Hi
I'm sure that I heard that some Commodore systems could do TV out
and were in fact used to produce CGI stuff for 'Babylon Five"
Does anybody know which ones and could they do PAL or just NTSC?
Rod Smallwood
Vince Briel's Micro-KIM workshop at VCFX is now open for registration:
http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/workshop.php
$99 which includes the kit and personal instruction from the man, the
myth, the legend himself!
Space is limited and Vince's workshops sell out fast, so get in while you
can.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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-------------Original Message:
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:52:16 +0100
From: "Arno Kletzander" <Arno_1983 at gmx.de>
Subject: Mechanical calculators (was: Re: *updating* 8088's)
"Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Friday 23 November 2007 22:23, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> > There are many kinds of mechanical memory. In particular, I recall
> > an early TTY device that used a large rotating drum with cams
> > embedded in the surface. One could flip a cam one way or the other
> > and then read them out. I'm trying to remember what sort of machine
> > this was used on and its application, but my memory sadly fails me.
>
> This stirs a vague recollection of an old mechanical adding machine I
> once had, the kind that had a big rectangular array of buttons instead
> of just a "10-key" set of numbers. I have *no* idea how it stored a
> number in there, though.
Hmm, like, say, an old cash register? This design is called "Volltastaturmaschine" in German (would translate to "complete keyboard machine"). They have a latching mechanism that holds in one button per column of keys (0-9, representing one digit of a number). When a calculation is initiated, the protruding shaft of the latched key acts as a stop for a toothed rack or similar device which is used to advance the wheels of the accumulator register by as many teeth as the corresponding digit says. There are also designs which involve an arrangement of levers positioning an intermediate gear along the axis of a stepped drum, for example the Badenia VA-17/VARE-17.
The big advantage is that zeros need not be entered (to enter 100.00, you just press the "1" button in the fifth column from the right) and that operators could learn to "touch-type" on these keyboards, effectively entering all digits of a number in parallel and greatly reducing cycle times.
<snip>
--
Arno Kletzander
www.iser.uni-erlangen.de
-----------Reply:
The IBM unit record or Tabulating machines that we've been discussing
had their roots in the same principles as these calculators, adding machines
and cash registers, but instead of a depressed key stopping a moving rack in
a certain position (a certain point of time in the machine's "cycle"), a set of
wire brushes (later replaced by photocells) would make contact through
the holes in the card as it moved vertically through the different digit positions,
and pick a relay, latch a rotating selector (and lock a synchronized moving
typebar if it was a printer) to represent that digit electrically. Like the manual
full keyboards, all 80 digits/characters were processed simultaneously.
Timing diagrams looked similar to the modern square waves we're all
familiar with (although they were sometimes arranged in a set of concentric
circles to represent a complete cycle), but instead of a continuous linear
time line they had a definite beginning and end and were divided into
equal-length "digit" times.
When electronics started to replace more and more of the mechanical gears
and relays there was a paradigm shift and everything switched to reading and
processing cards "serially" ("parallel" from our modern perspective ;-), i.e.
lengthwise by character, instead of all characters in "parallel" by digit.
The "Accounting" or "Posting" machines _also_ known as EAMs (Electr(on)ic
Accounting Machines) made by Burroughs, NCR etc. and used in almost every
bank also used the same basic principle. Because a good operator could enter
an entire multi-digit amount in one "keystroke" and data entry speed was more
important than processing, they retained full keyboards for quite a while even after
the gears and cams had been replaced with electronic equivalents. The moving
racks and cams were simply replaced by a set of rotating 10-position selector
"switches" and connected to the electronic "adjunct" with thick multi-conductor
cables. The processors in turn operated on "words" consisting of 15 or more
10-"bit" "bytes;" guess you could call it parallel processing...
m
I'm looking for a copy of the BIOS of the IBM PC3270 Model 5271. Does
anyone here have one of these machines that is working?
If so, the bios can be dumped using MSDOS DEBUG, see
http://mess.toseciso.org/dumping:dump_bios_using_debug
Bios should be in range E000-FFFF.
Jonathan Gevaryahu AKA Lord Nightmare
jgevaryahu(@t)hotmail(d0t)com
jzg22(@t)drexel(d0t)edu
--- Michael Lee <mikelee at tdh.com> wrote:
> I just received an old-ish (1990) Toshiba T1000LE
> laptop and it wouldn't
> boot, so I took a look at the hard drive and there
> seems to be some type
> of goo oozing out of it. It's a Conner hard drive,
> nothing too abnormal.
>
> I didn't think a hard drive contained anything that
> could ooze out. Any
> idea what it could be and does that mean the drive
> is pretty much
> toast? Let the magic goo out?
-------------
I also have this problem with a Mac Portable also from about 1990.
Can't offhand remember the drive model but it's the gasket.
I mop it up from time to time. It's still working.
Doug
------------Original Message:
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:51:17 -0800 (PST)
From: Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com>
Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Message-ID: <20071129184544.W60333 at shell.lmi.net>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
On Thu, 29 Nov 2007, M H Stein wrote:
> LOL!
> There were several different models - see:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IBM_products
> They were used mainly for utility bills, etc. which were often printed on
> punched cards to be returned with your payment for processing. We
> didn't do that sort of work very often, and when the cards had to be easily
> human-readable (such as your COBOL cards) they'd be punched on a
> printing keypunch (026) in the first place.
Unfortunately, the card output punches of most of the computers, and the
stand-alone duplicator didn't print when it punched.
<snip>
------------Reply:
Afraid I don't get your point; after all, that was the purpose of interpreters like
the 557, to print the data that the computer or EAM had punched (and not
printed). The 500 series output & reproducing punches couldn't punch *and*
print because AFAIR the print mechanism essentially replaced the punch
mechanism (except for the 519 which had a small numeric printer added,
mainly for serial-numbering the cards).
