- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Repair Workshop 2023-06-10
by Jeffrey Brace 21 May '23

21 May '23

There is a repair workshop the same weekend of the swap meet. Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y17roR2xP75sq5kjbv8jcVPk-a3vCVjWdmT… For those that are still around Sunday morning we will be going to breakfast at Americana Diner <https://goo.gl/maps/BvvTN9J4SedqbQwn9?coh=178571&entry=tt> ( in Shrewsbury at 9AM. It is a 14 minute drive from InfoAge. PLUS ... After breakfast we will be going to a private residence to see what someone has for sale. Lots of good stuff from a long time member. It's just getting too hard to haul all these heavy items to a swap meet for him so we are going to his house. Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Swap Meet June 10 volunteers
by Jeffrey Brace 21 May '23

21 May '23

Hello everyone, I need volunteers for the upcoming swap meet on June 10. Please send me a private e-mail if you are available to volunteer. Thanks! Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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OT: What's old is new again. A new 8088 based DOS laptop
by Christian Liendo 19 May '23

19 May '23

Ok.. I made sure to add the OT label, but reproductions of other computers are here, I thought this would be of interest. https://liliputing.com/past-meets-present-in-this-200-mini-laptop-with-a-in… I am on the fence on getting this. I don't know how much classic 8088 based laptops are as I don't collect them, but this may be fun to play with.

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Using a newer IEEE 696 RAM on an IMSAI front panel system
by Bill Degnan 16 May '23

16 May '23

Hey all, I posted the basics of upgrading an IMSAI 8080 with front panel to use 64K IEEE 696 RAM and thought some here might be interested. The newer s-100 bus standard (IEEE 696) conflicts with the older S-100 systems (PHANTOM disrupts the Altair/IMSAI front panel). BUT if you can resolve the bus conflicts, newer RAM boards are less electrically noisy and they help make for a more stable system. More RAM the better. Worth the effort. So, if you're interested, here is how I got the Morrow MM65K 64K RAM board to work on my IMSAI: https://www.vintagecomputer.net/browse_thread.cfm?id=811 I provide links to sources including Jon Chapman's GWMON-80 ROM and Herb Johnson's info about S-100 bus particulars. For the upcoming workshop this Saturday at Kennett Classic for my project I plan to hack into an ancient hard drive that is password protected by using an Z80 in-circuit emulator to extract the password (hopefully). I also have a NABU computer that I want to map out with the emulator. Maybe I can get a little help with my PDP-8 (straight 8). Hope to see you there. Let me know what you're bringing/wanted. Here is a link to the event page: https://www.kennettclassic.com/spring-hack-a-thon-may-20th-2023/ If you want to get on the event mailing list: https://www.kennettclassic.com/contact.cfm I have not posted much about the swap end, but there will be items for sale, I have a few vendors who plan to attend. I will have a table or two of choice items, spares/donations to Kennett Classic Bill

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Morris Tanenbaum, Inventor of the Silicon Microchip, Dies at 94
by Christian Liendo 13 May '23

13 May '23

https://spectrum.ieee.org/in-memoriam-may-2023 Tanenbaum’s research in the mid-1950s proved that silicon was a better semiconductor material for transistors than germanium, which was commonly used at the time. His discovery paved the way for more efficient transistors critical in technologies that ushered in the Information Age. He began his career in 1952 at Bell Labs, in Murray Hill, N.J., as a researcher in its chemical physics department. Two years later, under the direction of physicist and inventor William Shockley, who at the time worked at Bell Labs, Tanenbaum began investigating whether silicon crystals could be used for transistors. In 1955 he and colleague Ernest Buehler demonstrated the first silicon transistor. Tanenbaum later developed the first gas-diffused silicon transistor, which could amplify and switch signals above 100 megahertz at a switching speed 10 times that of previous silicon transistors. Despite Tanenbaum’s early work on silicon transistors, AT&T did not support further research or advancement of the technology. At the time, Bell Labs was the research arm of AT&T. Although Bell Labs had “a significant technological lead in silicon transistor technology, it stopped doing proper research in the field—partly because it just wasn’t immediately relevant to AT&T’s business—so silicon transistor technology, including the integrated circuit, was done by Intel and Texas Instruments instead,” Tanenbaum said in a 1999 oral history conducted by the IEEE History Center. Tanenbaum instead worked on other new technologies in the decades that followed. In 1962 he was named assistant director of Bell Labs’ metallurgical department. He led the team there that created the first high-field superconducting magnets, which are now used in MRI machines and other medical imaging technologies. Later he helped develop optical fiber and digital telephone switching. Tanenbaum went on to serve as president of AT&T’s New Jersey Bell (now part of Verizon) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was appointed president of AT&T Communications in 1984. He retired five years later as AT&T’s vice chairman and chief financial officer. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he also was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of the MIT board of trustees. He received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1949 from Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, and earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Princeton.

