Message-ID: <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2000 09:37:26 +0000 From: Ben Franchuk X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.15 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Naked computers. References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.153.6.34 X-Trace: 19 Aug 2000 11:45:19 -0700, 207.153.6.34 Organization: OA Internet Lines: 18 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!west2.newsfeed.sprint-canada.net!news.oanet.com!207.153.6.34 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62198 alt.sys.pdp8:56 alt.sys.pdp10:107 alt.sys.pdp11:41 David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x Looking at the nice prototype PCB, I came to the conclusion it looks NAKED with out a front panel. Is it me or does a historic FPGA design need a front panel to have the feel of the older equipment. Or say octal display and key pad nicely done not like the cheap calculator style of development boards. I still think some sort of front panel is useful nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years and front panel find a dead component would have been real useful. Ben. -- "We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents... We borrow it from our children." "Octal Computers:Where a step backward is two steps forward!" http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 From: Terry Kennedy Subject: Re: Naked computers. X-Complaints-To: Email abuse@spc.edu if this posting is inappropriate User-Agent: tin/1.4.2-20000205 ("Possession") (UNIX) (BSD/OS/4.1 (i386)) NNTP-Posting-Host: gate.tmk.com Organization: St. Peter's College, US Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> X-Trace: spcuna.spc.edu 966740420 27600 terry [204.141.35.61] Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 03:00:21 GMT Lines: 21 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed.mathworks.com!dfw-peer.news.verio.net!ord-feed.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!news.spc.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62203 alt.sys.pdp8:63 alt.sys.pdp10:109 alt.sys.pdp11:42 In alt.folklore.computers Ben Franchuk wrote: > I still think some sort of front panel is useful > nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years > and front panel find a dead component would have been real > useful. The problem is that if a PC-class CPU fails, there isn't anything you can do to diagnose it further even if you did have a front panel - it's not like the days when computers were built out of assorted 7400-series IC's. However, most motherboards do implement diagnostic displays sent to a dedicated I/O address. For an example, see: http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-pcode You can cobble one of these up yourself with some 7-segement displays and decoders, along with an I/O address decoder to latch writes to the diagnostic address. Terry Kennedy http://www.tmk.com terry@tmk.com Jersey City, NJ USA ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> Organization: No Organization X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test74 (May 26, 2000) From: tl@funcom.com (Torbjorn Lindgren) Originator: tl@funcom.com (Torbjorn Lindgren) Lines: 35 Message-ID: X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Complaints-To: support@usenetserver.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 12:55:19 EDT Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 16:55:19 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!news.informatik.uni-muenchen.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!feed2.onemain.com!feed1.onemain.com!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!cyclone1.usenetserver.com!news-west.usenetserver.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62196 Terry Kennedy wrote: >In alt.folklore.computers Ben Franchuk wrote: >> I still think some sort of front panel is useful >> nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years >> and front panel find a dead component would have been real >> useful. > > The problem is that if a PC-class CPU fails, there isn't anything you >can do to diagnose it further even if you did have a front panel - it's >not like the days when computers were built out of assorted 7400-series >IC's. > > However, most motherboards do implement diagnostic displays sent to a >dedicated I/O address. For an example, see: >http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-pcode [ Newsgroups line trimmed to only afc ] And there are modern PC motherboards that have a 2-digit 7-segment LED display built-in which shows POST codes. You need to have the case open to see them though (but the same applies to the card in question, and at least they're always there, so you don't need to power down to put in a card) The one I've seen myself is the Epox BX7+, at least two other Epox cards also have it (BX7 & BX7+100). I've been told that several other manufacturers have similar things in some of their high-end MB's. There are other variants, at least one have a few multi-colored leds instead, it's not that many different possibilities that has to be represented to cover 99% of the possibilities... It sure beats the old PC beep code! ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 20 Aug 2000 23:01:29 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 50 Message-ID: <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 966805292 538 10.0.3.2 (20 Aug 2000 21:01:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 20 Aug 2000 21:01:32 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62233 alt.sys.pdp8:67 alt.sys.pdp10:121 alt.sys.pdp11:43 Ben Franchuk writes: > David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. > http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x Neat. I looked at it after seeing it announced on alt.sys.pdp8 > it looks NAKED with out a front panel. Just what I also thought. > Is it me or does > a historic FPGA design need a front panel to have the feel > of the older equipment. Would be nice. Given that (unlike microprocessors) the entire CPU wiring is open to alterations one could add all the "what to display" selection stuff inside the Xilinx chip and have the lights multiplexed out onto the display. Actually the above web page mentions in addition to the 32kword memory an additonal 32kword "front panel memory". So he seems to be emulating the DECmate which had no panel (particularly as his 8/X has only an RS-232 and an HD connection). > Or say octal display and key pad nicely done > not like the cheap calculator style of development > boards. How would that look? I have only ever seen them calculator type input on microprocessor trainers (appart from the real row of bits on an 8 or 11). > I still think some sort of front panel is useful > nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years > and front panel find a dead component would have been real > useful. On PCs they would be fairly useless. Too complicated to use in this way. Just look at the awfull instruction set. Not to mention the complicated IO (BIOS anyone?). -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 00 09:05:26 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 34 Message-ID: <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> X-Trace: sQFa7JjBWYSMvKyZZ5HkJ5kpI1UT0rYIs3WcoQ+vVe4= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2000 12:07:54 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-97-97 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62244 alt.sys.pdp8:71 alt.sys.pdp10:128 alt.sys.pdp11:44 In article <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>, Neil Franklin wrote: >Ben Franchuk writes: > >> David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. >> http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x > >Neat. I looked at it after seeing it announced on alt.sys.pdp8 > > >> it looks NAKED with out a front panel. > >Just what I also thought. >> I still think some sort of front panel is useful >> nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years >> and front panel find a dead component would have been real >> useful. > >On PCs they would be fairly useless. Too complicated to use in this >way. Just look at the awfull instruction set. Not to mention the >complicated IO (BIOS anyone?). Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me or really screwing me. