- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VAX 101 class - need a VAX does VMS even matter anymore?
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 27 Mar '18

27 Mar '18

Joseph Oprysko via vcf-midatlantic writes: >Brian, > >I tried to email you off list, but I got a bounce from your domain. My .org domain? There are no filters there save for RBL lookups. Your domain might be listed on one or more.

2 1

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VAX 101 class - need a VAX does VMS even matter anymore?
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 27 Mar '18

27 Mar '18

Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic writes: >stand by everyone, I have the list of persons who inquired, in order and >a picture set of the vax/alphas waiting for a home. b FWIW, I have numerous Alpha servers if anybody is interested. I can put new versions of VMS on them if anybody would want one. I'll have to in- ventory what I've got and let you all know. The three ES45s will not be going. ;) Free for all of them as it's high time I prune the herd down.

3 2

VCF East 13 Dinner Survey
by Jeffrey Brace 27 Mar '18

27 Mar '18

Hello future VCF East attendees: I'm planning the Saturday dinner for VCF East 13, which will be Saturday May 19 at 7pm until 11pm. Please take this survey on the dinner: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DV5T7PN Information about last year's dinner: Cost: $33 Buffet selections: Cold cut platter, house salad, fresh mozzarella with grilled vegetables *Wings, chicken parmesan, beef stroganoff, baked ziti*

2 1

VAX 101 class - need a VAX does VMS even matter anymore?
by Bill Degnan 26 Mar '18

26 Mar '18

I will be teaching a VMS 101 class - the basics for those who want to *get started with* VMS (using a VAX, Alpha, or even simH). If you are a VMS ringer you might be bored but you're invited too. Why VMS? perhaps you want to learn about the dawn of the WWW era Internet or you like to program in C but find ancient UNIX under-developed. Maybe you simply have a burning desire to expand your horizons beyond what one can do from the BASIC prompt of an Atari 800. I will put VMS in historic perspective. I will talk about the rise and fall of VMS. - Yes it's still used today but there was a time when VMS was as equally prevalent as UNIX for workstations and mini computing file servers. I remember thinking in the early 90's that UNIX is falling out of favor and that VMS would win out, but I was wrong. What happened? Find out in my class. I will teach how to gain root access to an unknown VAX/Alpha and inventory and configure the hardware. I will teach about how to get around the file system, set up users, and for those who know UNIX touch upon the parallel UNIX equivalents of things. If you need a VAX/Alpha contact me via http://www.vintagecomputer.net/contact.cfm prior to the event (now). I have at least 10 that have to go in the landing of my family room, I picked up from a donation with the proviso that they be given to hobbyists and not trashed. I plan to hold a separate VMS workshop near my home some time soon, if there is enough demand for it. If you can't make the 101 class or you're an advanced user and want to participate in a workshop let me know asap. The workshop will be near my Landenberg, PA home. Bill

5 6

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VAX 101 class - need a VAX does VMS even matter anymore?
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 26 Mar '18

26 Mar '18

Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic writes: > >> Hey I wasn=E2=80=99t sure of the date of this but it sounds >interesting= . 3 hour drive for me so I was wondering...Any chance you >might consider = broadcasting it using one of the many video >conferencing tools like zoom = or hangouts or skype or, etc? Can I audit the class to insure its accuracy?

3 2

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Artifact handling and becoming better caretakers
by corey cohen 26 Mar '18

26 Mar '18

Everyone, Ok, I’m back from my trip to India so could delve more into this issue and would like to clarify a few things since we are all friends here and sometime emails or electronic postings can be misinterpreted in tone. As many of you know VCFed was created as an outgrowth of the old MARCH group which was a group of motley vintage computer collectors. We created VCFed as a federal educational charity with the goal of becoming more professional so that we could expand the hobby and provide a safe place for people to donate vintage computing artifacts so they can be shared with the public, many of these artifacts have personal history to the donor. When I say safe place, there is an assumption of care that is implied when someone donated an item or artifact to us for caretaking. To be clear, VCFed and its members ARE the experts in many of the fields and disciplines in vintage computing, so much so that traditional museums contact us for information. For example, no one could be trusted more than Bill Dromgoole with repairing and curating a Univac or Dave Gesswein with a PDP-8. I would trust no one more than Ian Primus repairing a CRT on something like a PDP-1, if we hypothetically owned one. Common machines like the Commodore 64 or compact Mac have similar experts in VCFed with specialized knowledge of how to repair and restore them. As many of you are aware, our members get asked by collectors and museums all the time on how to handle them. We all are the experts here. So, as they say, let’s cut to the chase… How did much of this knowledge come about? Experimentation which allowed us to learn what we should do or should not do. This knowledge is one of the things our group is great at collecting and sharing. Experimenting on a scrap C64 case with peroxide or some sort of thickened oxidizing solution like RetroBrite is something our members have done and posted the results. In the process, vintage items have been destroyed and when successful items have been restored. A C64 is a common enough artifact where millions were produced and tens of thousands may still survive so when mistakes happen the impact to history or our nerves may not be significant. Heck I even removed the black paint on one of my hand-held football games cleaning it with an alcohol wipe not knowing the paint used ISP as a solvent. They are common enough so I simply masked and repainted it with similar paint. I did learn a lesson on how to clean handheld football games from Mattel. When it comes to rare artifacts, we must take much greater care as there may be no simple fix or way back from a failed experiment or mistake. Artifacts from the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s use paint, materials and manufacturing techniques that are different than those used in the past 30 years and in many cases, are not compatible with cleaning techniques used on consumer items like a C64 or more contemporary ones like my Macbook pro. Some of these challenges have already been faced by our friends at the Computer History Museum, Living Computer Museum and others with artifacts of similar vintage. From their training, they have learned the discipline of both brush and dental pick, patience vs carelessness. They experiment with more common items that are similar construction and age before touching something that cannot be replaced. BTW, this is how I learned some of my Apple-1 and vintage computer restoration knowledge. Does anyone think I tried any of my techniques without testing? It is common knowledge that I will bake some Apple-1 computers in an air oven to reset the ceramic caps so that they are more reliable computers when operating. Sure, there were scientific papers on this relating to military components and resetting ceramic caps, but was I willing to risk something so rare as an Apple-1? No, I tested with similar vintage Atari arcade boards and NTI S100 boards to determine not only temperature and time, but which components need to be removed before doing this. I have shared the details of this knowledge with museums around the world on how to maintain their Apple-1 in operating condition for future generations and so they don’t need to risk an artifact needlessly. So, what does this long-winded message really say… At VCFed, we are trying to up our game so that we can accept and care for rarer artifacts with the same kind of trust people would have donating to a place like the Smithsonian. People need to trust VCFed and we do know the right people to learn from and become fountains of knowledge for others. I think that is what the board was trying to get across with our earlier postings that may have been misunderstood by some. So, to keep your trust and gain more, we don’t want to attempt any invasive cleaning or cosmetic restoration work on rare objects until some guidelines are established. To be honest, this may be the first time someone is attempting to write all this information down in one place for “Vintage Computing” and that is a good thing. As always, your friend, fellow collector and VCFed board member, Corey p.s. I look forward to seeing many of you at the various Vintage Computer Festivals and workshops that we host. On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 10:25 PM, Drew Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 12:56 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > > > > To draw parallels between a quite benign Wang joke and sexual > > harassment/rape takes things a bit far, don't you think? > > > I have to agree here. If you think the joke was inappropriate, fine. But I > don't see how it's "offensive". >

