January 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

Lisa auction ending in 40 minutes
by Evan Koblentz 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

My guess is it'll sell for 60-70. http://tinyurl.com/y9vcxfaq

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DAT tapes
by Kelly Leavitt 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

I have a couple of NIB DAT tapes. Some DDS-4, some DAT 24 some DAT 72. I figured someone might still be running stuff that could use these. If so, send me your address. I'll drop them in a fixed rate box. There's some cleaning tapes too. First one gets them. Kelly

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Favorite quote at workshop dinner
by Jeffrey Brace 15 Jan '18

15 Jan '18

So 10 of us went to the Main Street Grill for dinner last night and the waitress remembered our group from last time. Evan said: “We’re geeks.” The waitress said: “Whatever you guys are into I don’t judge.”

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Osborne 1 boot disk?
by Herb Johnson 14 Jan '18

14 Jan '18

Someone local to me, who has been helpful to some of us in the vintage community, has asked me about a boot diskette "for an Osborne 1". I told him to determine if he needs single or double density. I can't make such a disk for him, I suggested Dunfield's "imagedisk". Meanwhile, if someone has means to make and mail single or double density Osborne 1 boot diskettes, please email me privately [not in this email list!], discuss your terms to do so. I'll forward his request to you, you can reply to him accordingly. My email address can be found on my Web site, or you have it from this VCFed email discussion. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Vintage CPUs doing OK with Meltdown/Spectre
by John Heritage 14 Jan '18

14 Jan '18

I just wanted to report my 68020 powered Amiga 1200 is surfing the web securely despite the new vulnerabilities.. My 68000 based Mega STE with NIC also seemed unaffected. I haven't dialed any BBSes lately on my Atari 800XL, but I'm pretty confident that machine is safe too. I felt these were pretty risky as they are "modern" machines with complex custom chips, but they seem to be doing OK. So far I haven't heard of any floppy virus variants of Meltdown/Spectre. I hope everyone else has vintage machines available to survive the security apocalypse this year :)

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Semi-OT: Meltdown-Spectre Confusion..
by Joseph Oprysko 14 Jan '18

14 Jan '18

It’s been said that the Meltdown/Spectre flaws affect CPU’s as far back as 1995. Which in some opinions possibly could put some of the affected processors into the ‘vintage’ range. But I’ve yet to see a comprehensive list of all processors affected. Intel released a list, but that only goes back to around 2011 or so with the branding change to “Core” and others released in the time since. I’m curious about exactly what CPU devices, regardless of manufacturer, other than those listed, that are also affected. So including ARM processors, AMD, PowerPC?, G3/4/5? that may vulnerable to those flaws. And where they got the 1995 date from, because there’s a fair number of disused processors in that timeframe as well. Anyone have any insights on this? -- 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?

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Can Anyone Bring a CF-to-IDE Adapter This Morning?
by J. Alexander Jacocks 14 Jan '18

14 Jan '18

I brought one, but it seems to be broken. Thanks! - Alex

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Anyone with a QIC drive or original LaserDisc player coming to Festivus?
by Jason Perkins 13 Jan '18

13 Jan '18

The planets aligned, and it looks like I'll be able to make it to Festivus this year :D I have a QIC tape that has the OS for the TI MicroExplorer LISP card I got a few years back... and no way to read it. It's Mac formatted somehow. Does anyone have something that could read this tape? I've also got some somewhat degraded LaserDiscs from 1979 that don't play in my 1990s player. If someone has one of the original machines with a helium neon laser tube I'd love to see if the discs are salvageable. Thanks! -- Jason Perkins 313 355 0085

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Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT&T 3B1 Unix Workstation
by AJ Palmgren 13 Jan '18

13 Jan '18

I'm just wondering if anybody here did (or knows who) bought this one. http://ebay.to/2DaRr13 Even though these were all manufactured by Convergent Technologies, this one is actually BRANDED by Convergent, as their model S/50. And there's software included here. I tried to buy myself, but just missed it. I'd really like to connect with the buyer here, to see if we can do a more expansive documentation project on this machine, as well as an archival of the software that was included. As far as I know, this is the only Convergent S/50 I've ever seen that has survived, especially with all the CONVERGENT software and manuals (vs the AT&T ones)! Thanks! -AJ http://MightyFrame.com

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Sunday breakfast
by Evan Koblentz 13 Jan '18

13 Jan '18

We'll be at the Princess Maria Diner, Rt. 35 in Wall, at 9am tomorrow

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