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Charles Richmond Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 17:12:46 -0700 Organization: Cannine Computer Center Lines: 30 Message-ID: <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62256 alt.sys.pdp8:79 alt.sys.pdp10:140 alt.sys.pdp11:49 Terry Kennedy wrote: > > In alt.folklore.computers Ben Franchuk wrote: > > I still think some sort of front panel is useful > > nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years > > and front panel find a dead component would have been real > > useful. > > The problem is that if a PC-class CPU fails, there isn't anything you > can do to diagnose it further even if you did have a front panel - it's > not like the days when computers were built out of assorted 7400-series > IC's. > > However, most motherboards do implement diagnostic displays sent to a > dedicated I/O address. For an example, see: > http://www.jdr.com/interact/item.asp?itemno=gr-pcode > > You can cobble one of these up yourself with some 7-segement displays > and decoders, along with an I/O address decoder to latch writes to the > diagnostic address. > I have an old IBM RS/6000 that has a three-digit 7-segment display for errors. When I try to boot it, I get a 512 (I think)...anyways, I have *no* idea what the number means... Heck, I wish I had access to an error code book for the thing... -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 21 Aug 2000 13:59:01 GMT Organization: IBM Austin Lines: 61 Message-ID: <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> Reply-To: wa4qal@vnet.ibm.com NNTP-Posting-Host: glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!korova.insync.net!uunet!ffx.uu.net!an02.austin.ibm.com!ausnews.austin.ibm.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62255 alt.sys.pdp8:77 alt.sys.pdp10:139 alt.sys.pdp11:48 In <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >In article <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch>, > Neil Franklin wrote: >>Ben Franchuk writes: >> >>> David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. >>> http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x >> >>Neat. I looked at it after seeing it announced on alt.sys.pdp8 >> >> >>> it looks NAKED with out a front panel. >> >>Just what I also thought. > > > >>> I still think some sort of front panel is useful >>> nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years >>> and front panel find a dead component would have been real >>> useful. >> >>On PCs they would be fairly useless. Too complicated to use in this >>way. Just look at the awfull instruction set. Not to mention the >>complicated IO (BIOS anyone?). > >Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would >dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- >one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. >That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me >or really screwing me. > >/BAH > >Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. Or, maybe just one of those bi-coloured LEDs that glows green for reading and red for writing. They wouldn't even have to change the faceplates of the current drives; they'd just have to tweak the circuit board a bit. [1] Oh, wait, they can't use a red light in certain places since red indicates an error condition. Maybe blue and green? Orange and green? Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. While this probably wouldn't be too useful for a system which has to do paging and only has one drive, it'd make it MUCH harder for a virus to muck with my critical data in a multi-disk system. [1] Hmm, that just gave me an idea (Whoa, that's scarey!). :*) I've seen a software package that works with an IBM PS/2-model 95 (or a 9595) that uses the LED information panel as drive lights, with one digit of the IP for each drive. I wonder if I could tweak the device driver software to indicate a R or a W in each digit to indicate whether the device is being read from or written to. Hmmm....off to find the source code.... Dave P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them. ###### From: Alexandre Pechtchanski Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. Organization: Rockefeller University Hospital (GCRC), New York Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 18 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:34:22 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 129.85.24.56 X-Trace: rockyd.rockefeller.edu 966875888 129.85.24.56 (Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:38:08 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 12:38:08 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news0.de.colt.net!colt.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.nyu.edu!news-nysernet-16.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!rockyd.rockefeller.edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62263 On 21 Aug 2000 13:59:01 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: [ piggi-backing Dave's post as Barbara's didn't show up ] [ snipped: front panels and why they are useless on IBM PCs ] >>Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would >>dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- >>one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. >>That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me >>or really screwing me. >> >>/BAH Well, this one is easy. You can safely assume that they _always_ try to screw you and _sometimes_ succeed. An indication of their success is any crash ;-) -- [ When replying, remove *'s from address ] Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 21 Aug 2000 17:18:01 GMT Organization: TSS Inc. Lines: 18 Message-ID: <8nro89$12v1$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> References: <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: citadel.in.taronga.com X-Trace: citadel.in.taronga.com 966878281 35809 10.0.0.43 (21 Aug 2000 17:18:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@taronga.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2000 17:18:01 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.voicenet.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!news.kjsl.com!news.usenet2.org!citadel.in.taronga.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62251 alt.sys.pdp8:75 alt.sys.pdp10:136 alt.sys.pdp11:46 In article <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, wrote: >Or, maybe just one of those bi-coloured LEDs that glows green for >reading and red for writing. They wouldn't even have to change the >faceplates of the current drives; they'd just have to tweak the >circuit board a bit. [1] Oh, wait, they can't use a red light in >certain places since red indicates an error condition. Maybe blue >and green? Orange and green? You can get LEDs that are green with DC one way, red the other way, and yellow (via additive color mixing) with AC. I suspect most R/G LEDS will do that. -- Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC. WWFD? "Be conservative in what you generate, and liberal in what you accept" -- Matthew 10:16 (l.trans) ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!not-for-mail From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 21 Aug 2000 22:24:09 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 32 Message-ID: <6uaee6icra.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: chonsp.franklin.ch X-Trace: chonsp.franklin.ch 966889452 728 10.0.3.2 (21 Aug 2000 20:24:12 GMT) X-Complaints-To: news@chonsp.franklin.ch NNTP-Posting-Date: 21 Aug 2000 20:24:12 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62269 alt.sys.pdp8:80 alt.sys.pdp10:142 alt.sys.pdp11:50 glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com writes: > Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a > read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. While this probably > wouldn't be too useful for a system which has to do paging and only > has one drive, it'd make it MUCH harder for a virus to muck with my > critical data in a multi-disk system. If you only have one disk, do it the way I once invented (but never implemented) in the days when PCs still had MFM/RLL disks and MS-DOS 3.3 with its 32MByte limit and without Windows: Have a board in the cable from controller to disk which counts the head move impulses and blocks the write line when cylinder was below some value settable by DIP switches. Use this with 2 partitions, the first readonly with all the software, the second writable with the data. A colleage of mine who had a small electronics shop actually liked the idea when I gave it as answer to his queston about ultimate virus protection. But he later decided against it because he did not see an large enough market. Interestingly I about 1 or 2 years later say in an german computer magazine an ad for exactly such an part. I appered once and then never again. I suppose that vindicated the "no market" estimate. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ Nerd, Geek, Hacker, Unix Guru, Sysadmin, Roleplayer, LARPer, Mystic ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 00 12:02:10 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 15 Message-ID: <8nu4qd$4kf$4@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> X-Trace: oSe2igDWD5Lm5Ccsi/ggIv/MATOb1PeXoHj3Pmkhvak= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 15:04:45 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-94 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62310 alt.sys.pdp8:85 alt.sys.pdp10:153 alt.sys.pdp11:54 In article <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk>, john@polo.demon.co.uk (John Winters) wrote: >In article <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >[snip] >>I can't tell >>you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell >>you that you should hit the deck. > >To get the cards moving again you mean? > ROTFL. Thanks, I needed that. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 00 12:02:50 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 26 Message-ID: <8nu4rk$4kf$5@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <39A1DDF9.9F98D84B@prescienttech.com> X-Trace: oSe2igDWD5J8Y3eI7az1hQsimfv/yU6zQuAhSFBp+VY= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 15:05:24 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!informatik.tu-muenchen.de!news.informatik.uni-muenchen.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!netnews.com!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-102-94 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62313 In article <39A1DDF9.9F98D84B@prescienttech.com>, "Carl R. Friend" wrote: >glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > > [Please note that I trimmed the Newsgroups: header] > >> In <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: >> > >> >Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would >> >dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- >> >one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. >> >That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me >> >or really screwing me. >> >> Or, maybe just one of those bi-coloured LEDs that glows green for >> reading and red for writing. [1] Oh, wait, they can't use a red >> light in certain places since red indicates an error condition. > > Now wait a minute here. Green for a read makes sense. Come to >think of it, red for a MS write makes sense, too.... > Good thinking. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 00 09:48:39 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> X-Trace: tIyKJtuO1hUhBV708zOoAx2coJz70eKHq7eFUzUwrOg= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 12:51:15 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-83 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62318 alt.sys.pdp8:86 alt.sys.pdp10:156 alt.sys.pdp11:55 In article <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu>, Joe Pfeiffer wrote: >A basic point is being missed here. Computer are supposed to have >flashing lights. It doesn't matter whether you can actually tell >anything useful from them -- any computer without flashing lights just >doesn't look right. Nah. You've never worked with a -10 then. With a KI and a KA I could tell if it was time to type EX$$ to preserve my edit. > There is something seriously wrong when the most >impressive set of flashing lights in my office is on the network hub >(and I regard the best argument out there for having an external modem >to be that it has flashing lights). Yes, I keep xosview running at >all times; it's nice (and frequently even useful!), but it just >doesn't have the same cachet. And I have an external modem with those flashing lights, and I now can tell if my ISP is starting to have troubles just by the flash and flicker. When I was certifying DECnet, I had to rely on flashes and flickers to figure out if the damn scripts were working the way they should be. I can't tell you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell you that you should hit the deck. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 00 09:44:43 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 43 Message-ID: <8ntson$eis$9@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <39A1A904.BEF54B4C@ev1.net> X-Trace: V8ZiY+BLXBNweG4rIdiB7FlAj6lPIjgml6CQpCQwu5k= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 12:47:19 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-83 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62328 alt.sys.pdp8:88 alt.sys.pdp10:165 alt.sys.pdp11:57 In article <39A1A904.BEF54B4C@ev1.net>, Charles Richmond wrote: >jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: >> >> [snip...] [sip...] [snipo...] >> >> Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would >> dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- >> one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. >> That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me >> or really screwing me. >> >BAH, you do *not* need any lights...rest assured that M$ *is* >screwing you, at every opportunity they get. You really should give me a little bit of credit of having some ability of moving my butt. They don't seem to be able to hit a moving target. > So maybe you just >need a light on your disk that is on *all* the time...to remind >you that M$ is sticking it to you *all* the time. So just use >the power light on the drive... That just indicates that they're trying to. I want to know when it's reality. That other guy's idea of having a switch that I can flip from write-protect and visa versa would be useful, too. In the old days, one had to be able to run very fast to hit that switch. With this system all I have to do is move a hand. > >That's like the question: "How do you tell if a Marine recruiter >is lying???" Answer: "His lips are moving." > Hadn't heard that one; I would have substituted a name for the Marine. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: Charles Richmond Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 15:11:15 -0700 Organization: Cannine Computer Center Lines: 23 Message-ID: <39A1A904.BEF54B4C@ev1.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.skycache.com!Cidera!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62365 alt.sys.pdp8:97 alt.sys.pdp10:180 alt.sys.pdp11:64 jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote: > > [snip...] [sip...] [snipo...] > > Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would > dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- > one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. > That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me > or really screwing me. > BAH, you do *not* need any lights...rest assured that M$ *is* screwing you, at every opportunity they get. So maybe you just need a light on your disk that is on *all* the time...to remind you that M$ is sticking it to you *all* the time. So just use the power light on the drive... That's like the question: "How do you tell if a Marine recruiter is lying???" Answer: "His lips are moving." -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: "Carl R. Friend" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 21:52:03 -0400 Organization: as little as possible! Lines: 22 Message-ID: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: kZYJMiUqi+JjQAtNR/+duuyOyJVYAAIdNflIItQokNw= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 01:52:05 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.29 i586) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-ulm.de!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!schlund.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!diablo.theplanet.net!europa.netcrusader.net!207.172.3.37!