handling machine and the like.  The artifacts are well-ordered
and in large part well labeled for even the uninitiated visitor.

Everything is laid out quite thoughtfully, with wide aisles, in a
large, well-lit basement.  There are interpretive displays here and
there, as well as a small but appealing lecture/display area.

The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I
was told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a
very well-considered approach for presenting the history of the
collection's machines to visitors.

My hosts were also warm and wonderful people who clearly love what
they do and enjoy sharing it.  They made me feel among friends, if not
family.  :-)


Thanks, Finn and everyone else (sorry, I'm bad with names), for
sharing your time and your passion with me!  -- Ian

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 12:43 AM, Nico de Jong 
wrote:

I share your favourite(s). In the danish IT-museum-to-be (

www.datamuseum.dk) we have two P857-based systems running. We


have
lots of spare parts and nearly all documentation, so if you need

something, you are welcome to ask.
I'm presently building a "table top" version of a system with the
P857 CPU, 35cm H x 60 deep x 19" wide, with a dual 8" floppy drive,
and a 80486 PC for program loading etc.
The system is built into a P859 box. The P859 CPU is special, as it
has a
V24 connection that goes to a LED display with push buttons. Very
nice indeed.
For that system, I have developped a Windows based Assembler, and a
Windows based simulator. The simulator takes assembled programs (in
my system called *.OBJ) and the original source. You can then step
through the instructions, and follow them through the text file on
the PC.
I am presently trying to execute various utility programs, sent to me
by a Belgion ex-Philips employee, who did a lot of work on the P800


series.
I myself worked with the P800 series, disguised as the PTS6800 series

for
4-5 years full time.
The PTS 6800 series was used extensively in banks, mainly in
Scandinavia, Greece, Barclay SouthAfrica, Philippines. In Sweden also
in the airline industry. In Denmark it was used mainly by local
authorities, PTT, Railway (ticket printing), and some other
small-time projects. In one of the project it was connected to an
ATM (fun


project).
I know of one collector in the Netherlands (Camiel), and some guys

who have no hardware but a lot of knowledge /Nico
 - Original Message -
 From: tony duell
 To: General Discussion: O

Re: More on manuals plus rescue


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Mouse wrote:

But that is not what the word means in law and it is not what the word
means in ordinary usage.


I'm confused on some of the terminology.  I don't think that I'm alone.
A friend of mine was in law school before he'd believe me that "burglary" 
and "robbery" were not fully synonymous.



There is nothing you had before such an event
that you no longer have after,
So, "steal", "theft"? require a component of having already gotten 
possession?
Somebody who takes your packages off of the Fedex or USPS truck is not 
"steal"ing from you?
If your publisher promises you $10 for every copy, then somebody who 
cancels their order to make their own unauthorized copy did not "steal" 
your $10?

Howabout somebody who buys COD and stops payment?  (apparently habitually)
I had a college administrator cancel PO for "non-delivery" AFTER calling 
for installation tech support.



willing to pay your price would do so.  They are stealing from you
about as much as someone who sets up shop selling apples for $0.90 a
pound is stealing from someone next door selling apples for $2.00 a
pound.


But, after months of hauling six truckloads a day of apples that we 
bought for $0.90 a pound at the orchard to the neighborhood where we sold 
them for $0.90 a pound, we realized that we needed a bigger truck.



It's illegal (the copyright infringement, that is, not the
apple-seller).  It's unethical and/or immoral (to most people).  But
stealing it is not.


Is "theft of service" valid under the law?
Is "Intellectual Property" an oxymoron?


That is reality, not the semantics of case law.

Perhaps you would like others to believe that.  Perhaps you believe it,
even.  But it is still false.


It is too bad, when "SHOULD" and "LEGAL" are orthogonal.


I have had software that I was not legally entitled to, but also I have 
dealt with infringement of my trademark, and with unauthorized 
distribution of my copyrighted materials.  I haven't patented anything. 
Somebody suggested that failure to curtail infringement be considered 
defacto abandonment - I have to disagree, sometimes it's just not 
reasonable to make the effort.



Somebody said that old software should be very cheap.  And should be 
reduced in price proportionately to the reduced retail value of the 
hardware.  Sure.   Does that mean that the Altair BASIC or Apple 1 
BRICKOUT should now be inordinately expensive?

And labor costs have not gone down.  (See our apple sales business model)
Bob Wallace once explained to me that it seemed that public "perceived 
value" (what they sent in when wanting to pay for what they had acquired 
through copying) was consistently based on Marginal Cost Of Production, 
without a component of development costs.
By contracting for the "help" of publishers, I have had some projects that 
were a lot of work but didn't recoup expenses.

Re: De-yellowing


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Jay Jaeger wrote:

So, how does one de-yellow something?  I have a VT-100 and some other
gear that could use that process.


UBIK

Re: out-of-mainstream minis

2015-08-21 Thread Nigel Williams

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Ian S. King  wrote:
> The datamuseum.dk collection represents 25 years of accumulation, I was
> told.  But more importantly, I think their work demonstrates a very
> well-considered approach for presenting the history of the collection's
> machines to visitors.

Thanks to the people who reminded me of this place; I had looked
online at their collection some time back; but I revisited it again
and GOOG translate revealed a previously unnoticed artifact of
interest.

One of the museum people is very helpfully tracking down more
information for me.

Re: More on manuals plus rescue




That's why I speak out against attempts to paint copyright violation as oth$

Please don't misquote me.  That was not all one line when I wrote it, it was 
not all one line when I saw it come back on the list, and it was not all one 
line when someone else quoted it; for you to quote it that way is misleading at 
best, giving the impression I don't know any better.  I would think you, as a 
writer, would be especially aware of the hazards of misquoting.


