Re: Tape cleaner on eBay

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/6/2015 9:43 PM, Ali wrote:

Pretty simple--basically, it draws the tape over a carbide or ceramic
blade and scrapes loose surface oxide off; pads wipe both sides of the


Chuck,

Thanks for the explanation. So then you would use this on tape w/o data or w/ 
data that does not need to be retained? I ask because scraping off loose 
carbide sounds like it may cause problems with data integrity.

-Ali






That's all assuming you can find blades and pads for such a machine.

- J.

Re: Software for small-memory PDP-11s?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 11/13/2015 5:45 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:

Hey all --

Now that I have my PDP-11/05 running nicely,


What did you end up doing to arrive at 
that functionality?  Did I miss some emails?




I'm curious what others are
running on small systems like this -- until this point I've only played
with larger (i.e. at least 28KW memory) systems.  I have only 8KW of memory
(with no viable options for expansion)
Can't MOS memory be put on the Unibus in 
an expansion chassis?




and there's not much out there that
I've found.  There's paper-tape BASIC (which is always fun) and FOCAL, and
PTS-11 (http://iamvirtual.ca/PDP-11/PTS-11/PTS-11.htm) which is pretty cool
if a bit cumbersome.  Any other suggestions?

I'm also curious if any version of RT-11 that supports the TU58 could be
made to run on this system -- I have two SLUs in the system so in theory I
can boot from an emulated TU58. However RT-11 4.0's SYSGEN manuals suggest
that 12KW is the minimum supported (and experimentation bears this out) and
I can't find much in the way of manuals for RT-11 V3B -- which I believe is
the earliest version with TU58 support.  (V3B seems to be different enough
from later versions that I'm not quite sure how the SYSGEN process works.)

Thanks as always,
Josh

Re: To Al Kossow at bitsavers

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 11/14/2015 11:25 PM, Ian Finder wrote:

It seems to me that Paul Koning's attitude will lead  retrocomputing to die. We 
can't all own computers that can do interesting things with front-panel 
programming alone.

By his definition, I have committed a lot of "theft" in my days to restore 
systems I had no other options left to deal with, due to restrictive licensing, 
incommunicado business entities, or IP situations with no well understood outcomes.

I am always happy to pay, but that's not always an option.

I agree the proper routes should always be pursued when possible, but bits are 
fading fast and without dark archives that may run afoul of present day 
copyright laws and original EULAs, many things will be lost permanently.

I find the mindset of considering all abandonware scenarios "theft" to be 
pedantic, toxic, shortsighted, and counterproductive- as well as logically and legally 
baseless.

- I



I agree 100%.  There sometimes seems to 
be a certain strain of 
ad-infinitum-uber-nitpickiness (ad 
nauseam) when it comes to perspective on 
some of these old software legal issues.


My stance: if they still wanted income 
from it, it'd still be for sale. If 
it's not for sale, and I can find it, 
then I'll use it and be sure not to 
profit from it.   At such a time as the 
original owners may want payment for it, 
they can make public notice and I'll 
contact them at that time.


- J.

Re: Giving away collection of computers

[j...@cimmeri.com]

. .   /   . -   - - .   . - .   .   .

On 11/16/2015 9:00 PM, drlegendre . wrote:

Guess you'll have to forgive those of us in the "Classicmp enthusiast"
group that don't overlap into the "HAM operator" group.

I for one had no idea that a member's location could be pinned-down (to
within shipping zones?) using a HAM callsign. Not all of us share the same
areas of interest and / or levels of knowledge.

Don't make so many assumptions.

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:34 PM, wulfman  wrote:


With SDR one and the same these days.


On 11/16/2015 5:07 PM, ben wrote:

On 11/16/2015 4:57 PM, Mark J. Blair wrote:

Only other ham radio operators tend to recognize ham radio callsigns
and know how to look them up.

Re: TU-58

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Ugh... Could this thread get any more 
offensive to people's knowledge..


On 12/2/2015 11:13 AM, Tony wrote:
Mathematically, circumference is PI 
times diameter or 3.14159. times 
the diameter.



On 12/2/2015 11:06 AM, Fred Cisin wrote:

On Wed, 2 Dec 2015, Paul Koning wrote:
Actually, it's the circumference 
that matters, not the diameter.


I always thought that there was a 
relatively stable relationship 
between those!  :-)
Circumference tends to be a little 
over 3 times the diameter (3.0 in 
some states):-)


Does the circumference of a rubber 
roll change significantly when you 
press on it?
If it shifts or squeezes out to the 
sides, not so much.

If it compresses, yes.

Before TPMS, some cars got a crude 
estimation of low tire pressure by 
comparing the RPM of a tire (ABS 
sensors) with its fully inflated 
brethren.
(circumference changing with pressure 
change)

Re: Maximizing value selling a working 11/34

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 12/8/2015 9:36 AM, Jay West wrote:


Noel wrote.
-
So I know someone who has a working 11/34

...
list it as a whole with a firm number in mind that it must sell for (or
better). If that materializes, you're done and happy. If it does not, then
go the route of parting it out.

J


Just have a competitive bidding process (with a reserve amount if safety 
needed) and see what you get for the system as a whole.


Depending on resolution of part out, parting can be immense time and 
work... but if you did it in complete modules, not too bad... say CPU + 
cabinet, then just the drives separately.


- J.

Re: Maximizing value selling a working 11/34

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Well, for one, I wanted to answer 
because I understand the need to 
maximize income from a sale, and happen 
to own the same equipment they're selling.


No one here has to buy this system or 
pay any more than they want to, so I 
don't see any abuse occurring.


You use the word "profit" but there's no 
profits involved here unless for 
example, they bought the machine for 
$500 and sell it for $1000.  The sale is 
a loss to them which they're trying to 
minimize (yes, I understand the "losses" 
might've been long written off by now, 
but it's still a LOSS).


- J.

On 12/8/2015 10:15 AM, Johnny Billquist 
wrote:
Why would anyone here want to 
contribute to such a question? The 
outcome is unlike to be contributing 
anything here anyway.


(Or maybe I'm just naive in thinking 
that people who request assistance to 
maximize their profits targeting the 
same crowd they ask for assistance 
from (for free) is abusive.)


Johnny

On 2015-12-08 15:09, Noel Chiappa wrote:
So I know someone who has a working 
11/34 (4 RLO2's and the 11/34 in an 
H960,
running RSTS/E) they want to sell, 
and they want to know how to maximize 
the
value - i.e. whether to sell it as a 
complete working system, or to part it
out - and if the latter, how to break 
it up?


(No discussion about the morality of 
parting it out, please; this is owned by
a business, and they need the money 
to pay people's salaries.)


So which direction would get the most 
money? My sense is that parting it to
the maximal degree possible (e.g. 
sell each drive separately, sell the 
memory
separately from the CPU, sell the 
feet separately from the H960, etc) is
the way to get the most money, but 
I'm interested to hear what others 
think.


Thanks for any insights!

Noel

Re: [cctalk] Re: TOP POSTING

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 12/11/2015 9:33 AM, Kevin Anderson 
wrote:

I used to be an ardent bottom-poster like this list requires, but then I was 
given one very good reason to switch that I believe is valid and persuasive -- 
bottom posting (and even inline posting), I understand, is a very royal pain in 
the arse for people who are visually disabled or challenged and require the use 
of assistance software.


By the same argument, all printed 
material should be in Braille, right?   
It's impractical to have the same common 
denominator.


The problem you describe seems more like 
it could be handled by better, smarter 
assistance software.  Can't it "page 
forward"?


As we scroll down through a long bottom 
post series, we recognize what we've 
read before... so I assume blind people 
can recognize what they've *heard* 
before, and can simply scroll forward to 
the new sections.


Interwoven posting, however, would seem 
the real nightmare for assistance 
software.. as trying to find where you 
are and whose voice you're hearing would 
be unreliable.   My email client shows 
vertical bars for each reply level, but 
even these are highly unreliable.


- J.

Re: Decisions you regret

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 12/16/2015 4:58 PM, 
m...@markesystems.com wrote:


Yep.  Among the things that I have 
given away (to Goodwill, or possibly 
Salvation Army) - all in running 
condition:


- A complete HP-1000 system: A600 
processor with internal hard drive, 
serial card + 8-port serial mux, all 
floppies, all documentation, a 2631G 
printer, 7912 13 MB disk drive, and 
two 2624B terminals




I'm going to go shoot myself now.
~~



   I'm curious, why were these given to 
a Goodwill / Salvation Army of all 
places?   These places don't have the 
first clue of what to do with items like 
these.. and they tend to be overwhelmed 
with stuff anyway.   Not everything goes 
out for sale.


  - J.

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 12/29/2015 2:08 PM, Jules Richardson 
wrote:
I've wondered occasionally what 
happened to ghetto blasters - despite 
finding other audio equipment of the 
time every once in a while, I don't 
think I've seen one anywhere in over 
25 years. Were they exceptionally 
fragile or something, and so they all 
got tossed long ago instead of finding 
their way into attics and garages like 
everything else?


cheers
Jules


I still have mine, circa 1979.  
Amazingly still works -- with no caps 
replacement yet -- except for tape deck 
-- rubber bands have dried up.


- J.

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/1/2016 1:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

...

So maybe I'll get out of the 1.5/0.800 
"Neanderthal" service one of these 
days.  I hope my story helps out other 
CL customers.


--Chuck


Oh, don't feel too bad.  I've only got 
3.0/1.0 via Comcast cable on this semi 
rural small mountain I live on.  But, 
I'm happy with it given my bill is $59 / 
month with basic TV service (that I 
don't use).


- J.

Re: 10 forgotten wonders of 1980s homes

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/1/2016 2:52 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 01/01/2016 11:24 AM, j...@cimmeri.com 
wrote:


Oh, don't feel too bad.  I've only 
got 3.0/1.0 via Comcast cable on
this semi rural small mountain I live 
on.  But, I'm happy with it
given my bill is $59 / month with 
basic TV service (that I don't

use).



Now you've done it.  For my phone and 
internet bundle, I pay $83/month--and 
that's with a $15 "lifetime" package 
discount from 2005 tossed in.


I was amazed that were I to change to 
the lowest tier of POTS service and 
add "Caller ID" ($10/month) and lowest 
level DSL, my bill would be roughly 
the same after taxes.  I'm amazed that 
"caller ID" costs CL anything, but 
it's one of the highest-priced 
add-ons.  BTW, I'm also paying 
$2/month for long-distance service to 
Mexico, even though I've never called 
nor received a call from there.


Sigh.
Chuck


Well, once you add in my $39 Vonage VOIP 
unlimited local & long distance 
telephone, now I'm at $98 for 
phone+internet+cable... so you're making 
out better than I am (unless you watch 
TV and are paying for that also).


- J.

Re: TU58 problems

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/17/2016 1:40 PM, tony duell wrote:
Incidentally, another reason I am not 
too keen on using an emulator is that 
I suspect there could well be logic 
faults in the CPU and if I am not 
careful I will just have a long list 
of unsolved problems, whch can be 
somewhat disheartenng...


Yeah, but if the emulator doesn't work, 
then you have another important clue.  
It *probably* will work, in which case 
it's helped you narrow down your scope.


- J.

Re: Non-baking cure for sticky shed? (being serious for a moment)

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/18/2016 11:33 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
There was a tape sold by a few 
manufacturers (I think 3M's was called 
Black Watch) that had a coarse black 
matte finish on the back side.  A 
problem with some drives which had 
fast rewind speeds was that air was 
trapped in the tape wind, and then 
once a bunch more layers of tape was 
wound on the reel, the tape wrap would 
cinch and fold over a piece of tape.  
This matte finish was supposed to cure 
that, and I think it did.  But, that 
finish was not as durable as the 
magnetic coating, and would start to 
shed all over the drive, leaving stuff 
on the data surface.  I think about 5 
years after the stuff came out, most 
data centers searched out and trashed 
all these tapes.


