If you can boot from a floppy, may I suggest FX ( Fast Lynx )....You can use the same cable that LapLink uses
or make your own to transfer files via the parallel port. I have a "freeware" copy with no limits if you are interested.
I will need to get it off of another computer tomorrow if that is the case, just let me know what you decide.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Yes, it is a file transfer program, that is useful in getting
your "core" files from point "A" to point "B". Reason I say
core files, is because it's not that great about long file
names, BUT you can use the same cable for DCC which
is effectively the same thing built into Windows.· Once
Windows is up and running, DCC handles long filenames
just fine.
I have attached the file.
FX.EXE is the important one to get you started, it must run
on both machines.
FX-DB25.COM is a program that I wrote to help aid in building
a cable ...or you could buy a DCC (Direct Cable Connection)
at Radio Shack or Best Buy, etc.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Post Edited (Beau Schwabe (Parallax)) : 11/4/2005 4:01:33 AM GMT
flyingfishfinger said...
Ok, I have a Seagate 2.5" IDE drive in the machine. I'm guessing that instead of the link that Beau mentined I could use Kermit file transfer program? Bob, I might be interested in those drives of yours, if the size is right.
Also, I've left it on for a few hours now and it hasn't crashed yet (a record!), so judging by that, I won't need a new drive yet, but I would still be interested, to test the Win95 thing
Rafael
JFYI, I upgraded the memory so both have 16meg usable ram (16meg is usable top limit)..
Both laptops work, but would need new batteries to be portable..
I have a TI-59 programmable calculator which pulls little magnetic cards thru a slot in the back, on which you put your program and data. There is no non-volatile memory in the machine. It snaps into a thermal printer-cradle which produces a cash-register-tape output. There are special printed pads on which you do your programming, in what amounts to a generic assembler.
From 1976 to 1988 I used it monthly to calculate the principal & interest components of a contract house-payment I was making, and I would include that printed slip with my check.
It all still works, and I have the boxes & books for everything. Would this be Pleistocene or Jurassic?
Great stories in this thread! Thanks! -Eric
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thanks for your time,· Eric
·· Thanks for adding to the diversity of older machines spoken of here...I hadn't heard of that particular TI model until now.· I'll go with Jurassic!·· Especially since I hadn't heard of it!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage Parallax Tech Support csavage@parallax.com
Eric kind of jogged my memory a little. I remember, in the 1970's, I purchased an HP-22C (not sure of the correct model number). This was the programable calculator, with a magnetic strip reader writer from HP. As we all know, it was HP that came out with the new technology, which they charged an arm an leg. TI usually replicated the tech and only charged a leg. I thought this calculator with a strip was the greatest thing since ... A short time after that, I think it was still in the 70's, RadioShack came out with a pocket computer, is was just alittle bigger and bulkier than the HP, it had a one line LCD display, a dinky keyboard,·and it came with·BASIC on ROM. Then,·I thought that I was really a high tech guy. Does anybody remember having or seeing a KIM board.
I did go to the KIM-1 site, thanks, and I had a peek at the picture. I remember, or at least I think I remember the KIM that I have looked alittle bit different. So, I went down in the basement to start looking for the board, which I have not found yet, I came across my very first piece of 'hi-tec' equipment, circa 1975.
Luckily the suitcase is made of aluminum, inside the suitcase, everything being built in, it contains the following: a printer, a full size keyboard, a 'fast' 300 baud modem with the phone handset coupler (built-in), and of course the power supply. The girlfriend at the time worked for the local university in the computer dept, and one day she hauled this suitcase from work, which I am guessing it ways in at 30 or 40·pounds. She wanted to show me how she could dial in to the university, from home,·and get hooked up to the 'big iron' (IBM mainframe). After I saw that I was sold, I have to have one. Shortly after that the computer dept had a closed auction, and I was the proud owner of a portable terminal. This thing kept me entertained for a least a couple of years. I remember the first time I used it to log onto Compuserve, at $5.00 an hour, that was amazing.
This is it , I do not recall having anything older than that.
