December 2021 - vcf-midatlantic

Your First Modem? (was: Help me remember my first modem)
by W2HX 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

What was your first modem? Mine was a kit from Micromint in Long Island. It was around 1980 or so (I was about 13). My dad drove me to Cedarhurst, LI (I lived in Merrick, LI) to the Micromint sales office and bought this kit. It was an acoustic coupler, 300 baud kit, with an enclosure, a PCB and a bag of parts. I had low expectations that it would work when assembled. I spent a few days assembling and soldering everything. I think the time was around Christmas and my new brother-in-law was over. He was a post-grad at university of Texas at Austin and had a computer account (don't recall the computer). It was time to test it. Me, my brother-in-law and my father were all standing around my TRS-80 Model III and this newly built modem, trying to call into the computer system at UT Austin. In those days, long distance calls were expensive. We must have dialed that computer 20 times while attempting to adjust the pots and make it work, unsure if it would ever work. I can't imagine what the bill was. I was adjusting one of the pots and then, like a miracle, there it was "WELCOME TO THE UT AUSTIN COMPUTING CENTER" I can't swear that is exactly what it said but you get the idea. We all jumped for joy. The darn thing worked as advertised. Great experience and that modem served me well for several years until I upgraded to a Micromint 1200 baud "direct connect" modem before I went to college. 73 Eugene W2HX Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos -----Original Message----- From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces(a)lists.vcfed.org> On Behalf Of Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic Sent: Friday, December 24, 2021 10:29 PM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Neil Cherry <ncherry(a)linuxha.com> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Help me remember my first modem On 12/24/21 9:22 PM, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > I'm trying to find a picture of my first modem online, and can't seem > to find one.. > > I remember my first modem (I was ~ 7 years old or ~ 1983-1984 when we > first got it, but had it for years later) being a 300 baud "Bell" > modem. I > *believe* it had an acoustic coupler, but it *might but I do not > remember needing to use it to initiate connections to BBSes at the > time. I'm not sure if there were hybrid modems where they still had > an acoustic coupler, but also supported auto dial of some kind. > > My memory also tells me it was a black modem, rectangular (metal?) > exterior. I think the modem might have said "Bell Labs" rather than > just Bell on the front. I'm also 95% sure that the modem .. disappeared .. > from Bell thanks to a family member who worked there/at AT&T (and also > was an Atari 800 owner like us). We attached this modem (and later > modems) to an Atari 850 interface, so it had a standard serial interface. > > Lastly, I'm certain it was *not* a Bell 103 modem - which would have > been positively ancient by the early 80s, but some other design from > Bell. Or at least not an original appearance one.. I recall the Bell 300 modem (non-acoustic coupled). It had a AT&T Bell logo on the front. So either Commsphere or Dataphone, probably Dataphone. I think it had 103 on the front. Black plastic front, rest of it was metal and an external 48v DC power brick, 2 screws on the brick. I can't recall if the modem had screws or was hard wired. I do recall a DB25, male I think. -- 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

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Software for TI Portable in VCF Museum
by Jeffrey Brace 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

David Gesswein has graciously detailed his repair of the TI portable. Does anyone have any suggestions for which software we should put on to this machine when it goes back into the museum? ========================================= Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner VCF Mid-Atlantic Executive Director Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Museum Report 2021-12-29
by Jeffrey Brace 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

The museum was closed last weekend and will be closed this coming weekend. The train show seemed to be a great success with one to two hundred visitors per day in December. Today there were 35 visitors and Deborah was able to be docent due to being home from Rutgers for winter break. During down time, she started working on researching the different mice in our new mice exhibit. The mice exhibit artifacts were gathered and setup by Adam Michlin. Jeff Jonas took pictures of the mice and got the model numbers. Now Deborah will research them to find out what they are, why they are significant or interesting. Signs will be made after the research is done. If you are there for the repair workshop, stop by and see the mice exhibit. It's quite interesting the different mice in the exhibit. Happy New Year everyone! ========================================= Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner VCF Mid-Atlantic Executive Director Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Concurrent CPM-86
by David Gesswein 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

I had found this online for the TI. When VCFE suggested unusual operating systems I tried it but wouldn't run on mine. Probably due to the 3rd party hard disk controller. It does run on the VCF TI. Has anyone played with Concurrent CP/M-86 and is there anything interesting you have found to do with it?