1 0

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 26 Mar '18

26 Mar '18

Chris F. and Tony were at the museum for us today. Chris said there were five groups of visitors ranging from seniors to children and from very interested to barely interested. :) That's a normal Sunday: a mixture of all kinds of people. We also received the second half of the Wang system: its ASR-33 and the proprietary electronic control box. (Chris said that it "has several Nixie tubes for a display and about 25 keys. It looks like an oversized calculator with a long serial cable" -- just like this one, but without the demo stand and presumably not in black and white :) -- http://www.thebattles.net/wang4000/img/trantanella4.jpg.) Tony continued his ongoing maintenance goal of fixing all of our many Apple II-series computers and Macs. I made a trip to the nearest Micro Center store and picked up a 4-port KVM for our rack.

2 2

free at workshop: thin 3.5 inch floppy drives
by Jeffrey Jonas 26 Mar '18

26 Mar '18

Free: several thin 3.5" floppy drives from laptops. Ideal for retro projects or compatibility with old media. They should all be +5V only (no 12V). I'll bring them to the workshop, if anyone claims them. -- Jeff Jonas

1 0

Help identifiying a disk.
by Neil Cherry 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Another one of my recent finds is my ATR800 and it's disks and documentation. I didn't know this until after I read the documents but the ATR800 is able to act as a bootable disk drive for the Atari -OR- as a normal CP/M system. I've found a couple of sets of disks for the ATR8000. One 5 1/4" CP/M disk, one 5 1/4" Atari disk (which I think works as the ATR800 Atari boot diks) and a bunch of 5 1/4" disk which I think are Atari disk formats (Atari 810 or 1050 drive compatible, not normal 5 1/4" drive format). What I don't know is what the ATR800 drives used were. What was common with CP/M? Has to be 5 1/4" would a 40 track double sided drive work with a SS disk? I doubt I'm looking at an 80 track drive. Also what does it take to create CP/M boot disks? Technically this is my first CP/M system. Thanks -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

1 0

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Need to change April workshop date
by Evan Koblentz 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

>> April 28-29 by a vote of 5-3. >> >> I'll inform the right people at IA... > So is the next workshop date of April 28-29 now set? Just checking so I can make some reservations. I know I was jumping the gun last time I asked. I informed the right person at IA about our change request, haven't heard back, will contact him now.

2 3

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VAX 101 class - need a VAX does VMS even matter anymore?
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic writes: >I will be teaching a VMS 101 class - the basics for those who want to >*get started with* VMS (using a VAX, Alpha, or even simH). If you are a >VMS ringer you might be bored but you're invited too. Why VMS? perhaps >you want to learn about the dawn of the WWW era Internet or you like to >program in C but find ancient UNIX under-developed. Maybe you simply >have a burning desire to expand your horizons beyond what one can do >from the BASIC prompt of an Atari 800. > >I will put VMS in historic perspective. I will talk about the rise and >fall of VMS. - Yes it's still used today but there was a time when Fall? Two new VMS sales here in the past month.

3 3

Old linksys router
by Eric Rangell 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Hi all, I’m wondering if that old linksys router can be repurposed as a Linux machine and patched, and if anyone has done cool things with that “Woody" hardware. Eric

8 11

VCF BBS
by Evan Koblentz 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

As some of you may remember, last year we bought an inexpensive analog PBX for use with the planned BBS. Martin and I talked. He says it won't work with modems and that we * will * need Asterisk. We'll see. :)

3 4

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Dean, Drew, and I were at the museum today working on the network upgrade. We'll have to finish it next week (probably Adam and I) due to some glitches experienced today. But we got a bunch of prep work done, we learned some things not to do :) (pro tip: use a real Cisco console cable, not a homemade one), and we have a solid plan for how to proceed based on advice from Chris L. and Martin. We also did some work on the BBS server and a few miscellaneous things.

2 1

test
by Jeffrey Brace 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Just checking to see if I can get e-mail replies from this list.