BTW, as I remember, hacker is derived from the word hacksaw. Back in those days, hacking was not breaking into the nearest mainframe, it was more the tools needed to create or add things to your current project. For instance, at the KIM-1 site, the tape recorder was "hacked" on. And of course you needed to know how to solder, re-write asm progs, and so forth. Sure glad those days are gone.
The reference to HACKsaw and hacker reminded me of something I had heard once about the origin of the term "hacker". I beleive originally, this was indeed for hacksaw, but was more related to physcially breaking and entering office buildings, etc. "for the fun of it". It wasn't about theft or industrial espionage, but about seeing who could break in (undetected) to where (physically) and leave a "tag" for other "hackers" to see.
From this, "hacking" into system systems to see how they worked, and from there the branch between "hacking" things together and "hacking" into a system (bypassing security). As these branches diverged, we now have the "good side" (hacking to put things together and make someting useful out of "junk") and the "dark side" (the [noparse][[/noparse]sometimes] criminal activity of breaking into systems).
Not sure about the hacksaw thing, and of course I don't want to debate origins, I generally refer to Wikipedia lately for information on such things, since when someone finds a problem they're quick to research it and get to the truth, kind of like snopes.com but here's the hacker link...
In any event I considered myself a hacker for many years through the 80's and 90's when hackers seemed to have a bad name.· I never thought of breaking it down like they have at the link above.· I now just refer to myself as a Techie, since it utterly disgusts me to hear some of terminology applied to people who can barely install their own O/S.· Things such as 1337 hax0rs?· What the heck is that?· Where do people learn how to spell these days?· I think some people with too much time and too little education have deemed themselves something they're not to the point that, I hate to admit has become a defacto standard today,· Once again:
"Spelling variation does not always follow a set convention. The same word may be spelt differently by different people, or even by the same person to confuse others even more. This is symptomatic of the desire or affected desire to elude comprehension by others unfamiliar with the foreign art form.
Many consider it a pointless affectation, and as it has become widely used it is less useful as a way of showing membership of an "elite" group. It is nonetheless a cultural phenomenon well-known amongst hackers and many other·internet users, especially gamers."
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Chris Savage Parallax Tech Support csavage@parallax.com
Just a bit of advice on the old laptop with a broken HDD...
I'm working on rebuilding an old Compaq Contura 3/25 laptop with a 120MB drive(The drive is OK)...
I bought a CF-Card - IDE interface card and slotted in where the HDD used to be.
The machine now draws less power from the batteries(I'm replacing the 12V/2.2AH pack with 10 x 1.2V/4.5AH D cells) and boots a lot faster...
These cards typically costs $10 - $15, and small CF-cards aren't too expensive, either...
Of course, I have to build a completely new shell for it, and for that I'm using Lexan.
(I'm calling the beast 'Compaq Contura Crystal Power edition')
I hoped to junk the FDD, but this model won't boot without one in the system.
(The 4/25 would work, but the only one I have of those has a broken screen)
I'm mounting the D-cells in holders so that they can be easily removed and replaced with either 8 Alcalines, or 10 x 1.2V/8AH Ni-mh's if I should need to extra staying power...
(I'm using Ni-cad's initially, as those can be recharged by the internal charger)
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
I had a Victor 4800 that cost $1700 in 1978. It looked like an adding machine but it would accept magnetic cards a bit bigger than a business card. For repeated calculations you'd perform a sample pass through and save it on the card.
Back in those days I was a budget analyst for a state agency. We were making forecasts for 14 departments by 17 line items on accountants worksheeets. These worksheets were big green columnar sheets that came on tearout pages. We bought the big ones to create a 15 by 18 cell spreadsheet, when including the column and row totals.
The problem was that each cell contained four numbers, 3 revenue sources and the total. We often spent a week getting the spreadsheet to crossfoot. Then came the Victor 4800. We programmed it to read the 4 numbers in each cell. If the 3 revenues added up to the total, each of the numbers would be added to an accumulator. At the end of a row or column we could read out the 4 accumulators and know the numbers were correct, as long as you didn't skip a cell. It cut our workload by 80%
I worked for Bechtel Power Corporation in San Francisco when they had 25,000 employees. Then the PC came along and one engineer could do the work of five. The IBM 360 that I learned Fortan on took a whole building for 64K of ram [noparse][[/noparse]previously mentioned]. Seems that we just go faster and faster. My Palm has a half a gigabyte in it.