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Repair of VCF TI Portable Professional Computer
by David Gesswein 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

Another one of my long repair writeups. Though this one does have pictures. http://www.pdp8online.com/TI/ti-portable-professional.shtml

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your First Modem?
by Jeff Galinat 29 Dec '21

29 Dec '21

Hi, If anyone is interested, I put a link to the ACGNJ article I referenced earlier up my OneDrive. I realized later I made some errors in reading ACIA status bits but it worked as written. Here is the link=> <https://1drv.ms/b/s!AoxC-mzikoIggvgGo8JNquvnpV1Yiw?e=dMs1R4> Regards, Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ My first modem was a surplus 300 bps acoustic coupled model I bought at the Trenton Computer Fest around 1978 or 1979. I used it for a few years with my Apple ][+ before I retired it. I was an IBM customer engineer at the time and one of my customers gave me a Bell 212 unit (don’t remember the actual model #) so I upgraded to 1200bps at that time. I used that with a dual serial card for the Apple I built on a proto board to get online and to connect to a serial terminal. I wrote a very small machine language program to redirect the Cin (character in) & Cout (character out) routines to the serial port. The terminal allowed me to view the BBSes at 80x24 rather than the Apple’s 40 column display. Also, the only printer I had at the time was a screen printer attached to the aux port of the terminal so at least I could get a hard copy. The write up was published in the ACGNJ newsletter and Steve Ciarcia even referenced it in a future issue of his “Ask Byte” column in Byte magazine. I was thrilled to have a hardware guru like Steve reference something I built. Jeff

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Your First Modem? (was: Help me remember my first modem)
by Alexander Jacocks 28 Dec '21

