All this talk of S100/Northstar/etc.... make me remember what I believe was
a Northstar Advantage I used for a bit in college.....
I remember it was laid out like a Radio Shack Model III system... all in
one,
monochrome screen with 2 floppy drives built in to the right, etc....
I've always wanted to find one of these.... but never have... I'm not
sure my
memory is even correct (is it the Northstar Advantage ?).
Anyone have one in the MA/RI/NH area have one they don't want ?
-- Curt
I modified a HP 9825A tape drive for use with QIC 40/80 tapes.
It's a rather easy conversion building a new capstand wheel witch is a
little higher so it can drive the QIC tapes and increasing the write current
by replacing a the current limiter resistor.
It's under test and at the moment seems to work.
I was curious if there others who did the same and what theire experiances
are...
-Rik
Next up on my workbench is a Sorcerer II. I've googled about some
and have found the original Sorcerer schematics. I've also found
plenty of references to and pictures of the Sorcerer II board but
no schematics. I got the machine from Europe so I suspect it may
be hacked for 220V 50Hz. The power cord is cut off so I don't know
for sure but there is definite evidence of hand soldering on the PS.
Any help greatly appreciated,
Bill
I'm going through some stuff my Aunt brought me last month, she's
apparently helping someone that was seriously into Commodore
computers clean out. In the pile is a Commodore 1520 Plotter. I had
one of these back in the 80's. Am I correct that there isn't any
source of pens any more? Of course I haven't even had time to see if
it works.
The real treasure is all the books. There are dozen's of books on
the VIC-20, C-64, and electronics (lots of Radio Shack books from the
70's and 80's, and other books). There are at least the first two
Compute Guide to the VIC-20 and the first 3 for the C-64! :-)
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
I have a friend who has a Sanyo MBC-1000 and a Macintosh IIfx with both a
two page monochrome monitor (nicknamed the "Kong") and a 13" color monitor
that he'd like to pass on to someone who will appreciate them. The catch is
that they are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would need to be picked up
within the next few days. I am in the area right now and could help with the
pickup but I am leaving the Bay Area on Friday. If anyone is interested in
one or both of these machines, please contact me off list.
His description of the Sanyo is:
"Sanyo MBC-1000. I've got manuals and software, including Aztec-C and BIOS
source. The computer itself is very solid and was in perfect working
condition when I last used it."
If I don't find someone to pick up these machines in the next few days they
will likely go to a recycler.
Hello There,
I am interested in the Aztec C disks and manuals.
I am able to pay shipping costs through paypal. I am in Canada.
I am also interested in old computers but unfortunately the shipping costs
to Canada make that impractical.
Regards,
Bill Buckels
Box 277
177 - 6th Street South Beach
Gimli, MB, Canada R0C 1B0
Home - (204) 642-8405
Cell - (204) 612-4162
Please see my links below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bill_Buckelshttp://www.cpm8680.com/http://www.appleoldies.ca/http://www.c64classics.ca/http://www.aztecmuseum.ca/
x--- snip ---x
Sanyo CP/M machine and Macintosh IIfx
David Betz dbetz at xlisper.com
Sun Feb 28 22:47:58 CST 2010
I have a friend who has a Sanyo MBC-1000 and a Macintosh IIfx with both a
two page monochrome monitor (nicknamed the "Kong") and a 13" color monitor
that he'd like to pass on to someone who will appreciate them. The catch is
that they are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would need to be picked up
within the next few days. I am in the area right now and could help with the
pickup but I am leaving the Bay Area on Friday. If anyone is interested in
one or both of these machines, please contact me off list.
His description of the Sanyo is:
"Sanyo MBC-1000. I've got manuals and software, including Aztec-C and BIOS
source. The computer itself is very solid and was in perfect working
condition when I last used it."
If I don't find someone to pick up these machines in the next few days they
will likely go to a recycler.
For your eyes only:
http://popbottlecaps.com/temp/S-100.jpghttp://popbottlecaps.com/temp/drives.jpg
-- Two different 8-inch floppy drives, physically in great condition, operational status unknown.