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62337 alt.sys.pdp8:91 alt.sys.pdp10:170 alt.sys.pdp11:60 Charles Richmond wrote: > > I have an old IBM RS/6000 that has a three-digit 7-segment display for > errors. When I try to boot it, I get a 512 (I think)...anyways, I > have *no* idea what the number means... Heck, I wish I had access > to an error code book for the thing... "512 Restoring device configuration files from media." Source: http://www.rs6000.ibm.com/resource/hardware_docs/ser3/a4af5b24.html#HDRSRN Watch the word-wrap there! -- +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:crfriend@ma.ultranet.com +---------------------+ | http://www.ultranet.com/~crfriend/museum | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W | +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ ###### From: "Carl R. Friend" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 21:57:13 -0400 Organization: as little as possible! Lines: 26 Message-ID: <39A1DDF9.9F98D84B@prescienttech.com> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: 8i7hkI25JoLHBOppz9Wli8+N+u2HKYRC3aFcBKvZlJE= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 01:57:14 GMT X-Accept-Language: en X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.0.29 i586) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news.augsburg.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62338 glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: [Please note that I trimmed the Newsgroups: header] > In <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > > > >Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would > >dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- > >one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. > >That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me > >or really screwing me. > > Or, maybe just one of those bi-coloured LEDs that glows green for > reading and red for writing. [1] Oh, wait, they can't use a red > light in certain places since red indicates an error condition. Now wait a minute here. Green for a read makes sense. Come to think of it, red for a MS write makes sense, too.... -- +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ | Carl Richard Friend (UNIX Sysadmin) | West Boylston | | Minicomputer Collector / Enthusiast | Massachusetts, USA | | mailto:crfriend@ma.ultranet.com +---------------------+ | http://www.ultranet.com/~crfriend/museum | ICBM: 42:22N 71:47W | +------------------------------------------------+---------------------+ ###### From: Joe Pfeiffer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 21 Aug 2000 21:19:42 -0600 Organization: NMSU Computer Science Lines: 19 Message-ID: <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: viper.cs.nmsu.edu X-Trace: bubba.NMSU.Edu 966914442 1963 128.123.64.113 (22 Aug 2000 03:20:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@bubba.NMSU.Edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Aug 2000 03:20:42 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.5 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.mathworks.com!newsxfer.eecs.umich.edu!hardy.tc.umn.edu!lynx.unm.edu!news.NMSU.Edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62341 alt.sys.pdp8:93 alt.sys.pdp10:171 alt.sys.pdp11:61 A basic point is being missed here. Computer are supposed to have flashing lights. It doesn't matter whether you can actually tell anything useful from them -- any computer without flashing lights just doesn't look right. There is something seriously wrong when the most impressive set of flashing lights in my office is on the network hub (and I regard the best argument out there for having an external modem to be that it has flashing lights). Yes, I keep xosview running at all times; it's nice (and frequently even useful!), but it just doesn't have the same cachet. Note on disk lights: a couple of years ago, I found a styrofoam skull with flashing LED eyes at K-Mart. So I ripped out the flasher, and hooked it up as my disk lights. I'm constantly tempted to wire one to the disk drive, and one to the Ethernet... -- Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605 Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002 New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer VL 2000 Homepage: http://www.cs.orst.edu/~burnett/vl2000/ ###### From: Philip Freidin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Organization: Fliptronics Reply-To: philip@fliptronics.com Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 31 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 20:29:05 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.103.85.188 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: news.pacbell.net 966914985 216.103.85.188 (Mon, 21 Aug 2000 20:29:45 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 20:29:45 PDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feeder.via.net!cyclone-sf.pbi.net!206.13.28.33!news.pacbell.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62369 alt.sys.pdp8:98 alt.sys.pdp10:183 alt.sys.pdp11:65 On Sat, 19 Aug 2000 09:37:26 +0000, Ben Franchuk wrote: >David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. >http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x >Looking at the nice prototype PCB, I came to the conclusion >it looks NAKED with out a front panel. I believe my RISC4005/R16 was the first CPU in a single FPGA, in 1991. As a devout user of PDP8/E/F/M and PDP11/05/20/34/55/60, it was impossible for me to use it without a front panel. A picture of it was recently publishe in Circuit Cellar online. http://www.chipcenter.com/circuitcellar/august00/c0800su3.htm;$sessionid$ECOAVBYAAABBFJ4Y5XDCFEQ FYI, the CPU is a single XC4005, and it uses 75% to implement a 16 bit RISC that runs at about 20 MHz (~ 20 MIPs). The front panel is implemented with 6 XC3020 FPGAs. It looks great when it runs. Philip Freidin Philip Freidin Mindspring that acquired Earthlink that acquired Netcom has decided to kill off all Shell accounts, including mine. My new primary email address is philip@fliptronics.com I'm sure the inconvenience to you will be less than it is for me. ###### From: "Roger Johnstone" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 20:25:01 +1200 Organization: ihug (Invercargill) Lines: 35 Message-ID: <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: inv.ihug.co.nz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express for Macintosh - 4.01 (295) Cache-Post-Path: inv.ihug.co.nz!unknown@p7-max1.inv.ihug.co.nz X-Cache: nntpcache 2.4.0b2 (see http://www.nntpcache.org/) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!bignews.mediaways.net!feeder.via.net!ihug.co.nz!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62289 alt.sys.pdp8:84 alt.sys.pdp10:148 alt.sys.pdp11:52 ---------- In article <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: >Or, maybe just one of those bi-coloured LEDs that glows green for >reading and red for writing. They wouldn't even have to change the >faceplates of the current drives; they'd just have to tweak the >circuit board a bit. [1] Oh, wait, they can't use a red light in >certain places since red indicates an error condition. Maybe blue >and green? Orange and green? I have seen a floppy drive which used a bi-colour LED, green for read, red for write. >Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a >read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. While this probably >wouldn't be too useful for a system which has to do paging and only >has one drive, it'd make it MUCH harder for a virus to muck with my >critical data in a multi-disk system. Again, I remember seeing a modification someone had done to an old Apple II 5.25" floppy drive. They added a switch to override the write protect. The three modes were normal, read only and write enable. Very useful too for writing to disks with no write-enable notch! Harder to do for a hard drive of course, with no write-enable detector already in place. Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rojaws ------------------------------------------ Marketer to coder: "You start coding. I'll go find out what they want." ###### From: john@polo.demon.co.uk (John Winters) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 22 Aug 2000 14:27:20 +0100 Organization: The Linux Emporium Message-ID: <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: unseen.linuxemporium.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: unseen.linuxemporium.co.uk:194.70.1.33 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 966951175 nnrp-07:9241 NO-IDENT unseen.linuxemporium.co.uk:194.70.1.33 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net Lines: 14 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.icl.net!dispose.