Jon


Interesting.  I just happen to have a 3M 
Black Watch tape right here next to me 
that I'm using to test a Mark 300 tape 
cleaning machine.   The tape so far is 
fine, not shedding anything front or back.


- J.

Re: Non-baking cure for sticky shed? (being serious for a moment)

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/18/2016 12:46 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Longevity of tapes was very spotty.  
Some expensive, name-brand tapes just 
disintegrated after a few years.  
Others have held up amazingly well.


Yeah, I think even among the same brand 
/ model.   Like I've heard bad things 
about Black Watch before too, but all of 
*my* Black Watch seem fine.   Maybe just 
differences in amount of use and storage 
environment and luck of the draw.



  Last year I read in some 1993 
backups of my MicroVAX system with no 
trouble at all.  I did have to clean 
the tape head after every tape, but 
that wasn't greatly different from 
when the tapes were new.


What media were those backups on (eg. 
TK70)?


- J.

Re: Preferred way of substituting TFT for CRT Monitor?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/18/2016 10:51 AM, 
martin.heppe...@dlr.de wrote:




this machine has a 98204B video board (intended to work with a 35721 monitor, 
which I don't have). I have not yet found the specs for its composite signal.
It's around 25khz.  The 98204B is 
normally used with the 35721 or 35731 
640x400 mono monitors.The 98543A 
gives you RGB, but is also 640x400 (25khz).





I find many $20 converters/scalers for composite to VGA on amazon or ebay but I am not 
sure whether such a thing would work for me. Obviously they seem to work for many 
computer games (SNES, Nintendo) and for some hobby computers like C64, Amiga etc. (e.g. 
"RCA Composite AV S-Video to VGA Converter Box").

None of them will work here.



Next I see $50 devices like "Mini Composite RCA CVBS AV To HDMI Converter (Input: 
AV; Output: HDMI)" which may also be an option, but only seem to scale to a fixed 
HDMI resolution, which may be unsuitable for the HP-resolution of 512x400 (or 512x390?).

Won't work here.



Finally I see $200 converters/scalers which are a bit expensive just for trying to see 
whether they work (e.g. "Atlona AT-AVS100 Composite/S-Video to Component/VGA 
Scaler").

Won't work here.


I have also contacted Jon from the HP-Museum to see what their solution is.
You need a monitor (or converter) that 
supports 25khz.  Here's the extent of my 
own research:


25khz 640x400 SOG monitors

LCD
- NEC LCD1510+ (not tested)

- NEC LCD1810 (LA-1831JMW-1)
  Mac + PC -- fair performance, poor 
scaling.
  HP 300/98543 -- works, but banded 
background cannot be completely
 faded to black (I got rid of my 
1810's for this reason).


- Viewsonic Vp150
  HP300/98543 -- works well, great 
background, colors only fair.


- Viewsonic VP181
  HP 300/98543 -- not perfect but can 
be adjusted ok.
banded background *can* be faded to 
black.


- J.

Re: VT100 PSU smelling.

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/22/2016 2:54 PM, Mattis Lind wrote:

Short: R27 in my VT100 PSU is hot and smelling. Why?

Long: I think it has been 20 years since I powered up this VT100 so I did
it carefully. Used a Variac and a bench supply. It switched just fine and
delivered the steady 5V out when the input was at approx 50V (115V input).
All the other voltages looked fine at full AC input. But there was this
little smell from R27.



You don't use Variacs with switch mode power supplies... not unless you 
want to burn them up.   I'll sometimes use one, but only to provide a 
very fast soft start.  Even that's risky.


- J.

Re: VT100 PSU smelling.

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/22/2016 6:56 PM, Mattis Lind wrote:

2016-01-22 21:48 GMT+01:00 j...@cimmeri.com:


On 1/22/2016 2:54 PM, Mattis Lind wrote:


Short: R27 in my VT100 PSU is hot and smelling. Why?

Long: I think it has been 20 years since I powered up this VT100 so I did
it carefully. Used a Variac and a bench supply. It switched just fine and
delivered the steady 5V out when the input was at approx 50V (115V input).
All the other voltages looked fine at full AC input. But there was this
little smell from R27.



You don't use Variacs with switch mode power supplies... not unless you
want to burn them up.   I'll sometimes use one, but only to provide a very
fast soft start.  Even that's risky.


Well. It depends if you read the schematics before you do so.


Assuming they're available for the particular PSU one is attempting to 
test.




I powered the startup voltage from a 12 V bench supply. Normally the
startup voltage comes from a small mains transformer and a 7812. Then I
supplied the primary side voltage for the main switch transistor using a
variac.


I wasn't aware of this interesting method; I'd also misread your 
original sentence and thought you were just using a variac alone to 
bring up the entire SMPS.




Works perfectly well if you know what you are doing. Have done this
practice with many SMPS supplies.
Just curious -- what is *your* reason for bringing up an SMPS with the 
help of a variac?


Thank you-
-J.

Re: VT100 PSU smelling.

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/23/2016 5:40 AM, Mattis Lind wrote:


This is a 0.0033 uF 1600VDC SPARAGUE capacitor. It looks nice and orange
and there are no signs of cracks whatsoever.

What is the likelihood of this being bad?


Not highly likely, but possible.  Just 
put another one in temporarily and see 
if it solves your problem.  Or try to 
measure what kind of current is causing 
the resistor to heat up -- is there AC 
across it, or is that cap leaking?


- J.

Re: ESR meter recommendations.

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/23/2016 9:22 AM, Mattis Lind wrote:

Yes. agree with you.I really should get oneWhat meter do you have and 
recommend?


I use the BLUE ESR Meter of AnaTek Corp 
(designed by Bob Parker).  I've been 
using it for several years and really 
like it.


- J.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/27/2016 8:42 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

I actually bought OS/2 with my own money. I was always extremely
averse to doing that.

It was good for its time, but NT 3.x was technically superior, just
lacking in the UI department.


Correct me if I'm remembering 
incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't NT 
a descendent of DEC VMS?


- J.

Re: What to Do with a PS/2?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/27/2016 1:14 PM, John Willis wrote:

Correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly (probably am), but wasn't
NT a descendent of DEC VMS?

As I understand it - an important caveat here - Windows NT was to some
extent a conceptual descendent of VMS, but that was more because the
same person was instrumental in designing both than because there was
an explicit inheritance relationship.

That would be Dave Cutler. You can see his philosophy clearly in both
systems. And he had little respect for Gordon Letwin and the OS/2 architecture, 
and open disdain for UNIX and its underlying stream-of-bytes, 
everything-is-a-file, everything-is-plaintext philosophy. IMO, NT offers a 
better kernel than OS/2, but nothing has ever matched the elegance and sheer 
power of the Workplace Shell as a graphical abstraction.


In relation to that, here's something 
interesting: 
http://toastytech.com/guis/wps.html


- J.

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 1/28/2016 8:37 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:


On faster, more modern systems, I use 
VirtualBox.  Just not worth the extra 
trouble finding drivers--but I suspect 
98SE will run on P4 systems as well.


The one thing I'm not seeing mentioned 
in re VirtualBox is that what if you 
have a legacy Win 98SE system with 
hardware in it, like a GPIB card or 
sound card?   Or if you have software 
that talks to hardware via serial or 
parallel ports eg. eprom burners, Zector 
ZVG vector graphic driver for MAME, etc.


The other hassle is having to 
essentially rebuild an Win98 (or any 
other) machine from scratch in order to 
try to replicate an existing setup.  I 
haven't seen any way to "capture" an 
existing machine and all its disk 
partitions -- especially when there's 
multiple partitions of different types 
-- and import it into the virtual 
world.   That'd be great.


- J.

Re: Can Windows 98SE run on an Intel I7 with SATA hard drives?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 2/4/2016 8:08 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Nothing older than Win7 on any Windows 
PC that accesses the Internet. This 
includes email.


Well, my 2 cents: I still use WinXP for 
all my primary, workhorse machines.  
Rarely have any issues with it.Win7 
is ok but annoyingly 
over-user-friendly.Win 98, though... 
I don't see the point of using it any 
more.  It can't do anything that XP 
can't do far better.


- J.

Re: Calibration of 8" floppy drive?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On Feb 5, 2016, at 21:46, Dan K <100dash...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are there any good alternative solutions I can do to replace it? I'm
sure I don't want the plastic touching the disk media.



I use felt cleaning pellets for a .20 
caliber pellet gun, and cut them to size.


- j.

Re: Farewell and thanks!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 2/6/2016 10:22 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On 5 February 2016 at 23:54, Steven Hirsch  wrote:

I've finally had my fill of the general grumpiness and bluntly worded
interactions on this list.

Over the years I have learned a lot and would like to particularly express
my thanks to Tony Duell, Fred Cisin and Chuck Guzis for being unfailingly
polite and very forthcoming with technical advice.

I apologise for the offence that I have given.

I am British, not American, and the tone of European converse is far
too abrupt and confrontational for an American-dominated forum. I was
rebuked by moderators twice that day alone for comments which I had
thought were reasonable and proportionate.

I was wrong. My comments were inappropriate. I regret them and
apologise for them.


On the other hand, Liam, maybe some 
people should just grow a bit of a 
thicker skin and understand that other 
cultures can be different.


- J.

Re: VAX 11/730 quickie

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 2/20/2016 7:03 PM, Mike Ross wrote:

I might just try all switches *closed* on the basis that maybe it was
wired wrong but... no doesn't make sense; the system would have been
operational when decommissioned; the switch settings as I received it
must be valid...


Make sure the switches are actually working.  Often, they're not.

- J.

Re: Front Panels - PDP8 and PDP 11

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 3/9/2016 1:03 PM, couryho...@aol.com 
wrote:

In a message dated 3/2/2016 3:32:48 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
rodsmallwoo...@btinternet.com writes:

...

The only  process deviations I have allowed myself are as  follows:


Rod, very interesting!  Do you have a 
description of the full process?   Or 
what is the process after the screens 
are made?


Thank you-
-John

Re: Which RT-11 for an 11/03

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 3/10/2016 8:24 PM, Richard Cini wrote:

Ok, I spent some time trying this again, and here’s what I did. The system is 
very basic — LSI-11 CPU, 32kw of RAM and two SLU cards.


Have you checked your SLU addresses and vectors to be sure they're 
standard values (ie. what RT11 is expecting)?  I realize XXDP is 
running, but just confirm anyway.




Based on the instructions on Malcom Macleod’s site, I prepared an RT-11 
TU58-target tape image from the base RK05 image from the SIMH distribution. The 
key incantation is:

COPY/BOOT:DD RK0:RT11SJ.SYS RK0:

What this should do is make the disk image bootable as a TU58 image.


Can you then boot the SIMH PDP-11 using that TU58 image?



Not sure where to go from here.


Well, you might really delve in and get yourself a real disk 
subsystem... RL02 or RX01.


- JS.

Re: Which RT-11 for an 11/03

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 3/10/2016 8:57 PM, Richard Cini wrote:
Maybe I’ll re-create the image again and see if that helps. I’m using 
the RT11v4 image from the SIMH distribution and it boots just fine (as 
an RK05 image) under SIMH. Rich 


Try making an RL02 image from the RK05 image in SIMH and booting from 
that (in SIMH).


- JS.