28 Dec '21

Mine was a Commodore VICModem 1600 (300 baud), but I didn’t get to use it much. I was able to dial into QuantumLink a couple of times, but that was about it. For significant regular use, my first modem was a 2400 bps modem bought from MacConnection. I _believe_ that it was a knock off Practical Peripherals device. I used it with Z-term. - Alex > On Dec 28, 2021, at 11:07 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > With my own money a Courier 33.6 > >> On Tue, Dec 28, 2021, 10:05 PM Ethan O'Toole via vcf-midatlantic < >> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: >> Multitech Multimodem 224E on Tandy 1000sx. >> I'm not sure if finding BBS systems helped me in life or hurt me tho :-) >> Still good friends with people I met on those things 30+ years ago. >> - Ethan >>> On Tue, 28 Dec 2021, W2HX via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >>> What was your first modem? Mine was a kit from Micromint in Long Island. >> It was around 1980 or so (I was about 13). My dad drove me to Cedarhurst, >> LI (I lived in Merrick, LI) to the Micromint sales office and bought this >> kit. It was an acoustic coupler, 300 baud kit, with an enclosure, a PCB and >> a bag of parts. I had low expectations that it would work when assembled. I >> spent a few days assembling and soldering everything. I think the time was >> around Christmas and my new brother-in-law was over. He was a post-grad at >> university of Texas at Austin and had a computer account (don't recall the >> computer). It was time to test it. Me, my brother-in-law and my father were >> all standing around my TRS-80 Model III and this newly built modem, trying >> to call into the computer system at UT Austin. In those days, long distance >> calls were expensive. We must have dialed that computer 20 times while >> attempting to adjust the pots and make it work, unsure if it would ever >> work. I can't imagine what t >> he bill was. >>> I was adjusting one of the pots and then, like a miracle, there it was >> "WELCOME TO THE UT AUSTIN COMPUTING CENTER" I can't swear that is exactly >> what it said but you get the idea. We all jumped for joy. The darn thing >> worked as advertised. Great experience and that modem served me well for >> several years until I upgraded to a Micromint 1200 baud "direct connect" >> modem before I went to college. >>> 73 Eugene W2HX >>> Subscribe to my Youtube Channel: >> https://www.youtube.com/c/w2hx-channel/videos >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces(a)lists.vcfed.org> On >> Behalf Of Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic >>> Sent: Friday, December 24, 2021 10:29 PM >>> To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> >>> Cc: Neil Cherry <ncherry(a)linuxha.com> >>> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Help me remember my first modem >>> On 12/24/21 9:22 PM, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >>>> I'm trying to find a picture of my first modem online, and can't seem >>>> to find one.. >>>> I remember my first modem (I was ~ 7 years old or ~ 1983-1984 when we >>>> first got it, but had it for years later) being a 300 baud "Bell" >>>> modem. I >>>> *believe* it had an acoustic coupler, but it *might but I do not >>>> remember needing to use it to initiate connections to BBSes at the >>>> time. I'm not sure if there were hybrid modems where they still had >>>> an acoustic coupler, but also supported auto dial of some kind. >>>> My memory also tells me it was a black modem, rectangular (metal?) >>>> exterior. I think the modem might have said "Bell Labs" rather than >>>> just Bell on the front. I'm also 95% sure that the modem .. >> disappeared .. >>>> from Bell thanks to a family member who worked there/at AT&T (and also >>>> was an Atari 800 owner like us). We attached this modem (and later >>>> modems) to an Atari 850 interface, so it had a standard serial >> interface. >>>> Lastly, I'm certain it was *not* a Bell 103 modem - which would have >>>> been positively ancient by the early 80s, but some other design from >>>> Bell. Or at least not an original appearance one.. >>> I recall the Bell 300 modem (non-acoustic coupled). It had a AT&T Bell >> logo on the front. So either Commsphere or Dataphone, probably Dataphone. I >> think it had 103 on the front. Black plastic front, rest of it was metal >> and an external 48v DC power brick, 2 screws on the brick. I can't recall >> if the modem had screws or was hard wired. I do recall a DB25, male I think. >>> -- >>> 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

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] OT: Solidoodle 3D printer for parts
by Ian Litchfield 28 Dec '21

28 Dec '21

Good morning, I would be interested in the printer for a project. You have it marked for parts. What seems to be wrong with it? I know this brand is finicky, but some people have modded them to get them up running well. I am located in Monmouth county -Ian L On Mon, Dec 27, 2021 at 22:11 skogkatt007--- via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > Is this a resin printer (something tells me no)? I could be interested > regardless barring any earlier replies (or someone, such as a student, who > really really needs it). On Monday, December 27, 2021, 09:51:31 PM EST, > Bob Applegate via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > wrote: > > I haven’t used this 3D printer in years, and the company disappeared > about five years ago. It was working, but the heated bed was replaced and > has not been used in a long time. Has some spare parts. It is definitely > not a good place for someone new to 3D printing to start, but if anyone > already has a 3 and is looking for a working unit to steal parts from, > please let me know. > > Free to a good home. I’m in Burlington County NJ, and it available for > pick-up or I can drive a reasonable distance to meet someone. > > Bob > > >

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slot 2 xeons
by skogkatt007＠yahoo.com 27 Dec '21

27 Dec '21

Anyone know if such can run or be made to run at a speed lower then it's rated? Specifically can a 1ghz 133mhz piii run in a mobo that normally takes a 700mhz 100mhz piii?

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OT: Solidoodle 3D printer for parts
by Bob Applegate 27 Dec '21

27 Dec '21

I haven’t used this 3D printer in years, and the company disappeared about five years ago. It was working, but the heated bed was replaced and has not been used in a long time. Has some spare parts. It is definitely not a good place for someone new to 3D printing to start, but if anyone already has a 3 and is looking for a working unit to steal parts from, please let me know. Free to a good home. I’m in Burlington County NJ, and it available for pick-up or I can drive a reasonable distance to meet someone. Bob

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