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!unseen.linuxemporium.co.uk!polo.demon.co.uk!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62324 alt.sys.pdp8:87 alt.sys.pdp10:161 alt.sys.pdp11:56 In article <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: [snip] >I can't tell >you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell >you that you should hit the deck. To get the cards moving again you mean? John -- John Winters. Wallingford, Oxon, England. The Linux Emporium - the source for Linux CDs in the UK See http://www.linuxemporium.co.uk/ ###### From: andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 22 Aug 2000 14:06:58 GMT Organization: home Message-ID: <8nu1e2$35a@cucumber.demon.co.uk> References: <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cucumber X-NNTP-Posting-Host: cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86 X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 966956029 nnrp-07:11087 NO-IDENT cucumber.demon.co.uk:158.152.58.86 X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.6 Lines: 39 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!psinet-eu-nl!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!newsgate.cistron.nl!bullseye.news.demon.net!demon!news.demon.co.uk!demon!cucumber.demon.co.uk!usenet Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62331 alt.sys.pdp8:90 alt.sys.pdp10:168 alt.sys.pdp11:59 In article <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com writes: > >Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a >read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. While this probably >wouldn't be too useful for a system which has to do paging and only >has one drive, it'd make it MUCH harder for a virus to muck with my >critical data in a multi-disk system. This was standard on the mini-computers I used to use. It wasn't implemented consistently. E.g. the large CDC LMH (Large Moving Head) 14" exchangable platter drives had a 'protected track' bit in the sector header, and if the drive was switched to being read-only, you couldn't write to protected tracks. We used to initialise tracks 0 and 1 as protected, and these both held a copy of our partition table (or region map as we called it), and also held the boot code and the replacement track map. None of these was normally written to except when doing special disk management tasks so these disks would normally be left write-protected (you could still write to the non-protected tracks, which in our case was most of the disk). However, later when CDC made things like the Lark disks (8" platters, one fixed one removable per mech, still SMD interface though), the write protection applied to the whole disk - the 'protected track' flag in the sector header was no longer implemented. Thus these had to be left write-enabled or you couldn't write to the filing system areas. Some SCSI and IDE disks have had write-protect jumpers. These seem to go in and out of fashion every 5 years or so - probably depends if the control board has a spare jumper available which is decoded, and they can't think of some other use for it. -- Andrew Gabriel Andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk Consultant Software Engineer ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 22 Aug 00 10:30:47 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 18 Message-ID: <497.269T2393T6306170@sky.bus.com> References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-132.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.5a (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.mathworks.com!pln-e!spln!dex!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news2 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62387 alt.sys.pdp8:102 alt.sys.pdp10:186 alt.sys.pdp11:66 In article <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> john@polo.demon.co.uk (John Winters) writes: >In article <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >[snip] >>I can't tell >>you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell >>you that you should hit the deck. > >To get the cards moving again you mean? Maybe that should read "hit the DEC", to correct an intermittent connection. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 00 08:07:42 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 21 Message-ID: <8o0bf3$67m$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> <497.269T2393T6306170@sky.bus.com> X-Trace: 1Nv/PN5r4UqFOwvflyqgXKg93mlnIqADwUpth5uWSR4= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 11:10:27 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-255-186 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62399 alt.sys.pdp8:103 alt.sys.pdp10:188 alt.sys.pdp11:67 In article <497.269T2393T6306170@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" wrote: >In article <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> john@polo.demon.co.uk >(John Winters) writes: > >>In article <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: >>[snip] >>>I can't tell >>>you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell >>>you that you should hit the deck. >> >>To get the cards moving again you mean? > >Maybe that should read "hit the DEC", to correct an intermittent >connection. > Ooohhh. Now that's a really good one ;-)))). /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 00 09:17:08 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <8o0fh9$2u2$3@bob.news.rcn.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Trace: S1uAnLCZ7NGWcMxbEu+HAp+qIG4l2fpp4nP68nN8Ib8= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 12:19:53 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news-stu1.dfn.de!news-mue1.dfn.de!news.augsburg.net!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-255-186 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62400 In article , Alexandre Pechtchanski wrote: >On 21 Aug 2000 13:59:01 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: >[ piggi-backing Dave's post as Barbara's didn't show up ] Aw, shit. Alexandre, would you mind getting the path of a post from Carl Friend and shipping it to me via e-mail? It has now become a badge of responsibility for me to run this newsreader software since it appears that quite a bit of code is getting written with Y2K bugs in them. > >[ snipped: front panels and why they are useless on IBM PCs ] >>>Well, I'll use this as an opportunity to add my wish list. I would >>>dearly love to have two lights associated with my disk I/O-- >>>one lighting up for reads and the other lighting up for writes. >>>That way I'd be able to tell if Misoft is trying to screw me >>>or really screwing me. >>> >>>/BAH > >Well, this one is easy. You can safely assume that they >_always_ try to screw you and _sometimes_ succeed. An >indication of their success is any crash ;-) > Oh, no. That just means they fucked up their stealth screwing. I know the stealth stuff is there from the tickle in my back. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. ###### From: hmv@port.ac.uk (Mike Meredith at home) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2000 21:40:50 -0700 Organization: Customer of Energis Squared Lines: 9 Sender: mike@port.ac.uk Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: modem-36.aranruth.dialup.pol.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk 967046641 25189 62.136.119.164 (23 Aug 2000 16:04:01 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 16:04:01 GMT X-Complaints-To: abuse@theplanet.net X-Newsreader: knews 1.0b.1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!diablo.theplanet.net!news.theplanet.net!newspost.theplanet.net!lucifer!nobody Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62444 alt.sys.pdp8:114 alt.sys.pdp10:217 alt.sys.pdp11:72 In article <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com writes: > Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a > read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. On some of the SCSI disks I've played with, there was a jumper to turn the drive into read-only mode --- break that out somehow, and you'd have your switch. Of course certain os's may get a bit confused with a read-only system disk. ###### From: d_lau@my-deja.