July 2021 - vcf-midatlantic

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] past, present and future
by Eric Rangell 07 Jul '21

07 Jul '21

> > Hi all, > I plan to bring the exhibit I intended to show last year about Ted Nelson to VCF as well as my current exhibit of the PC Transporter for the Apple //e. I will also be able to show demos of Ted Nelson's JOT and Jef Raskin's SWYFT systems for anyone interested. Ted and Jef had great ideas that were ahead of their time. The potential uses for them I see in the decentralized internet space (which is already being crowded out by corporate interests). After corresponding with others who have done more extensive research I do not see them practically seeing the light of day in any product, other than specialized applications, like molecular biology which uses ZigZag. If you have different opinions, or stories about Ted to share, please contact me off-list at erangell(a)gmail.com. Thanks, Eric

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Volunteers for East Filming / AV
by Andrew Diller 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

Hello- If you are interested in helping film the upcoming VCF East event - classes and keynotes- please let me know via email off list (or on if that is your thing). I'm looking for a few people to help record, edit and produce some nice videos for VCF East 2021 "Live or Bust" At InfoAge Learning Center in Wall NJ. I can do editing so don't worry, that won't get dumped on you. I really need camera operators to cover the classes, keynotes and maybe some live interviews... This year we'll try to document the event with smartphones and wireless mics in order to keep things simple and agile. -andy

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Volunteers for Consignment Staffing - VCF East 2021
by Alexander Jacocks 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

All, I'm looking for volunteers to staff the consignment area, during VCF East, 2021. We have three times the space for consignment that we had in 2019, which should be great. But, to avoid the long lines that we have had in the past, we'd like to have 3 volunteers working the room, during Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at all times. I'm looking for folks to sign up for one or more of the following 2.5 hour shifts, for each day: 8:30 11:00 11:00 13:30 13:30 16:00 16:00 18:30 Please send me questions, or let me know what shifts you'd like to work. If you can, please give me a first and second choice for shifts, in case we're already full for that slot. Responsibilities will include sales, answering questions, and crowd control, should that be an issue. I hope that everyone else is as excited about VCF East as I am! Thanks! - Alex

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Fwd: Sperry Univac Core - Which computer and Capacity?
by Duane Craps 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

I sent this from the wrong email -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Sperry Univac Core - Which computer and Capacity? Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2021 20:59:46 -0400 From: Duane Craps <duaneb.craps(a)cox.net> To: Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> Douglass, Not much help but looks like it is still in the federal supply system https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ztq716e7053r80/2021-07-05.png?dl=0 Maybe TI has an online search tool. Duane On 7/5/2021 4:54 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > The board has bottom row (nearest connectors) of TI ICs label SN97674J. > Two of these have an extra designation "SN J55325J". > There are two smashed ICs in this row that would need replacing which > I presume are the same ICs as the rest of the row. > I'm not finding anything thing relevant on web searches, internet > archive, or any recent sales on ebay. > Any recommendations on where else to look? > > On 6/24/2021 9:17 AM, Duane Craps via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >> Here s a link to a manual on bitsavers: >> >> bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/military/an_uyk-20/N00039-73-C-0431_… >> <http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/univac/military/an_uyk-20/N00039-73-…> >> >> >> >> looks to be preliminary information; it has a lot of hand drawn figures >> >> Memory description starts on page 3/49. paragraph 3-78 >> >> There was a control board and a data board for each group of 4 memory >> cards. >> >> On 6/22/2021 12:15 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic wrote: >>> Board is identified as 90536-7128081-00 G >>> Web hits on this are thin. >>> Anyone know what Univac machine this is from and its capacity? >>> I suppose count of the wires H x L = # of bits of storage, and one >>> side is the word size of the computer? >>> Confirmation? >>> https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/kw4AAOSwwlBgujxR/s-l1600.jpg >>> Thanks, >>> DC >>> -- Duane Craps sdɐɹɔ ǝuɐnp

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Sperry Univac Core - Which computer and Capacity?
by Douglas Crawford 05 Jul '21

05 Jul '21

Board is identified as 90536-7128081-00 G Web hits on this are thin. Anyone know what Univac machine this is from and its capacity? I suppose count of the wires H x L = # of bits of storage, and one side is the word size of the computer? Confirmation? https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/kw4AAOSwwlBgujxR/s-l1600.jpg Thanks, DC

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Mo' stickas (2" inch circle stickers of vintage computers)
by Jeffrey Brace 04 Jul '21

04 Jul '21

There was a sticker sale, I got 3 more: Atari 800, TRS-80, Altar 8800: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-Cl8ZPsxcT3d05krNtuam684_o6QdYAk?us… They are available for sale now at the museum and at VCF East and VCF West. ========================================= 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

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why all my email is plain text
by Jeffrey Jonas 03 Jul '21

