September 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

Slightly OT
by Martin Flynn 20 Sep '20

20 Sep '20

Heathkit Estate Lot $1,200.00 My dad collected over the years when he passed away we found out just how much stuff he had. Things I know for sure 3 oscilloscopes 20+ trainers Manuals Trainer Binders Kits Unbuilt inbox trainers So many to list.. i think this is a fair price for a heathkit collector. Pick up will be at our house in Mansfield Ohio. https://www.facebook.com/groups/53497998217/user/873975386/

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EXHIBITOR REGISTRATION CLOSED! (for VCF East 2020)
by Jeffrey Brace 20 Sep '20

20 Sep '20

I was supposed to close exhibitor registration last Sunday, but forgot, so everyone had a bonus week to get their exhibits registration in. Two more people squeaked in during that bonus week. I closed the Google Form for exhibitors, instructors, presenters, so no more can be submitted. If you are already working on a video, then please get it to me ASAP! DEADLINE IS NOW! If you need more time, then I might be persuaded. I know the showrunner and he can be persuaded by homemade chocolate chip cookies. ;) -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by Richard Cini 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

Kind of feels like someone should do a write up on this if it doesn’t exist somewhere already. I have a Pi 2+ lying around, a few different Macs, an Asante bridge and plenty of AppleTalk stuff. If you have an SD card image I can take a crack at doing it. http://www.classiccmp.org/cini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces(a)lists.vcfed.org> on behalf of Glenn Holmer via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Saturday, September 19, 2020 9:22:59 AM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Glenn Holmer <cenbe(a)kolabnow.com> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine

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Recapping a Mac IIci
by Richard Cini 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

All — I have an Apple IIci main board that need recapping. Does anyone know of someone that does this? I bought a recapping kit and tried it on my spare machine and it doesn’t seem to work (I get the bing but no video; no explosion at least) but I’d rather not try it on the main machine. Thanks! Rich http://www.classiccmp.org/cini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by David Riley 19 Sep '20

19 Sep '20

On Sep 18, 2020, at 8:29 AM, Glenn Holmer via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > From: Glenn Holmer <cenbe(a)kolabnow.com> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine > Date: September 18, 2020 at 8:29:51 AM EDT > To: vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org > > > On 9/17/20 6:13 PM, David Riley via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >> Actually, IMO, the best option is: if you can get an Ethernet card in >> the SE, you can run Netatalk 2.x on Linux or NetBSD (both still >> support AppleTalk, but netatalk 3.x does not). > I'm keeping an old version of Debian on a Raspberry Pi so I can run Netatalk 2.2 for my Mac SEs. Is there anything current that will support AppleTalk? Nope. They dropped AppleTalk support from Netatalk at the 3.0 transition because: a) Almost no one used it (I was the only vocal complainer) b) No one was left on the project to maintain it (ironically, Thomas Kaiser, the last guy who did, is one of the lead maintainers for Armbian, probably the best generic Debian port for non-RPi ARM boards) c) Backwards compatibility with older versions of AFP (Apple Filing Protocol, the AppleShare protocol) was beginning to make adding new functionality difficult to add, so losing the older non-TCP versions really improved maintenance and security NetBSD and Linux both still have AppleTalk kernel support; I sent a patch to fix some AppleTalk bugs in NetBSD a long while ago that I believe has been mainlined, and Linux currently has a bug in its AppleTalk stack regarding multiple interfaces (important if you're trying to run an AppleTalk router, but irrelevant otherwise) for which I need to update my patch and send to the maintainer. But they both work. Apple got rid of AppleTalk for everything but printers in 10.4, and the rest of it in 10.5. OpenBSD dropped AppleTalk support a long time ago. I don't know about FreeBSD, since I don't do much hacking on it, but I'd be surprised if it still had support. Netatalk 2.x comes with source for a kernel module for Solaris to add AppleTalk support, but it was severely broken on Solaris 10 and I never finished trying to update it, and it definitely won't work on 11 because they changed the low-level networking interface quite a bit. So in general, Linux is probably your best bet, followed by NetBSD, IMO. There's no telling when Linux might get rid of AppleTalk (after all, they're deprecating the PC floppy driver), but NetBSD is unlikely to since they delight in supporting ancient and unusual things. What I *really* want to do is make a userland AppleTalk stack/library that works via BPF to do the packet handling on anything that handles BPF (so, most of the above, including Solaris 11, but not 10, IIRC). It would be a loser performance-wise on older machines, but for anything reasonably modern (last 15 years or so, really) it should be just fine for the kind of traffic even a medium-sized Mac lab could generate. It would also be decidedly more secure than a kernel implementation; the Linux kernel's AppleTalk stack is a real mess, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some latent security vulnerabilities in it. If anyone is interested in trying to start that effort, I'd be glad to chat. LocalTalk support via custom interfaces would be especially neat (you can't do it on a regular PC serial port because it's actually 230kbaud SDLC, which the Z8530 on the Mac and Sun machines handles just fine, but 16550 and family definitely do not). In any case, to answer your original question: Netatalk 2.2.6 is, if I recall, the latest that will work. It incorporated some of the login module fixes backported from 3.0, but is otherwise in mothballs, so don't expect anything new unless you decide to fork it. - Dave