Re: Which RT-11 for an 11/03

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 3/10/2016 9:36 PM, Richard Cini wrote:
Separately… John — the SLUs are at what I think are the standard 
addresses and vectors (per the Heathkit and DLV11-J manuals) and the 
ODT and TU58EM work. I don’t know what RT-11 is looking for but the 
console @ 177560/60 and TU58 @ 176500/300 (Channel 3 and Channel 0 in 
DLV11-J parlance). I have not tried booting SIMH with the TU58 image 
(not sure how to do that; need to work on it). Regarding getting a 
real RX01 or RL02, the issue for me is space. It’s pretty convenient 
using a laptop and TU58EM (providing I can get something other than 
XXDPD2D to work). If someone has already built bootable TU58 RT-11 
images, I haven’t found them yet.


I have doubts that taking an RK05 image, and copying the DD: bootstrap 
in like that, and then simply taking that modified RK05 image and 
attempting to boot it as a TU58... I'm not sure if that could work.  
Just seems like there'd been some structural differences.  But I could 
be wrong.


I forget if either SIMH or Ersatz emulates a TU58.. but if they do, try 
making an empty tape container (I think TU58EM can do this) and then 
build up and RT11 system as outlined in the manual using one of the 
emulators.  Make sure it can boot in the emulator (if that's possible).


Do you know for sure if a real TU58 can even run RT-11?   Never tried it.

p.s.  you could also get yourself a qbus SCSI card, and have a much 
smaller disk subsystem.


- J.

Re: VMS 4.4 source code microfiche

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Can that scanner produce anything other 
than massive .png files?


- J.

On 3/11/2016 9:12 PM, devin davison wrote:

Well, I have the scanner and the time, I am going to put in online anyways.
It may not be the full source, but perhaps it will come in handy for
someone else.
  I only spent a few minutes scanning those 12 pages. It was a just a quick
initial run of the scanner to learn how to operate it and save the images.
Once i get it all scanned, I will post a link to it.

--Devin

On Fri, Mar 1

Re: A gold mine for anybody in Austin...

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Chances are, you'll waste a lot of your time dealing with nothing but 
trepidation, and get nowhere with what is probably NOT a gold mine.. but a 
hoarder junk mine.  Seriously, who writes meandering, confused ads like that, 
that don't even state what they have and prices?

You'll very often see ads out there that stipulate, "Serious Buyers Only."It's also 
well to heed that it should just as much be, "Serious Sellers Only."

- J.



On 3/13/2016 6:04 PM, James Vess wrote:

Good call!
He responded to me and I could hear his trepidation, so this is spot on.

I let him know it would be going to folks who would be taking care of them
or they'd be in storage at my place.

So, we'll see if he'll let them go and if not that's cool.
I completely understand as I did something similar with a G4 cube years ago
on CL, I felt bad but I just couldn't let it go because the only guy that
hit me up was going to do an ATX mod on it.

He said he'd get me some photos, lets will see what happens!

On Sunday, March 13, 2016, Eric Christopherson
wrote:


I contacted a guy who goes by Obsolete Geek on YouTube and Facebook. He's
in Texas (DFW I think) and does haul videos. He says that same guy is
always posting on Craigslist but is never willing to actually sell. Just
FWIW.

Re: Bitcoining on a 1401

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 5/28/2015 1:05 PM, emanuel stiebler wrote:

On 2015-05-28 12:00, Fred Cisin wrote:

On Thu, 28 May 2015, jwsmobile wrote:

I saw this article over on the Hercules group, and was amused.
http://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html 



Is the bitcoin output anywhere close to enough to pay for the costs of
running a 1401?


Probably not. Quoting the web page:
" ... but so slowly it would take more than the lifetime of the 
universe to successfully mine a block "


;-)




Wow.  Are common machines now really *billions* of times faster??

- J

Re: More on manuals plus rescue

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/19/2015 11:52 AM, Jason Scott wrote:

In closing, I might ask you to consider taking your sweet time getting
this stuff online. There are still some manual dealers out there. Let
them handle the decline of their business in whatever way they see
fit. All of them know it is just a matter of time - probably five
years or less. If you flood the net with the free scans, it might
really fuck them up. I know some of them, and it is not unreasonable
for me to think that they might get really annoyed by your efforts and
burn their libraries just for spite.

--
Will

That is a most interesting metric. I honestly hadn't considered that issue.
The key, I think, will be communication with them to understand which
manuals have sales going on, and which ones it would be advantageous to get
online because they have long dropped into historical myths. Thank you for
the advice. All of it.


A counterpoint to this might be to only 
scan manuals that are requested and 
can't be found anywhere else (with any 
reasonable ease).


- J.

Re: MEM11 Status Update

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/30/2015 1:08 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
The MEM11 is a multi-function memory 
board for Unibus based PDP-11 
computers.  It contains:


 * 128KW memory
 * Emulates console ROM & boot ROMs
 * 2 SLUs (DL11s)
 * KW11K
 * KW11P
 * KW11L
 * KW11W
 * RF11 (emulating up to 8 RS11 disks)
 * KE11


Guy,

  Fascinating and great work (not that 
I understand more than a bare minimum).


  Is this board something that will 
work with the PDP-11/05?  The 11/05 has 
a built-in console SLU which I'm not 
sure whether can be disabled or not.


Thank you-
-John

Re: Worst Video Game Ever was Re: Sales of unearthed Atari games total more than $100,000

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/31/2015 12:56 PM, et...@757.org wrote:
"3.5 million of the 4 million 
produced were sent back to the 
company as unsold inventory or 
customer returns. Despite sales 
figures, the quantity of unsold 
merchandise, coupled with the 
expensive movie license and the large 
amount of returns, made E.T. a major 
financial failure for Atari"
Thats not good for Atari, but that 
doesn't make it the worst game ever.
I agree with those who say Pac Man... 
I mean it looked nothing like the 
Arcade and it sounded like they 
sampled a rubber band.

Not a good game at all.


But it was the Atari 2600, at that day 
and age I don't think there was an 
expectation that the game on the home 
system would look like the arcade? It 
was from the era of tennis tv games 
and such? It had a mouth, and a pass 
thru, and ghosts and dots.


Colecovision and others started to 
change expectations. I guess it wasn't 
too long after ColecoVision that Atari 
8 bit computers and that brought with 
it pretty good ports of Arcade titles 
-- I was probably late to the 8bit 
atari (800XL here) I guess the people 
with the 400/800 were first to have 
arcade-ish gameplay. The 8bit 
computers still isn't as same as 
playing the real arcade PCB though. 
Just closer.


That day I got the NES. I think I 
hit reset 100 times over and over just 
to hear the intro music from the 
Gyromite cart. It had clear drumbeats! 
And multiple part music. It was so 
good. The reset button felt nice and 
quality even.



--
Ethan O'Toole



You're right re the expectations of that 
time.  It's very difficult to put 
oneself back in that naive mindset, to 
remember how things *first* struck us.


That said, however, I'm still quite 
happy playing with my Bally Arcade... ;-)


- J.

Re: MEM11 Status Update

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 11:39 AM, Jay Jaeger  wrote:


On 9/1/2015 10:01 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:

  run Unix V1

I am very interested in the MEM11 for this exact reason.  I have a
PDP-11/20 that I'd love to do this with.


You could also try Mini-Unix on your 11/20, which might support a wider range 
of devices.


Very interesting.  Does Guy's MEM11 provide what's needed for Mini Unix without 
having to write special drivers?

- John

Re: MEM11 Status Update

[j...@cimmeri.com]

  run Unix V1
I am very interested in the MEM11 
for this exact reason.  I have a
PDP-11/20 that I'd love to do this 
with.  [Ethan Dicks]


You could also try Mini-Unix on your 
11/20, which might support a wider 
range of devices.  [Jay Jaeger]


Very interesting.  Does Guy's MEM11 
provide what's needed for Mini Unix 
without having to write special 
drivers?  [John S.]


Not sure what Mini-Unix requires 
w.r.t. devices.


TTFN - Guy


I think Jay might know, but I copied and 
pasted the following paragraphs from 
some info I collected on Mini Unix:



"The normal configuration for MX 
includes a PDP-11/10 CPU with 28K words 
of memory and two RK05 disk cartridges 
for secondary. The PDP-11/10 processor 
is slower than the PDP-11/40 processor 
and does not have the full instruction 
set of the PDP-11/40 processor, thus 
requiring the emulation of the missing 
instructions. A typical C compilation 
requires about twice the total time of 
that required on the equivalent 
PDP-11/40 configuration. However, 
response to the editor commands is not 
significantly longer than on a more 
powerful CPU. The cost of a minimum 
configuration:


PDP-11/10 CPU
28K words memory
2 RK05 disk drives
KL11 interface to control console
DL11E interface to dial-up line
60 cycle clock

is of the order of $20,000 at today's 
prices (December 1976). This provides an 
inexpensive tool for software 
development in a UNIX time-sharing 
environment for those configurations 
which have insufficient hardware to 
support a full Version 6 UNIX system."




"The MINI-UNIX system runs on any PDP-11 
processor with 28K words of memory. The 
PDP-11 computer is a 16-bit word 
mini-computer with a UNIBUS for 
interfacing DEC peripherals to the CPU. 
The typical configuration consists of a 
PDP-11/10 CPU with 28K words of memory, 
a console terminal and an RK05 
moving-head disk controller with two 
removable disk cartridges for swapping 
and file system storage. Each RK05 disk 
pack has 2.5 Megabytes (8-bit byte) of 
storage. However, the MX system also 
supports the RF fixed-head disk (1 
Megabyte) and the RP03 and RP04 
moving-head disk controllers with 40M 
bytes and 80M bytes, respectively. Other 
peripherals supported include 
line-printer, Dectape, magtape and 
various asynchronous and synchronous 
interface units.


The system is normally configured to be 
12K words in size. This includes an 
emulation package for interpreting the 
10 extended instructions normally 
performed by the EIS hardware available 
as an option on some PDP-11 processors 
and standard on the PDP-11/45 processor. 
A minimum system has room for 6 or 7 
system buffers. As new drivers are added 
to the system, the number of system 
buffers must be decreased if the system 
size is maintained at 12K words. Thus it 
is recommended that for some 
applications it may be appropriate to 
add the drivers for only a few 
peripherals on any one version of the 
system and thus maintain a few versions 
of the system, one for each set of 
drivers desired concurrently in the 
system. This keeps the system size at 
12K words in order to be able to support 
all of the user software of Version 6 UNIX."

Re: Problem with RF73 DSSI disk

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/4/2015 5:41 PM, Johnny Billquist 
wrote:

On 2015-09-05 00:31, Holm Tiffe wrote:


Let me live the rest of my time like 
a child playing with old computers,
that's exactly why we are here; 
nothing else matters.


I know that people trying to help, 
trust me, I'm doing that in other,
cases with other people too and there 
are other people that pissing me

off. But: I don't have a killfile.


I do have a killfile. If people start 
offending me, or being generally 
obnoxious, I am obviously not going to 
change them, nor do I care enough to 
actually waste my time doing that. My 
time is precious enough to me as it is.
So the obvious solution is to just 
ignore them from that point on. They 
can go on ranting about how unfair 
people are to them, and I do not have 
to read it.


Johnny



Might I respectfully just quip here, 
that different countries have different 
culture re what is offensive.   His 
remarks did not bother me because they 
were "typically German."   Maybe me 
saying that will offend Holm... lol... 
but culture does play a large part here.


I think the best policy is to let as 
much as possible "slide" here in the 
online world... as it's just way, way 
too easy to either take things the wrong 
way, or much more heavily than intended, 
or whatever.


Just my 1 cent.

- John

Re: Problem with RF73 DSSI disk

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On Fri, 4 Sep 2015, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:
culture re what is offensive.   His 
remarks did not bother me because 
they were "typically German."   Maybe 
me saying that will offend Holm... 
lol...


On 9/5/2015 5:40 AM, Christian Corti 
wrote:
Hey, they weren't "typically 
German"... we don't want to make 
generalizations, do we?