4 4

Museum report Saturday 3/24
by Tony Bogan 25 Mar '18

25 Mar '18

Headed up to the museum around 11 today to get some work done on the warehouse apple computers and help Bill D #3 with the Univac. (He does the fixin, I do the liftin) Bill made the ride out to be docent today. Ended up being there till just before closing. Bill got the cooling fan that was not working in the CPU replaced and the new one running. He also did some work on the tape punch/reader and teletype. As I've said before, so cool to see this machine coming alive!! Light day for visitors. When not moving the heavy stuff there wasn't much else I could do on the Univac (except watch and learn, which is definitely more enjoyable than lifting stuff!) so I ended up taking the visitors while Bill got work done on the computer. Two families came through. The first was a husband and wife with their young son. We set the son up playing solitaire on the IBM PC while I brought the couple through the museum. Bill had the teletype print the boys name out and gave him the printout. The parents were very interested and asked lots of questions. Fortunately I was able to answer a lot of them! Later in the day a grandmother with her two grandsons came through. The younger boy was more interested in everything but computers, but the older grandson (12 years old) would have made Ian proud!! Not only is he into vintage computers (which currently for him starts with mid to late 90s PCs & Macs so far) but he is an avid collector of CRTs. When he and I got talking about their use for vintage gaming and computers and he told me about when he was degaussing a tv and about the Sony trinitron he picked up for a song and a dance at a thrift shop, I knew I had met Ian's kindred spirit!! He also graciously offered to give us a crt if we ever needed one for the museum as he currently is up to 15 working ones! Only a few but a few quality visitors today. Tony Sent from my iPhone

1 0

Artifact handling and becoming better caretakers
by Erik Klein 24 Mar '18

24 Mar '18

Greetings list members and museum volunteers, The first thing we want to do is say thank you for your enthusiasm and for volunteering. This is an all-volunteer organization and nothing happens without your effort. In keeping with our mission to educate on computer history, the Vintage Computer Federation does outreach, manages a sizable collection and, occasionally, does some preservation work. The museum is fortunate to have had some truly unusual artifacts entrusted to us. We are just temporary caretakers; it is our job to ensure that those artifacts continue on to the next set of caretakers. While we are aware of several possible areas for improvement, it has come to our attention that artifact handling is something that needs our attention now. A quorum of the board of directors spoke the other night and we agreed that, although the museum has done well so far, we could "up our game" and do even better. As a result, we are going to draw up a plan for getting consultation and help from other museums and any other authorities that we can locate. The goal will be additional training for museum volunteers on proper artifact handling and collection management. We have good contacts at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and Living Computers:Museum+Labs in Seattle, both of which are well known and highly regarded. Acquiring whatever of their expertise we can beg, borrow or steal will benefit us and help us carry out our long term mission. We don't have a timetable for getting this done yet; the idea is a few days old so far. In the interim please be mindful that what has been entrusted to us might be very unusual and unique, and, quite frankly, irreplaceable. Until we get more formal guidelines and training the goal should be to stabilize and preserve artifacts, and not to alter them in any way unless there is an active threat to them. This includes deep cleaning, adhesive removal, major repairs, etc. Let’s acknowledge that we don't know what we don't know, and, until we know better, we should be extremely cautious. Thanks for your consideration and patience. If you have questions or comments please reach out to any member of the board of directors. Regards, Mike, Erik, Jeff, Corey, and Bill -- ----- Erik Klein www.vintage-computer.com - My personal collection www.vcfed.org - The Vintage Computer Federation www.vcfed.org/forum <http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum> - The Vintage Computer Forums marketplace.vintage-computer.com - The Vintage Computer and Gaming Marketplace

7 12

OT: OM2 Duplex Fiber Patch Cord SC/LC
by Joseph Oprysko 23 Mar '18

23 Mar '18

Does anyone here have a use for such a cable? I was shipped it from Amazon, when the item ordered was a 3D Printer... Don’t Ask. LOL. The 3rd party vendor refunded me my payment, and said don’t bother shipping it back (likely because it shipped from the UK, the return costs would be prohibitive) So I have this brand new Fiberoptic Patch cable, and have ABSOLUTELY NO USE for. It’s 3 meters (about 10 feet) long. While I actually have a device that would support it (my Cisco Metal 8 port Switch), when used with a fiber transceiver, which I don’t have, as well as no fiber network card for my PC. Joe -- Normal Person: Hey, it seems that you know a lot. Geek: To be honest, it's due to all the surfing I do. Normal Person: So you go surfing? Normal Person: But I don't think that has anything to do with knowing a lot... Geek: I think that's wrong on a fundamental level. Normal Person: Huh? Huh? What?

1 0

Another eBay Lisa 1 auction, 50K...
by Evan Koblentz 23 Mar '18

23 Mar '18

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-APPLE-LISA-1-TWIGGY-COMPUTER-COMPLETE-AND-WOR…

3 3

Computer math (was 33! science project)
by Jeffrey Jonas 22 Mar '18

22 Mar '18

Long long ago, I ran Whitesmiths' "C" compiler under CP/M on a Z80 system but forgot what data types were "native". I also have PL/1 for CP/M. While "native" data types are definitely faster (word-sized integers), even the Z80 had math co-processors. Before it was on-die, there was a variety of 8087 math co-processors by Cyrix, AMD as well as Intel. So speed and precision were far from "standardized". -- jeff jonas