03 Jul '21

I have been a rather effective email user since the 80s. It's the MESSAGE that counts. The CONTENT. Not the glitz, cute fonts, colors, icons, logos, stickers, emojis or other decorations. panix is my main ISP (Internet Service Provider). I usually ssh into their NetBSD server and use the PINE email program. It's fast, responsive, and allows me to manage my email effectively. It also means that it's nearly impossible for malware, spyware, tracking cookies and other HTML atrocities to run. [admittedly, PINE has a LYNX ability to text-display HTML]. I archive emails by person or topic. Those are plain text files, so I can GREP them and easily use any editor to manipulate the content. HTML emails are usually 3x the file size of plain text. That counts against my disk quota. I don't appreciate folks filling my files with fluff. I prefer the digest so I get complete conversations albeit delayed up to a day. -- jeff jonas

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] why all my email is plain text
by VAXman＠tmesis.org 02 Jul '21

02 Jul '21

Jeffrey Jonas via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> writes: > >I have been a rather effective email user since the 80s. It's the >MESSAGE that counts. The CONTENT. Not the glitz, cute fonts, colors, >icons, logos, stickers, emojis or other decorations. > >panix is my main ISP (Internet Service Provider). I usually ssh into >their NetBSD server and use the PINE email program. It's fast, >responsive, and allows me to manage my email effectively. It also means >that it's nearly impossible for malware, spyware, tracking cookies and >other HTML atrocities to run. [admittedly, PINE has a LYNX ability to >text-display HTML]. > >I archive emails by person or topic. Those are plain text files, so I >can GREP them and easily use any editor to manipulate the content. > >HTML emails are usually 3x the file size of plain text. That counts >against my disk quota. I don't appreciate folks filling my files with >fluff. > >I prefer the digest so I get complete conversations albeit delayed up to >a day. Kudos!

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Topics for Bil Herd at VCF East 2021
by Jeffrey Brace 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about? Reply here or send me a message privately. ========================================= 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

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Off Topic: Confirmed fix for your messages being in an attachment
by Herb Johnson 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Two points: one about "lost in history", one in opposition to embedded content. On "lost in history", from Douglas Crawford: > Worse I just learned today (and this was the LAST STRAW) > that every message that everyone has sent in HTML *mode*, where the > text body became an attachment, has been lost in history because the > mailman digest strip these attachments off. Its all gone. > Years and years of messages. > All due to misunderstanding of this facility. Doug, the operation of the VCFed midatlantic email list is outside my skills set. But I don't understand your "lost in history" statement as a factual matter, within my incomplete knowledge which I'll spell out. I read the list *exclusively* with a Web browser, accessing the list at the link below and then for the month as the messages are accumulated monthly. https://lists.vcfed.org/mailman/listinfo/vcf-midatlantic I am one of very few posting-members who do this, apparently. Never mind why few do or why I do. That being the case, I'll describe what I know if others don't know it. So as I look with my Web browser, on the mailist Web site, at the June 2021 list; and then look at your June emails - which have the "scrubbed attachment" feature - I was obliged to do as you noted, to click another link, to read your message text. To my point now. Your attached text is not "lost to history". The attached file is also archived, just as the messages are archived. For instance one such attached/detached email content is linked as: > https://lists.vcfed.org/pipermail/vcf-midatlantic/attachments/20210615/eae4… To read it, you follow the link. The link and content is "preserved". So I don't understand your "lost" statement. Now your statement focuses on "digest" mode, which I don't use, and if I recall sends a daily? email packaging several emails of the day. I do not know, if these links are part of the digested messages. If the links are, apparently you can recover the attachments as I've described. If not, recover them from the maillist Web page interface. Also: the maillist on the online Web interface, provides an accumulative monthly gzip package of emails. That also excludes the attached texts BUT it includes Web links per message (like the link above for a June message, I just checked). Doug, it's possible you mean other attachments such as photos or documents, which may not be processed as I just described. Simply put: it's outside my skills and time available to make a determination about that. I leave that to the email list administrators and/or yourself. All that, addresses the "lost in history" comment. ------------------------- About embedded content: Dave McGuire makes quite a case for not supporting HTML and not providing various attachments. Others have also. To me they appears to be a "traditional" view of email, one I happen to agree with. But others may not be interested in traditional views of email, and so not persuaded. I observe that in other email list schemes (such as groups.io) which support embedded content and various schemes, I don't care for the result. Which is, to embed important information among a bunch of other emails that can only be found by tedious keyword search. By "important", I mean content an email list member would like to find later; or content that someone doing Web search, might like to find for its value. In my vintage computing work, I've done such searching many many times. It's tedious enough, just to treat emails as a text file. It's more tedious, to be obliged to read the emails with whatever email-reading tools are available. I don't care for email systems to be used for hobby collaborative environments, for many reasons not the least being the inability to *edit and supersede old content*. While not "lost", that content is obscured. But as I noted earlier in this email: others may not be persuaded by what amount to "traditionalist" views in modern use of the Internet. To old people it should not be a surprise that young people may not be interested in prior practices. ----------------------- These are all matters for the email list administrators to consider. Who they are, what they know, and how they take actions, are all mysterious to me. (shrug) They did not address Doug's comment (so far) so I chose to address it. Others provided their opinions on the matter, so did I. 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 comcast DOT net

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