[Johnny B wrote:]
I agree. And I'm Swedish myself, but 
living in Switzerland. And traveling a 
fair amount. I prefer to not make 
generalizations based on ethnicity or 
background. If people freely and 
voluntary spend their time 
helping, I also try not to be sarcastic. 
Christian





   I knew right after I sent it that 
the Politically Correct police would 
soon show up on that remark of mine.. ;-)


  What I meant to say, is that the 
*manner* in which he spoke -- and not 
the exact words themselves -- in my very 
limited but still partial experience of 
the wonderful German people (I'm not 
being sarcastic), and having attended a 
German school from grades 4-8, that the 
manner of speaking was *typical* of 
German culture -- in this case, meaning 
a bit blunt, a bit sarcastic, and a bit 
impatient.


   Like it or not, different countries 
have differing styles re communication.  
If you've ever at least been to France 
or Belgium and spoken with enough people 
to form an impression, you can't deny 
this reality.   I'm not passing a 
judgement here.. it's neither good nor 
bad.. it just is what it is.. and I 
think it quite lovely.


   Like it or not, I stand by this 
opinion.  :-)


- John.

Re: Problem with RF73 DSSI disk

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/5/2015 8:02 AM, Mouse wrote:

I think it where much more helpful to answer things like "Sorry don't
know, never had todo with that", vs.  simply saying nothing at all,
leaving the man that looks for help alone.

As a bystander, I would much rather see silence than some forty or
fifty "sorry, don't know anything about that" responses flooding the
list after every request for help.


I couldn't agree more, Mouse!  lol.

Holm, dude!   I'm not speaking for 
others, of course, but it is bothersome 
*to me* when someone posts to this list 
(or any other helpful list) with an air 
of entitlement and expectation that 
people are going to *immediately* 
provide *insane amounts* of spot-on 
support for whatever their problem is 
(no matter how esoteric), or even 
respond at all.  All responses are 
voluntary -- and we should all be 
gracious and thankful for *anything we 
get*.. and certainly not disparage the 
list if we get nothing.


Nothing is OWED to ANYONE.

Yet, in this regard, there are worse 
transgressions than Holm's faux pas.   
Some people seem to believe that these 
lists are staffed with paid technicians; 
they exert almost no effort in 
describing their system or situation or 
question ("How do I boot my S-100 
system?"), yet they seem to expect pages 
written back; and even more remarkably, 
some even give little to no thanks when 
it's all done.


It's a testament to the enormous 
generosity and kindness of many on this 
list and others, that people such as 
what I just described are uncritically 
catered to.


- John

Re: 21MX proms (per request)

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/8/2015 12:28 AM, Marc Verdiell wrote:

Thanks for the answers everyone, I am writing everything down...
Marc





Nice to hear that people are still *writing* things down...

- J.

Re: PDP-11/05 restoration project - anyone has a M7810 or M781?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/27/2015 2:56 PM, tony duell wrote:

The plan is to get it to work with the 8kW core memory, M7800 connected to
a good old teletype and PC05 paper-tape reader / punch and then run paper
tape BASIC on it or other paper tape software.



The problem is that I am lacking in the M7810 board. Since I do have a M105
and M7821 a M781 could do as well.

Why do you need a second serial port? The PDP11/05 CPU board set has a built-in
UART set to the console port address. In general it was set to be 110 baud, and
has a current loop interface, but that's just what you need for a teletype.

-tony



Curious: what if the built in one were 
faulty, or if you wanted to use rs-232 
instead of current loop?


- John

Re: PDP-11/10 repair started

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/5/2015 10:24 AM, Henk Gooijen wrote:


=
Sorry for the delayed answer, I don't 
have email available at work -:/


I have one M930 in slot 3 position 
A-B, because that is the termination
for the processor. I am pretty sure 
(not 100%) that I also have an M930
in slot 9 position A-B. To be 
complete, this is the current state.

slot 1 A-F : M7260
slot 2 A-F : M7261
slot 3 A-B : M930   C-D : G7273
slot 4 A-B : M9970  C-D : G7273
slot 5 C-D : G7273
slot 6 empty
slot 7 empty
slot 8 empty
slot 9 A-B : M930

Slot 6-7-8-9 is for core memory, 
respectively G235, H217D, G114, M8293.
The documentation says that a G727 
should go in slot 3-4-5 position D.
I hate those "knuckle-busters". Plus, 
I am lazy to check NPR continuity
on the backplane, so I installed 
G7273s instead of G727s. Always good.


I totally forgot that the GT40 is 
based on the 11/05. Great tip in case
it turns out that I have a "different" 
CPU module! You never know ...



Henk, I'm confused by your slot 
arrangement, but maybe my 11/05 is 
different than yours.


My module utilization is as follows, and 
is an 8k backplane (the 16k backplane is 
also different):


slot 9 A-F : M7260
slot 8 A-F : M7261
slot 7 A-F : G110
Slot 6 A-F :G231
Slot 5 AB : M930   C-F : H214
Slot 4 AB : blankC-F G727 in D4.
Slot 3 AB : M930   C-F G727 in D3
Slot 2 AB: KM11 Maint  C-F G727 in D2
Slot 1 AB: DF11 Comm  C-F G727 in D1

John

Re: A fruitfull evening

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On Apr 12, 2016, at 8:19 PM, drlegendre .  wrote:

"I suppose it might do that, but that's not its main purpose.  Its main
purpose is to loosen rusted and otherwise stuck fasteners and shafts."


That is *not* the main purpose of WD-40, nor does it even work well for 
that purpose *at all*.Rather, a penetrating lubricant like PB 
Blaster is for loosening rusted fasteners.


WD-40 is a very misunderstood -- albeit still very useful -- product.

- j.

Re: [OT] eBay tale (Was: Re: flea markets (was Re: Vintage Computer Festivals???))

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 4/20/2016 11:04 AM, Mark J. Blair wrote:

On Apr 19, 2016, at 10:09, Ali  wrote:

Well, eBay is killing itself slowly. Every year they make more and more
onerous and anti-buyer rules and policies.

Warning: Longish anti-eBay tale inbound!

... While I am disappointed that I can apparently never buy old computer and 
radio items on eBay ever again


That situation is indeed nuts.   But, on the bright side, if you only use eBay 
rarely, just have a relative or friend allow you to borrow their account when 
needed.

- J.

Re: General Question about UNIBUS backplanes

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 5/24/2016 8:37 AM, william degnan wrote:
...  I fixed the core problem I 
described in my email. ... Bill 


B, what was the issue with the core, 
that you fixed it so fast?


- J.

Re: http://hackaday.com/2016/05/29/dragging-teletypes-into-the-21st-century

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 5/29/2016 7:02 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:

On Sun, 29 May 2016, wulfman wrote:
http://hackaday.com/2016/05/29/dragging-teletypes-into-the-21st-century/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackaday%2FLgoM+%28Hack+a+Day%29&utm_content=FeedBurner+user+view 


--
The contents of this e-mail and any 
attachments are intended solely for 
the use of the named addressee(s) and 
may contain confidential and/or 
privileged information. Any 
unauthorized use, copying, 
disclosure, or distribution of the 
contents of this e-mail is strictly 
prohibited by the sender and may be 
unlawful. If you are not the intended 
recipient, please notify the sender 
immediately and delete this e-mail.


Did you have anything to say about it?
Or are you just dumping a URL on us?


That might be confidential, Fred.

Wulf: this link would have worked as well :
"http://hackaday.com/2016/05/29/dragging-teletypes-into-the-21st-century";


Tangent: is it true as written that 
*all*   "teletypes speak 5-bit ITA2 code 
"? 



- J.

Re: NEC ProSpeed 386

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 5/31/2016 2:01 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 05/31/2016 11:21 AM, Dave Wade wrote:


I don't like the Model "M" keyboard. It's a bit like wanting a
tracker organ rather than my Yamaha EL90. The keys require
significant pressure to operate and if you are not used to it its
actually hard work...

It could be a matter of what you learned to touch-type on.  For me, it
was a manual Underwood office machine.  It took some time to get used to
an electric typewriter--too twitchy.  One thing that's probably been
lost to time is the need for a uniform striking force when using a
manual typewriter.

With that in mind, the Model M is the best of the recent (<30 years) lot.

...

--Chuck


Interesting observations.  I learned to 
type on both an Apple II and a Brother 
electric typewriter (kinda like a 
daisywheel printer with a keyboard) 
but I'll never forget the first time I 
laid hands on the original IBM PC 
keyboard.   The quality of that feel!   
The quality of that sound!I didn't 
like the machine but I loved that 
spacious keyboard.


Many years later, it was nostalgia for 
that feel and sound that led me to 
connecting the 1994 model M I'm still 
using today, on any PC I use.   Any 
other keyboard just won't do.


- J.

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 6/2/2016 3:18 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:


OK Here's what I did

1.  Jumpers on underside of board all on

2. KDJ11-E in first slot

3. APM in second slot connected to CPU

4. nothing in slot 3

5. Unibus Control card in slot 4

6. RX02 Control card in slot 5

7 Bus Grant in 6,7 and 8

8 Bus term and MLM in slot 9

Turn machine on drop into ODT key 
location in and  press / get ?

same  for all of the others.

Rod




Do you have any way to capture a session 
log of what you're doing, and paste it here?


Hard to follow.

- J.

Re: PDP-11/94-E

[j...@cimmeri.com]

What are you using as a terminal?

- J.

On 6/2/2016 6:25 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:



Well I could use the wifes iPad to 
record the VT100's screen as a video

Rod





Do you have any way to capture a 
session log of what you're doing, and 
paste it here?


Hard to follow.

- J.

Re: Accessing a TK50 or TK70 from RT

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 6/12/2016 12:00 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:



On 12/06/2016 16:19, Jerome H. Fine 
wrote:

>Rod Smallwood wrote:

   Firstly one important fact 
that I did not know.  If you bulk 
erase a TK50 you can turn it into a 
TK70 tape with an INIT.

   Thank you I did not know that.


A bulk erase was the first thing that 
seemed to be the solution
since I had, fortunately, found a 
blank TK50 tape and was
able to use it to both read and write 
in a TK70.  There was
a long discussion, probably a decade 
ago, about CompacTape,
supposedly just for the TK50, and 
CompacTapeII, supposedly
just for the TK70.  From a Memorex 
internet site, probably over
10 years ago and long gone now, there 
was a table of all of the
physical characteristics of 
CompacTape.  While the tapes for
even higher density drives were 
different, the physical properties
of CompacTape (I) and CompacTapeII 
were IDENTICAL
So that also gave me the confidence 
to use the CompacTape
media in the TK70 drives - which gave 
excellent results.


Let us know if you are finally 
successful with the TK70 drives

and tapes.

   Secondly I have made a little 
discovery.  We all know the tapes go 
sticky and attach themselves to 
guide rollers etc.
  Well its not always the tape.  
I have three instances of tapes that 
would not feed or lace up where I 
got rid of the problem
  without doing anything to the 
tape at all.  In fact all subsequent 
tapes have had no problems.   It 
took 30 seconds and
  apart from taking the metal 
cover off the back off the drive I 
dismantled nothing.
  If I am right and can run a 
load of tapes through the drive. 
Then I'll say what I did. If I'm 
wrong then nobody will needlessly 
try my method.
  I will say its not cleaning 
the heads or the EOT sensors. You 
should do that any way.


It would be appreciated if you would 
state what you did in any case.
It is always helpful to know what has 
been tried and does not produce
a result since it can be ignored in 
the future.


  Its clear the way to go is 
bulk erase TK50 tapes and then to 
use the TK70 drive and controller.
  Was there ever a UNIBUS TQK70 
controller?


I never used Unibus, so I never found 
out.  YES!!  Bulk

erase is easy and does work well.

