August 2019 - vcf-midatlantic

Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 10 Aug '19

10 Aug '19

Slowish day ... nice weather so everyone did outdoor stuff instead of going to museums! We had about 10 people, some of which were repeat visitors and liked it enough to come back.

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AMX Panja control system hardware up for grabs
by Sentrytv 10 Aug '19

10 Aug '19

A while ago I posted that I was getting rid of a bunch of control system equipment from various jobs I had been on. I accumulated this over the years and want to get rid of it. Last call if anybody wants it or is interested in picking it up this weekend. Please contact me off list. List and pictures can be found here on craigslist ad. Mike Rosen https://cnj.craigslist.org/ele/6953665238.html Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.

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Random thought: VCF East clones exhibit
by Herb Johnson 09 Aug '19

09 Aug '19

> > William Sudbrink > Wed Aug 7 11:38:28 EDT 2019 > > When does cloning stop and an industry start? > > When did ISA bus PCs stop being clones? > Are all S-100 bus systems Altair clones? > [are all SS-50 boxes SWTPC 6800 clones?] Bill, the answer on S-100 and SS-50 is, "they are an industry", they are not clones, they are bus-compatibles. That's a good call I think. One might make an exception for the IMSAI as an "Altair clone". I do, on my Web site, I make a case about it. .. but what also happened is that half a dozen or so "Altair compatible" board companies (IMSAI could hav been one) collectively decided to stop calling their products "Altair compatible" and started calling them "S-100 compatible". They settled on a bus that was not 100% Altair original. Later they created the IEEE-696 (Compupro) bus which was a great improvement. Hundreds of companies big and small made S-100 boards and systems. Few of THEM are "Altair clones" but some copied some other's boards. The SS-50 was also a consensus among makers of SWTPC-compatible boards, I don't know the details. They were fairly interchangeable early on, but boards got MUCH better and differentiated later on. Dozens of SS-50 companies. Keep in mind: these were early "hobby computer" bus architectures. They weren't "invented" to be standards for other companies. They weren't products of big-name corporations. They *created* an industry. STDbus, Multibus, DEC-bused, other "industrial" bussed computers: also had their cloned or design-copied product competitors. These came from big companies: Pro-LOG, Intel, DEC. Each bus has its own history. These weren't hobby systems at the time; they have become hobby systems. On the IBM-PC. I'm no expert except I lived through the era. There's a history of 1) making ISA-bus compatible cards. 2) Making MS-DOS based computers (some before the IBM PC) that ran many or some but not all IBM PC programs 3) Computers that looked a lot like IBM PCs and had a mobo with ISA slots, but were maybe 80% IBM PC compatible (whatever that means) like say Heath/Zenith. Calling most of these "clones" would not be satisfactory because they weren't called "clones" at the time. Percent of compatibility, was a thing, once. And then there were the Tiawan made PCs (or at least mobos) which very very closely copied the IBM-PC models. They were called, within the industry, at the time, "PC clones". That's definitive. Less definitive, companies like Compaq. They got ahead of IBM at times. Clones? Enhhh.... kind of misses the point. "Compatibles with better or worse features." Before you start posting counter-arguments, let me explain where I'm going. These considerations aren't written on clay tablets. They are part of a discussion. An exhibit is also a kind of discussion. So I think these are the sorts of things one could exhibit and represent, if one wants to have an exhibit about quote clones endquote. The exhibits and the exhibitors and the attendees, can make the arguments. So what I said above, doesn't have to be absolutely correct. It just stakes out territories. Also: I take Evan's point, and decades-later copies of various vintage computers are not "clones". At least they are not vintage clones. They are modern replicas made to exactly represent vintage originals. I think that's a different discussion. Regards, Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Apple II, North Carolina run go get it
by Jonathan Sturges 09 Aug '19

09 Aug '19

Tony, Thanks, that’s a big help! I’ll ask for more pix. Am I hoping for S/N below 60k? And what P/Ns would be silk-screened on a desirable II board? thanks, Jonathan > On Aug 9, 2019, at 12:00 PM, vcf-midatlantic-request(a)lists.vcfed.org wrote: > > Message: 7 > Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2019 17:06:45 -0400 > From: Tony Bogan <thebogans(a)mac.com> > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Apple II, North Carolina run go get it > Message-ID: <BD4B4A0E-09A0-4563-A5AA-512CBD018FD0(a)mac.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > >> Tony and Corey can give better answers, but the short version is: yes. >> Straight IIs are going for four figures, sometimes five for the best among >> them. >> >> On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 3:46 PM Jonathan Sturges via vcf-midatlantic < >> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >> >>> Honest question (I?m not an Apple II guy), is that a fair price if fully >>> functional? > > Honestly if it?s truly an original II it?s a decent price regardless of what vintage it is. > > Without being able to see the bottom plate and the inside, there?s no way to know if it?s an early II that just had the keyboard replaced (was very common) a late/later model II that may have the red and white serial label (serial number ~60,000 and higher) or an Apple II+ with an Apple II lid (also not uncommon in today?s world) > > More info is needed before any real determination can be made, but unless it?s a II+ with a II lid/badge, then the price can be good to excellent depending on what?s inside/underneath. > > If it?s a II+ with a II lid the price is high. > > Tony >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] AT&T Dataphone - Modem or "Service"?
by Jeffrey Jonas 08 Aug '19

