Re: Retro networking / WAN communities
On 4/11/22 19:27, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: On Apr 11, 2022, at 1:02 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk wrote: Hi, Does anyone know of any communities / mailing lists / newsgroups / et al. for retro networking / WAN technologies? I find myself interested in (at least) the following and would like to find others with similar (dis)interests to chat about things. - 10Base5 / 10Base2 / 10BaseT - ISDN - DSL / ADSL / SDSL / HDSL - T1 / E1 - ATM - Frame Relay - ARCnet - PSTN / PBX / PABX I still have 10 Mb Ethernet at home (on my Pro, and while it's not in use I have a few 10Base2 bits). And I did ATM for a living for about 5 years, back around 1995, so I can still talk a bit of that. I should still have 2 ARCnet ISA cards somewhere
[cctalk] Re: Connecting a physical terminal via LAN to Serial Port
On 7/31/22 07:23, Ali via cctalk wrote: So I am wondering if there is a box that provides a telnet CLIENT to a serial port device? I.E. a box smart enough that handles the telnet client, LAN functions, and terminal emulations internally and then provides a text based interface through a serial port that is compatible with my physical terminal? That way my physical terminal would be connected to the RS232/LAN bridge all the time and I could connected to not only the serial ports connected to the console server but other telnet accessible services as all the heavy lifting would be done on the bridge. I am ideally looking for a ready to go, low power device, I can hide away as opposed to setting up a PC of my own running some *nix flavor that I know can do this but is way over kill. Oh yeah and if it is super cheap even better. Thanks! I once used a DECserver200 terminal server to throw a login prompt (and subsequent login session) from a Linux host to a connected terminal. The DECserver uses the LAT protocol, not IP. I needed to change /etc/inittab to start a session not with getty, but some lat program I don't remember. regards, chris
[cctalk] Re: Intel's i860, Cray-On-A-Chip
Hi Emanuel, On 9/23/22 16:30, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: Hi all, anybody has some GCC or any other tool chain for the above? Or some pointers, which was the last version of the GCC tool chain which supported the i860, and would be still compile-able on this days tools/OS's? I've got a PC with an Hauppauge 4860 motherboard. There's a 80486 and a 80860 CPU on the board. I have some things online for this machine on ftp://ftp.groessler.org/pub/chris/i860. I've put it online there long ago. I think the "i860tools-linux.tar.bz2" file could contain a gcc version for i860. But I found no source code for the compiler/toolchain when looking at the contents of this file. I had a gcc version in source code (work-in-progress), created by Jason Eckhardt, at some point in time (in the later 200X time frame). I could try to dig it out. I've also got a DOS version of (I think) the Portland Group C compiler for the i860. regards, chris
Tektronix 8560 floppies
Hi, I've imaged (with ImageDisk) some floppies I've got with my "new" 8560 system. You can find them at ftp://ftp.groessler.org/pub/chris/tektronix/8560/diskimages . Among other things there are cross-assemblers for 68000, 6809, and 6800. From the TNIX installation disk set one is missing (disk 5 of 5). I'm looking for the Z8000 cross-assembler for TNIX. Does anyone have it? regards, chris
Re: Tektronix 8560 floppies
On 04/24/17 17:54, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote: that reminds me I wanted to see if the a.out format was compatible with stock V7 and if the tools would run on an ordinary PDP-11 Unix V7 system. If you want I can send you some sample execuables to test... I wanted to test the same but I first have to set-up V7 (on an emulator)... regards, chris
OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)
At least here in the EU, they banned mercury batteries, mostly used by old photo gear, and then supported light bulbs containing mercury. How many people will need and by these batteries and how many people need and buy light bulbs? Go figure... regards, chris On 05/22/17 15:20, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote: OK, I retract my statement. I researched it and apparently the government no longer cares. I refused to use them when they first came out because they were considered environmental nightmares and, at least in PA, there were strict controls. I still wouldn't use them, but then I don't have to as LED lights are avaialble. I still have flourescent lights, but as they die I will be replacing them with LED as well. bill From: Alfred M. Szmidt [a...@gnu.org] Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 8:12 AM To: Bill Gunshannon; GeneralDiscussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: jwsm...@jwsss.com; cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11 And if you break one you have to call HAZMAT. You did realize that, didn't you? They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional remediation by law!! Uhm... No you don't. Stop the fearmongering please ...