4 3

Artifact handling and becoming better caretakers
by Herb Johnson 22 Mar '18

22 Mar '18

> The goal will be additional training for > museum volunteers on proper artifact handling and collection management. > In the interim please be mindful that what has been entrusted > to us might be very unusual and unique, and, quite frankly, irreplaceable. > Until we get more formal guidelines and training the goal should be to > stabilize and preserve artifacts, and not to alter them in any way unless > there is an active threat to them. This includes deep cleaning, adhesive > removal, major repairs, etc. Let’s acknowledge that we don't know what we > don't know, and, until we know better, we should be extremely cautious. Well, I read the statement signed by the Board of Directors of VCF Inc. It's a very careful and cautious statement, about the need to preserve our artifacts intact, and not damage them, and what we don't know about preserving them - and so let's wait for some comprehensive policy from some peer museums "who know what we don't know". My initial reaction was to write another cautious statement, about the need to RESTORE artifacts, the 'present threat' of time that already is damaging them, about the need to recover data. About employing old-persons NOW, who worked on these machines, who won't be around "later". About others, such as private owners, who are restoring and who can use our help as we work on our own artifacts. And so on.... But that's reacting to a reaction, I decided. I respect, that the VCF Inc. Board, has to show due diligence, and take actions in policy. But you know - we all know each other, in vintage computing, many of us do. We know who is working on what, who has what, and where that work is going on. If not, there's the Internet. We all know (most of us) how age is affecting equipment, and ourselves, and those who still are alive who made this stuff. "Decay" is a fact not a what-if. We know who's interested in this stuff, how they get interested, preservation is one interest, restoration another, education another, and so on. "Some of us", includes you Members of the Board; and those reading these words on this list. For the oldest of us (me), time and delay are not our friends. We may each have our points of view - some enjoy repair, some don't. But we collectively know quite a lot, and we have ears and mouths to engage about these matters. So, let's take a deep breath, before we lecture each other like we've never met before, and don't know our ignorance. The initial issue, was about removing paint while removing tape goo. Let's not do that - that's a good idea. Message received I believe. But saying like, "don't touch until we create a corporate policy about preservation among our peer organizations", may make a few people "nervous", may seem a bit "reactive". VCF Incorporated, as I've suggested, *already* has many good people doing many good things about repair and restoration, emulation, or archiving. People like to be appreciated - acknowledged - for work done and contributions made. The due diligence of the Board, may call for caution at times, or some executive decision. But the work of VCF Inc - as your statement notes - is accomplished by people who have demonstrated trust AND expertise; demonstrated by their results. So: Consider the volunteers in hand. Have some trust, that they all won't rub the paint off the console. These are the people who will help you, the Board of Directors, in developing policies - which is what Boards do, among other things. And, they will do the work of preservation, a goal of the Board. They are your first "experts". Others who benefit from their work, can speak up if found and asked. I get many inquiries myself, from *emulators* - those who write and support emulators, do very hard work to resurrect documents and software and hardware, to make their emulations "work". It's not my preference, but, hey ! there's more of them, than more of ME. No three-phase needed, no garage-of-racks, just a PeeCee. Some people start their vintage interest that way. (shrug) It's reasonable to ask other institutions too. You might ask other artifact-based museums - machine tools, steam engines, antique autos. I'm *sure* they have discussions and policies about "fix/don't fix" "touch/don't touch" which would inform your Board. Their interests in legacy are no less than yours, or mine - my modest experiences suggest that to me. And, if the Board want to discuss particular policies in this email list, or elsewhere, that's a reasonable thing. I'm a little startled by this particular context. I hope this is a more useful response, than dueling lectures. We are, mostly, on the same side. Also, note the informed posts about removing tape adhesive. regards, Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

4 3

old file formats
by Jeffrey Jonas 22 Mar '18

22 Mar '18

Apropos of data restoration and copying-up old files: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-open-old-computer-files The Quest for a Universal Translator for Old, Obsolete Computer Files To preserve bygone software, files, and more, researchers are working to emulate decades-old technology in the cloud. by Jessica Leigh Hester March 08, 2018 Of course, all that can be lost if not openly replicated on other systems.

1 0

Trenton
by Herb Johnson 21 Mar '18

21 Mar '18

Since TCF is walking distance from my home, I was there this year. It was, as Evan says, much like the last few years. There's one or two vendors who bring vintage-computing items, and then several others you see at hamfests with modern computers, and a few parts vendors. It's early in the hamfest season so it's good to see these folks again. I bought some widgets, my friends bought some vintage things, I scarfed up the tossouts at the end. There was a 3D printer dealer there. The talks are of the same sorts as recent, mostly about doing modern computing in various aspects. Since early personal computing included "embedded" issues like networking, operating things, coding - modern computing topics in embedded work are of interest to many of us oldies. THey show off some college-engineering student work, some robotics. Neil Cherry's talk was fine, and I recommend looking at IoT stuff through the eyes of vintage computing "nuts and bolts". Frank O'Brian spoke on the Space Shuttle computer - he's part of Infoage, wrote about the Apollo Guidance Computer. Other talks may be of interest to some who read this. A surprising talk, was by a high-school student, who is making his own semiconductors in his garage. When his talk began with "here's how a semiconductor works...." I was worried. Spoiler: he's using 1990's class small-run semiconductor technology, and a bit of optical hacking, and some common household items. And he's getting it done. Best talk I've heard in years, me being a BSEE from the 1970's, that's what I learned then. Not sure the "gamers" would be interested, but the "makers" among us ought to be. The Sarnoff Collection had a table during the morning, and opened their museum in the afternoon which is a short walk away. Go there sometime, to see the COSMAC computers, some blue LEDs (RCA uncovered the breakthru technology), and radio/TV stuff if that's of interest. I work with them so they get my attention. The 1802 *is* a New Jersey microprocessor. TCF has topics of interest to modern computing technologists, and also a strong amateur radio component. You can get your ham license in a day spent there, like many hamfests offer. It's not the parking lot of old-tech dealers it used to be, but it's not a bad way to spend a day-of-tech. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

2 1

Infoage closed tomorrow due to snow -- EOM
by Evan Koblentz 21 Mar '18

21 Mar '18

________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

1 0

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Need to change April workshop date
by Jeffrey Brace 20 Mar '18