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
circa 1970's
Reading David Ahl
Fortran in High School
Wiring homebrew S-100 backplane systems
Drooling over the Compucolor I (Pre-Apple)
Coding 6800s
Hacking TRS-80 mod.1
Pascal in College
Then there is always the 1K ram ZX81 (TS1000) - "The first computer to break the $200 price barrier". I have since been using emulators on a MOD chipped XBOX - of which a ZX81 emulator (and many others such as N64, Sega, GBA, ect..) have ruled once again.
The one in my collection has a 16KB RAM expansion, and unfortunately, a broken keyboard...
(The traces in the top layer of the membrane have been broken, in fact, the membrane itself has cracked)
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Don't visit my new website...
···I still have my original ZX-81 with 16K. Early on I built an add-on card for digital and analog I/O. It was based on discreet chips for addressing and outputs. Still works today.
··In fact, the ZX-81 was the processor used in the first "Automated Cable Assembly Tester" used in a military ship construction program that I was associated with. The ZX-81 was designed to test 1500 cables per ship of up to 40 or so conductors and report shorts, opens and then hi-pot the cable before printing out a confirmation report on the thermal printer.
I built a robot using the TS1000 back then. I bought the computer 2nd hand from a guy at work. It was the best thing to use since it was so small. It was real easy to interface, the edge connector was a standard size, and the pinout was available. I built a traditional R2D2 style body (sans skin), and wired motor controllers using the popular experimenter boards with 44pin edge connectors(from Radi Shack) to create a backplane system with the chassis. Each card I made would plug in this backplane so the TS1000 could access this as a peripheral bus. I reused the same motors from an old robot project built from Tod Lofbourrow's book in the 70's, "How to build a Computer Controlled Robot"
That project is like most projects, cannibalized for parts on the next project. (I still have the motors) I know some pics survived, I would, if I dig thru the barrels of old pics, scan them and upload to my website. I'll have to make my kids do that....
Not to get too far off of the original discussion - one last word about the ZX81. I had·a book that showed me how to interface the ZX81 with an 8255 PIA chip for out to 24 outputs for LEDs, or whatever. When I got my first BS2, I decided to duplicate the idea again (see attachments).
The one in my collection has a 16KB RAM expansion, and unfortunately, a broken keyboard...
(The traces in the top layer of the membrane have been broken, in fact, the membrane itself has cracked)
Geeze, I have 2 of em with ram pacs and a lot of books for the ZX81... I did my first assembly programming with em.
Also, the USA version is built for connecting to a NTSC(Never Twice Same colour) TVs, while the european is built to work with PAL (Perfect At Last) type TVs...
BTW: your homepage link doesn't seem to work...
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
In short.. 1K RAM in ZX81 vs 2K RAM in TS1000. Later the TS1500 came out with 16K ram built in. I had modified my last ZX81 with a 32K ram chip with a soldering iron and some basic tools. I wish I still had it but maybe I will get one for $99 from Zebra Systems and interface it with an SX-28 or BS2. That's a neat idea.
Also, the USA version is built for connecting to a NTSC(Never Twice Same colour) TVs, while the european is built to work with PAL (Perfect At Last) type TVs...
BTW: your homepage link doesn't seem to work...
Ok, its been awhile since I fired them up.....
Check my link now, SBC has been changing my IP quite often, and I reset my DDNS to check every 15 minutes and log the results...
Comments
If you can boot from a floppy, may I suggest FX ( Fast Lynx )....You can use the same cable that LapLink uses
or make your own to transfer files via the parallel port. I have a "freeware" copy with no limits if you are interested.
I will need to get it off of another computer tomorrow if that is the case, just let me know what you decide.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Rafael
your "core" files from point "A" to point "B". Reason I say
core files, is because it's not that great about long file
names, BUT you can use the same cable for DCC which
is effectively the same thing built into Windows.· Once
Windows is up and running, DCC handles long filenames
just fine.
