I came to own a scanner made by The Complete PC, Inc. Natrually there
isn't any software with the device do anyone here know where I could
find a program to use this thing?
Okay. I have debated over and over, whether to say what I'm going
to say next. But I can provide a tidbit of interesting info.
Look: no flames... I feel bad enough as it is. Be *gentle*.
More than twenty years ago... in '75. I had an E-type Jaguar. I
paid about $2K for said car (4 years earlier) while serving in The
Glorious and Omnipotent Soldiers of His Majesty King Richard the
Nixon. I **loved** that car, lusted for it as a child, finally got
one. (poignant note: nice ones are now going for $40-60K)
Well. Back then, I was Very Poor, and the Jag was up on blocks
deteriorating and I was taking busses and bumming rides. One of the
regular customers at the little surplus shop I worked for came in
one day describing this *computer* he had gotten, and didn't really
want. At that time... computers were the one item I would have glady
traded spiritual equity to the Dark Side to have...
"I'll trade ya my old Jag for it!!" I blurted.
"Deal." he said. (O! to be young again!) [NOT!!!!]
What he had was a 1962 Bendix G-15, with all the docs and
everything. A real, vacuum-tube, hybrid, drum machine....
The previous owner, seeing the standard 220V plug, had run a long
cable from an outlet, around the building, over the roof, and in the
window. The Bendix was *actually* a 110V device... but someone had
installed the heftier plug due to the 175KVA the thing drew starting
up. Well, my 'friend' got it home, trundled it into the garage,
plugged it into the clothes-dryer outlet, and, thanks to ignoring Mr.
G. S. Ohm, blew out %70 percent of the thousands of germanium glass
diodes it used for passive logic.
I lived in an upstairs apartment... 900lbs of computer was out of
the question. One of the other guys at work volunteered *his*
garage, and we went to work changing diodes. Some weeks later, we
fired it up... no good. More (hidden) diodes. Again. Nothing...
ooops, drum clamped and motor disconnected... and clock track on
the drum...
Then it worked! My, were we happy!! it was about 5:30 am on a
sunday, we had worked through the night.. and there it was.. the OS
signed on to the console typewriter.. and it *was* a typewriter..
and IBM Executive that Bendix had fitted solenoids under.. the keys
looked like a ghost was typing when output was taking place.
Which gets me to the topical thread of this post: even *it* had
two games (on 5-level paper tape).. one was called Nim, and the
other was a version of Tic/Tac/Toe.. which re-drew the whole game
(on the s l o w typewriter) with every move.
Then, the lights dimmed, all the power supply meters dropped into
low-margin red zones, and the breakers snapped out. Fifteen seconds
later, my friend's sleepy wife stumbled into the Computer Room
(garage) and asked if we wanted some fresh coffee. You can guess
which circuit the coffee-maker was on.
Sigh. Five years later, he moved to a different state, and we gave
the G-15 to one of the Burroughs divisions for a lobby display. I
lost track of it in the rush of time and career.... what I'd give
to have it back. ((What I'd give to still have my Jag!))
sniff, sniff... One of these days, maybe I'll find another, on
it's side in some junk yard.... who am I kidding?
Anyway... just a little bit of history on Computer Gaming.
Cheers
John
>> Might this cabling 'trick' apply to the Apple III as well?
>>
>> And if so, does anyone know what's special about the cable? That might be
>> the source of my Profile problems with my III.
Doug, as I said, there's definitely nothing amazing about the cables for
the ///, at least not with the controller cards I have (I don't know if
anyone ever made any third-party controller boards?). They're either
straight through or complete crossover, but there's no odd connections
or anything.
cheers
Jules
>Yesterday I picked up an Osborne 1 from the dump. It seems to be in
>relatively good physical condition apart from a missing CAPS LOCK key
>(which I luckily found nearby). Unfortunately, it had been rained on. The
>keyboard was separate from the main unit, and it was full of water. The
>main unit seems to be slightly better off (at least water didn't pour out
>of it when I picked it up). I haven't pulled either apart yet, so I
>haven't seen what condition the internals are in.
I doubt the raid did much damage. Two years ago I bought a bunch of
Apple II systems from a school disctrict that had set out during a storm
the night before. The monitors were damp, water just poured out of the
Apple IIe's upon picking them up, cards were laying on the damp ground,
splattered by mud.
Everything worked perfectly, and was entirely dust-free.
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
Indeed, Dos 2.11 was the Dos version packaged with the PCjr (as well as
other systems, I think).
Cliff Gregory
cgregory(a)lrbcg.com
-----Original Message-----
From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu <classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
To: Cgregory <Cgregory>
Date: Friday, August 14, 1998 11:52 AM
Subject: Dos 2.1 and 2.11
>
>Someone posted saying that there in fact was a 2.11 which I've not been
>able to find reference to. By any chance was that what came with a PCjr?
>
>
>colan
>
One of the cover pieces to my PDP-8 has seperated in the one corner where
the top teal plactic piece joins the translucent plastic side. What kind
of glue would you recommend I use to fix this? I don't want to do any
damage to the cover by using the wrong type of glue.
