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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Culpability and Provenance
by Herb Johnson 16 Jan '21

16 Jan '21

Well, while I have a lot I could post on these matters, I won't. I'm not a lawyer and these are legal matters. The rest is discussion not advice. Certain content one might obtain from others accidentally on an abandoned computer, is outright illegal to own and distribute. Delete it - period. Other content is proprietary and still in distribution, thus an actionable issue by the active producers of that content. And of course, most of us with a clue know what is "private information". Nobody here is "researching" people's private information. This is a vintage computing discussion. Private information must be deleted, copies only to owners who want it and are given opportunities to ask. Most people seem to be indifferent; some are not. The rest, is about technical content of old programs out of use, and possibly original programming done (as in sources, binaries). These things are, in my opinion, the business of those of us in vintage computing. What to do about finding that stuff, has been in discussion for decades. There's common practices about that content. While owners could take actions, many owners are disinterested in doing so, or "unavailable", or in some cases have released their published works. Owners have rights, and the right to say "delete". At least they used to, when content resided in their own hands. Another subject. Informing former owners about discovered content beyond impersonal programs and documents, has some merits both to us and to the prior owners. Tony shares his experience, that he's informed some owners about protecting their data. All that said, I'm informed by the posts on this subject, from persons who identify their sources of authority on their decisions (Tony mentioned HIPAA compliance for instance). And by various experiences discussed. Authority and or experience matters to me, when I see advice, certainly when I give it. I don't say I have much authority, other than years of practices; I have no authority on legal matters, little on business. I'm a technologist by training and historian by circumstance. Myself: I preserve the history of development of certain programs and hardware on my Web site. Much of that is published information, descriptions and repairs of hardware, documentation, sources or disassemblies. Some of it is biographical information from public sources and personal correspondence (republished by me with permission). Generally I have permissions, as owners of content have the rights to say "no", and privacy rights. Over the decades: I've been contacted by content-owners or their heirs or their associates and customers. Most thank me for recognizing those known to them, a few for recognizing themselves! Some provide more information. Some people want their privacy, or at least used to when privacy existed. And some, are no longer interested in certain past works. So it seems to me: If the VCF Inc. chooses to, they might gather some informed and authoritative opinions and recommendations and practices, and make that information available, as a service. They may also choose to do so, to inform their officers and volunteers as to "best practices" within the VCF collection. One service might be, to identify kinds of content - such as I and others have identified - and suggest the kinds of practices one might take. That service alone, may help persons in deciding what to do, where to seek advice. But I'm not credentialed in most of these matters. I have certain practices I follow. Mostly I tell people "this is at your own risk. Seek professional, legal or more experienced advice. I'm not responsible for your consequences. Make your own choices." Otherwise I lead by example and effort and results, I hope. 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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the human element [was Culpability and Provenance]
by Jeffrey Jonas 15 Jan '21

15 Jan '21

replying to Dean Notarnicola > I love tech for techs sake. It can be both art and science. I highly agree. - taking apart old electronics and appliances was my first electronics 'classroom'. Reverse engineering ordinary things shows amazing design and cleverness. Before circuit boards, EVERYTHING was hand-wired and hand-made. There was a human element in everything. High end items got more care, such as lacing-cord on the wires to neatly bundle them. Then zip-ties came along and ruined it all. - most machines interact with people in some way: what we now call the User Interface. Old machines were pieces of art and craftsmanship in everything you saw and touched: every knob and wheel and button. Even the labels were calligraphy. There was artistry in every piece, seen or unseen: curved wheel & gear spokes, artfully carved handles and cabinetry. Even office typewriters tried to appeal to "woman's aesthetics" with gold gilding and artsy appliques. There are several books of "the art of the engineer". Even Adam Savage drools over the amazing functionality of the Studley tool cabinet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_O._Studley Bill Inderrieden and I have enjoyed many conversations about the power stations, factories and industrial facilities he's visited. The buildings and windows all have a wonderful sense of style and function. Even the stair cases and banisters are worthy of the finest hotel. I assert that early CISC machine architecture was very human oriented. The instruction set and options catered to the assembler programmer who required the most direct way to express the problem to the CPU. Instruction set orthogonality is a measure of goodness. And gimme general purpose file registers. LOTSA registers. 16 or more! Every CPU/microprocessor/microcontroller I study shows a unique approach that I admire and respect, thus the incredible variety of microprocessors in the 70s and 80s. Then RISC came along and ruined it all :-( Don't get me wrong, I had the most wonderful RISC course at Concurrent Computer Corp. We were a tough audience. We were all experienced assembler programmers. After programming the IBM 360 in high school, I found the Z80 really weak and tedious to program. But there are many compelling reasons that RISC is the way to go. That course respectfully explained it. That's why I <3 vintage computing: we recreate the FUN and personal satisfaction of the "vintage" computer environment (although they were not vintage when we used 'em!) -- jeff jonas

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Atari ad for sale Commodore 64 PC Booklet Circa 1982 - $425 (Wayne NJ)
by Bruce 15 Jan '21

