- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Museum Report 2020-02-01
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

Sending this report out late. We reopened the museum for visitors yesterday (Sat. Feb. 1) and we had about 10 visitors. The steering committee continues to make changes and improvements to the museum. The floor epoxy was finished about a week ago and now we are working on the bedroom exhibit as well as changing out artifacts. Lots of interesting "stuff". Personally I find it exciting all the different changes. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Hayes 300bps SmartModem for museum exhbit?
by Herb Johnson 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

> Was it the Hayes (internal S100) listed below? Seuss himself just > mentions a "Hayes 300 baud modem card" at: > https://www.chinet.com/html/cbbs.html I know plenty about S-100. I'm pleased to see an opportunity to show in the 21st century that S-100 was (again) a trailblazer in personal computing. The discussion at the linked Web page seems clear to me, that the card referenced was a S-100 product. The people in discussion state that testing was "very early in Feb" of 1978. One can research to see what Hayes products were available on that date. But one Hayes S-100 card I saw today says on the card "1977-1978" The linked discussion is from Randy Suess and - not mentioned here - Ward Christensen. Ward developed a number of early - I'd call legendary - programs which were distributed later by CPMUG and SIG/M in their diskette libraries. Don't forget him. http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/DC%20Hayes/103/103%20Modem.h… shows a Hayes 80-103A modem card and discusses some of its history. The site also shows a Hayes Micromodem-100 and claims it was "second". Another S-100 modem brand was PMMI; the MM-103 is also shown at s100computers.com. Note John Monahan mentioned the Hayes card needed a PMMI coupler. There were probably other brands of S-100 card modems. These cards for various reasons, did not include a "coupler", the device that physically connected to the telephone. That's for historic reasons; look it up. There were several key technologies needed to produce a modem; and a little bit of regulated commerce was involved. They all came together at the time to enable such a product to arise. Of course: the microprocessor computer with mass storage created a need. Yes, there were remote terminals in use and that was a market, but most terminals were wired in or used leased lines. There's other considerations I'm not putting into this simple post; go research late-1970's computing. I was a BSEE and minicomputer system manager at the time, I experienced some of this stuff, and so I'm simply commenting from memory. I find that modern people looking back, think that modems were "natural" even obvious. No, they weren't, they occurred at a point in time for historic reasons. I've suggested a few. It's entirely up to the exhibitors to decide, whether or not to portray that background in their exhibit. 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 retrotechnology DOT info

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Hayes 300bps SmartModem for museum exhbit?
by Adam Michlin 01 Feb '20

01 Feb '20

Hmm.. this just gets more interesting. I found this: http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/thoughts.txt Where Ward Christensen thanks the S-100 modem companies: "Oh yes, special thanks to the S-100 modem companies (Hayes, IDS, and PMMI) for really making CBBS practical. We probably wouldn't have tried it with an external modem." And Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_Microcomputer_Products> tells me: "Hayes started producing similar products at a "hobby level" in his kitchen in April 1977 with his friend and co-worker, Dale Heatherington. Their first product was the 80-103A, a 300 bit/s Bell 103-compatible design for S-100 bus machines. Business picked up quickly, and in January 1978 they quit their jobs at National Data to form their own company,[2] D.C. Hayes Associates." Furthermore, the Micromodem II for the Apple II came out in 1979. So the very thing that made BBS systems practical caused problems for lay people wishing to connecting to BBSs (especially if they didn't have slots). Enter the SmartModem. So cool. Thinking out loud, we should put the Micromodem II in the Apple II and connect it to one of the S100 machines with an 80-103A! And now I really want an original Bell 101 for the display. We might have to buy a bigger display case <he half jokes>. On 2/1/2020 11:39 AM, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > That was the modem I mentioned as my assumption of what you wanted, but I only have the later Apple II internal modem with the external microcoupler. S100 stuff was not a thing i dealt with in my small corner of the world. > > Tony > >>> I'm learning more and more. Since the exhibit is primarily motivated to >>> honor CBBS and the passing of Randy Seuss, I'm doing some research on >>> the modem originally used for CBBS. >>> >>> Was it the Hayes (internal S100) listed below? Seuss himself just >>> mentions a "Hayes 300 baud modem card"

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] List of 2020 Exhibits
by Mike Loewen 01 Feb '20

01 Feb '20

On Fri Jan 24 14:10:58 EST 2020, Tony Bogan wrote: > Yes, the list definitely needs to be updated (and the entire website section > for VCF East) > > It is slated to be updated after the workshop this weekend. Since we just > had a flurry of classes, speakers and exhibits sign up over the past 5 or 6 > days, we decided to meet at the workshop tomorrow and go over everything > before doing the next update. As you well know, everyone that wants to do an > exhibit isn't automatically approved, so it’s never been done in real time. > (Although maybe we will let some Pentium based exhibits in this year ;-) Any progress on the current exhibit list? Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Help with Tandy 1000 TX
by David K 31 Jan '20