 RX02 and a RX01 (I have one of 
each and a spare chassis)
I'll be back to them when this 
tape situation is sorted.
I had got to the stage where I 
could get commands through to the 
drive electronics


I have an RX02 around which I have 
not used in a while.  My
preference, if I need the RX02 
hardware is to use the DSD 880/30
which has an RX03 drive which can 
also function as an RX02 and
also reads and writes RX01 media as 
well.  My RX03 drive has
been modified by placing a DPDT 
switch into the detection circuit
for the single-sided vs double-sided 
sensors.  That way, I can use
any RX02 floppy media as double-sided 
without having to punch
the extra holes.  The DY.MAC device 
driver from V04.00 of RT-11
contained extra code to support 
double-sided operation, but that
code was no longer present with the 
V05.00 of DY.MAC when
it was released in 1983.  So I added 
the code back and that
made the DYX.SYS device driver under 
RT-11 able to support
double-sided RX03 floppies.  However, 
the boot code is still
a bit stupid and can't boot a monitor 
file which is partly at the

end of side 1 and continues onto side 2.

   RD53 - Yes out of a bag of scrap 
drives I managed to get the remains 
of a bump stop out and replace it.
It produced one good 
drive which boots RT-11 every time.


I still have a few RD53 drives around 
which I stopped using.
I also converted a couple of 
Micropolis 1325 drives to
RD53 drives by adding jumper R7.  I 
really don't use
my PDP-11/83 very much since 
Ersatz-11 is really so
much more convenient and my goal for 
RT-11 is only

software bug fixes and enhancements.

Jerome Fine

Thanks Jerome

 Rod



Trim on long bottom posts, please.   
Especially if there's nothing 
interesting added at the bottom.


- J.

Re: Accessing a TK50 or TK70 from RT

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 6/12/2016 2:49 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:



On 12/06/2016 19:18, j...@cimmeri.com 
wrote:



On 6/12/2016 12:00 PM, Rod Smallwood 
wrote:



On 12/06/2016 16:19, Jerome H. Fine 
wrote:


I still have a few RD53 drives 
around which I stopped using.
I also converted a couple of 
Micropolis 1325 drives to
RD53 drives by adding jumper R7.  I 
really don't use
my PDP-11/83 very much since 
Ersatz-11 is really so
much more convenient and my goal 
for RT-11 is only

software bug fixes and enhancements.

Jerome Fine

Thanks Jerome

 Rod



Trim on long bottom posts, please.   
Especially if there's nothing 
interesting added at the bottom.


- J.


 ..--.. I trimmed it to a one line 
answer. That's as short as I can go




I was referring to most of the repeated 
material above your one line answer.


- J.

Re: Power cable identification

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 6/26/2016 10:56 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote:

On 2016-Jun-25, at 8:09 PM, Josh Dersch wrote:

What is the name of the rounded, 3-pin power connector often seen on early test 
equipment (I've seen it on older HP and Fluke stuff)?
  I have an S-100 chassis that inexplicably uses one, despite dating from 1982 
or so.

Is it a Cromemco? Inexplicable is right. The Cromemco Z2 S100 chassis from 1978 
used them, I don't know what they were thinking using it that late, unless they 
got a deal on a mass clearout.


I'm not the original poster, but I also 
had an S-100 chassis with that power 
plug.  I think it was a small California 
Computer System (CCS) model.


- J.

Re: Latest addition: A bondi-blue iMac

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/1/2016 9:00 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 9:09 PM, Terry Stewart  wrote:


Some would say this is not vintage, classic or collectible (and so
shouldn't be discussed here).  However, these are all subjected terms which
can be (and are!) argued about at length.



Wouldn't have guessed to discuss an iMac 
here, but rather than picking & choosing 
certain computer models as being 
appropriate to discuss here or not, 
wouldn't it just be easier (and fairer) 
to define a certain number of years past 
which it *is* appropriate?Or has 
this already been stipulated?


By way of comparison, in my state 
(Maryland), any car over 20 years is 
considered "historic" as long as it's 
pretty much a stock vehicle, or "street 
rod" for cars over 25 that have been 
substantially modified.Most cars 
I've seen with historic plates obviously 
qualify for the rank, but some are 
pretty laughable -- old junkers clearly 
just tagged as such to avoid inspection 
requirements.


- J.

Re: Latest addition: A bondi-blue iMac

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/1/2016 11:48 AM, Ian Finder wrote:

The original iMac is old enough to vote... And besides, I don't think
drawing a chronological line in the sand is necessarily sensible.

Just don't violate the spirit of classic computing? (A G5 tower that you
run Linux on is not classic computing, for instance)

Likewise there are Packard Bell X86 older than that iMac, that would
qualify by most age limits I'd expect to be imposed, but that I'd cringe at
seeing discussed here.

If you post your Mattel HotWheels PC here, it might be worth getting
irritated. But there is no upgrade path from classic MacOS, and it's not
X86, so I'd say it has far more of a place here than the constant 30+
message modern-OS RANT threads I'm constantly subjected to on here.

- Ian


Computers don't (yet) have voting 
rights. :-)


But you're defining "spirit" and listing 
criteria by which a machine is 
appropriate or not.   A PS/2 with an 
80386 running Windows 3.1 is acceptable, 
whereas a Packard Bell with an 80386 
running Windows 3.1 is not.Yeah, you 
and I would cringe at a PB being 
discussed, but maybe there's someone out 
there who really is fond of their PB.


So as Terry ("Tezza") acknowledges, 
terms like "landmark," "classic," 
"collectible" are subjective (but I 
don't think "vintage" is subjective -- 
that term is usually set by age alone).


This is why it's just easier to use a 
single criteria -- age -- and leave it 
at that.   Why is age acceptable 
everywhere else in collecting, but not 
here? Otherwise, someone (the list 
owner?) has to pontificate over a list 
of acceptable computers.  Good luck with 
that.


- J.

Re: Running CRTs without implosion protection glass

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/1/2016 2:03 PM, Toby Thain wrote:

On 2016-07-01 2:46 PM, Ian Finder wrote:
That was my thought too- color CRTs 
are where this really mattered- which

is why I mentioned black and white.

I am not overly concerned, someone in 
the IRC channel I'm in asked and I
thought I'd ping. Even then, in a 
color CRT without any lead shielding, 
I'd
bet the emissions pale in comparison 
to any kind of real medical X-ray.


Not a very good comparison because one 
is pointed at your head for months or 
years and the latter is momentary.


--Toby


The body can handle very low-level, 
constant radiation.  This is 
self-evident as radiation exists pretty 
much everywhere naturally -- at a very 
low level.


It gets problematic either above a 
certain constand level, or with sudden 
(or instantaneous) higher doses.Dose 
over time matters, but there is 
apparently some cumulative effect as well.


- J.

Re: Latest addition: A bondi-blue iMac

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/1/2016 2:33 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
"I wasn't here for the last XXX number 
of times that that flamewar raged" is 
not an acceptable reason to 
deliberately re-ignite it.


It is an easy, fully objective 
parameter for OLD machines, not for 
"classic" machines, which is subjective.


If you want to create a separate list, 
where that is the criterion, DO SO.

I will be happy to subscribe to it.
I inherited my mother's Win95 
"e-machine", with all the stickers on 
it; who wants it?   I have plenty of 
old machines, many of which are not 
classic.
But age is explicitly NOT part of the 
criteria on THIS list.


That battle has been fought!.


I fully get the distinction between -- 
for instance -- a classic Ford Mustang 
and a classic Ford Pinto.


Everyone agrees, the Mustangs are 
classic, but there *are* people who are 
into Pintos.


- J.

Re: Second release of the HP 3000 Series III simulator

[j...@cimmeri.com]

As always, amazing, Dave!

- J.

On 7/7/2016 10:36 AM, J. David Bryan wrote:

The second release of the HP 3000 Series III simulator is now available
from the Computer History Simulation Project (SIMH) site:

   https://github.com/simh/simh

This release adds a simulation of the HP 2607, 2613, 2617, and 2618 line
printers and supports the use of custom VFU tape images, as well as the
built-in HP-standard VFU tape.  The full set of configurable options is
detailed in a new section of the HP 3000 Simulator User's Guide that is
provided in Microsoft Word format in the "doc" subdirectory of the code
base snapshot downloaded from the github site.  A PDF version of the
updated manual is also available at:

   http://alum.mit.edu/www/jdbryan/hp3000_doc.pdf

In addition, the preconfigured MPE-V/R disc image available from Bitsavers:

   http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/HP/HP_3000/

...has been updated to add the following features:

   - The MPE cold load command files attach the line printer to the "lp.txt"
 output file and specify the "-n" option to clear the file before use.

   - Preinstalled User-Defined Commands (UDCs) provide access to the COBOL
 74 compiler with the MPE-V/E :COBOLII, :COBOLIIPREP, and :COBOLIIGO
 commands, and to the COBOL 85 compiler with :COBOLIIX,
 :COBOLIIXPREP, and :COBOLIIXGO.  However, note that the simulator
 currently does not provide the HP 32234A COBOL II firmware
 instructions, so programs generated by the COBOLII compiler will
 abort at run time with "ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION" errors, limiting the
 current utility of the compilers to syntax checking.

Thanks once again go to Frank McConnell for providing the HP line printer
subsystems manuals that facilitated development of the new simulation, and
to Robert Mills for providing the COBOLII UDCs.

   -- Dave

Re: DEC and Emulex boards

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/18/2016 7:07 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:


I hear that the PSUs that went with the systems these boards came from 
might still survive (they did as of last week, anyway), but the word 
is that everything else - drives, racks, cables etc. - went to 
landfill long ago.



Landfill?   Or metals recycling?

- J.

Re: Possibly rarest Apple 1 ever for auction

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/21/2016 3:42 PM, Evan Koblentz wrote:
Possibly the rarest Apple 1 ever is up 
for auction.


The seller is working through 
CharityBuzz, which will display the 
computer at VCF West next month.


CB's auction site: 
http://apple1.charitybuzz.com/


MacRumors covered it: 
http://www.macrumors.com/2016/07/21/charitybuzz-auctioning-unique-celebration-apple-1/ 




The article doesn't appear to say, but 
does anyone know where this Apple came from?


- J.

Re: memory map for RT-11 v 5

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/24/2016 10:06 AM, william degnan 
wrote:

...

One thing to remember is 16KW in a pdp11 is not the same thing that simh
refers to when one sets the CPU to 16K.  WWW do not all make this
distinction clearly.  I get it, just making this comment for future readers
of this thread.

Bill



What is the distinction?

- J.

Question re Teac MT-2ST encoder roller tire

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Recently acquired a Teac MT-2ST SCSI 
cassette tape drive and am

attempting to recondition it.

Although it does have direct drive 
motors on both reels (no rubber bands),
the design is still plagued by having a 
rubber roller "tire" on its encoder
roller which has turned to a very sticky 
goo for half its length on my unit.


Thankfully, Bitsavers not only has the 
service manual for this unit, but
also photos!  This photo shows the 
encoder roller and tire:


http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/teac/MT-2ST/photos/2.JPG


The tire appears to be 1 cm wide, 1.5mm 
thick, and ~1/4" tall (for
the 1/4" tape).   The tire is inset into 
the metal roller wheel.


Has anyone successfully attempted 
replacing this tire, and if so, how

did you do it?

I've removed the tire -- half of which 
was pure goo -- and am thinking
maybe to fill the tire inset void with 
an elastomeric caulk, smoothing it
out to meet the outer edge of the rest 
of the roller.


A really short rubber band about the 
size of a pinky finger would work

nicely also.

