<Nobody has ever made a Turing machine (it's that nasty infinitely long
<tape that keeps getting in the way), but that reminds me of something I'v
<been looking for. Didn't Danny Hillis make a computer from TinkerToys
<(TM) as part of his PhD thesis or something? I've been looking for the
<schematics....
Yes I know but it has been done. Back when shift registers were commonly
available with lengths of 1024 bits it was very trivial to string a few
and get really long serial memory. With moden megabit rams it's not that
much more difficult. The tape was not so much the problem but the
programing...
Allison
Doug,
I'll let you know if he decides to sell. I think he's considering it.
These are NICE units. They were used as controllers in some kind of
survielence (sp?) systems so they were enclosed inside of another unit and
have never been handled and they look like new.
The technical reference manuals sound interesting. How big are they? I
might get one just to add to my documentation library.
Is there a command to show the amount of memory in the HX-20? I'll try
it with and without the expansion unit connected and see what they do. BTW
is it normal for the HX-20 to turn on and show a menu for: 1) Monitor 2)
BASIC ? That's what these do. Do you have any user documentation for the
monitor and BASIC for the HX-20?
Joe
At 11:57 PM 3/9/98 -0600, you wrote:
>On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Joe wrote:
>
>> I don't have them for sale. They belong to a friend of mine. If he
>> decides to sell one, I'll let you know. Do they need a special tape or
>> will a standard audio tape work in them? What's the expansion unit?
>
>Thanks, Joe, I would like to buy one, so let me know if he sells. I don't
>know much about the HX-20, but I think the expansion unit was memory
>expansion (from 16K to 32K?). I've talked to somebody that used to sell
>these things as a dealer, and he still has the technical reference manual,
>so if we become HX-20 owners, I'll see if I can at least get photocopies
>of the tech ref.
>
>BTW, I saw an Epson HC-41 today. I think the HX-20 and HX-40 were sold in
>Japan as the HC-20 and HC-40 (which was also called the PX-4, I think).
>I've never heard of an HC-41 before today, but it looked sort of like an
>HX-20 except it had chicklet keys and a non-QWERTY layout. It was
>attached by ribbon cable to a rather large machine; the tiny Epson and
>large machine it controlled where being sold as a matched set for $250.
>
>-- Doug
>
>
<is is just the same machine without framebuffer and monitor? My only VAX
<(so far) is a VAXstation 3100 m38, and I'm finally starting to understan
<why there is such a religious user base for them.
;-)
<Also, Allison, which model is the guy giving away?
Free! ;-) Specific type unknown. I plan to round them up and then see
what we have.
Allison
<Didn't Danny Hillis make a computer from TinkerToys
<(TM) as part of his PhD thesis or something? I've been looking for the
<schematics....
I haven't seen schematics, but there was a write-up of a TinkerToy computer
which plays Tic Tac Toe in Scientific American a few years ago; sorry, I
don't remember the year. I do remember the description being good enough to
make me feel that I understood how the thing worked and, with a little
enthusiasm and a bunch of TinkerToys, possibly replicate. Perhaps now that
I have a big pile of K'NEX I should find the issue and give it a go.
IIRC, the Tic Tac Toe machine is essentially a ROM lookup table. You encode
the current state of the board on a part of the machine which slides up and
down then hoist that part to the top. As the part falls, it compares the
state of the board to the various entries in the ROM. Upon finding a match,
it waves a flag indicating its move.
Roger Ivie
ivie(a)cc.usu.edu
Hi,
Pardon someone fairly new to the cult of VAX, but what are the differences
between the VAXstation 3100 and the VAXserver 3100? Is it like Suns, where
is is just the same machine without framebuffer and monitor? My only VAX
(so far) is a VAXstation 3100 m38, and I'm finally starting to understand
why there is such a religious user base for them.
Also, Allison, which model is the guy giving away? Please let me know when
you get them and what condition they were in, I'm really interested. 6/7
of my freebies have turned out to be expensive-to-ship parts boxes, the
only real exception being a Sun 3/50 that was magnificent (complete with
memory expansion board).
Regards,
Aaron
At 12:07 AM 3/9/98 -0600, you wrote:
>On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Joe wrote:
>
>> I just found two Epson HX-20 computers with expansion units, plug-in
>> printers and plug-in micro-cassette drives. I've seen lots of these
>> computers but not the other items. Can anyone tell me about them? What's
>> a setup like this worth? Everthing is in PERFECT condtion, but no books,
>> tapes or anything else included.
>
>I was thinking about getting one of these myself, and I checked and found
>both ribbons and tapes still available (I think it was on Epson's Canadian
>site). I don't think there's a bid enough market for these things to
>come up with a pricing guide. Most people still give this stuff away for
>free since it's worthless to them.
>
>I'll give you $40 for one to kill two birds with one stone: I'll get an
>HX-20, and we'll establish the going market price for them.
>
Doug,
I don't have them for sale. They belong to a friend of mine. If he
decides to sell one, I'll let you know. Do they need a special tape or
will a standard audio tape work in them? What's the expansion unit?
Joe
William Donzelli <william(a)ans.net> writes:
> In general, the unusual stuff dies early.
That's a very interesting statement, but if you think about it it's both
"exactly backwards" and "exactly true." Stuff becomes known as "unusual"
precisely BECAUSE it "dies early" -- and is therefore not around to become
"commonplace!" Dinosaurs are extinct today BECAUSE they died out 65 million
years ago...
Chris Chiesa
cchi(a)lle.rochester.edu
All right, I have another bombing of questions and theories for y'all.
1)What was the first network server product for the IBM PC architecture?
2)Let's take the GRiD server as an example (I have never seen a GRiD
machine, BTW). How does it differ from any desktop system?
3)Have there been any machines that made extensive use of a truly
unusual architecture? What I am looking for is twofold: I am
interested if anything ever used a neural network-like arrangement,
and I am interested in something that had a processor that
interacted w/the user and a separate one to do the processing
(ie a real-time system capable of doing all that a normal one can)
These are for my personal investigations, but I have a feeling that
many new ideas have been tried before to some extent.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
At 07:49 AM 3/9/98, you wrote:
>>FWIW, I got email earlier today from somebody who threw his IPC away when
>>nobody took him up on his offer of taking it away for free....
>
> That's very strange since I frequently see ads from people wanting to
>buy them. There was an ad in one of the HP news-groups just a few days
ago.
[I missed the beginning of this; I apparently got booted off the list.*]
I too am looking for one, and would gladly take one for free. Depending on
my financial circumstances at the time, I would even pay for one.
*Not being one to know when I'm not wanted, I promptly signed up again. 8^)
--------------------------------------------------------------------- O-
Uncle Roger "There is pleasure pure in being mad
roger(a)sinasohn.com that none but madmen know."
Roger Louis Sinasohn & Associates
San Francisco, California http://www.sinasohn.com/
<>Hello all,
<
<>We have several (currently 6, more to come) VaxServer 3100's that
<>we have retired from service. They had been doing Macintosh file =
<>serving,
<>for the last 5 years and have been replaced with NT boxes.
I wrote him in the hopes of securing them, vermont it not far to go.
Allison