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 20:47:29 GMT Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy. Lines: 33 Message-ID: <8nuosq$cgh$1@nnrp1.deja.com> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: 132.233.247.5 X-Article-Creation-Date: Tue Aug 22 20:47:29 2000 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x67.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 132.233.247.5 X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDd_lau Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!blackbush.xlink.net!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!newsfeed.mathworks.com!portc03.blue.aol.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62401 alt.sys.pdp8:104 alt.sys.pdp10:189 Speaking of Naked Computers, how many of you remember the Naked Mini computers from Computer Automation? This is probably in the early/mid '70s (which would be appropriate for the folklore group). I don't remember what the architecture was like, can anyone provide some more comments. Also how did it compare to the mini's of the same era (Honeywell 516, Prime, ESL, etc.) In article <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca>, Ben Franchuk wrote: > David Conroy has done a rather nice PDP-8 in a FPGA. > http://www.spies.com/~dgc/pdp8x > Looking at the nice prototype PCB, I came to the conclusion > it looks NAKED with out a front panel. Is it me or does > a historic FPGA design need a front panel to have the feel > of the older equipment. Or say octal display and key pad nicely done > not like the cheap calculator style of development > boards. I still think some sort of front panel is useful > nowadays - I have 3 dead mother boards in the last 5 years > and front panel find a dead component would have been real > useful. > Ben. > > -- > "We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents... > We borrow it from our children." > "Octal Computers:Where a step backward is two steps forward!" > http://www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy. ###### From: Charles Richmond Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 16:11:11 -0700 Organization: Cannine Computer Center Lines: 21 Message-ID: <39A30890.FC2063DB@ev1.net> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <8nuosq$cgh$1@nnrp1.deja.com> Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62440 alt.sys.pdp8:113 alt.sys.pdp10:214 d_lau@my-deja.com wrote: > > Speaking of Naked Computers, how many of you remember the Naked Mini > computers from Computer Automation? This is probably in the > early/mid '70s (which would be appropriate for the folklore group). I > don't remember what the architecture was like, can anyone provide some > more comments. Also how did it compare to the mini's of the same era > (Honeywell 516, Prime, ESL, etc.) > I was at NCC (National Computer Conference) in the summer of 1977, and got a canvas tote bag from Computer Automation with something about the "Naked Mini" written on the side. CA used to have a plant here in Richardson, TX. According to a EE that worked for them before, CA was obliterated by the microcomputer revolution...seems the president of CA thought they could keep selling the same old single-board computers and it just did *not* compete with the microprocessor-based controllers. -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) From: jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) Lines: 46 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 03:02:45 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.98.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 966999765 209.98.98.8 (Tue, 22 Aug 2000 22:02:45 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 22:02:45 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.nextra.ch!news1.sunrise.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62411 alt.sys.pdp8:106 alt.sys.pdp10:198 alt.sys.pdp11:69 Joe Pfeiffer writes: >A basic point is being missed here. Computer are supposed to have >flashing lights. It doesn't matter whether you can actually tell >anything useful from them -- any computer without flashing lights just >doesn't look right. I entirely agree, although I considerably trim the Newsgroups line. On TRUC (The Rice University Computer) [see the Hacker's Dictionary], it was fairly easy to watch the progress of your program by looking at the neon glow-tubes which displayed the value of the B-lines (index registers). However, a computer can be too "naked." I will not name the manufacturer or the model number, but in the early 70's you might have seen it advertised on the back cover of Datamation as "The BlueCollar Computer." There really is no doubt that this was the world's worst computer, and will stand unchallengened for the forseeable future. This had blinking lights within pushbuttons which could be used to toggle the value of a bit in a selected register. One of the minor things which made this the World's Worst Computer was that the pushbuttons were "live" even when the machine was in run mode. One usually displayed the P register, so if you accidentally leaned against the hardware, the computer would take a branch to hell. The solution was as impressive as the original design: a locking plexiglass cover over the pushbuttons. >................... There is something seriously wrong when the most >impressive set of flashing lights in my office is on the network hub >(and I regard the best argument out there for having an external modem >to be that it has flashing lights). Yes, I keep xosview running at >all times; it's nice (and frequently even useful!), but it just >doesn't have the same cachet. On my current project, I am at least able to set the IBM RAN to display the RS-232 status lines. Lets me tell if I am still talking to the world. -- J.Otto Tennant jotto@pobox.com Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. Charter Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) From: jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) Lines: 25 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 03:15:03 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.98.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 967000503 209.98.98.8 (Tue, 22 Aug 2000 22:15:03 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 22:15:03 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62416 alt.sys.pdp8:108 alt.sys.pdp10:203 alt.sys.pdp11:71 "Roger Johnstone" writes: [...] >>read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. While this probably >>wouldn't be too useful for a system which has to do paging and only >>has one drive, it'd make it MUCH harder for a virus to muck with my >>critical data in a multi-disk system. Back in 19xx, SDS produced a fixed head hard drive called a RAD(tm). It was *huge* --- 10 MB. (There was a cheaper version, only 375 KB, which most most of our sales.) In the back, there were switches which enabled writing in chunks of tracks. I quite forget how much each switch covered. When I discovered these, our productivity increased by leaps and bounds, after spending about a week reorganizing the disk layout. Of course, then, we did not have Unix; we were still writing programs with styli on clay tablets. -- J.Otto Tennant jotto@pobox.com Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. Charter Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ###### Message-ID: <39A34078.EF81AE93@jetnet.ab.ca> Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 03:09:44 +0000 From: Ben Franchuk X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.15 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> <8o110g$ru3$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.153.6.39 X-Trace: 23 Aug 2000 11:48:57 -0700, 207.153.6.39 Organization: OA Internet Lines: 18 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!west2.newsfeed.sprint-canada.net!news.oanet.com!207.153.6.39 Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62459 alt.sys.pdp8:116 alt.sys.pdp10:224 alt.sys.pdp11:75 Peter da Silva wrote: > So, well, we're back to writing programs with styli on clay tablets again. > Some of us, anyway. Hmm: I see you coming home dirty "hard day at the office dear" says the wife. "Look at junior - covered in dirt , he is the spitting image of his father" Office to office chat "Quick hide the Mud Pies the Boss is coming". "Watch out for the BOSS - he is ready to mud sling anybody that crosses his path" "Are we out of stones? the BOSS wants 3 hard copies done by the end of the day " Ben. -- "We do not inherit our time on this planet from our parents... We borrow it from our children." ###### From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 23 Aug 2000 17:18:08 GMT Organization: TSS Inc. Lines: 31 Message-ID: <8o110g$ru3$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> References: <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> NNTP-Posting-Host: citadel.in.taronga.com X-Trace: citadel.in.taronga.com 967051088 28611 10.0.0.43 (23 Aug 2000 17:18:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@taronga.