20 Mar '18

And the winner is .......... ? On Tue, Mar 6, 2018 at 2:42 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Evan Koblentz <evan(a)vcfed.org> > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> > Cc: > Bcc: > Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2018 14:42:14 -0500 > Subject: Need to change April workshop date > A bunch of Sandy volunteers (yes it's still happening) need to use the > barracks area April 7-8. That bumps us. (Don't worry, it's set in stone for > VCF East weekend.) > > They said we could reschedule to April 21-22 or 28-29. > > Vote here: https://doodle.com/poll/vyyvb324ah8i8bvw ... whichever date > has the most votes by 11:59pm this Thursday wins. > > Votes via reply to this message will not be counted. > >

3 5

Small rescue help needed in Wilmington DE
by Evan Koblentz 20 Mar '18

20 Mar '18

Who's available to pick up some boxes of important magazines/journals in Wilmington, Delaware on April 20? (Already asked Bill Deg.; he's not available that day.) These are for the museum.

1 1

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Museum report
by Jeff G 20 Mar '18

20 Mar '18

I use WD40 to remove tape/label adhesive with very good luck, and often no damage to painted surfaces. Once the label is removed I usually use regular isophyrrl alcohol to clean up the WD. You can always test on some hidden spot to make sure its safe too.

1 0

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] NeXT in the family.
by Lou 20 Mar '18

20 Mar '18

Oh I know all about the community site, I got myself into the forum on Saturday and I am loving what I have read so far. As for the peanuts archive believe it or not I believe its actually installed on my NS! The previous owner was a collector himself and replaced the drive with a Scsi2SD board which works wonderfully well. Sure I don't get the classic sound of the disk spinning up but as long as everything works the way it's supposed to I cannot be picky haha! The other interesting thing about this acquisition was that it came with actual documentation and the official OS Install/Dev tools Disks! The Documentation itself seems to be the original "Getting Started" Booklet that covers both the NeXTstation and the NeXTcube setups and walk through. There is also an official user reference guide, applications guide, release notes, some letters and another book which is a third party publication on how to use the Operating System. The Documentation alone is awesome looking through and I might consider bringing it up the next time I am at the Museum if anyone wants to look through it! Thanks again for the reach out Tony! Lou >Very nice! If you have not already, make sure you check out nextcomputers.org >Especially their file archive (down the bottom of the home page) > >They have ISO images of the peanuts archive CDs along with disk images (cd and floppy) >of many of the utilities, apps, games and operating systems that were available for >the NeXT machines. > >Tony

1 0

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 20 Mar '18

20 Mar '18

Good day!!! We got a Wang 4000. This was the first computer model from Wang. Before that they only made calculators. Back story: the computer belonged to a chemical company here in NJ. They bought it around 1967-1968, used it deep into the 1970s, and replaced it with an HP-3000. Frank's father tightly wrapped the 4000 in plastic, put desiccant bags inside, built a wooden crate for it, and put it in some corner of his warehouse. The father died several years ago. His son Frank took over the company and recently decided to sell one of their warehouses. While clearing the warehouse this month, Frank and his colleagues found the crate. Frank remembered that the company had the HP-3000 so he Googled, found an HP mailing list, and posted about its availability. Dave M. and Mike L. read that message, noticed it was here in NJ, knew VCF would love to have an HP-3000, and forwarded it to me. He agreed to donate it to VCF. He didn't want to wait until he got here to see it, so he opened one side of the crate back at his warehouse. It happened to be the front. He saw it was a Wang 4000 and not the HP (he has no idea now what became of the HP!) He re-sealed the crate and brought it to us today -- special thanks to Infoage volunteer Ray B. for operating the forklift. Steve A. led the crate-opening party. We were shocked at the good condition of the computer inside! It looked very clean. Steve and I determined where to put the computer (in place of the Data General Eclipse in the museum) and then we removed the plastic wrap. That left a lot of tape residue; I went out to buy some Goof Off (they didn't have Goo Gone). But then there were about 30 museum visitors today and other tasks to do, so I'll clean the new artifact another day. 4000 picture 1: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MFIYqIOVHKRH-D87sBpTxxnwA3lPWBJp/view?usp=… 4000 picture 2: https://drive.google.com/file/d/199JTwJwFYkaxR_hUfhc2o1OsDZ60zBe-/view?usp=… 4000 memory: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WP1qDzZlwn9DLbpsBc3WaFoaJEdJvQzW/view?usp=… Frank: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G2pd9sbWmzxakkQQSdB1Ak2-lLc1ub2X/view?usp=… Forklift: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C4sQpHQamzexjJKoTbV_7QmiIOnkX3-H/view?usp=… Beside the great visitorship today, I also installed the next rack shelf and put the combo DVD/VCR along with the laserdisc player in there (the LD has a karaoke feature... I can't see us using that!). I couldn't find where in the warehouse I put the stereo receiver, but it was an old crappy one anyhow, so it's no big deal if we need to replace it. Also on the agenda: replace the rack's network wires with black ones in order to continue the "stealth" theme which I like. A/V so far: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EU6TZoSwIW5NVtoXUV2Crr6kzODONQE3/view?usp=… Whole rack so far: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vqdd5YqtoLOW1BhWdCa0xBK6dT7oaTsa/view?usp=… A weird thing about the tablet server: its power button is on the front near the top left side -- exactly where you wrist would hit when using the keyboard that sites on top of it (since we don't have a keyboard tray). But the server happens to have pull hooks on both sides, the hooks happen to have round indentations on their inward-facing sides (facing toward each other, that is), and the height of the indentations happens to line up with the power button about a half-inch in front of it. So I went to Home Depot, bought a metal rod, asked Roddy next door to spray it black, and installed it between the indentations. Got all that? :) (The pictures below will show you.) Now the rod serves double-duty as a wrist-rest and power button guard. It worked very nicely. Front: https://drive.google.com/file/d/100dAtR4HGtHJ-Nhzi8f1fTK1HcheJNjk/view?usp=… Top: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WsF5UYQ4EQBBjlIUFPCpbikcyFO8bWVN/view?usp=… Looking ahead: next weekend (or maybe Friday) is when Dean, Drew, and I will swap from the Pi to the server and the consumer router to the Cisco access point. ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