Thank you-
-John

Re: Question re Teac MT-2ST encoder roller tire

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 7/29/2016 2:29 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 07/29/2016 12:07 PM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

Recently acquired a Teac MT-2ST SCSI cassette tape drive and am
attempting to recondition it.

Although it does have direct drive motors on both reels (no rubber
bands), the design is still plagued by having a rubber roller "tire"
on its encoder roller which has turned to a very sticky goo for half
its length on my unit.

Instead of fooling around with a baling-wire-and-bubblegum solution,
you're probably best off sending the roller for rebuilding by Terry:

http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/

He does a bang-up job and he's not frighteningly expensive.  You'll get
something back that will last for many years.

--Chuck



Thank you, Chuck.   I'll give my idea a 
try first, and then Terry's as a last 
resort.


I'll report back here with results as 
they occur.


- John

Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

  Hi, folks.

  I'm experimenting with various old 
SCSI tape drives to see which
will work with my PDP-11/34 with an 
Emulex SCSI card.


  To my surprise, not all SCSI tape 
drives are created equal.  I
was under the mistaken assumption that 
all SCSI tape drives would
pretty much be abstracted the same way 
by the SCSI interface.


  Drives that are working fine are:

  - Archive Python DAT
  - Exabyte 8mm
  - Cipher 995 9 track
  - any of the DEC branded DLT drives


  Drives that aren't recognized are:

  - Teac MT-2ST (this drive seems 
completely nonstandard -- can't
 even use it as an ASPI 
drive under MSDOS)


  - OnStream Advanced Digital Recording 
(ADR) SC-30 (doesn't
 work under MSDOS / 
ASPI either, but does work
 under Windows 98(!) 
with a special driver.
 Won't work under WinXP 
with same driver.


  - Quantum branded DLT drives (work 
fine under MSDOS / ASPI)





  Question: So, even though some tape 
drives physically have a SCSI
interface, are they different in some 
other way such as to require
special software to use them?   Or maybe 
there were different
SCSI standards?  Or is the standard 
simply imperfect?


  Any commentary, appreciated.  Thank you.

- John

Re: Beaten by VT100 PSU.

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/17/2016 1:19 PM, tony duell wrote:

More load _reduces_ the ripple? That's very unusual.

Perhaps a parasitic oscillation that's defeated by more load
because now the loop gain is below 1?

But loading the +5V output also reduces the ripple on the +12V
output. Loading the +5V output would, I think, vary the mark-space
ratio of the drive to the main chopper and thus the drive signal to
the 555 in the +12V regulator. Not that I can see how that would
affect things.

-tony


And yet, I've had several times where more load smoothed out a whining SMPS.

The most simple explanation is a cap problem somewhere causing an instability.

Mattis, have you checked ALL the electrolytic caps in your power supply, and 
beyond just simple ESR testing?   Have you properly reformed all these caps?

- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Thanks very much, Mouse, Paul, Maciej, 
and Guy for helping me
understand my SCSI tape drives.  I had 
no idea!


- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/17/2016 2:38 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/17/2016 11:07 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

I'm experimenting with various old SCSI tape drives to see which will
work with my PDP-11/34 with an Emulex SCSI card.

To my surprise, not all SCSI tape drives are created equal.  I was
under the mistaken assumption that all SCSI tape drives would pretty
much be abstracted the same way by the SCSI interface.

Well, let's get to the nub of things--exactly what commands aren't
supported in each particular drive?  At a minimum, they should all
provide a response to an "IDENTIFY" command.


Hi, Chuck.  Excellent question -- and they do respond per your minimum, but 
beyond that, I'm not sure.  When a drive wouldn't work, I only thought to check 
for unit ready, unit identify, and to see what would happen with a START or 
STOP unit command.

Even the Teac MT-2ST would respond to those 3 (for the START or STOP command, it 
retensions the entire tape).   Interestingly, the Teac also doesn't provide a unit name 
like all the others do eg. "ARCHIVE PYTHON etc..."   It just shows up as a 
blank during bootup on a PC with an Adaptec SCSI card.  This lack of name seems to make 
it invisible to Windows (XP) ASPI.

I have MSDOS software than allows one to issue direct SCSI commands, but doing 
that is beyond my present know-how.

Thank you-
-John









6-byte CDBs for read and write are probably supported across all drives
as well, though there are some cases of special "flags".

REWIND should be supported and possibly SPACE commands.  After that,
it's a craps shoot.  Not everyone adhered to the ANSI spec.

Back when I was writing forensic tools, I had to deal with a wide range
of SCSI drives.  I quickly learned to pare my command set down to a
minimum and how to deal gracefully with unsupported features.

Andy Johnson-Laird used to refer to "SCSI Voodoo" and he wasn't far off
the mark.

--Chuck

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/17/2016 6:17 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/17/2016 02:59 PM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


Hi, Chuck.  Excellent question -- and they do respond per your
minimum, but beyond that, I'm not sure.  When a drive wouldn't work,
I only thought to check for unit ready, unit identify, and to see
what would happen with a START or STOP unit command.

Even the Teac MT-2ST would respond to those 3 (for the START or STOP
command, it retensions the entire tape).   Interestingly, the Teac
also doesn't provide a unit name like all the others do eg. "ARCHIVE
PYTHON etc..."   It just shows up as a blank during bootup on a PC
with an Adaptec SCSI card.  This lack of name seems to make it
invisible to Windows (XP) ASPI.

I have MSDOS software than allows one to issue direct SCSI commands,
but doing that is beyond my present know-how.

Well, that's all good.  SCSI tape covers a lot of ground--from 9 track
1/2" open-reel drives and includes various technologies, from simple
DCxxx QIC carts, to DDS, SLT, DLT...  All have their peculiarities.

For example, some permit rewriting of blocks; others put this strictly
off-limits.  Lots of features are vendor-optional, which include things
such as partitioned data sets and robot auto-loaders.  Read-after-write
verification is optional (but is a good thing, particularly if the drive
firmware includes recovery by erase-and-rewrite.

Linux can be pretty decent about a one-size fits all and has several
optional packages that people have submitted, including the st toolkit.

If you can program C, I might have some DOS I/O library functions that
may interest you.

Generally speaking, the "safe, always there" commands are INQUIRY
(0x12), TEST UNIT READY (0x00), REWIND (0x01), REQUEST SENSE (0x03),
READ(6) (0x08), WRITE(6) (0x0a)  WRITE FILEMARKS (0x10), MODE SENSE
(0x1a), MODE SELECT (0x15), UNLOAD (0x1b) and perhaps SPACE (0x11).


Chuck,

  Where might I find information on how to form SCSI command data blocks so as to try the 
above commands?   I sent just an "01" to the TEAC MT-2ST, and it did rewind.. 
but did not react to any of the other above commands just by sending single bytes.

  Oddly, the OnStream drive did *not* accept an 01 command.

Thank you-
-John



Of course, commands such as MODE SENSE, MODE SELECT and REQUEST SENSE
have variable implementations.  Status for a given condition isn't
guaranteed to be the same across devices; for instance on the Qualstar
SCSI half-inch drives like to return a record of zero length instead of
setting the "filemark hit"  status on a read operation.

Generally speaking, however, as long as you stick to the above list and
the simplest options, you'll be good with anything.

--Chuck

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/19/2016 2:16 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/19/2016 11:18 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

apparently it isn't SCSI

http://oldcomputer.info/media/teac/index.htm

But the product spec about says (top of PDF page 6):

Interface:  In compliance with SCSI ANSI X3.131-1986

..and the remainder of the document certainly would seem to imply SCSI,
right down to the "SCSI ID" selections.

--Chuck



There were 2-3 versions.  One was SCSI, 
the next QIC-02, and the last, some raw 
interface called "BASIC."I've both a 
SCSI and a QIC-02 version.


- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Al, you don't happen to have this 
anywhere, do you?


"Small Computer System Interface: An 
Overview and a Developer's Guide"


Company:Digital Equipment Corporation
Part:   EK-SCSIS-DK



-John

On 8/19/2016 1:18 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

apparently it isn't SCSI

http://oldcomputer.info/media/teac/index.htm

On 8/19/16 11:08 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/19/2016 09:24 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


Where might I find information on how to form SCSI command data
blocks so as to try the above commands?   I sent just an "01" to the
TEAC MT-2ST, and it did rewind.. but did not react to any of the
other above commands just by sending single bytes.

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/19/2016 1:08 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/19/2016 09:24 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


Where might I find information on how to form SCSI command data
blocks so as to try the above commands?   I sent just an "01" to the
TEAC MT-2ST, and it did rewind..

John, what's your working OS platform?  For fooling with SCSI, the ASPI
interface of MS-DOS is pretty straightforward--and easy to use.


Chuck, for the purposes of testing the Teac drive, I'm using MSDOS on a 486 PC 
platform with an Adaptec SCSI interface.




http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/ADAPTEC/adaptec/aspi_dos.txt

..and if you goof up, just hit the RESET button and you're back in
business in a few seconds.

A CDB's a CDB, so whatever you learn on DOS can easily be transfered to
other OS interfaces (SPTI, SG, CAM, etc.).

As far as tape-drive specific commands, there's always an ANSI T10
document, but that's like trying to learn about parking regulations from
a university law library--it's probably all there, but you'll have to
plow your way through a lot of stuff.  FWIW, T10 doesn't refer to the
things as "tape drives", but "sequential access devices".  Here's a T10
draft:

http://hackipedia.org/Hardware/SCSI/Stream%20Commands/SCSI-3%20Stream%20Commands.pdf

By far and away, the best place to learn practical SCSI interfacing is
from vendor's manuals themselves.  One I found particularly useful was
the HP 35470 DDS drive OEM product manual.  Very clear writing style.

Bitsavers is full of product manuals detailing exactly what and how a
product supports.


Thanks very much for providing these resource links.


So to recap what it is I *was* trying to do, and am *now* trying to do,
for any readers that are still curious about this:

I was going through various tape drives to see which would be compat with
an Emulux UC07 SCSI interface on a PDP-11/34 and also a Microvax III with
a CMD SCSI interface.

A good -- but not guaranteed -- predictor of which drives would work, is
to first see how well the tape drive will talk to Bart Lagerweij's
SCSI Tool Utility (an MSDOS program) with the drive connected to a PC.

I ran into problems with two drives: an OnStream ADR SC-30 and a Teac
MT-2ST 60MB drive.   I was most hoping the Teac would work as it's a
pretty cool little device, and is closest in vintage to the 11/34
of all my tape drives except for a DEC TS05 and TSZ07.


Unfortunately, I could only get the OnStream the work connected to a
Windows machine -- with the right driver.  Only with the right driver,
will it work with NT Backup or other software.

The Teac isn't working anywhere yet, although the drive appears to
be functional and is responding to a few primitives.

Neither of these two drives is going to work with the 11/34, so that
matter is closed.


The final matter is that I'd still like to get the Teac to function
with some software, just to watch it operate (you have to really like
mechanical things to understand this strange fascination).  Having put
some time and $ into the Teac, it'd be nice to get some reward, even
if only then it gets placed on the shelf afterwards.


- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Hi, Mike.  See further below where I mention Bart Lagerweij's
SCSI Tool Utility (an MSDOS program) with the drive connected
to a PC.

- John


On 8/21/2016 12:34 PM, Mike Stein wrote:

What are you using to send/receive the commands?

m


- Original Message -
From:
To:; "discuss...@classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic 
Posts"
Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2016 1:12 PM
Subject: Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?




On 8/19/2016 1:08 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/19/2016 09:24 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


Where might I find information on how to form SCSI command data
blocks so as to try the above commands?   I sent just an "01" to the
TEAC MT-2ST, and it did rewind..

John, what's your working OS platform?  For fooling with SCSI, the ASPI
interface of MS-DOS is pretty straightforward--and easy to use.