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 17:18:08 GMT X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test72 (19 April 1999) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.kjsl.com!news.usenet2.org!citadel.in.taronga.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62504 alt.sys.pdp8:122 alt.sys.pdp10:234 alt.sys.pdp11:77 In article , J. Otto Tennant wrote: >Of course, then, we did not have Unix; we were still writing programs >with styli on clay tablets. Speaking of styli and clay tablets. A few years back I was at a museum store, and they had these reproduction clay tablets and styli. They were about half the size of a paperback book, and they fit comfortably into my hand. I could easily see running my business on one if I was a Sumerian scribe (the 3000 BC version of a computer geek, more or less). This January I got a Visor... a Palm Pilot clone running Palm OS. It felt awful familiar in my hand, but I couldn't place it. Then I saw a picture of one of these tablets. The Visor and stylus were *EXACTLY* the same shape and size as the tablet and stylus used for much the same purpose... though with a good deal less memory... 2000-5000 years ago in the middle east. So, well, we're back to writing programs with styli on clay tablets again. Some of us, anyway. -- Rev. Peter da Silva, ULC. WWFD? "Be conservative in what you generate, and liberal in what you accept" -- Matthew 10:16 (l.trans) ###### From: Charles Richmond Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 13:00:46 -0700 Organization: Cannine Computer Center Lines: 32 Message-ID: <39A42D6E.7D52EAA1@ev1.net> References: <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> <8o110g$ru3$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!uni-erlangen.de!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62521 alt.sys.pdp8:127 alt.sys.pdp10:244 alt.sys.pdp11:81 Peter da Silva wrote: > > In article , > J. Otto Tennant wrote: > >Of course, then, we did not have Unix; we were still writing programs > >with styli on clay tablets. > > Speaking of styli and clay tablets. > > A few years back I was at a museum store, and they had these reproduction > clay tablets and styli. They were about half the size of a paperback book, > and they fit comfortably into my hand. I could easily see running my business > on one if I was a Sumerian scribe (the 3000 BC version of a computer geek, > more or less). > > This January I got a Visor... a Palm Pilot clone running Palm OS. It felt > awful familiar in my hand, but I couldn't place it. > > Then I saw a picture of one of these tablets. > > The Visor and stylus were *EXACTLY* the same shape and size as the tablet and > stylus used for much the same purpose... though with a good deal less memory... > 2000-5000 years ago in the middle east. > > So, well, we're back to writing programs with styli on clay tablets again. > "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." ;-) -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### From: genew@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:30:58 GMT Organization: Okanagan Internet Junction Lines: 37 Message-ID: <39a41e8b.10586911@news.shuswap.net> References: <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <966932647.363504@inv.ihug.co.nz> <8o110g$ru3$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> Reply-To: genew@shuswap.net NNTP-Posting-Host: salmonarm3-19.shuswap.net X-Trace: news.junction.net 967062406 381 139.142.177.149 (23 Aug 2000 20:26:46 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@junction.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 20:26:46 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.1/32.230 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gblx.net!feeder.via.net!logbridge.uoregon.edu!cyclone.bc.net!news.junction.net!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62494 alt.sys.pdp8:119 alt.sys.pdp10:230 alt.sys.pdp11:76 peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) wrote: [snipped previous] >Speaking of styli and clay tablets. > >A few years back I was at a museum store, and they had these reproduction >clay tablets and styli. They were about half the size of a paperback book, >and they fit comfortably into my hand. I could easily see running my business >on one if I was a Sumerian scribe (the 3000 BC version of a computer geek, >more or less). > >This January I got a Visor... a Palm Pilot clone running Palm OS. It felt >awful familiar in my hand, but I couldn't place it. > >Then I saw a picture of one of these tablets. > >The Visor and stylus were *EXACTLY* the same shape and size as the tablet and >stylus used for much the same purpose... though with a good deal less memory... >2000-5000 years ago in the middle east. > >So, well, we're back to writing programs with styli on clay tablets again. > >Some of us, anyway. Sorry, but this post is off-charter for alt.folklore.computers. The Visor is not at least ten years old. Resembling old technology is not enough. Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation: I have preferences. You have biases. He/She has prejudices. ###### From: Charles Richmond Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 15:42:58 -0700 Organization: Cannine Computer Center Lines: 25 Message-ID: <39A45372.46761B48@ev1.net> References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> <497.269T2393T6306170@sky.bus.com> Reply-To: richmond@ev1.net X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP; EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh; I; PPC) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!psinet-eu-nl!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62515 alt.sys.pdp8:126 alt.sys.pdp10:242 alt.sys.pdp11:80 Charlie Gibbs wrote: > > In article <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> john@polo.demon.co.uk > (John Winters) writes: > > >In article <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net>, wrote: > >[snip] > >>I can't tell > >>you what is goodness w.r.t. flashing lights, but I can tell > >>you that you should hit the deck. > > > >To get the cards moving again you mean? > > Maybe that should read "hit the DEC", to correct an intermittent > connection. > That reminds me...wasn't there a magazine add for some kind of upgrade card to one of the DEC computers??? The add read: "If you do *not* have this card, you are *not* playing with a full DEC." Does anyone remember an add like this??? -- +-------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond | +-------------------------------------------------------------+ ###### Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com From: Eric Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> <8ntt03$eis$10@bob.news.rcn.net> <8ntv3o$vpm$1@polo.demon.co.uk> <497.269T2393T6306170@sky.bus.com> <39A45372.46761B48@ev1.net> X-Disclaimer: Everything I write is false. Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. Date: 23 Aug 2000 17:08:57 -0700 Message-ID: Lines: 8 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: ruckus.brouhaha.com X-Trace: 23 Aug 2000 17:15:25 -0700, ruckus.brouhaha.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.sgi.com!news.spies.com!ruckus.brouhaha.com Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62513 alt.sys.pdp8:123 alt.sys.pdp10:239 alt.sys.pdp11:78 Charles Richmond writes: > That reminds me...wasn't there a magazine add for some kind of upgrade > card to one of the DEC computers??? The add read: "If you do *not* > have this card, you are *not* playing with a full DEC." Does anyone > remember an add like this??? I didn't see that, but I remember shirts and buttons that said, "If it doesn't have 36 bits, you're not playing with a full DEC." ###### From: mxflxanxge@xstuxdexntxs.wixsc.edu (Mark) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 18:43:05 -0600 Organization: University of Wisconsin - Madison Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ras-c5800-1-49-46.dialup.wisc.edu X-Trace: news.doit.wisc.edu 967073808 19244 128.104.49.46 (23 Aug 2000 23:36:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@doit.wisc.edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Aug 2000 23:36:48 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!xfer13.netnews.com!netnews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!news.binc.net!nntp.chorus.net!news.doit.wisc.edu!ras-c5800-1-49-46.dialup.wisc.edu!