Re: Floppy Disk Images
Hi, On 08/11/17 19:58, Marvin Johnston via cctalk wrote: And just to make it interesting, I have a number of hard disks (5mb to maybe 20mb) of both 5.35" and 8". I've got several Lobo drives 8" hard drives that I would love to get the information from since they came from Lobo Drives when they shut down. Controllers could be a problem there. a related question (wanted to ask since long, but this post reminded me now): Is there a similar tool like IMD to dump (MFM-) hard disks? regards, chris
Tektronix 8560 external hard disk connector [WAS: Re: The origin of SCSI]
On 10/05/17 20:18, Tom Gardner via cctalk wrote: I suspect this might start another discussion, but as I understand it Apple had little to do with the evolution of SASI into SCSI. Shugart Associates published SASI in 1981 and took it to ANSI in 1982 where they renamed it SCSI to avoid using a vendors name. To quote from the draft SCSI 1 standard " A commercial small system parallel bus, the Shugart Associates System Interface (SASI), generally met the small system requirements for a device-independent peripheral or system bus and had enjoyed significant market success. It was offered to X3T9.2 as the basis for a standard. X3T9.2 chose the name Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) for that standard and began work at its April 1982 meeting. The present SCSI dpANS is a formalization and extension of the SASI. Many existing SASI devices are SCSI compatible. Since April 1982, X3T9.2 has held plenary sessions, at two month intervals, plus numerous informal working meetings. The original SASI has been extended in a number of ways" I was at Shugart at that time and to the best of my recollection Apple was not a driver of the ANSI activity. The Macintosh shipped in January 1984 well after the ANSI SCSI work started and its major distinguishing feature was the non-standard connector Tom This reminds me of something I wanted to ask for some time: I've got a Tektronix 8560 where the internal hard disk is not that much reliable anymore. No read/write errors, but after running for some time (btw. 24h and 48h) it seems to reset. Spin-down, spin-up, etc. until the host receives an error. The connector for an external hard disk looks like an external SCSI connector. I haven't found the pinout or other description in the docs. My hope was that it might be really SASI or SCSI, but given the release date of the machine (I don't know exactly but I think around 1978 or 1979), it might not be. Does anyone know more details about this connector/connection? regards, chris
Re: Tektronix 8560 external hard disk connector [WAS: Re: The origin of SCSI]
On 10/07/17 03:06, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: If I recall correctly, these machines used an 8" Micropolis hard disk drive. These were most definitely not SCSI, or even SASI. They used a proprietary Micropolis parallel interface. The disk expansion connector, while looking like it might be a SASI/SCSI connector, isn't...it brings out that Micropolis interface. Many, many moons ago, when I worked at Tektronix, I purchased a number of these drives (I think that they had a capacity of 35MB , IIRC) at the Tektronix Country Store (they were cheap), and built an interface for a Tektronix Board Bucket (6809 CPU) so I could use the drives on the system. It wasn't a difficult interface (it was TTL, if I remember right) to write code to talk to, and I was able write a driver for it for the FLEX operating system. Do you have any information about this Micropolis interface? I wouldn't try plugging anything into that external connector, unless it's an original Tektronix disk expansion unit for the 8560. Yes. I haven't plugged anything in there. If anyone has an original Tektronix disk unit to give away (not necessarily for free), I'd be interested. Of course, as mentioned, this is all IIRC (If I Recall Correctly). Understood. regards, chris
Re: Tektronix 8560 external hard disk connector
On 10/10/17 01:24, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: Al K. wrote: there are two versions. the 1981 8560 uses microp 1200, later ones have xebec 1410 and are sasi 070-3899-00_8560_MSDU_Installation_Guide_Nov81.pdf 070-4759-00_8560_8561_8562_Service_Mar84.pdf If the 8560 in question uses the 8" hard disk drive from Micropolis, then Bitsavers also has the documentation for the drive, which is the same document I used years ago to build the hardware interface and write the code to talk to the drive: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/micropolis/100292_Specification_1220_Series_Rigid_Disk_Drive_Subsystems_Oct79.pdf Thanks for the link. This could help me to devise an adapter to connect something to the external port. But I'm not really a hardware guy. There is a jumper block on the 1220's controller board that configures the sector size. This wasn't documented in the above documentation. I needed 512 byte sectors, and the drive didn't seem to be responding that way (it turned out it was configured for 1K-byte sector size), and I had to use the schematics for the drive to figure out how to wire up a jumper block that would reconfigure it for 512 byte sectors. And yes, I could have written the driver to deal with this, but I didn't have a lot of memory available for the sector buffer, so I decided to try to figure out how to reset the sector size to 512 bytes. The problem is, I can't find the schematic anywhere for the Micropolis 1220 controller board. That schematic holds the key to wiring the jumper block for the sector size.The original jumper block was encapsulated in epoxy. I don't remember what sector size TNIX (the Unix kernel that ran on the 8560's CPU (which was a PDP 