I have attached the file.
FX.EXE is the important one to get you started, it must run
on both machines.
FX-DB25.COM is a program that I wrote to help aid in building
a cable ...or you could buy a DCC (Direct Cable Connection)
at Radio Shack or Best Buy, etc.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Beau Schwabe
IC Layout Engineer
Parallax, Inc.
Post Edited (Beau Schwabe (Parallax)) : 11/4/2005 4:01:33 AM GMT
JFYI, I upgraded the memory so both have 16meg usable ram (16meg is usable top limit)..
Both laptops work, but would need new batteries to be portable..
Bob
Rafael
From 1976 to 1988 I used it monthly to calculate the principal & interest components of a contract house-payment I was making, and I would include that printed slip with my check.
It all still works, and I have the boxes & books for everything. Would this be Pleistocene or Jurassic?
Great stories in this thread! Thanks! -Eric
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
thanks for your time,· Eric
·· Thanks for adding to the diversity of older machines spoken of here...I hadn't heard of that particular TI model until now.· I'll go with Jurassic!·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Rafael
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIM-1
Also, I found a great page with a picture and a lot of details on the KIM-1.
http://www.baltissen.org/htm/kim.htm
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Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
Luckily the suitcase is made of aluminum, inside the suitcase, everything being built in, it contains the following: a printer, a full size keyboard, a 'fast' 300 baud modem with the phone handset coupler (built-in), and of course the power supply. The girlfriend at the time worked for the local university in the computer dept, and one day she hauled this suitcase from work, which I am guessing it ways in at 30 or 40·pounds. She wanted to show me how she could dial in to the university, from home,·and get hooked up to the 'big iron' (IBM mainframe). After I saw that I was sold, I have to have one. Shortly after that the computer dept had a closed auction, and I was the proud owner of a portable terminal. This thing kept me entertained for a least a couple of years. I remember the first time I used it to log onto Compuserve, at $5.00 an hour, that was amazing.
This is it , I do not recall having anything older than that.
BTW, as I remember, hacker is derived from the word hacksaw. Back in those days, hacking was not breaking into the nearest mainframe, it was more the tools needed to create or add things to your current project. For instance, at the KIM-1 site, the tape recorder was "hacked" on. And of course you needed to know how to solder, re-write asm progs, and so forth. Sure glad those days are gone.
From this, "hacking" into system systems to see how they worked, and from there the branch between "hacking" things together and "hacking" into a system (bypassing security). As these branches diverged, we now have the "good side" (hacking to put things together and make someting useful out of "junk") and the "dark side" (the [noparse][[/noparse]sometimes] criminal activity of breaking into systems).
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
John R.
8 + 8 = 10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker
In any event I considered myself a hacker for many years through the 80's and 90's when hackers seemed to have a bad name.· I never thought of breaking it down like they have at the link above.· I now just refer to myself as a Techie, since it utterly disgusts me to hear some of terminology applied to people who can barely install their own O/S.· Things such as 1337 hax0rs?· What the heck is that?· Where do people learn how to spell these days?· I think some people with too much time and too little education have deemed themselves something they're not to the point that, I hate to admit has become a defacto standard today,· Once again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet
From the above link:
"Spelling variation does not always follow a set convention. The same word may be spelt differently by different people, or even by the same person to confuse others even more. This is symptomatic of the desire or affected desire to elude comprehension by others unfamiliar with the foreign art form.
Many consider it a pointless affectation, and as it has become widely used it is less useful as a way of showing membership of an "elite" group. It is nonetheless a cultural phenomenon well-known amongst hackers and many other·internet users, especially gamers."
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Chris Savage
Parallax Tech Support
csavage@parallax.com
I'm working on rebuilding an old Compaq Contura 3/25 laptop with a 120MB drive(The drive is OK)...
I bought a CF-Card - IDE interface card and slotted in where the HDD used to be.
The machine now draws less power from the batteries(I'm replacing the 12V/2.2AH pack with 10 x 1.2V/4.5AH D cells) and boots a lot faster...
These cards typically costs $10 - $15, and small CF-cards aren't too expensive, either...