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62487 In article , jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) wrote: > However, a computer can be too "naked." I will not name the > manufacturer or the model number, but in the early 70's you > might have seen it advertised on the back cover of Datamation as "The > BlueCollar Computer." There really is no doubt that this was the > world's worst computer, and will stand unchallengened for the > forseeable future. > This had blinking lights within pushbuttons which could be used > to toggle the value of a bit in a selected register. One of the > minor things which made this the World's Worst Computer was that > the pushbuttons were "live" even when the machine was in run mode. > One usually displayed the P register, so if you accidentally > leaned against the hardware, the computer would take a branch > to hell. I'm not familiar with the Datamation ad you mentioned, but I sincerely hope that you aren't referring to the Univac 1500. That machine certainly had the sort of register/pushbutton combination you described, a whole 2 foot by 6 foot panel of them, but it hardly deserves the title of "world's worst computer." Quite the contrary, the 1500 (or the AN/YK-5V as the military version was known, IIRC) deserves credit for being the toughest (small) mainframe ever built. -- Mark Lange (there are no x's in my e-address) ###### From: Joe Pfeiffer Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: 23 Aug 2000 23:08:32 -0600 Organization: NMSU Computer Science Lines: 19 Message-ID: <1bn1i3nt4f.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: viper.cs.nmsu.edu X-Trace: bubba.NMSU.Edu 967093773 17513 128.123.64.113 (24 Aug 2000 05:09:33 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@bubba.NMSU.Edu NNTP-Posting-Date: 24 Aug 2000 05:09:33 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.5 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeed.mathworks.com!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!dca1-hub1.news.digex.net!atl1-feed1.news.digex.net!intermedia!lynx.unm.edu!news.NMSU.Edu!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62500 mxflxanxge@xstuxdexntxs.wixsc.edu (Mark) writes: > > One usually displayed the P register, so if you accidentally > > leaned against the hardware, the computer would take a branch > > to hell. Having worked with a Fairchild 9450 (aka Mil-Std-1750A) prototype board with buggy interrupts that would occasionally set random high-order bits in the PC to 1, the phrase ``take a branch to hell'' is a line I will *never* forget. My code ended up with a whole bunch of jumps from various high memory locations to real live interrupt vectors, all with the comment ``hack this sucker with an *axe*'' I can't remember how in the world I ever figured out what was going on.... -- Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605 Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002 New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer VL 2000 Homepage: http://www.cs.orst.edu/~burnett/vl2000/ ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch Subject: Re: Naked computers. References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <39A073FE.C12A1269@ev1.net> <39A1DCC3.F02E22AF@prescienttech.com> <1br97it229.fsf@viper.cs.nmsu.edu> X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.6 (NOV) From: jot@visi.com (J. Otto Tennant) Lines: 25 Message-ID: Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 03:42:30 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.98.98.8 X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com X-Trace: ptah.visi.com 967174950 209.98.98.8 (Thu, 24 Aug 2000 22:42:30 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 22:42:30 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!upp1.onvoy!onvoy.com!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!ptah.visi.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62548 mxflxanxge@xstuxdexntxs.wixsc.edu (Mark) writes: >In article , jot@visi.com (J. Otto >Tennant) wrote: [...] > I'm not familiar with the Datamation ad you mentioned, but I sincerely >hope that you aren't referring to the Univac 1500. That machine certainly >had the sort of register/pushbutton combination you described, a whole 2 >foot by 6 foot panel of them, but it hardly deserves the title of "world's >worst computer." Quite the contrary, the 1500 (or the AN/YK-5V as the >military version was known, IIRC) deserves credit for being the toughest >(small) mainframe ever built. It was not a Univac computer. The company which I do not mention did use some Univac computers as OEM products. I am not familiar enough with the Univac 1500 to comment further. >-- >Mark Lange (there are no x's in my e-address) -- J.Otto Tennant jotto@pobox.com Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit. Charter Member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ###### From: not-a-real-address@usa.net (those who know me have no need of my name) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch,alt.sys.pdp8,alt.sys.pdp10,alt.sys.pdp11 Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 04:40:04 GMT Organization: earthfriends Lines: 8 Message-ID: References: <39b8a2f5.64050421@news.remarq.com> <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com User-Agent: Xnews/03.04.11 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.ifi.unizh.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-01!supernews.com!sn-inject-01!news.supernews.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:62630 alt.sys.pdp8:138 alt.sys.pdp10:291 alt.sys.pdp11:91 <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> divulged: >Now, for something really useful, I'd love to see a >read-only/read-write switch on hard-drives. many already have such functionality, though not always extended to a pin. -- okay, have a sig then ###### From: Arargh! Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Naked computers. Date: Wed, 06 Sep 2000 22:08:45 -0500 Organization: Arargh!! Lines: 17 Message-ID: <2d1erschdq85ukfnq8ho4pb67v7io222hi@4ax.com> References: <39b24906.14742994@news.remarq.com> <399bed37$1_1@news.wizvax.net> <39f0f40e.58532718@news.remarq.com> <399E5556.A753A184@jetnet.ab.ca> <6ur97jhck6.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> <8nr62q$l1g$4@bob.news.rcn.net> <8nrcj5$1ho8$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <8nu1e2$35a@cucumber.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: 207-229-148-41.d.enteract.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news.enteract.com 968295821 22386 207.229.148.41 (7 Sep 2000 03:03:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@enteract.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 7 Sep 2000 03:03:41 GMT X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.tesion.net!news.belwue.de!news.uni-stuttgart.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!RRZ.Uni-Koeln.DE!news.netcologne.de!news.tele.dk!209.98.98.64!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!newsfeed.enteract.com!news.enteract.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:63423 On 22 Aug 2000 14:06:58 GMT, andrew@cucumber.demon.co.uk (Andrew Gabriel) wrote: >However, later when CDC made things like the Lark disks (8" platters, >one fixed one removable per mech, still SMD interface though), the SMD sortaof. Remember the funky extra box? >write protection applied to the whole disk - the 'protected track' >flag in the sector header was no longer implemented. Thus these had >to be left write-enabled or you couldn't write to the filing system >areas. How many of those Lark's wound up with head crashes? We lost most of the early ones. -- arargh (at enteract period com) http://www.arargh.com (Reply address points nowhere in an attempt to foil e-mail spammers.)