March 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

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.

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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

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VCF BBS
by Evan Koblentz 24 Mar '18

24 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. :)

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 24 Mar '18

24 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.

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test
by Jeffrey Brace 24 Mar '18

24 Mar '18

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

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

24 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

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Artifact handling and becoming better caretakers
by Erik Klein 23 Mar '18

23 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

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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?

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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…

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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

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