31 Jan '20

I have a Tandy 1000TX. It works - I have played some Infocom and other games on it. I recently got a copy of Leather Goddesses of Phobos and have been unable to get it to load/work. The reference card mentions the game "is not self-booting". (I've attached a copy of the reference card) It appears you need to make a copy of the original game disk and the directions start by saying "Insert your IBM (or compatible) DOS disk in drive A" I do not have a copy of DOS for IBM (the game says you need version 2.0 or higher). Can anybody help me obtain this? I do not have the ability or capacity to load something online and get it onto a floppy disk. I've looked on eBay and seen either higher DOS versions (I am unsure which versions I can use on my Tandy) or crazy prices. I'm hoping not to waste money on buying the wrong thing. My Tandy has both a 5.25 and 3.5 disk drives. Thanks, David K.

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Lots of Heath/Zenith Equipment in Winchester, VA
by Alexander Jacocks 31 Jan '20

31 Jan '20

Does someone with lots of Heath/Zenith knowledge have time to look over some pictures that I was sent, and to help me determine what this equipment s worth? I'm not really interested in keeping most of it, so it'd be available to anyone interested once I pick it up. Thanks! - Alex

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Apple ][ disk ][ floppy drives
by Sentrytv 30 Jan '20

30 Jan '20

I am working on some Apple II DiskII floppy drives and I'm looking for someone who has experience in aligning these units, Who is able to help with a few pointers. Specifically with the mechanical adjustments. I have one drive that has a bad head which I will have to find. I have another that won't read track 22, after that it reads fine on a sequential read. I am by no means a experienced user with Apple but I am very much mechanically inclined. (I have made no adjustments to this drive yet) Mike Rosen Sent from: My extremely complicated, hand held electronic device.

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Fwd: [IBM1130] Print Punch: Artefacts from the Punch Card Computing Era
by Bob Flanders 29 Jan '20

29 Jan '20

This may be interesting to some ... ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Patrick Fry <frypatrick(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Jan 29, 2020 at 6:11 AM Subject: [IBM1130] Print Punch: Artefacts from the Punch Card Computing Era To: <ibm1130(a)googlegroups.com> Hi all, We have just released our new book which covers the visual history of the computer punch card. I thought this might be of interest to the group. Some of you have generously helped us with images and information already. The book features over 200 punch cards, 150 archival images and essays by Steven E Jones, Sandra Rendgen and John L Walters. You can see shots of the book on my <http://www.patrickfry.co.uk/printpunch/>site <http://www.patrickfry.co.uk/printpunch/> and more info on the CentreCentre site <https://centrecentre.co.uk/>, with a press release attached. We would love to spread the word about this book to anyone who might be interested. Please let me know if you’d like to know more. Thanks, Patrick Patrick Fry — www.centrecentre.co.uk www.patrickfry.co.uk www.instagram.com/mrpatrickfry — 215a Kingsland Road London E2 8AN +44 (0)7877 132 499 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "IBM1130" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ibm1130+unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ibm1130/CAKDb6wsi5oXvYccTcRYWtG%3DjV%3Dm8… <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ibm1130/CAKDb6wsi5oXvYccTcRYWtG%3DjV%3Dm8…> .

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Update on the Xerox 8010 (Star)
by Adam Michlin 28 Jan '20

28 Jan '20

David Geisswein was so kind to take a look at one of our Xerox 8010 (Star) machines at the recent workshop. It turns on... counts to 10 on the LEDs, and then does nothing else. But, as you know, that's a huge first step. The Star is now in the musuem and is slated for further repair as soon as possible. Hands on use will happen! But we have a mystery: https://www.instagram.com/p/B72OuuBn4D2/ Our donor provided two Xerox 8010s (Stars, if you prefer) and one Xerox 6085 (aka Daybreak) and only one mouse. Neither machine seems to have a port that matches the connector the pictured mouse. Maybe we're missing a piece, though? You shouldn't need an Instagram account to view the pictures, but let me know if that is causing problems and I can upload them elsewhere. Best wishes, -Adam <https://www.instagram.com/p/B72OuuBn4D2/>

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VCF's entry in the /r/retrobattlestations "Not x86" contest
by Adam Michlin 27 Jan '20

27 Jan '20

Did someone say Not x86 Week contest? We thought we'd put in a last minute entry and you should be able to upvote until midnight (1/26/2020). https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/euduzy/univac_1219b_m…

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