8 16

NeXT in the family.
by Lou 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Finally a good weekend without snow yesterday I was able to meet up with CommodoreZ of the VCF community over the acquisition of a complete NeXTstation mono setup. For those that did not know a few months back a NeXTstation popped up on craigslist in the DC area. I tried my best to pull resources on my end to get out there but lacking my own personal vehicle few others were not able to assist me with getting out there. Fortunately however CommodoreZ lived not far from there at all and was more than willing to act as a middleman/liaison for me to acquire the NeXTstation. We finally met up yesterday and we chatted up for a few hours, that alone was so much fun I almost forgot what I was actually there for! Transaction done, thanked him up and down for the help and headed back home with a machine I always wanted to get my hands on! Everything runs great after setting up the system. It looks as good as the Museum's NeXTstation! I hope to do some interesting things with it soon enough. Once again I cannot express it enough to give my thanks to Z. Without his help I do not know if I would have gotten this in my hands, but he made it happen.

2 1

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Fwd: Re: Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Thank you Doug/David. I only used a small amount of Goof Off but it didn't work anyhow. Maybe because the instructions say to let it dissolve the residue for a couple of minutes, however, this is a vertical panel so when I put it onto the residue most of it just dripped down. What's a better method, other than removing the panels (not so easy to do; it requires removing whole components not just typical latch-on panels.)

4 5

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Trenton Message-ID:
by Jeff G 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Now I wonder if I'm the actual Jeff G, the "other" Jeff G, or perhaps a third Jeff G that wasn't even mentioned, but I won't lose sleep over it since it was really just in passing. ;-) Trying to keep my nephews focus was tough but he seemed to have fun looking around.

1 0

Trenton
by Evan Koblentz 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Another year of the Trenton Computer Festival is in the books. Basically the same as it's been for several years now -- small one-day event, about a dozen of our group members in attendance (hope I don't forget anyone: Herb, Jeff G., other Jeff G., Jeff J., Dean, Drew, Rolf, Mouse, Ian, Don, Frank) ... also lots of people who know us + come to VCF East but aren't active participants. There were some interesting talks, a small tiny vendor area, and post-show dinner with group members. It remains fun and useful for us to have a table there and it's a relatively low-effort endeavor for us. I brought Corey's Mimeo instead of ours because his is installed in a briefcase which makes it easy to move around. So many people thought it was real, and in some cases I let them. :)

5 9

Looking for weight of vintage computers for Science Fair Project
by Connor S 19 Mar '18

19 Mar '18

Thank you to all who have helped with Connor's science fair project comparing 13 micro-computers! We've been learning so much and greatly appreciate the help testing and interpreting data so far. Connor S. has put together some graphs on time to boot, factorial calculations & time to count to 1,000,000. He also made a comparison table based on information we could find on each computer. We've had difficulty locating the weight of some computers on-line. If anyone can help, we are still looking for the approx. weight of the following computers. (Weight should include computer, disk drives & monitor, if possible) - Commodore PET - TRS-80 model 1 - Atari 800 XL - TRS CoCo 3 - Vic-20 -Tandy model 102 Thank you, Jen & Connor S.

5 7

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Museum report Saturday
by Evan Koblentz 18 Mar '18

18 Mar '18

Thank you Tony! The tablet network is about to become much more reliable. In the next week or two we're changing over from the Pi and cheap home router to the new server and a Cisco access point. That should dramatically improve the network. I'm excited about it. On Mar 17, 2018 9:04 PM, "Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic" < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote: Ended up spending most of the day at the museum today. Had a fair amount of visitors. A group of about 12-14 Boy Scouts (8-10 Boy Scouts plus 4 or 5 adults) The group leader mentioned he started in college using a slide rule....when I pulled out the slide rule from the workshop he proceeded to give a demonstration to all of us on its use. Was definitely the highlight of his day and mine!! I had several families come through along with a few other people that were volunteering doing cleanup that took breaks from their work to visit the museums. I got several more apple Computers assessed and tagged for the warehouse. The hallway and museum ceiling hung TVs were not showing their slideshows so I reset them. Bill Inderrieden stopped by and did some work and we coordinated a little more on the April switching of the Univac pallets (new ones that Bill Dromgoole made will replace the older and less attractive ones the computer components are currently sitting on) The wifi network for the tablets went down just as I was closing up around 4:30. I'll stop by in the morning after work to drop machines off at the warehouse and will fix it then. All in all a busy day with some really interested people. Many of which had experience working with various machines in college or at work that we have in the museum (and a slide rule!!) Tony Sent from my iPhone

1 0

Museum report Saturday
by Tony Bogan 18 Mar '18

18 Mar '18

Ended up spending most of the day at the museum today. Had a fair amount of visitors. A group of about 12-14 Boy Scouts (8-10 Boy Scouts plus 4 or 5 adults) The group leader mentioned he started in college using a slide rule....when I pulled out the slide rule from the workshop he proceeded to give a demonstration to all of us on its use. Was definitely the highlight of his day and mine!! I had several families come through along with a few other people that were volunteering doing cleanup that took breaks from their work to visit the museums. I got several more apple Computers assessed and tagged for the warehouse. The hallway and museum ceiling hung TVs were not showing their slideshows so I reset them. Bill Inderrieden stopped by and did some work and we coordinated a little more on the April switching of the Univac pallets (new ones that Bill Dromgoole made will replace the older and less attractive ones the computer components are currently sitting on) The wifi network for the tablets went down just as I was closing up around 4:30. I'll stop by in the morning after work to drop machines off at the warehouse and will fix it then. All in all a busy day with some really interested people. Many of which had experience working with various machines in college or at work that we have in the museum (and a slide rule!!) Tony Sent from my iPhone