-- An S-100 expansion chassis
Included at no additional charge:
-- VersaFloppy S-100 card w/ manual
-- ExpandoRAM S-100 card (0K installed) w/ manual
Free for Pick-up preferred!
Located in Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
These machines have been claimed. Thanks for all the interest!
------Original Message------
From: David Betz
Sender: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
ReplyTo: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Sanyo CP/M machine and Macintosh IIfx
Sent: Feb 28, 2010 11:47 PM
I have a friend who has a Sanyo MBC-1000 and a Macintosh IIfx with both a
two page monochrome monitor (nicknamed the "Kong") and a 13" color monitor
that he'd like to pass on to someone who will appreciate them. The catch is
that they are in the San Francisco Bay Area and would need to be picked up
within the next few days. I am in the area right now and could help with the
pickup but I am leaving the Bay Area on Friday. If anyone is interested in
one or both of these machines, please contact me off list.
His description of the Sanyo is:
"Sanyo MBC-1000. I've got manuals and software, including Aztec-C and BIOS
source. The computer itself is very solid and was in perfect working
condition when I last used it."
If I don't find someone to pick up these machines in the next few days they
will likely go to a recycler.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Rob Jarrat wrote:
> If there were no interest in things that pre-dated our own lifetimes then
> there would not be any museums.
Of course, but that wasn't my point. My point is that I observe there
to be, in general, LESS interest in collecting items that predate our
own existence. For example, I know many more people who own classic
cars like Mustangs simply because they always wanted one while growing
up, or maybe had one... than those collectors who own Ford Model Ts.
You could make the argument that Mustangs are more readily available,
but that wouldn't be true. It's just that few if any those Mustang
owners have any interest in Model T's for any number of valid
reasons. So, I'm drawing a distinction between personal nostalgia and
emotional response, vs. collecting purely for historical enjoyment or
purposes.
Rob Jarrat wrote:
> The peculiar problem faced by computer
> history is perhaps the frenetic pace of computer development, which has
> meant that historically interesting computers are not generally recognised
> as such because they are still relatively recent and become obsolete so
> quickly that they are discarded far too readily.
Excellent point. Which leads to wonder if only the early computers --
when development moved slower and there were far fewer models in
existence -- will remain the collectible ones. I don't see any
computers in most of the 90's, and none at all from 2000 onwards that
I'd ever want to collect. Wonder how others feel? Will a Dell PC
ever be collectible? Are Apples the only ones that might stand a
chance? Are all computers now merely appliances with zero personality?
John Singleton
Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> On 2/25/10 12:56 PM, Richard wrote:
>
>> > Bottom line for me is that this looks like a 3rd party memory-mapped
>> > framebuffer
>
> I'm not convinced. There was no sign of it in the machine room.
There is nothing visible in the machine room for a graphic subsystem.
It's all in the Unibus box, with just a couple of cables coming out.
> I still think it is a raster terminal. The repaint speed is consistent
> with that.
I'd definitely say no to that. I was working at DEC in 1986. At that
time, the VT241 was the hottest thing DEC had, and it could do bitmapped
graphics. But let me tell you how long it took to just get a picture
uploaded on that terminal, and then we are talking much lower
resolution, and fewer bitplanes.
Admittedly, the DEC sixel graphics format wasn't the most efficient, but
you at least transferred 6 bits of graphic data for each byte, giving it
a 75% efficiency.
You would have had to wait almost forever to get a picture like in the
video over a serial line at 9600 bps, or even 19200. And once again, no
faster serial interfaces were available on a Unibus machine.
(Nor did any terminals appear to go that much faster either.)
Just make a small calculation. Let's assume a resolution of 640x480,
with just 8 bits per pixel. That would mean approximately 300Kbyte of
data to transfer. At 19200 bps, that would take 160 seconds to draw one
picture. (Assuming all bits were actual data, and no overhead.) Almost 3
minutes...
This is easy math, if people just try it. :-)
And I dare say, that picture have higher resolution, and more depth than
my simple calculation above used.
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