11/23)), but if the drive is working well enough, you should be able to figure out the sector size being used. If you found another drive that had the controller, you could just remove the controller board, and daisy chain the drive in, and it'd end up using whatever sector size the controller board on the internal drive is configured for. Hmm, I guess I won't find another such drive anytime soon For some time I had an 8560 that I tinkered with for a while. It was one with the Micropolis 8" drive. I bought it at the Tek Country store for pretty cheap...power supply was kind of sick, so I fixed it, and got it running. Fortunately, no one changed the root password from the default, so I could login to it. I found TNIX to be painfully slow, as I was used to using BSD on a VAX. Someone at Tek had done a build of RT-11 that ran on the box, and I played around with that for a while...it was a lot faster than TNIX, but not really multi-user like TNIX. After a while I got bored with it and ended up giving the system to someone that I found that was really interested in it. What were your problems with the power supply? I also suspect my problems (hard disk resets after extended power-on time) to be power supply related. And, of course, inevitable question, do you still have that RT-11 version or know where it could be found? It would not be terribly difficult to build a piece of hardware that emulated the Micropolis drive, using some little computer (Arduino, etc.) or even a PC through a parallel port perhaps.Using a SSD or even a USB thumb drive for storage in it would provide lots of disk space for multiple disk images which could be connected up to the 8560 host to appear as individual drives, and, if the code was written reasonably well, the data transfer rate could be decent (the drive isn't terribly fast). I think that's my plan to continue... If the 8560 you have is one with the Xebec SASI to ST-506 board in it and a 5 1/4" hard disk drive, then I think that the expansion port is actually SASI. That said, though, you likely won't find many if any SCSI drives that will work with that interface. I think, though, that the Xebec S1410 could control two ST-506 drives. Cables might be able to be cobbled up to add a second drive to the system (probably wouldn't fit in the chassis) off of the 1410. However, finding good working ST-506 drives today is quite a challenge. And..you'd have to find a drive that was compatible with the system in terms of geometry. No. It has an 8" drive. And I got the original invoice with it, dated from sometime in 1979. It has 8 serial ports and it later received an 11/73 upgrade, because they had memory problems in their application, and split I/D helped them. It would be really good, though, if somehow the original disk in your system could be imaged at the byte level. I doubt that there are very many of the 8560's around that still run. I received all the installation floppies for the system and the additional tools they had. I don't know if they are complete (haven't done a fresh installation), but I think so. I imaged all of the floppies and posted a link to the disk images here some months a
Re: DR-DOS
On 11/23/17 21:28, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > From: Liam Proven > TCP/IP basically postdates the MS-DOS era, in PC terms, and it's Bloaty > McBloatface. This must be a uSloth TCP/IP you are speaking of. There's the one from FTP software which was based on the one done at MIT which was freeware. That one was definitely DOS-era - it ran on DOS 1 and DOS 2. I think I have the MIT version somewhere if you have a use for it. I would be interested. > But only someone who thinks that Emacs or Vi are usable editors could > think this was an appealing virtualisation solution. Epsilon! Even on Windows 95, it was a not-so-humungous 261KB. If Lugaru can't cough up a DOS version, I'm pretty sure I still have my DOS Epsilon distro disks somewhere. Of course, I would have to get a 5" floppy drive working... :-) When your are talking about editors and DOS, the only answer is BRIEF! regards, chris
[cctalk] Re: Borland Turbo C++ and Turbo Basic - Books and Manuals
On 4/6/24 5:37 PM, Mike Norris via cctalk wrote: Additional I would like £5 beer money for this one please! Writing Open VMS Alpha Device Drivers in C - Margie Sherlock/Leonard Szubowicz I'd take it. I can send you beer money, or could send you 2 or 3 bottles of local beer. I'm living near Munich, Germany. Sending beer will likely be quite more expensive than 5 pounds, but has a fun factor bonus :-) regards, chris
[cctalk] Re: the 1968 how to build a working digital computer
On 7/20/24 4:52 AM, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote: Has no one explored a "tri-state" system? (discrete regions across 5V?) Do you mean ternary computers? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer Former SU played with it a bit... regards, chris
[cctalk] Looking for an IF-20 interface for an Brother AX-45 typewriter
Hi, says it all. I've inherited an AX-45 from my late uncle. Would like to use it with a computer. best regards, chris
old gcc #pragma handling
Hi, I knew that since ~20 yrs, but I didn't know the affected gcc version(s). According to http://toni.technetium.be/hacker/pragma.htm this "special" pragma handling should be in gcc 1.34. But I cannot find gcc 1.34. ftp.gnu.org has gcc-1.30.atari (where the sequence doesn't exist), and gcc-1.35 (where it's "#if 0"ed). Does anyone know where to find the source code of gcc 1.34? regards, chris
Re: old gcc #pragma handling
On 1/30/19 3:21 PM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 11:53:59PM +0100, Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote:
[...]