08 Aug '19

The short-short of it: citing http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/att/000-111_ATT_Documentation_Guide_Nov87.pdf Dataphone is a registered trademark of AT&T I saw the Dataphone label on all sorts of modems: SDLC, async, dialup and probably leased line as well. Citing Justin Jernigan's posting > It was a Service, appears to still be, > though likely no longer actively sold. > It's one of the first digital services tariffed by the telephone companies ... > This was pre-divestiture, so service and equipment were "one" Set the wayback machine to 1976 (the US Bicentennial). "Ma Bell" was a regulated monopoly, personified in many ways, most memorably Lily Tomlin's character Ernestine the switchboard operator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Tomlin But internally, Bell System folks were extremely proud of their work, creating and maintaining "the best phone service in the world". You were not allowed to own phone equipment: it was all leased thus all the Western Electric phones saying "not for sale". Add an extension phone and you'd get a "service call" to force you to disconnect it. Even after-market equipment was forbidden, such as the "name caller" auto-dialer (which pulse-dialed numbers you filled onto a plastic belt with an electrographic pencil). New York City high schools all had an IBM RJE (remote job entry) terminal: card reader and line printer, to a modem the operator had to manually dial with a rotary phone (no smart modems, yet!). At the other end was an IBM 360/370 running HASP or JES for batch jobs. As to the rack of modems the Original Poster remembers: that's probably intended for the receiving end: answer-only or answer-mostly mode. UUCP was the only way I was aware of AT&T hardware weirdness where the dialer was separate from the modem. -- jeff jonas

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Re: AT&T Dataphone - Modem or "Service"?
by Jeff G 08 Aug '19

08 Aug '19

Thanks Jeff/Neil/others! Yeah I did some more research myself and it seems that it was basically a brand for all the various lines and hardware. There was a monitoring service offered as well (wonders just how much you can monitor a line at 2400 baud) under the same brand name. I'll have to post some pictures sometime - I have/had a ton of the outlet strips from those server cabinets, and my uncle got a bunch of the aluminum paneling from the front doors of the cabinets (some silver some wood grained) that he used around his house that is still there (complete with logos). And as a side note - I found an interesting tidbit about a Dataphone modem having kill someone due to a failing capacitor: http://www.decadecounter.com/vta/articleview.php?item=111 (I definitely remember seeing these in the piles amongst all the dataphone stuff, but most of the stuff in the server cabinets were the smaller modem units). Jeff (aka Bags)

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Apple II, North Carolina run go get it
by Evan Koblentz 08 Aug '19

08 Aug '19

>> Honest question (I’m not an Apple II guy), is that a fair price if fully functional? Tony and Corey can give better answers, but the short version is: yes. Straight IIs are going for four figures, sometimes five for the best among them. On Thu, Aug 8, 2019, 3:46 PM Jonathan Sturges via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Honest question (I’m not an Apple II guy), is that a fair price if fully > functional? > > > On Aug 8, 2019, at 12:00 PM, vcf-midatlantic-request(a)lists.vcfed.org > wrote: > > > > Message: 4 > > Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2019 10:19:10 -0400 > > From: Christian Liendo <cliendo(a)gmail.com> > > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > > Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Apple II, North Carolina run go get it > > Message-ID: > > <CAA9iAfto0i2KxWqiu1NZUF6vSEA2pb00fFsEhKhccA8B6_MEYA(a)mail.gmail.com> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > > > > https://fayetteville.craigslist.org/sys/d/spring-lake-apple-ii-computer/694… > >

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Re: Apple II, North Carolina run go get it
by Jonathan Sturges 08 Aug '19

08 Aug '19

Honest question (I’m not an Apple II guy), is that a fair price if fully functional? > On Aug 8, 2019, at 12:00 PM, vcf-midatlantic-request(a)lists.vcfed.org wrote: > > Message: 4 > Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2019 10:19:10 -0400 > From: Christian Liendo <cliendo(a)gmail.com> > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > Subject: [vcf-midatlantic] Apple II, North Carolina run go get it > Message-ID: > <CAA9iAfto0i2KxWqiu1NZUF6vSEA2pb00fFsEhKhccA8B6_MEYA(a)mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" > > https://fayetteville.craigslist.org/sys/d/spring-lake-apple-ii-computer/694…

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Random thought: VCF East clones exhibit
by Evan Koblentz 08 Aug '19

08 Aug '19

I'm not sure if this has been done, other than for specific brands (mainly Apple II/Mac): someone should make a whole exhibit (or arrange a team exhibit) exclusively for vintage clones (not modern replicas).

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 07 Aug '19

07 Aug '19

Modest day; a few families came through. I talked to our neighbors in the train group about relocating the hallway TV that hangs from the ceiling, so it would be in a more visible spot. Pulled out some overgrowth that was in front of our warehouse door. Evan Koblentz Executive Director, Vintage Computer Federation evan(a)vcfed.org / (646) 546-9999 www.vcfed.org @vcfederation

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