Thanks.
Tom Owad
--
Sysop of Caesarville Online
Client software at: <http://home.earthlink.net/~tomowad/>
> The TD-800 were CRT based terminals some based on 6800 micros others on
> 8086 (yes indeed) Burroughs claimed that they were the first to use the
> 8086 processor and helped Intel debug it. When the IBM PC came out
> Burroughs were using substantially more powerful hardware just as dumb
> terminals.
One of the fun things about the TD-800 was that it was possible to read
and write the micro's memory. I wrote a Cobol program (the only programming
language I had) on a B800 to let me monkey about with the TD-800's
innards. The ones I was using had a 6800 in them.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
<It has a drive apparently loaded with some version of VMS but I have to
< put together a console cable to find out. Then of course, the big trick
< will be the fact that I don't have VMS on tape or the passwords to the
Not a problem. VAX/VMS has very high security IF you can keep people away
>from the boot console.
The proceedure is simple and in the VMS doc set.
Set halt enable toggle on console connector pannel.
hit halt, then reset
the machine should count down to 2 and Give the >>> prompt.
Then it's >>>B/1 DUA0 (assumes first MSCP drive)
when SYSBOOT> happens...
SYSBOOT>>> SET UAFALTERNATE 1
SYSBOOT>>> SET STARTUP_P1 "MIN"
SYSBOOT>>> CONT
then you see a normal vms boot proceed.
When it gives the process terminated hit return a few times.
LOGIN: SYSTEM
PASSWORD: {only give a return}
PASSWORD: {again ONLY RETURN}
you are now logged in to the system account in single user mode.
change the passwaord to something safe.
$ DEFINE SYSUAF SYS$SYSTEM:[SYSEXE]SYSUAF.DAT
$ SET DEFAULT SYS$SYSTEM
$ RUN AUTHORIZE
UAF> MOD/PASS=system system {SYSTEM account now has password SYSTEM}
UAF> exit
$@sys$system:shutdown
when shutdown prompts for action taken hit return {take default}.
When it says it's all done and you can halt the system hit the halt button
and we do it again thins time with a real password.
>>>B/1 dua0
SYSBOOT>>> SET UAFALTERNATE 0 {use the noew password}
SYSBOOT>>> SET STARTUP_P1 "" {normal system start}
SYSBOOT>>> CONT
after it does its things
LOGIN: SYSTEM
PASSWORD: SYSTEM {FYI, ccase insensitive and notmally not echoed}
Your in and have system managers prives. HELP at the $ prompt gets help.
Also there are four OSs that run on it, BSD unix, netBSD, Ultrix (DEC)
and VMS(DEC). The first will be hard to get. The second sorta works
and ultrix I ahve no idea on the license. VMS is available on CD or any
media you can find. VMS V5.4 through 6.1 are on the CD and all are under
the same DECUS free hobbiest license. The versions on the CD are standard
releases and DECnet runs. The CD and many archives have CMUip (TCP/IP
stack) and a few other neat things.
Have fun.
Allison
At 10:27 PM 8/15/98 -0500, you wrote:
>As long as I'm getting physics lessons, I figure now's a good time for
>chemistry.
>
>I've got a bunch of portables, most of them with batteries. The batteries
>are clearly the weak-points of these systems in terms of long-term
>viability. First, is there any way to ensure the batteries live forever?
>If not, what's the best way to preserve them, how long should I expect
>them to last, and what can I do now to prepare for the inevitable
>repair/replacement down the road?
>
>My current plan is to remove all batteries and store them in the fridge,
>but I'm not crazy about the idea. Do some battery types store better than
>others? I have to deal with NiCd, Li+, NiMH, and Lead-acid.
>
>-- Doug
>
The battery life times should range as Lead-Acid, NiCad, NiMH, Li+ from
shortest to highest. Lead Acid batteries will be ruined if you let them
sit dead. Even as short a time as overnight can ruin them. It doesn't
appear to hurt NiCads to let them sit dead. I'm not sure about the other
two. NiCad and LA will both go bad with age even it they're not used so you
may as well use them.
For maximum life of NiCads DO NOT discharge them all the way or use a
rapid charger on them. These discharge then rapid chargers that are all
the rage with toy car owners are not only a waste of money, it's also
ruining their batteries.
Almost all battery packs use standard cells inside and there are plenty
of places that will rebuild your old battery packs so they shouldn't be a
big problem. I rebuild LOTS of them for HP and TI calculators.
Joe
A C128D running at 20MHz with 20MB of RAM plus a 2GB Hard Drive and a 1.6MB
floppy drive is one extraordinary system.
It is sure worth more than a "coupla bux", although I would have fallen out
of the bidding by now. Note that most of these accessories are quite new and
some are useable on other systems.
Phil Guerney
-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Yowza <yowza(a)yowza.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, August 17, 1998 5:33 AM
Subject: C64 for $800
>I'm no Commodore expert, but is there really anything in this lot that's
>worth more than a coupla bux, or is this just the alex-factor at work
>again?
> http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=25343674
>
>-- Doug
>
>