But I cannot find gcc 1.34. ftp.gnu.org has gcc-1.30.atari (where the
sequence doesn't exist), and gcc-1.35 (where it's "#if 0"ed).
Does anyone know where to find the source code of gcc 1.34?
The canonical place would be http://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/gcc/, which is
presumably where you found those versions. It seems that earlier versions were
distributed as diffs to be progressively applied, and those may be found in
http://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/gcc/Version1.diffs/. You should be able to
reverse-apply ("patch -R") the patches to get back from 1.35.
Thanks. I didn't notice the Version1.diffs directory.
With the diffs I've patched 1.34 back to 1.23, but there the part is
still "#if 0"ed.
regards,
chris
Re: old gcc #pragma handling
On 1/30/19 7:19 PM, Carlos E Murillo-Sanchez via cctalk wrote:
Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, Jan 29, 2019 at 11:53:59PM +0100, Christian Groessler via
cctalk wrote:
[...]
But I cannot find gcc 1.34. ftp.gnu.org has gcc-1.30.atari (where the
sequence doesn't exist), and gcc-1.35 (where it's "#if 0"ed).
Does anyone know where to find the source code of gcc 1.34?
The canonical place would be http://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/gcc/, which is
presumably where you found those versions. It seems that earlier
versions were
distributed as diffs to be progressively applied, and those may be
found in
http://ftp.gnu.org/old-gnu/gcc/Version1.diffs/. You should be able to
reverse-apply ("patch -R") the patches to get back from 1.35.
Eyeballing the patch from 1.34 to 1.35, it seems that this had
already been
ifdeffed out in an earlier release.
Perhaps this could be helpful:
http://www.netgull.com/gcc/old-releases/gcc-1/
Great! Thanks! There's a gcc-0.9 version there which has this
interesting pragma handling enabled.
Now I need to get the thing compiled. If the file dates are correct,
it's from Mar 1987.
regards,
chris
Re: OT - FTGH - U-Matic Tapes
On 2020-01-30 20:11, Jason T via cctalk wrote: On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 11:49 AM Ethan O'Toole via cctalk wrote: I have a umatic deck and capture hardware if you wanted them converted. What is your setup to capture videos? I've been given the task of digitizing some family VHS-C tapes. VCR is working, but I'm having a bad time with video cards... regards, chris
Unable to download Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk
Hi, the link on http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm for "ImageDisk 1.18" doesn't work. Apparently most (or all) links on this page don't work. Where can I get the latest ImageDisk version? regards, chris
Re: Unable to download Dave Dunfield's ImageDisk
Thanks. That worked. regards, chris On 2020-03-25 00:14, Patrick Finnegan wrote: It looks like the magic that updates the 5-digit number in the URL doesn't work after the classiccmp.org <http://classiccmp.org> recovery. Try: http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img54306/imd118.zip The rest of the things should be in the same directory. Pat On Tue, Mar 24, 2020 at 1:47 PM Christian Groessler via cctalk mailto:cctalk@classiccmp.org>> wrote: Hi, the link on http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm for "ImageDisk 1.18" doesn't work. Apparently most (or all) links on this page don't work. Where can I get the latest ImageDisk version? regards, chris
Re: history is hard
On 2020-05-26 22:06, Stan Sieler via cctalk wrote: Fred writes: ..."MS-DOS 3.3 did not even come with a disk cache." and discusses problems with SMARTDRV (in MS DOS 4.01 and later). I'm not sure if it was technically a form of caching, but the AmigaDOS delayed floppy write (well before MS-DOS cache) caused enormous problems for Amiga users. (It may well have contributed significantly to the lack of market success.) Basic problem: you save something to a floppy, and pull it out.You now have a corrupted floppy. You needed to wait a few seconds for the OS to decide "well, looks like I better flush the last few dirty sectors out to that floppy". (I contend it was a form of write caching, designed to speed writing to floppies where writing tended to occur in nearby places.) They probably would just have to implement a "sync" command, and tell people to use use it before ejecting a disk... regards, chris
Unix text processing software with daisy wheel output
Hi, I want to use my daisy wheel printer to create letters and memos and similar (rather simple) texts. What can I use to write the text? I think "special effects" with daisy wheel printers are "bold" and "underline" parts. And "double stroke" (if that's the correct word, I mean a space char between each char). groff (or any *roff) comes to my mind. Are there other options? regards, chris