Of course, I have to build a completely new shell for it, and for that I'm using Lexan.
(I'm calling the beast 'Compaq Contura Crystal Power edition')
I hoped to junk the FDD, but this model won't boot without one in the system.
(The 4/25 would work, but the only one I have of those has a broken screen)
I'm mounting the D-cells in holders so that they can be easily removed and replaced with either 8 Alcalines, or 10 x 1.2V/8AH Ni-mh's if I should need to extra staying power...
(I'm using Ni-cad's initially, as those can be recharged by the internal charger)
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
Back in those days I was a budget analyst for a state agency. We were making forecasts for 14 departments by 17 line items on accountants worksheeets. These worksheets were big green columnar sheets that came on tearout pages. We bought the big ones to create a 15 by 18 cell spreadsheet, when including the column and row totals.
The problem was that each cell contained four numbers, 3 revenue sources and the total. We often spent a week getting the spreadsheet to crossfoot. Then came the Victor 4800. We programmed it to read the 4 numbers in each cell. If the 3 revenues added up to the total, each of the numbers would be added to an accumulator. At the end of a row or column we could read out the 4 accumulators and know the numbers were correct, as long as you didn't skip a cell. It cut our workload by 80%
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
Reading David Ahl
Fortran in High School
Wiring homebrew S-100 backplane systems
Drooling over the Compucolor I (Pre-Apple)
Coding 6800s
Hacking TRS-80 mod.1
Pascal in College
...aaah those were the days
then it was time to goto work...uuggh....
=Dan
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.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
[noparse][[/noparse]My Corner of Cyberspace http://ragooman.home.comcast.net/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Robotics Society Got Robot? http://www.pghrobotics.org/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Vintage Comp.Society http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pghvintagecomp/ ]
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
Those were great days!
The one in my collection has a 16KB RAM expansion, and unfortunately, a broken keyboard...
(The traces in the top layer of the membrane have been broken, in fact, the membrane itself has cracked)
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
···I still have my original ZX-81 with 16K. Early on I built an add-on card for digital and analog I/O. It was based on discreet chips for addressing and outputs. Still works today.
··In fact, the ZX-81 was the processor used in the first "Automated Cable Assembly Tester" used in a military ship construction program that I was associated with. The ZX-81 was designed to test 1500 cables per ship of up to 40 or so conductors and report shorts, opens and then hi-pot the cable before printing out a confirmation report on the thermal printer.
· Great times!
=Dan
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.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
[noparse][[/noparse]My Corner of Cyberspace http://ragooman.home.comcast.net/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Robotics Society Got Robot? http://www.pghrobotics.org/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Vintage Comp.Society http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pghvintagecomp/ ]
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
Dan
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.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
[noparse][[/noparse]My Corner of Cyberspace http://ragooman.home.comcast.net/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Robotics Society Got Robot? http://www.pghrobotics.org/ ]
[noparse][[/noparse]Pittsburgh Vintage Comp.Society http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pghvintagecomp/ ]
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.
Thanks.
Geeze, I have 2 of em with ram pacs and a lot of books for the ZX81... I did my first assembly programming with em.
Takes up a whole box (boot box)....
Bob N9LVU
(Assuming you have a European ZX81, not an USA TS1000 )
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Don't visit my new website...
Whats the difference between the two???
Bob N9LVU
Also, the USA version is built for connecting to a NTSC(Never Twice Same colour) TVs, while the european is built to work with PAL (Perfect At Last) type TVs...
BTW: your homepage link doesn't seem to work...
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Don't visit my new website...
Timex Sinclair 1000
Timex Sinclair 1500
In short.. 1K RAM in ZX81 vs 2K RAM in TS1000. Later the TS1500 came out with 16K ram built in. I had modified my last ZX81 with a 32K ram chip with a soldering iron and some basic tools. I wish I still had it but maybe I will get one for $99 from Zebra Systems and interface it with an SX-28 or BS2. That's a neat idea.
Ok, its been awhile since I fired them up.....
Check my link now, SBC has been changing my IP quite often, and I reset my DDNS to check every 15 minutes and log the results...
I am using No-IP.com for DDNS...
Bob N9LVU