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What was DESQview like on 80286?
by John Heritage 13 May '23

13 May '23

Hey folks, I used DESQview a lot on 386SX and higher machines 'back in the day', and it was quite useful for running multiple nodes on a BBS, or for 'multitasking' -- running a terminal program in DOS while writing code, etc.. It worked great, and as long as you had 2MB of RAM you could do a lot with it. In my experience, a 486DX became fast enough for 4 BBS nodes at once, etc.. I was curious what DESQview was like on a (faster - 12 MHz or higher) 286? Could you run two 500KB+ DOS programs with enough memory? were there limitations because of the lack of (memory) modes relative to the 386? I remember QEMM386 being essential with Desqview to pull drivers and all sorts of things out of conventional memory.. so I imagine conventional memory in Desqview 'instances' was lower on a 286 than a 386. (A bit of nostalgia here - but late in the time I ran my BBS, I accidentally killed two 286-16 cpu/board combos.. trying to power them on stupidly -- on the outside of a static bag. I was planning to put them through their paces and use them for BBS nodes. From what I remember a 386SX or DX @ 16 MHz wasn't really faster than a 286 @ 16 MHz for 16-bit code). Thanks! John

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VCF East 2023 YouTube videos and articles
by Jeffrey Brace 08 May '23

08 May '23

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Does a Linux 1.0D count yet
by Kelly Leavitt 08 May '23

08 May '23

TAMU Linux 1.0D running X11. Reliving the glory days of 1992. Took me a while to remember all the Mojo needed to get X11 running. https://imgur.com/a/8IKHOoW [https://i.imgur.com/kJrwqLo.png?fb]<https://imgur.com/a/8IKHOoW> imgur.com<https://imgur.com/a/8IKHOoW> Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered entertainment destination. Lift your spirits with funny jokes, trending memes, entertaining gifs, inspiring stories, viral videos, and so much more from users. imgur.com Kelly

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New Warehouse Cleanup went great! 2023-05-07
by Jeffrey Brace 07 May '23

07 May '23

Today (5/7), 7 of us came to clean out what will be our new warehouse section. I got there about 10AM with Gregg Levine who took the train from manhattan to help us. Ian Litchfield and Thomas Gilinsky came over a few minutes later. Then a few minutes afterwards Ken Gober came. An hour later Bill Inderrieden joined us and Doug came about 1:30PM after driving an hour and a half from his home. We cleared out a section and filled up a quarter of the dumpster. Unfortunately it was already 3/4 full of other groups' trash, so we could only remove part of the trash. The rest will have to wait until the dumpster is emptied and returned. We did sweep a lot, staging most of the remaining trash for removal in the future. We also move items out that we wanted to save for future purposes. Ray Brown helped move some heavy items with the forklift like metal radiators and a huge pallet of shelving parts. Some items need to go to e-recycling or hazardous waste (paint, etc.) at a later time. I will be scheduling a new date for the remaining cleanup when the dumpster is emptied. Thanks to all who helped! Here are some pictures and video: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-h7yP_xknMw0SvDpKyr8xM70uP39yYi-?us… Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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VCF East 2023 Survey results
by Jeffrey Brace 06 May '23

06 May '23

No need to look at the results. Everything was 100% perfect! ;) https://bit.ly/vcfe2023post_results Take care, Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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