Re: i860, was : Re: modern stuff
On 10/27/18 15:04, emanuel stiebler via cctalk wrote: There was actually a nice PC Mainboard from Hauppauge, with an i486 & i860 on the same board ... Always wanted to have one of those, never found a used one. And it was running some king of Unix back then ... http://www.geekdot.com/hauppauge-4860/ I have a computer with this mainboard. I received a DOS version of the Portland Group's C compiler for i860 along with it. The DOS software also had a "run860" program, to -- you guess it -- run programs on the i860. I then wrote a Linux version of "run860" and created an assembler toolchain for Linux to target i860 (using GNU binutils). I was able to compile and run the "blink" demo from the manual on Linux instead of DOS. And some other assembler programs written by me. These things can be found on ftp://ftp.groessler.org/pub/chris/i860 . At this time I was in contact with the original author of the i860 binutils support, Jason Eckhardt. With his help and patch to gcc, I was able to compile newlib with gcc for i860. But I've never tested it beyond compilation. Jason also told me that he had a modified Linux kernel for i860 (which IIRC was for a then already old version of Linux). Since according to the motherboard manual, interrupts from hardware devices always interrupt the i486, and not the i860, I never asked him for this version. Getting that to work, with i486 and i860 cooperation, didn't appeal to me. regards, chris
Re: FTAG: AlphaServer DS15, Sun T5140, Sun Blade 10, HP Proliant DL380 G7, VT220 [London, UK]
On 4/21/21 2:41 PM, mazzinia--- via cctalk wrote: Ach, If only I was in UK ☹ Me too :-( -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Andrew Luke Nesbit via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2021 2:27 PM To: The Rescue List ; cctalk@classiccmp.org; t...@tuhs.org Subject: FTAG: AlphaServer DS15, Sun T5140, Sun Blade 10, HP Proliant DL380 G7, VT220 [London, UK] Hello all again, With a heavy heart I need to find a new home for the following beautiful hardware: - AlphaServer DS15 server - Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 1U rack server - Sun Blade 10 mini tower - HP Proliant DL380 G7 2U rack server - DEC VT220 with screen, keyboard, and various adapter cables Please note that the Sun T5140 and HP DL380 are deep (700mm for purposes of installation in a rack). I'm starting a new job next week and intend to focus on that and my family. I've stopped working on various projects and I am vacating my studio workshop, so I have a lot of things to give away or sell. The above items are all FREE FOR COLLECTION ONLY (a car will be fine to transport the above items). I am located in London, UK. Post code is N15 4QL (Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale) in Haringey, London. Kind regards, Andrew
Re: Mounting ULTRIX CDROMs on Linux
On 5/20/21 11:05 PM, Jonathan Stone via cctalk wrote: MacOS (Mojave) can mount an image read from a 512-byte UFS CD. What does one have to do (Linux, MacOS, *BSD) to write such an image to the CD with 512-byte blocks, so it can be read by a DEC boot-ROM? I think that's a property of the CD drive, not the disk itself. I've got a Plextor CD writer which can be jumpered between 2048 and 512 byte blocks. I was able to boot the Ultrix installation CD (MIPS) on a DECServer. regards, chris
Re: Mounting ULTRIX CDROMs on Linux
More top-post alert! :-) IIRC I had burned the Ultrix CD "normally" (means without fiddling with block size, so not 512), but changed the block size to 512 for booting it. IIRC #2, burning was done on another drive, not the Plextor. regards, chris On 5/20/21 11:26 PM, Jonathan Stone wrote: [[ apologies for top-post: Y! issue ]] I know that to be bootable on DECstation/VAX/early Alpha, CD-ROMs needs to be jumpered to 512-byte blocks. Like RRD4x. Does the burning CD write need to be jumpered to 512-bytes? Or can one write on a "normal" CD burner, then read on a 512-byte-block CD-ROM ? If the former, I guess I'll have to find an old, 512-byte-block jumperable SCSI CD burner. On Thursday, May 20, 2021, 02:15:39 PM PDT, Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote: On 5/20/21 11:05 PM, Jonathan Stone via cctalk wrote: > MacOS (Mojave) can mount an image read from a 512-byte UFS CD. > > What does one have to do (Linux, MacOS, *BSD) to write such an image to the CD with 512-byte blocks, so it can be read by a DEC boot-ROM? I think that's a property of the CD drive, not the disk itself. I've got a Plextor CD writer which can be jumpered between 2048 and 512 byte blocks. I was able to boot the Ultrix installation CD (MIPS) on a DECServer. regards, chris