1 0

Museum today
by Tony Bogan 17 Mar '18

17 Mar '18

Will be here at the museum until around 3-4pm today. Getting more machines tested and tagged and back to the warehouse. No one available to be docent so going to stay as long as I can. Feel free to stop by! (Gets lonely here sometimes ;-) Tony Sent from my iPhone

1 0

Help Needed for Science Fair with Commodore 64, PET & VIC-20
by C.J. Slade 17 Mar '18

17 Mar '18

Hi VCF, Connor S has come the last 2 workshops at VCF with his Dad and loves working on vintage computers. He has been working on the 5th Grade Science Fair project for the past few months. Connor is comparing vintage to modern computers and has been researching and testing the Altair 8800 (clone), Apple II GS, Macintosh SE, iBook G3, Commodore 128 & Mac Book Air. He would like to add the C-64, PET & VIC-20, but doesn't have access to run tests. Would someone be willing to run the following 3 tests on the *Commodore 64*, *Commodore PET *and *Commodore VIC-20 *this week for Connor to include in his results? 1) Boot Time into OS Time in seconds from turning on the power switch to computer fully loaded in OS 2) Highest factorial calculated (BASIC; Hope I typed his program correctly) Connor's guess it that the PET & VIC-20 will only be able to calculate 33 factorial. 10 INPUT "NUMBER"; A 20 B = A 30 B = B - 1 40 PRINT A "*" B 50 A = A * B 60 PRINT A 70 IF B > 1 GOTO 30 80 END 3) Time (in minutes) to count to 10,000 in BASIC using this program. 10 I = 0 20 PRINT I 30 I = I + 1 40 IF I < 9999 GOTO 20 50 PRINT "DONE" You can e-mail results to Connor S (& me) at *basicprogrammer10(a)gmail.com <basicprogrammer10(a)gmail.com>*. Connor will be happy to acknowledge and thank who ever helps with this additional data on his science fair poster. He would be happy to share final results at an upcoming workshop, if there is interest. Thank you, Jen (Connor S's Mom) :)

4 6

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 17 Mar '18

17 Mar '18

Busy time for me -- warehouse today, Trenton tomorrow, museum docenting Sunday. Still new-ish volunteer Laura and I did warehouse work from about 2pm-7pm today. She put a second coat of paint on the new UNIVAC pallets. I consolidated the huge collection of slide rules into fewer boxes. Then we spent an hour or two playing shelving unit Tetris -- moving things around the warehouse for better efficiency. The result is some things are in more logical places now, and other things that were in the unsorted area were moved into the sorted area. So a net positive. We took another hour cleaning the pile of empty boxes. Threw away some boxes of odd sizes or in poor condition, nested others, and neatly re-stacked all the common banker boxes. We also sorted through a few boxes of miscellaneous stuff and generally straightened up some cluttered areas. It's been an impressive improvement in the warehouse this past year. Jeff B. and Adam deserve most of the credit for it. It is a pleasure now to go in there and see wide aisles with a good amount of open space. We'll need that space for the next huge project (probably post-VCF East) which is to sort, organize, and consolidate our vast collection of books, magazines, and manuals. Trenton will be fun tomorrow but what I'm really looking forward to is the historic and rare minicomputer being delivered here Sunday. What kind is it? Don't you all want to know. :) I will announce it and post pictures when it gets here.

1 0

No posts in honor of Pi Day
by Jim Scheef 15 Mar '18

15 Mar '18

Are we not posting today to honor Pi Day? Jim

8 12

Semi-OT: stereo speakers for museum
by Evan Koblentz 13 Mar '18

13 Mar '18

We're going to need four matching stereo speakers (one for each corner of the exhibit room). I plan to wire together the two at each end of our rectangular space so they're all "front" speakers; this won't be a 5.1 system (but I'll probably put a subwoofer someplace discrete, so it maybe "2.1" so to speak..... I wanted to install speakers in the ceiling. IA management said no. Thus we have to go with conventional speakers. I think the usual black speakers will be ugly against our white walls/ceiling. Does anyone know if decent speakers that are affordable and available in lighter colors? Alternately, if black is this only option then how could we camouflage them?

3 5

Kaypro 10 available in Lancaster PA
by Evan Koblentz 13 Mar '18

13 Mar '18

Contact: betsylowrey(a)aol.com ________________________________ Evan Koblentz, executive director Vintage Computer Federation a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit evan(a)vcfed.org (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org facebook.com/vcfederation twitter.com/vcfederation instagram.com/vcfederation

1 0

Trenton is this Saturday
by Evan Koblentz 13 Mar '18

13 Mar '18

We'll have our usual table at the 43rd Trenton Computer Fest this Saturday. Haven't decided what I will bring for a demo machine. (They saw my favorite demo, the Lego system, last year.) Perhaps the Mimeo because it's small-ish and I know a lot about it. I'm not giving a talk this year. But I will attend the dinner banquet.

1 0

Remember: sign up for your VCF East exhibits!
by Evan Koblentz 13 Mar '18

13 Mar '18

There are 10 registered exhibits already for VCF East XIII. We can comfortably fit 35-40 depending on the number of multi-table exhibits. As with last year, we may have to say "no" to procrastinators. I have a secret plan :) in case we ever have a demand for 50-ish exhibits. I would love it if that happens! For now, the message is REGISTER SOON: http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-exhib… ... you don't have to know all the details at this point, just put in the basics. This is important for our marketing.

