< My vote goes to the Model 25 as the most horrid computer PC of all time
< Unexpandable, impossible to work on. Ick! >>
<
<actually, i think its kind of neat in a strange way. all in one form fact
Actually I had a PS2/25 here and while the number of slots were limited
I did put a 420meg hard disk(using a ISA-8 to IDE adaptor board) and a
14.4 modem in it for a friend and there was two slots left. It was
tiny. When she retired it for a 386 I took the motherboard out and used
the PS and the disks for a SB180 systemwith a scsi disk. It's form factor
was just right. Now the disks are 3.5" 782k cpm/qd format and the 20mb
scsi disk has a home in keeping with the 7"x3" sb180 (z180, 256k ram,
scsi) board. Nice little CP/m (zcpr) system.
I kept the M25 board as it's a pretty sane 8086 xt-turbo board.
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Uncle Roger <sinasohn(a)ricochet.net>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Friday, January 09, 1998 5:10 AM
Subject: Re: OLD PC's
>At 09:11 PM 1/8/98 +0300, you wrote:
>>The problem with this guies theroies: In this 3rd world country, schools
>>have MMX machines.
>
>Perhaps, but is that:
>
>a) Schools for dependents of US citizens working for US
> companies in Bahrain,
No, there's only one of those. (It's a DoDDs school) They've got 286's in
classrooms, 386's in science labs, 486's in 3 computer labs, and Pentiums in
the library and a new computer lab. They're trying to replace the 486's, so
that they move the 486's in the classrooms, but the new Pentiums will have
to run Windows 3.1, as that's what they're doing now.
>b) local schools in an wealthy country (i.e., the government
> is wealthy even if the citizenry isn't)
No, the government is relatively wealthy, but the local schools mostly have
386's and 486's. I haven't visited many, so don't bind me by that.
>c) only the schools located in the major cities?
Major cities? Here? (Ask Zane) ;-)
>In the philippines, it ain't true. Heck, my girlfriend's sister-in-law's
>family doesn't even have a telephone.
Yep. But there are lots of immigrants from the Philippines here, but the
thing is, I'd think taht they're better back home. I mean, here, they get
paid around $150 a month for 12hrs a day, and 7 days a week. And to think
that they call it third world... (should be eighth or so...) :-(
>There is a company here in San Francisco that ships hundreds (if not
>thousands) of older PC's and such overseas *everyday*. They're huge, and
>it's really an amazing operation. And yes, they occassionally get some
>classic computers worth saving.
Yes, or, what they could do at the school is give them to student's who
can't afford computers. WP 5.1 will run on a 286, you can get Windows 3.1
out of 'em, they'll run almost all DOS software. (Well, except for games,
etc.) And, when finished with an early Epson dot-matrix, they make machines
that are good for doing reports, PrintShop, etc.
Tim D. Hotze
> So, I'll offer to host and html-ize any stuff like this anyone wants to
send
> me. Just dump it (any kind of: history, folklore, specs, special
commands,
> secret codes, easter eggs, power supply voltages, etc.) in an e-mail and
> send it to me at <roger(a)sinasohn.com> and I'll get it on-line. (It won't
> necessarily be beautiful, but it will be useable.)
Great idea. The manuals may survive, but the folklore that's batted about
this -- and other discussion groups -- is as ephemeral as it is precious.
My grandkids are (i hope) gonna want to know what it felt like to sit at a
keyboard, to write a program, to swap out a drive...
At 06:20 PM 1/3/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Well, frogger is a good example of why not. I see they're bringing it out
>again.
Okay, so you own a new computer, maybe a P200 mmx and you have this old copy
of frogger, from your XT days... If this old copy gets out on the internet
or elsewhere, is it going to affect sales of the new Frogger version? I've
seen screen shots of this new game... It's alot different, majorly different
than the older versions. Alot of 3d stuff going on in there. Now say someone
finds that copy of frogger on the internet and downloads it to play on his
XT. How does this affect the sale of the new version? You could technically
say it does, because if this XT user really wanted the new version of
frogger, he'd have a major upgrade path ahead of him, maybe as much as 20
times as the new frogger game costs.
>Copyrights are what? 37 years? As someone who produces intellectual
>property (Photos and -- occasionally -- software), I appreciate copyright
>protection.
Sure, I have no problem with recent software protection, but in this case,
the game isn't even being sold in it's original form anymore, running on
computers that aren't made anymore. Maybe if software companies would take
these old titles and put them up on the internet, maybe take online orders
for them and charge a very low cost for the games, maybe around $1.00,
people might just buy them instead of making "illegal" copies of them. But
they don't. Most companies don't even offer support for software that old.
I've had that happen numerous times when I'd try to contact a company to get
a replacement disk for one that went bad. No dice. Some of the people
answering the phone didn't even know they had published the game.
- John Higginbotham
- limbo.netpath.net
I have a couple of junk Model 30's if anyone...
My vote goes to the Model 25 as the most horrid computer PC of all time.
Unexpandable, impossible to work on. Ick!
manney(a)nwohio.com
> I'm starting to wonder about how common the C-64c is. I have yet to see
> one, I picked up the manuals when a favorite bookstore had a set a few
> months back. Then last weekend I was at the bookstore and they had like
3
> or 4 sets of manual. But like I said I've never seen an actual computer!
>
> Functionally are they any different from a standard 64?
No. I have 3 of 'em. (Nyaah Nyaah! :)
Ya want one?
manney(a)nwohio.com
<I'm not that well up in modern processor design, but I've never heard of
<that definition. In fact the ARM becomes CISC by it, I think (?).
That was part of the mid 80s def, but by no means an exclusive item.
The ARM used more clocks but not many. The early defininition was simply
Reduced Instruction Set and raw speed to make up for it. A PDP-8 would
qualify in many respects as it has about the smallest useful instruction
set going. It's biggest feature is the lack of complexity that allowed
CPUs like the ARM and MIPS to be very fast as they were very simple
compared to say the 386, the result was the amount of silicon required
was less and production costs are lower. Some side effects of the smaller
die(fewer transistors) were improved testability, lower power and less
heat with attendant higher relibility. Most smaller RISC chips are 10s
of thousands of transistors compared to millions in most of the CISC
designs.
Allison
It would be interesting to attempt to graph the MIPS/VUP/MIPS/Whetstones/etc.
of ancient and contemporary computers, using some approximation of
comparable units. It would be fun to recognize that, say, one of
my old computers was just as fast as an IBM AT, but was available
five years before.
- John