15 Jan '21

We could all post them all on ebay and buy them back and forth to drive the prices up!!! /s Bruce NJ On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 8:37 PM Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Yes yes yes!!! > > I’ve got magazines from the 1940s I wonder how much that stuffs going to > be worth! > > Sent from: > My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device. > > > On Jan 14, 2021, at 8:25 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > > > Wow the ads from my '77 - 84 byte magazines are going to make me rich! > RICH! > > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Atari ad for sale Commodore 64 PC Booklet Circa 1982 - $425 (Wayne NJ)
by Douglas Crawford 15 Jan '21

15 Jan '21

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Commodore 64 PC Booklet Circa 1982 - $425 (Wayne NJ)
by Christian Liendo 14 Jan '21

14 Jan '21

I'm curious if anyone knows who this is? https://newjersey.craigslist.org/sys/d/wayne-commodore-64-pc-booklet-circa-…

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Ken Thompson ACM Fellow Announcment
by Andrew Diller 14 Jan '21

14 Jan '21

Ken Thompson, a recent VCF Keynote speaker (2019), and creator of UNIX became a ACM fellow today: https://awards.acm.org/award_winners/thompson_4588371 and https://awards.acm.org/binaries/content/assets/press-releases/2021/january/… Kenneth Lane Thompson Google For contributions to the development of operating systems theory and for the implementation of the UNIX operating system 2020 ACM FELLOWS RECOGNIZED FOR WORK THAT UNDERPINS CONTEMPORARY COMPUTING International Group Composed of Leaders Across All of Computing’s Disciplines New York, NY, January 13, 2021 – ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has named 95 members ACM Fellows for wide-ranging and fundamental contributions in areas including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, computer graphics, computational biology, data science, human-computer interaction, software engineering, theoretical computer science, and virtual reality, among other areas. The accomplishments of the 2020 ACM Fellows have driven innovations that ushered in significant improvements across many areas oftechnology, industry, and personal life. -andy

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Last Video in My PS/2 70 OS/2 Series is Posted
by Alexander Jacocks 14 Jan '21

14 Jan '21

All, I just posted the last video in my PS/2 70 OS/2 2.1 series: https://youtu.be/J8_5q82XPGE I finished installing OS/2, in the last video, so I go through some basics of using OS/2 2.1. Thanks! - Alex

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OT: AMD Phenom II Quad-Core Socket AM3 stuff
by Herb Johnson 14 Jan '21

14 Jan '21

Brief: I'm looking for a central-New Jersey purchase of a desktop, or just a replacement processor, all recent tech (several years old I call recent) not cutting edge. This is too new for general discussion, too old to just buy online. I know some here do this stuff, have these things around. Covid limits my ability to shop around, shipping is a recent nightmare. Also: no workshop visiting. So it's plausible to ask here, for private reply. Those not interested can stop here. So my wife wants to build a particular sort of video server, modest performance quad-core but not cutting edge, Win 8 64 bit operation. We have on hand a decent GigaByte motherboard that supports an AM3 or AM3+ CPU - but we have no CPU, this was a backup board. The prices on 3GHz quad cores are cheap (ten-year old processors), heat sinks are cheap. To put this to use, is plausible. But even old mobos are not expensive, if someone has something they upgraded from not too long ago. Same with an upgraded system. And some mobo that's newer will have USB 3.0, good for external drives. So that's a thing. And a more recent power supply, maybe a decent case, you see where this goes. What I don't want is something that got cooked and overclocked 24/7 to run bitcoin. I want this thing to run for some more years. On a mobo: PCI slot or two, PCI Expr X 1, PCIExp X 16; and USB 3.0 would add value. I might take the whole complete system, decent case and not-abused power supply. No drives, no software - I won't bug you about support (if the stuff isn't crap, it's all on the Web). No junk. The local thing, is someone to DROP OFF in the Princeton/Trenton NJ area. No workshops, I pass. 1) Covid 2) recent shipping nightmares. Just a deal on a processor and heatsink can reasonably ship by mail. Ship a mobo, maybe. Ship a whole system, kinda pointless. So see my email address below and make an inquiry. Not overly rushed but this ought to resolve in a few weeks, a month. Again - if you read this far - I'm not looking to discuss 2010 computing in a vintage computing email list, so keep this private. Thanks for some "old" hardware help. 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 comcast DOT net

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Interesting take on modern terminals
by Andrew Diller 13 Jan '21

13 Jan '21

Saw this posted on a discord I'm on, and thought it was appropriate for this group: https://uri.cat/projects/modern-retro-terminal/ Some interesting designs and very DIY... -andy

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] vcf-midatlantic Digest, Vol 32, Issue 10
by Eric Rangell 12 Jan '21

12 Jan '21

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Museum Report 2021-01-10 Hi all, VCF owns an Applesauce floppy disk imager that was donated by John Keoni Morris. Over the past 2 years Tony and I tested it and got two 5.25" Disk II drives to work well with it (replacing the MC3470 amplifiers). It is a deluxe unit, so we also have an Apple 3.5" drive attached. We installed the sync sensors in the Disk II drives so it can create full flux images of GCR floppy disks in A2R and WOZ formats. Unprotected disks can be imaged to DSK or PO using the Fast Disk Imager. The latest version of the software can also create Commodore D64 and Atari image files for emulators. We were also able to image Lisa and Mac 3.5 disks. Yesterday I set up the unit on the Mac Mini in the museum, so it is available for use by anyone who has floppy disks that need to be imaged for preservation. To learn more about Applesauce, visit: https://applesaucefdc.com Thanks, Eric Rangell

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