1 0

New museum artifact
by Evan Koblentz 12 Mar '18

12 Mar '18

Looks like we're getting a Wang 4000 soon. Exciting! I hope to know more by next weekend.

5 4

GRI 771 Keyboard Info
by systems_glitch 12 Mar '18

12 Mar '18

All, I'm looking for info on a George Risk 771 parallel ASCII keyboard. I've got one but no documentation or existing cabling. I'd like to interface it to my Poly-88. Thanks, Jonathan

2 1

vcf-midatlantic] Mac OS 7.1 Terminal Emulator & BBS software
by Herb Johnson 12 Mar '18

12 Mar '18

> I don’t have any of my old Zip Drives save one internal > one, nor my Jaz Drive. My Zip drives would have been useless > anyway as all the ones I owned were parallel port, not SCSI. I sell SCSI external ZIP 100 drives, and parallel external ones. USB ZIP drives were not uncommon on eBay, I don't have a stock of those. Internal SCSI ZIP drives are a little less common and my stock is limited. I have stacks of IDE/PATA ZIP drives. Also disks. Contact me privately about any of these. I'm replying publicly, because ZIP drive technology is actually a pretty good "vintage" resource. SOme people malign ZIP disks and drives. The facts are, PC's and Windows systems used them for quite a long time, you could buy ZIP disks at the office-supply stores well into the 2000's. I don't know of much removable storage, that spans Macs and PC's, and can be connected to most Macs and most Windows systems, *and* allow files to move between them. There's Mac-format and PC-format ZIP disks, but old Macs can read either and I think Windows can read either (I forget). > Oh, my mistake, [my SE/30 memory is] not 1.5 mb, it’s 8mb. > But my hard drive sounds very > gummy. Where it’ll slow down and stop spinning occasionally. Well, time to replace that drive. While you are in there, get some 4MB or 16MB SIMMS and goose up that SE/30. (you need four SIMMS of a kind.) That's a very desirable compact Mac and it's good you have it in working order. System 7 likes more than several MB of RAM. The SE/30 mobos, they need recapping soon, if they haven't been already. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

14 29

Museum report Saturday 3/10
by Herb Johnson 12 Mar '18

12 Mar '18

> Once we get a new iPod or repair the existing one >> for the Apple I replica it will be twelve! Good work on the Apple II's. Either you Tony or Jeff Brace will know: the iPod carries programs stored as audio files which the Apple I reads like an audio cassette. Do you happen to know the analog sampling frequency and sample bit-size for those files? I'm in the world of COSMAC cassettes now, and digitized WAV files. So I'd like to know plausible parameters for cassette-based data files read by actual hardware. Herb "8-track" Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

4 3

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 12 Mar '18

12 Mar '18

Me, Adam, Tony, and new volunteer Laura were all at the museum today. Things that got done: - Laura painted the two custom UNIVAC pallets that Drom built. (He's still building the others.) - Tony (a few days ago) installed a new custom MOBIDIC display case in the hallway. It looks great! Roddy (artist across the hall from us) volunteered to spackle some "extra" drill holes (my fault, not Tony's) and then we'll paint over it. - Martin had the new 1u SuperMicro server shipped to us. It didn't come with memory or a hard drive. I bought 4GB RAM (max that the server can take but it's plenty for our use). Dean donated a 240GB SSD: we put on Ubuntu with Mate, SSH, Apache, and (just for fun) xScreenSaver. I chose the green-font Matrix display full of hex characters. :) Racked it, attached the new keyboard/trackpad donated by Cherry Americas, and attached my old home LCD onto the VESA rack bracket from Martin. Finally we installed a rack shelf (also from Martin) which will hold the non-rackable BBS server and analog PBX. (Will post pictures when I get home in a bit.) - Laura and I sorted eight boxes of Commodore software. - Adam and I reorganized stuff to sell at VCF East (if nobody wants it at the April workshop). It's all consolidated onto three pallets in one aisle of the warehouse. - Tony played tour guide. Around a dozen visitors today.

1 0

Museum report Saturday 3/10
by Tony Bogan 11 Mar '18

11 Mar '18

Two visitors all day today, a father and son, and they showed up literally as I was locking the outside door. Got a lot done today. Started around 10:30 this morning loading up Apple IIs from the warehouse to work on. I picked up our new server for the museum (Dan Jacobs and Martin Flynn were at IXR and had it waiting for me) and also got two more compact Macs for VCF from them (a Mac plus and Mac classic) I was able to get half a dozen apple computers tested, fixed (as needed) and working, tagged and back in the warehouse. A couple others need more repairs than I had time for and I brought another four out to evaluate. The goal is to have all the compact Macs and apple IIs (and any other machines I have time for before my busy season at work begins) tested and tagged with serial numbers, working condition, known issues etc. to facilitate entering the information in the new archiving/inventory software we will be getting soon (hopefully) I was up on Thursday and got the new MOBIDIC shelf (temporary till time permits to make a "good" one) up in the hallway and at that time got some of the tablets in the museum running again (d-link router had come unplugged!) I finished reconnecting the rest to the network today (some want to hook to the vcf wifi instead of the tablet wifi after restarting or losing the network) so for the moment all the tablets are functioning within normal operating parameters. I also made a couple super simple display programs/screens for a couple machines in the museum too. There are eleven of the micros in the museum that are running well. (Not counting ones that may work but are not hooked up to monitors) Once we get a new iPod or repair the existing one for the Apple I replica it will be twelve! There may be others ready to go but I am only familiar with twelve of them :-) Big shout out to Jeff B., Doug Crawford and Chris Fala for educating me in the ways of the commodore! Tony

2 1