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by Andrew Diller 18 Sep '20

18 Sep '20

Are you are asking if there is a more recent Linux that will support netalk? Or are you asking if any recent OSX can access the netatalk shares in 2.x? I tend to think of AppleTalk on ethernet as Ethertalk, to disambiguate it from LocalTalk (which people may be using if they have a bridge). If you can keep everything on ethernet (i.e. you have a network card for all your macs so you can get them to a switch and a common network segment/subnet) I've found that even recent versions of OSX (10.10/Yosemite) can access a netatalk 2.x share via TCPIP and easily share files with older macs. The biggest issue is usually the form of the archive used and ensuring that the resource forks can be properly re-constructed. SIT files are the best to ensure this. I've also setup netatalk on a older laptop w/ Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) and it works great for this transfer. being on an extra, older laptop I can just leave it till I need it again and even it's smallish HD is huge in comparison to the files for classic macs. -andy > On Sep 18, 2020, at 8:29 AM, Glenn Holmer via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > From: Glenn Holmer <cenbe(a)kolabnow.com> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine > Date: September 18, 2020 at 8:29:51 AM EDT > To: vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org > > > On 9/17/20 6:13 PM, David Riley via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >> Actually, IMO, the best option is: if you can get an Ethernet card in >> the SE, you can run Netatalk 2.x on Linux or NetBSD (both still >> support AppleTalk, but netatalk 3.x does not). > I'm keeping an old version of Debian on a Raspberry Pi so I can run Netatalk 2.2 for my Mac SEs. Is there anything current that will support AppleTalk? > > -- > Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682) > "After the vintage season came the aftermath -- and Cenbe." > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by Richard Cini 18 Sep '20

18 Sep '20

Glenn - I have several Asante ethernet cards "in stock" but I never thought of putting one in the SE (I have one on my IIci). I also have a Raspberry Pi laying around. Are Debian images still around? Sounds like a project... Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/18/20, 8:30 AM, "vcf-midatlantic on behalf of Glenn Holmer via vcf-midatlantic" <vcf-midatlantic-bounces(a)lists.vcfed.org on behalf of vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: On 9/17/20 6:13 PM, David Riley via vcf-midatlantic wrote: Actually, IMO, the best option is: if you can get an Ethernet card in the SE, you can run Netatalk 2.x on Linux or NetBSD (both still support AppleTalk, but netatalk 3.x does not). I'm keeping an old version of Debian on a Raspberry Pi so I can run Netatalk 2.2 for my Mac SEs. Is there anything current that will support AppleTalk? -- Glenn Holmer (Linux registered user #16682) "After the vintage season came the aftermath -- and Cenbe."

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by Herb Johnson 18 Sep '20

18 Sep '20

Rich Cini says: have an old System 7 or 8 Mac, it put files on a Mac format ZIP disk. Then run a recent-enough OSX (pre 10.15) Mac that can read the ZIP disk via a USB ZIP drive. OK, got that. But I got lost when Rich said "use an emulator to get the files into the emulation environment". Rich, were/are you trying to copy files onto some modern computer, to make use of them with modern software? Or ... copy files ... to *run* them under some emulation of say Mac System 7? Or, both? People ask me about such things often enough. It would be good if I can tell them what they may be able to do. Most people won't want to run an emulator, they just want to migrate old files or at least archive it. I always warn them of the problem of old programs that make files, that new programs can't read (even if you "copy" them over to the new computer). regards, Herb -- 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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Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
by Richard Cini 18 Sep '20

18 Sep '20

My IIci is on the fritz (need to re-cap it), and I wanted to get some files off of my mother’s old (and long unused) Macintosh SE. I thought I’d mention this archiving path in case someone else is in the same boat. Unfortunately, it requires more than one type of Mac, and multiple ZIP drives, so if there are other possibilities, I’d like to know. I worked with only what I had on hand (i.e., I didn’t buy any extra hardware), but I’m sure there is a better way. There are several parts to this: The original Mac SE (800K floppy only) A Mac that can read/write both 800k and 1.4MB disks (since the IIci was out-of-commission, I used my PowerBook 540c). Two iomega ZIP drives. It just so happens I have both SCSI and USB versions. A more current Mac that runs OSX *prior to* Catalina (10.15) since Catalina dropped support for HFS. I have a Mac Mini that runs El Capitan (10.11). It took a bit of time to set everything up, but basically you have to get the iomega Zip Client onto the original Mac. Assuming you have no original disk, you can use HFVExplorer to put zipclient4.2 onto a 1.4MB floppy and then use the second Mac to move the file to an 800K disk. I didn’t have a spare external 1.4MB drive to test on the SE, but not sure it works without a ROM upgrade. The second part is to use the SCSI ZIP drive on the SE to copy the files to a ZIP disk. The third part is to use the USB ZIP drive on the modern Mac to get the files off of the disk. So far, so good. Then, you can use Basilisk or other emulator that can access the host’s file system to get the files into the emulation environment. The help file for HFVExplorer says it can access the ZIP drive, but I wasn’t able to get it to work. Thus, the need to use the two lifeboat Macs to get the files into the emulation environment. I thought about Stuffing the files and then using a terminal program to send them to the modern Mac, but I couldn’t get MacTerminal to work properly; maybe a better terminal program would have worked. Happy archiving! Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32

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Museum Report: 9 September and 16 September 2020
by svcatitc＠aol.com 17 Sep '20

17 Sep '20

Checked in and opened up around 1p Sept 9th :: DEAD, only one older gent who had been to IA before and was considering volunteering at IA now retired. We exchanged pleasantries while discussing general computer topics. Sept 16: Two couples showed up around 1/2 hour between. 1st couple was younger, and only a medium interest. She seemed bored to tears, while he showed the most interest, which picked up when we got to the PS2 70. He wanted to know more about the bootup process. Older couple was an EXCELLENT audience, as they both had 40 years of programming experience. The wife, in the very early years, talked to Bill Gates on the phone about a programming problem she had. The husband, worked with Cray on an install in his early years. Both live in North Jersey and will be back with the grand kids. They had smiles on their faces the whole time they were in the place, reminiscing. Ray Chase stopped by to show me a military electro-mechanical computational device that had to do with pressure. Talked with some of the guys that maintain the marine wireless association exhibit next to us. Good day! Bill Inderrieden

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