The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output
operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80
columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked
on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding
to the 12 zones of the cards.
Your COBOL source cards on the other hand would have been punched
on a keypunch and could have been printed as they were punched, no?
mike
Date: Fri, 30 Nov 2007 09:19:15 -0800
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
Subject: Re: IBM mechnical devices
On 30 Nov 2007 at 5:46, M H Stein wrote:
>> The keypunch equivalents could, but were much too slow for serious output
>> operations. Not only were they slower to begin with, but they punched 80
>> columns lengthwise while pretty well all the electro-mechanical EAMs worked
>> on the principle of a 12-phase synchronized cycle across the card, corresponding
>> to the 12 zones of the cards.
>...and if you were one of the poor unfortunates to get saddled with
>the 024 keypunch in a room of 026s, you needed the 557--the 024
>didn't print on the card--you flew "blind" or you just read the punch
>holes visually.
When they did it full-time, keypunchers and EAM operators got pretty
good at sight-reading cards...
>Fortunately, there was a standard IBM card form that numbered the
>interpreter print columns on the two top rows as 1-60 and 61-80, so
>you could figure out what printed character corresponded to what
>punched column. Unless of course, some practical joker decided to
>swap a couple of wires on the 557 plugboard...
Heh, heh... yes, there was lots of opportunity for practical jokes...
>Later, some keypunches could be used as light-duty card punches for
>systems. I recall a CDC 1700 mini being hooked to a Univac keypunch.
>Tab offered a keypunch that had an RS-232C interface on it and
>probably were not the only ones. Both of those, IIRC, had "buffered"
>keyboard interfaces--you typed in the card, then the punch punched
>the whole thing.
So did the later "normal" keypunches from IBM et al.
>I preferred the 029 "press a key, get a kerchunk".
>Later, I had the same issue with the daisywheel typewriters that
>seemed to print asynchronously with one's typing.
Cheers,
Chuck
Yes, they definitely had audible and tactile feedback; in fact you could feel
it in your feet ;-)
And then there were "light" keypunches. I've got one here by Wright that
works like the old Dymo label makers: you dial up your character, press
the punch bar and it moves to the next column (and prints BTW).
mike
> HeliOS was just an operating system, not a language, no?
Not according to the readme ..
"HeliOS is an innovative, fast and efficient Amiga programming
language which has been developed over many years. It is fully
compatible with ALL Amigas running any operating system newer
than AmigaDOS 1.1, including AGA and 68060 based machines."
.. though I've not used it.
Lee.
I've known about NNC for quite a while and have at least one of them around
here
along with documentaion. It is a box with two vertical 8" drives and about
the
width of a regular S-100 box. I just took a look in the 1983 DATAPRO Small
Computers notebook, and didn't see anything about them. That makes me think
they
had disappeard by then.
BTW, I've found the DATAPRO marketing information to be a *great* souce of
information on a lot of the companies. I think Sellam might have a more
complete
set of them.
> From: jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu
<http://www.classiccmp.org/mailman/listinfo/cctalk> >
> > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and
> > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside.
> > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very
strange
> > name.
> >
> There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the
> late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a
> friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box
> and not a vector graphics system.
>
> I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware
> appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from
> parts using an NNC mainframe.
>
> The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply
> initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The
> manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal,
> and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't
> know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible.
>
> Jim
>
-----REPLY-----
Hi Marvin!
Wow! You have a NNC machine? Would you mind popping the cover off on it and
taking a couple of photos? I am very interested to see what is inside and
it may clear up some of the mystery surrounding this machine I am restoring.
If the documents mention anything about VG parts, surely that would be
interesting as well.
Looking at my NNC chassis, if you put two 8" floppy drives in there it would
use up nearly all the room inside. I can't see how there would be any left
for an S-100 motherboard so maybe it is an external drive enclosure? I am
using an old IBM PC chassis as a homebuilt drive enclosure for the floppy
drive on the NNC machine here.
I had assumed that since the NNC was full of exclusively VG parts and the
case is essentially a repainted VG 1 case that NNC was some sort of VG VAR
or shell company maybe from the post VG bankruptcy era. If it were a
homebuilt machine, I would think there would be a more diverse selection of
parts, however, it is just a guess.
Thanks!
Andrew Lynch
PS, is the DATAPRO Small Computers notebook available online anywhere? I
can't seem to find it.
I've known about NNC for quite a while and have at least one of them around here
along with documentaion. It is a box with two vertical 8" drives and about the
width of a regular S-100 box. I just took a look in the 1983 DATAPRO Small
Computers notebook, and didn't see anything about them. That makes me think they
had disappeard by then.
BTW, I've found the DATAPRO marketing information to be a *great* souce of
information on a lot of the companies. I think Sellam might have a more complete
set of them.
> From: jim s <jwstephens at msm.umr.edu>
> > <snip> It has a VG 1 case repainted and
> > relabeled as a "No Name Computer" with all VG 5 components inside.
> > Seriously, it is called NNC and that is not a joke. It is a very strange
> > name.
> >
> There was a company called NNC located in Huntington Beach Ca in the
> late 70's or early 80's that made basic S-100 hardware. I'll ask a
> friend to get the names and history, but you may have an actual NNC box
> and not a vector graphics system.
>
> I don't recall VG's history but I think that a flood of their hardware
> appeared on the junk market and someone may have built up a box from
> parts using an NNC mainframe.
>
> The NNC company built chassis with a backplane and power supply
> initially and tried to do the entire system before collapsing. The
> manufacturer was actually a guy who built components from sheet metal,
> and found that building computer boxes was more profitable. I don't
> know if there was a connection to VG but that would not be impossible.
>
> Jim
>