Chuck, for the purposes of testing the Teac drive, I'm using MSDOS on a 486 PC 
platform with an Adaptec SCSI interface.




http://ftp.isu.edu.tw/pub/Hardware/ADAPTEC/adaptec/aspi_dos.txt

..and if you goof up, just hit the RESET button and you're back in
business in a few seconds.

A CDB's a CDB, so whatever you learn on DOS can easily be transfered to
other OS interfaces (SPTI, SG, CAM, etc.).

As far as tape-drive specific commands, there's always an ANSI T10
document, but that's like trying to learn about parking regulations from
a university law library--it's probably all there, but you'll have to
plow your way through a lot of stuff.  FWIW, T10 doesn't refer to the
things as "tape drives", but "sequential access devices".  Here's a T10
draft:

http://hackipedia.org/Hardware/SCSI/Stream%20Commands/SCSI-3%20Stream%20Commands.pdf

By far and away, the best place to learn practical SCSI interfacing is
from vendor's manuals themselves.  One I found particularly useful was
the HP 35470 DDS drive OEM product manual.  Very clear writing style.

Bitsavers is full of product manuals detailing exactly what and how a
product supports.

Thanks very much for providing these resource links.


So to recap what it is I *was* trying to do, and am *now* trying to do,
for any readers that are still curious about this:

I was going through various tape drives to see which would be compat with
an Emulux UC07 SCSI interface on a PDP-11/34 and also a Microvax III with
a CMD SCSI interface.

A good -- but not guaranteed -- predictor of which drives would work, is
to first see how well the tape drive will talk to Bart Lagerweij's
SCSI Tool Utility (an MSDOS program) with the drive connected to a PC.

I ran into problems with two drives: an OnStream ADR SC-30 and a Teac
MT-2ST 60MB drive.   I was most hoping the Teac would work as it's a
pretty cool little device, and is closest in vintage to the 11/34
of all my tape drives except for a DEC TS05 and TSZ07.


Unfortunately, I could only get the OnStream the work connected to a
Windows machine -- with the right driver.  Only with the right driver,
will it work with NT Backup or other software.

The Teac isn't working anywhere yet, although the drive appears to
be functional and is responding to a few primitives.

Neither of these two drives is going to work with the 11/34, so that
matter is closed.


The final matter is that I'd still like to get the Teac to function
with some software, just to watch it operate (you have to really like
mechanical things to understand this strange fascination).  Having put
some time and $ into the Teac, it'd be nice to get some reward, even
if only then it gets placed on the shelf afterwards.


- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/21/2016 12:46 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/21/2016 10:12 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


The final matter is that I'd still like to get the Teac to function
with some software, just to watch it operate (you have to really
like mechanical things to understand this strange fascination).
Having put some time and $ into the Teac, it'd be nice to get some
reward, even if only then it gets placed on the shelf afterwards.


Back in the day, I wondered if the DDS drives being as complex as they
were, with the skinny less-than-4mm wide tape could even have the
possibility of any longevity.

But the old DDS-1 tapes I recorded more than 20 years ago are still
quite readable as are the DDS-4 tapes I wrote over a decade ago.  One
advantage that DDS (and DLT...) has over most of the "QIC" tapes is that
they use a read-after-write system like the big 1/2" tape drives, making
a separate verification pass unnecessary.  They also tend to follow the
ANSI sequantial-access SCSI standard more carefully.

You may want to consider DDS or DLT for your DEC gear.

--Chuck



Chuck,

  I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment.  I do have a
variety of 4mm, 8mm, and DLT tape drives in addition to the
problematic ones discussed earlier.  But trying other, novel
mechanisms that contain brilliant design ideas is quite a
bit as fun as well, beyond just the practical concern.

  Bet: I think 9 track or DLT will outlast them all, mechanism
longevity included.  Specifically, I think my HP 7970E will
likely outlast every other mechanism / media combination I've
got, with the only uncertainty being the longevity of 9 track
media... but there, at least I've got a Mark III tape cleaner.

- John

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/21/2016 6:15 PM, Al Kossow wrote:


On 8/21/16 4:08 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

  8mm
(Exabyte) drives have a pretty good chance of survival

nope, the transport has rubber rollers that crack, and
little rubber belts.



Al,

Is that true for both the full height and half height models?

- John

Re: Turbo Pascal v3.01a for CP/M...

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Gene, see attached.  Is that right?

- John

On 8/23/2016 11:10 AM, geneb wrote:


I'm not after a generic Pascal.  It 
has to be Borland's Turbo Pascal, 
v3.01a for CP/M.


tnx.

g.

Re: Halt and Catch Fire Tonight

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/24/2016 10:50 AM, et...@757.org wrote:
Cool.  I supplied all of the 
magazines (1986) covers for this 
season.  Look
on the office tables, etc.  I have 
these available (images not the actual
mags) if anyone else wants them.  Let 
me know privately.

Bill


Awesome

I just did some research and I guess 
the Amiga was coming out at the time.


But V.22 wasn't a competitor to HST! :-)

Pretty wild that retro computers are 
such a thing now that prime time TV 
shows are based around it.



I don't think it's the retro computers 
that are the subject, but rather,
the  pioneering efforts and often 
flamboyant personalities involved.


- John

Re: Halt and Catch Fire Tonight

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/24/2016 11:52 AM, Geoff Oltmans wrote:

On Aug 24, 2016, at 11:06 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

I don't think it's the retro computers that are the subject, but rather,
the  pioneering efforts and often flamboyant personalities involved.

- John


Here I was thinking it was a period drama rather than a documentary!


Who said anything about it being a documentary?  It's a period drama largely
based on the kinds of flamboyant personalities that pioneered much of the
personal computer industry.  While retro computers are in the show, I don't
view it as being about the retro computers themselves.

- J.

Re: Are old SCSI tape drives not all created equal?

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 8/21/2016 6:47 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 08/21/2016 04:15 PM, Al Kossow wrote:


nope, the transport has rubber rollers that crack, and little rubber
belts.


That's the transport; but what are the shortcomings of the medium itself?

FWIW, I've got at least one DDS drive with rubber parts that have turned
to goo.

--Chuck



Which brand & model drives, Chuck?

There appear to be different kinds of 
material used for the rollers.  For 
instance,
with a 1999 OnStream DI30 (parallel port 
30gb) ADR drive, it's a typical black
rubber roller like you'd see in many QIC 
drives, and it's turned completely to goo.


But the SCSI version of the same drive 
-- a 1999 SC30 -- has a red roller that 
appears
to be maybe a silicone rubber.. and it's 
still in perfect shape.


A 1996 SCSI Seagate DDS-1 DAT drive, on 
the other hand, has what I guess is the
pinch roller. It's not gooey, but is 
showing cracks..  Seems like a hard, 
black rubber.


So at least one type of rubber 
liquifies, and at least one type hardens 
and cracks.


Very perplexing.

- John

Re: Repairing Tape Leader Damage in TK70 Drive

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Are they still for sale?

On 8/26/2016 2:12 PM, Mark Wickens wrote:

I tried fashioning my own leaders from various materials but could never
find one robust and flexible enough compared to the originals, so did in
the end resort to buying a stock.

On 26 August 2016 at 19:23, shad  wrote:


Hello Rob,
I don't think the leader can be repaired, as the used polymer doesn't
react well with glues, simply out will not be robust enough.
But if you have some patience and a sharp knife, topi can cut out new
leaders from black plastic layers, I used old X ray films of the bones.
I did it for all of my drives (only had broken at start), and it worked.
For me it was tricky to find the right shape of the original leader, but
you have the damaged one...

Andrea

Re: The huge lot that had the NIB 8" floppies is now on ebay

[j...@cimmeri.com]

If there's ever a vote taken up for whether to ban the constant 
billboarding of ebay ads here,
I'm for "ban."   People who know how to use ebay do not need help 
finding things on ebay.



On 9/5/2016 10:31 PM, Electronics Plus wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/191960867958



Apparently the buyer backed out, and the entire lot is now available as ONE
lot. There is no reserve.



Cindy Croxton

Re: The huge lot that had the NIB 8" floppies is now on ebay

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/5/2016 11:49 PM, Mark Linimon wrote:

On Mon, Sep 05, 2016 at 10:56:24PM -0500, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

If there's ever a vote taken up for whether to ban the constant billboarding
of ebay ads here, I'm for "ban."

I would subscribe to a spin-off list that was merely for buy/sell/trade.

mcl


That would be my preference as well.  A "cce...@classiccmp.org" list.

Or at least in an indication in the subject line "ebay: [topic]" so they 
can get filtered out.


- J.

Re: The huge lot that had the NIB 8" floppies is now on ebay

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/6/2016 9:51 AM, Jason Howe wrote:
On 09/06/2016 04:31 AM, Rob Jarratt 
wrote:


Some of us find them useful or 
interesting.




I agree. The volume of these eBay 
emails is not high. It would be 
another matter if there were really a 
lot of these emails, but as it is I 
find them useful/interesting.
Same here.  I don't troll ebay 
regularly and only have a couple very 
specific saved searches.  Some pretty 
interested stuff comes up on ebay 
occasionally which I might not have 
seen otherswise.



Just curious -- this stuff that's come 
up, that you might not have seen 
otherwise, how often was it anything 
really needed?   How often have you 
bought any of it?


I too admit to having found some of 
these ebay postings to be interesting.  
But in the end, they were just 
distractions from what was more 
important to me: the scores of 
electronics projects I've already got 
... purchased almost entirely from... 
you got it -- eBay. All of which 
were found without the assistance of 
extra postings outside of ebay.


I suppose I'm making a larger point, 
that if you didn't try to find it 
yourself, maybe you didn't really need 
it to begin with.  Maybe it's better for 
your wallet that you never saw it to 
begin with.  Countless interesting 
things happen every day that we simply 
can't become aware of.  It's not 
necessary see or purchase every single 
interesting thing, nor possible to 
become aware of every single interesting 
thing or event in a day.


Over-distraction and over-consumption is 
definitely a growing bane of the current 
world.


So that's all I'm saying: re-advertising 
here what is already advertised and 
readily found on ebay itself (if you are 
realistic and understand that you might 
not be able to find every single 
instance of something that interests you 
nor is it necessary that you do so) is 
distracting.


On the other hand, if someone had some 
magical powers of discovery on ebay, and 
posted things that nobody else could 
possibly find, that'd be cool.


- J.

Re: Logic Analyser Advice

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/10/2016 3:34 AM, Rob Jarratt wrote:

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Noel Chiappa
Sent: 10 September 2016 02:54
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Logic Analyser Advice


The key for me was to find the original Tek part number for the pods and
probes, and then search for that. The same might work for this HP thingy.



I have tried that, not found much so far (one item on the wrong side of the 
pond), but I will keep looking.

Regards
Rob



I have a bunch of what you're looking 
for my 1630G pods, but in looking at 
them, I'm not seeing any part #'s of any 
kind stamped directly on them... which 
is likely going to make them a bit 
harder to find.


- J.

Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...)

[j...@cimmeri.com]

Why in your opinion was it a failed 
experiment?


I had one and liked it very much.

- J.


On 9/12/2016 3:15 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

Put it this way. The product manager for the cube was the first person
I know of who had one as a kleenex dispenser. It was a failed industrial
design experiment that never should have shipped and even he felt that
way.


On 9/12/16 11:39 AM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote:

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:


They make nice Kleenex dispensers.

Re: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/14/2016 8:50 AM, Liam Proven wrote:

On 14 September 2016 at 03:08, Chuck Guzis  wrote:

There were networking packages for the PC early on.  Remember Banyan? They date 
from 1985. Corvus?  Even Datapoint had an ARCnet facility for PCs in 1984. 
Quite a few vendors had 802.3 capability.  Networking, however disorganized, 
was a very hot thing by 1987.