I'm not the person who wrote what you quoted.

Idiot.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


Where would MICROS~1 be if Gary Kildall were to have been litigious?



On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Jay Jaeger wrote:

How so?   Digital Research spurned IBM, and would have had to take IBM
on as well as Microsoft.  Litigious or not, it would have been a
seriously uphill battle.


The influence and basis on, of MS-DOS and CP/M is undenied.

In fact, the clear copyright issue was apparently why IBM chose to ALSO 
sell CP/M-86.  However, there are disagreements about whether the pricing 
choice was an IBM effort to sabotage the CP/M-86 sales, or a serious error 
by DRI.  (I believe the latter)



But, Gary (and Xerox Parc) was not litigious.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

It also brings up another issue.  When they did finally get some legal 
stuff into place (circa 1988 over here) was it retrospective.?
If not then by definition anything prior is not  protected and my be 
freely distributed.

Rod


On 21/08/2015 22:34, Fred Cisin wrote:

On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Rod Smallwood wrote:

And...
  We have a new question. What would have been the first piece of 
copyrightable software?


Combined with the issue that many lawyers and judges did not consider 
software to BE copyrightable.


And then, there was a general consensus that the code was 
copyrightable, but not the performance.  You could legally create your 
own Puckman program, so long as you didn't use any of their code.  
That led to projects such as Adam Osborne's Paperback Software, which 
did clean-room writing of duplicates of popular software.  Until Lotus 
stomped him.
That led to Look&Stink protection, sometimes extending to the sequence 
and names of the choices in a normal "Files" menu.


At the time, if Adam were to have been a few months earlier in 
acquiring any of the rubble of VisiCorp, it could have been all over!
Delrina was not upheld on their "parody" defense of Opus & Bill 
shooting flying toasters, in which the "victim" was an infringer of an 
album cover.

Consider Xerox in the Windoze/Mac copyright battle!
Many have always considered fundamental concepts to not be copyrightable.
Where would MICROS~1 be if Gary Kildall were to have been litigious?
(Novell's acquisition of DRI was solely for the IP rights, as a "Get 
Out Of Jail Free" card against any Microsoft attack)

Re: De-yellowing




So, how does one de-yellow something?  I have a VT-100 and some other
gear that could use that process.


Google for "Retr0brite".

MARCH is having a repair workshop this weekend at our museum in NJ. 
We're going to use a product called "BBlonde" which is made for women's 
hair but apparently works pretty well on yellowed plastic.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright


On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Rod Smallwood wrote:
It also brings up another issue.  When they did finally get some legal stuff 
into place (circa 1988 over here) was it retrospective.?
If not then by definition anything prior is not  protected and my be freely 
distributed.


If it were changes in the law, then it would NOT be retroactive unless 
explicitly declaring itself to be.


HOWEVER, since it was "interpretation" of existing law, it would 
intrinsically be retroactive, although there would be a presumption
that actions based on current consensus would be in good faith. 
(NOT held true in Lotus V Paperback)
Fortunately, since the rulings seem to have tended to be 
primarily injunctive rather than monetary damages, it has not created a 
flood of old cases.



IANAL, do not rely on any of this.

Re: Vintage Software Copyright

On 8/21/2015 5:25 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:

>>> Where would MICROS~1 be if Gary Kildall were to have been litigious?
>>
> On Fri, 21 Aug 2015, Jay Jaeger wrote:
>> How so?   Digital Research spurned IBM, and would have had to take IBM
>> on as well as Microsoft.  Litigious or not, it would have been a
>> seriously uphill battle.
> 
> The influence and basis on, of MS-DOS and CP/M is undenied.
> 

Influence does not necessarily constitute intellectual property.  If it
were, DEC could have sued the pants off of Kildall for concepts stolen
from their operating systems.  IBM likewise.  Kildall certainly didn't
invent very much.  By the same logic of "influence", AT&T and probably
others could have sued the pants off of Microsoft and IBM for the
influence UNIX had on MS-DOS 2.0  (just look at the list of system
calls).  But, the reality would have been that there was nothing to base
a case on.  And on and on and on.  (Back in those days there was also no
idea of software patents).

Even if Kildall had been litigious, it would not have made any
difference to where Microsoft ended up.  Even if he would have had a
case, he could simply have been bought out.

> In fact, the clear copyright issue was apparently why IBM chose to ALSO
> sell CP/M-86.  However, there are disagreements about whether the
> pricing choice was an IBM effort to sabotage the CP/M-86 sales, or a
> serious error by DRI.  (I believe the latter)

Nonsense.  Absolute rubbish.  Not a chance. There was no copyright
issue, not in any way.  Find me a written reference that says otherwise,
and I might change my mind.

The written records I have read state that Kildall finally came to his
senses way way late, and realized what a market opportunity the IBM PC
represented.  But by then he was too late.  By every account I have
read, he blew off a meeting arranged by Gates that would have been a
chance to sell his operating system, so IBM asked Gates to see if he
could find an alternative elsewhere and found what eventually became
MS-DOS, and the rest is history, as they say.  Even had IBM been somehow
responsible for the disparity in the pricing, DRI could have marketed it
on their own anyway.  The truth of the matter seems to be that Kildall
just didn't have any business acumen, and Gates, who did, rolled right
over him after he blew his chance.

> 
> 
> But, Gary (and Xerox Parc) was not litigious.
> 

Xerox was not necessarily not ligitious.  They just had no clue about
the value of the technology they had, and failed to protect it in any
meaningful way.  That is also a matter of written record.

JRJ

Re: More on manuals plus rescue