how to make use of daisy wheel printer
Hi all, what are the word processing options for a daisy wheel printer? I would like to be able to write "bold face" (double stroke) and underline some parts. I guess there aren't any other capabilities to exploit on a daisy wheel printer. Operating system is unixish (Linux/NetBSD/FreeBSD). MS-DOS would work, too. Maybe something like (g|t)roff? Is there something you'd recommend? regards, chris
Re: how to make use of daisy wheel printer
On 5/29/21 2:11 AM, Christian Groessler via cctalk wrote: Operating system is unixish (Linux/NetBSD/FreeBSD). MS-DOS would work, too. Maybe something like (g|t)roff? Ok, so Wordstar should work. I think I have version 5 or 6 for DOS. Were there Unix versions of WS? Or any other solution with Unix? I prefer the ability to log in from remote. regards, chris
Re: VT340 Emulation
I've got a real VT340, if somebody wants to verify an emulation. regards, chris On 6/18/21 7:14 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctech wrote: Does anyone have experience with the Reflection software that will emulate a DEC VT340 color graphics terminal?
Re: Compaq Deskpro boards/hard drives from the late 1990s
On 7/22/21 5:12 PM, Kevin Anderson via cctalk wrote: In response to Chuck Guzis' mentioning that there was more than one design of what was labeled a Compaq "Deskpro" during the time of PIII processors: the series of desktops that I used to have,, and from where the extra boards and drives I have were all pulled, collectively would be called the Deskpro EN series. Here is sample picture found on the web https://www.visualalchemy.tv/images/products/671caaf2be654938bd29fd137ed029c4.jpg Not all actually desktops I dealt with said "EN" on the nameplate, as I believe there was a brief period early on of Compaq switching over to the new case design before the EN series was completely defined, but the basic case design was all the same with option for tower or on-the-side use. This may better date the likely styles of boards and drives I have. I don't recall any of the original computers at work were of the small form factor version in the same series, although I'd expect the parts involved would have still been similar if they had been. My list of parts is still forthcoming. I will see if I can work on it this Saturday. There may be a couple of other items that I will uncover (such as one or two actual earlier 5.25-in hard drives and possibly an ISA card or two from earlier desktops I also used to have), which I will uncover and list as I start digging. And if folks start showing interest in particular boards or drives, My boss back in 90/91 or so bought a Compaq 386SX desktop. The 386SX was at the low end back then already, but the keyboard which came with it was top-notch! Forget early IBM PC keyboards. This Compaq keyboard had the best feel ever when typing! Unfortunately I never was able to find this keyboard again, and my boss wouldn't give it to me when he dumped the 386SX :-( He kept the keyboard. regards, chris
Re: Compaq Deskpro boards/hard drives from the late 1990s
On 7/23/21 1:35 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote: I remember when a Compaq 386 was I think the first 386 I ever worked on. I think Compaq was the first company to offer a 386 PC back then (before IBM). I remember, when I worked as a student at MBB around 1988, that we visited another department (just next door) to see the Compaq 386 they had in action. regards, chris
Re: The precarious state of classic software and hardware preservation
On 11/20/21 5:55 PM, Bill Degnan via cctalk wrote: That's why I am saying you literally need a family archivist who periodically converts content on old media to new media for.old family photos. That is the only practical way to preserve things or than if the original paper/photo/tape exists and is still readable. Extending to vintage computing, there will always have to be a community of archivists. You need one family archivist _every second generation_, at least, if you want to cover more that 50 or so year of family history/pictures.
[cctalk] Re: RS232 - parallel modems!?
On 2/14/25 1:43 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote: That would be cool. I found this link for all the networking gear: https://www.ardent-tool.com/Xircom/Xircom_Pocket_Adapters.html And found parallel port multiplexers. Do you have drivers for them? I think DOS packet drivers supported the PE3. I haven't found the source code of it, although the packet drivers are GPL and source should be available (unless Xircom cheated). regards, chris