This is quite interesting in terms of an Europe/NorAm divide.

I entered the business in 1988. After 25y in support, working on
thousands of systems in half a dozen countries, from 2-man outfits to
multi-billion-dollar multinationals, no, I never ever saw any systems
whatsoever running:
* Banyan VINES
* Corvus
* ARCnet
* LittleBigLAN
* The $25 Network

(Obviously, I've heard of them.)

To this day, I have never once used any form of NFS or ever seen it in use.

However, I routinely worked with:
* 3Com 3+Share
* Sage MainLAN
* Personal Netware
* Netware Lite
* DEC Pathworks

Most of these never seem to get mentioned in Stateside comms.

Odd.



I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region, USA), 
same number and types of places.  Just to compare:

* Banyan VINES(never saw)
* Corvus  (saw once)
* ARCnet  (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN(never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
  (but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)

* 3Com 3+Share(saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN(never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite(never saw)
* DEC Pathworks   (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)

Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x&  4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft

- J.

Re: early networking (was Re: G4 cube (was Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...))

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/14/2016 11:04 AM, william degnan 
wrote:

On Wed, Sep 14, 2016 at 11:56 AM, j...@cimmeri.com  wrote:




I too started in 1988, doing the same kind of work (mid-Atlantic region,
USA), same number and types of places.  Just to compare:

* Banyan VINES(never saw)
* Corvus  (saw once)
* ARCnet  (saw many times)
* LittleBigLAN(never heard of or saw)
* The $25 Network (never heard of or saw)
* NFS (there were SUNs at the-then NBS (Bureau of Standards)
   (but I rarely encountered UNIX anywhere)

* 3Com 3+Share(saw only one place -- at NASA Goddard)
* Sage MainLAN(never heard of)
* Personl Netware (never saw)
* Netware Lite(never saw)
* DEC Pathworks   (saw only two places -- NASA G and NBS)

Most frequently worked with:
* Netware 3.x&   4.x
* Lantastic
* Windows / Microsoft

- J.




Also a mid-Atlantic alumni...
I started the networking portion of my career in 1987, working at IBM.
Part of my job was to set up Token Ring Network for sales demos (college
intern).   Also Hypercard related networking was big in the late 80's.  Dd
a lot of TCP/IP networking starting in 1992 or so.
Bill


Cool.  I was a big fan of running 
Netware over Token Ring.   But remember 
eventually
just getting crushed by cheap and easier 
to install ethernet.   One of my main 
clients at
the time was on 4mb Token, and we were 
asked for a proposal to speed it up.
16mb Token Ring had just come out, and 
the per-card cost was very high.   Another
vendor proposed with 10mbit ethernet and 
stole the client... despite them having to
ditch the expensive, genuine IBM 4mb 
Token setup (whose wiring could have still
been used for 16mb) and rewire the 
place.   Still bugs me to this day, which is

probably why I'm writing about it now.  :-)

- J.

Re: Subjects, Topics and Threading

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 9/14/2016 4:58 PM, Dale H. Cook wrote:

At 05:42 PM 9/14/2016, Steven M Jones wrote:


How do you justify making everybody conform to your preferred behavior?

I don't, but the behavior and archiving of this list is bound by the software 
that it runs under.

Dale H. Cook, Contract IT Administrator, Roanoke/Lynchburg, VA
http://plymouthcolony.net/starcityeng/index.html


I'm the one who last changed the subject of the aforemetioned thread (which is 
now not this thread).  It was my first time renaming a thread, and I'm confused 
as to what I did wrong.

How is sending a new email any different than replying / changing subject line?

Thanks,
  J.

Meaning of "architecture width" - Re: 68K Macs with MacOS 7.5 still in production use...

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 2016-09-15 2:38 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:

> From: Chuck Guzis

> Call it anything you want, but we know what Motorola called it.

The _first implementation_ may have been 16-bit, but I am in no doubt
whatsover (having written a lot of assembler code for the 68K family)
that the _architecture_ was 32-bit:

- 32-bit registers
- many operations (arithmetical, logical, etc) defined for that length
- 32-bit addresses



Also, Apple Computer referred to it as a 32 bit microprocessor in their 
early Macintosh ads.   I always just considered it a 32 bit CPU with a 
16 bit external bus.


- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/2016 9:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291894250804


I don't get it.  Would someone explain to me how a couple of old, dirty, 
untested, belt driven floppy drives are worth this kind of money?   And 
why??


There's actual bidding going on.  That's not just an asking price.

- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/2016 9:54 AM, Adrian Graham wrote:

On 01/10/2016 15:42, "j...@cimmeri.com"  wrote:


On 10/1/2016 9:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291894250804

I don't get it.  Would someone explain to me how a couple of old, dirty,
untested, belt driven floppy drives are worth this kind of money?   And
why??

There's actual bidding going on.  That's not just an asking price.

Because they're actual Twiggy drives from a Lisa 1. A lot of them were
chucked during the Lisa 2 upgrades offered by Apple because the Twiggys were
slow and unreliable, but it's a great example of how not to design a floppy
drive. If I had deep pockets I'd be bidding too.


Ok, you just gave a bunch of reasons why they're even more worthless 
than I originally thought, and why people bidding on them have clearly 
lost their marbles.  :)


- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/16 8:12 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:

Ok, you just gave a bunch of reasons why they're even more worthless than I 
originally thought, and why people bidding
on them have clearly lost their marbles.  :)

- J.

On 10/1/2016 10:21 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
Going price nowadays for a Lisa with Twiggys is pushing $20K
There are a lot of people that have all of the parts except the drives, 
including the front bezel.


O, I see.Now that makes sense -- Thanks, Al.But, like 
airplanes and boats, this looks like only a rich person's game.


- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/2016 3:21 PM, N0body H0me wrote:

-Original Message-
From: ccl...@sydex.com
Sent: Sat, 1 Oct 2016 11:12:02 -0700
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: ka... ching!

On 10/01/2016 08:27 AM, j...@cimmeri.com wrote:


But, like airplanes and boats, this looks like only a rich person's game.

...

The game has changed, obviously.  We are in an era now when folks with too much 
money and spare time and narcissism want to buy and sell and display toys 
rather than play with them.

Looks like it's time to get out of this racket.

--Chuck

Yeh. Once we started seeing Classical Computers that could be considered
'investment grade', prices just got ridiculous for everything.  Everyone
with an old computer in their closet started seeing dollar-signs.


From where I sit, the big prices seem 
mostly centered around Apple 1's and 
this Twiggy Lisa.  Have any other 
computers have gone astronomical like these?


- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/2016 6:38 PM, Adrian Graham wrote:

On 01/10/2016 23:52, "Santo Nucifora"  wrote:


For those who are bidding on the twiggy drives, you can have a Lisa 1
faceplate here:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/62204758  and a matching
Lisa 1 mouse here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/172360487433


Hells, he's still trying to flog that mouse for $3K. We've picked that one
apart a few times here :)


And the incredible gall of him to have a shipping charge on top of 
that.   Uneffingblinkenbelievable.


- J.

Re: Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/7/2016 5:21 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:

On 10/07/2016 03:12 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

ouch!

this is about 2x what I thought they would go for

On 10/1/16 7:19 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/291894250804


That simply defies logic. I *really* don't get this collecting business.

--Chuck



I agree -- how astonishingly retarded 
that they sold for that much.  But boy, 
wouldn't I like to be that ever-so-lucky 
seller!


- J.

Re: Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/7/2016 7:38 PM, Kevin Griffin wrote:

This guy was spot on about if his Lisa1 had Twiggys
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/sys/5797104896.html

Kevin



How does this SF guy so confidently know 
--> $30k plus?Is there a place where 
these Lisas regularly sell for that?


- J.

Re: ka... ching!

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/1/2016 5:52 PM, Santo Nucifora wrote:

For those who are bidding on the twiggy drives, you can have a Lisa 1
faceplate here:  http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/62204758 and a matching Lisa 
1 mouse here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/172360487433

These are a little on the expensive side too :)



re: www.ebay.com/itm/172360487433

I have a Lisa 1 mouse here in better 
shape, and far lower serial #008439.  
That ebay seller is asking a mere $3000 
plus -- let's not forget -- $9 shipping 
(greedy f**k!).


So if I list mine at $2000 with *** FREE 
*** shipping, is that a good deal for 
someone?  lol


- J.

Re: Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/8/2016 6:06 AM, Corey Cohen wrote:

...

So does this mean you should hoard everything you have until the price goes up? 
 I don't have a crystal ball to tell you what is the next item of value.  Who 
knew that a movie about the Tucker automobile would make a Tucker one of the 
most desirable cars to a rare car collector.


Nice post, but not everyone is in to old 
computers for future potential 
investment value.  The thought never 
even occurred to me when I was acquiring 
the machines I have, I don't care what 
their value is or becomes, and the sight 
of hoarders doing so to hit upon some 
jackpot kind sickens my stomach.  I just 
have a severe aversion to all forms of 
greed.


The fact that a friggin' *movie* raises 
the value of something, also really irks 
me.  How did movies ever become the 
be-all, end-all?


I'm sure others are irked as well by the 
intrusions of greed or irrationality 
into what can otherwise be a pure, 
unadulterated, hobby.  Isn't it funny 
that the word "adult" is used in 
"adulterated" -- as if the notion of 
adulthood renders things impure.  Well, 
in this case, certain forms of adulthood 
do due render this hobby impure.


- J.

Re: Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

[j...@cimmeri.com]

On 10/8/2016 11:22 AM, Corey Cohen wrote:

On Oct 8, 2016, at 12:07 PM, "j...@cimmeri.com"  wrote:


The fact that a friggin' *movie* raises the value of something, also really 
irks me.  How did movies ever become the be-all, end-all?

I'm sure others are irked as well by the intrusions of greed or irrationality into what can 
otherwise be a pure, unadulterated, hobby.  Isn't it funny that the word "adult" is used 
in "adulterated" -- as if the notion of adulthood renders things impure.  Well, in this 
case, certain forms of adulthood do due render this hobby impure.

- J.

I think you misunderstood my points.


I actually completely understood them.  
Maybe you misunderstand mine.




The hobby has already changed.


Not for me it hasn't.  You write of "the 
hobby" as a monolith.  It's not 
monolithic; there's more than one hobby 
(or outcome), circling around these 
material items.  In other words, there's 
these material items out there in the 
marketplace (or that eventually reach a 
marketplace), and these items can go 
down different roads depending on why 
they're purchased.   There's *this* 
particular hobbyist road, then there's 
the investment road, the museum road, 
and so on.  Some people also combine 
purposes.





  Just like the car collecting, comic book collection and just about most other 
hobbies when they mature.   The same type of people who complained about the 
price of an Xmen#1 because people would just buy and display them and not read 
them, complain when someone buys an ALTAIR to sit on their desk and doesn't 
turn it on.   Better that than the garbage heap, without money coming into our 
hobby it would eventually die out and many artifacts would be lost to the dump.


I think the people who complain about 
"Altairs just sitting on desks" might be 
doing so for at least one reason being 
because a particular purpose seems to 
violate the original spirit, intent, and 
purpose behind the creation.  I hear 
that a lot eg. "it's a shame it's just 
sitting there, not being used."


It's when other purposes come in, and 
begin to make this hobby purpose more 
difficult to engage in and 
"unobtainium", that the hobbyists 
lament.  If there were enough for 
everyone, then there'd be no complaining.



I partially disagree that money needs to 
come into *our* hobby to keep it alive.  
Rather, I hold that money needs to go 
into *their* investment purpose to keep 
THAT purpose alive.   I think we'd do 
just fine, paying reasonable amounts, to 
keep our hobby alive without these other 
purposes in the game.



- J.