OT: Laptop hard drive - I'm stumped

I have the TI-99/4A, the extended basic module, an assember module, and a wirewrapped 32K mem expansion I made myself. The TI-99/4a tech ref manual gave me the pinouts.

That was a machine that TI crippled. Using Gram or was it Grom to protect the chance to sell games and such. It could have been so much better built around the minicomputer chip inside.

Instead the rather open C64 adn V20 kicked their arse.

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Reply to
Wes
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Usta do that with the C-128 and star 10 once I figured out that I needed to use the other half of the drive belt. The first half was well worn and used to skip which resulted in the print head moving with no paper feed. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

While getting ready to move, I just pitched a bunch of MFMs and RLL drives,

20, 30 and 40mb Seagates. I still have one on an old 386 that I have to play with Maxcnc.
Reply to
Buerste

Yep! I bought 2 empty boards surplus and soldered everything in. They are in the basement somewhere. I always had at least one working. I still have every "Micro Cornucopia" issue. I figure they will be worth millions someday!

Reply to
Buerste

820 I or 820 II ?

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

Zork? It's from the original Adventure (aka Colossal Cave Adventure). Maybe zork borrowed it, but it wasn't the source.

I burned enough time playing Adventure that I've been very careful about computer games ever since. I never played zork to speak of, but did get hooked by "Spider in the Web" a few years ago -- just an outstanding experience.

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And, I don't think I'd come across this amazing site before:
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is an amazing index to interactive fiction. I feel my spare time draining away....

Reply to
Joe Pfeiffer
[ ... ]

Hmm ... that does *not* work if you have cats. They love to curl up on the paper or label stock and don't at all understand why that makes the humans upset and noisy. :-)

And yes -- we used to make long runs of labels, too -- using various Motorola-powered systems, from Altair 680b, through SWTP 6800, SWTP 6809, and eventually, COSMOS-16/UNX (Motorola 68000 based v7 unix system -- ending with the Sun 3 series of machines (68020).

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Huh! Ferguson Big Board was the first one I bought and paid money for. My own Z-80 was wire-wrapped.

The BB was licensed to Xerox, which used it as a basis for their Xerox 820 desktop computer. The Kaypro II portable computer's design was so similar that some considered it an unlicensed copy.

Reply to
cavelamb

I bought one of Ferguson's 256k daughter boards that I could set up as a

256K ram-drive and shut off the 8" floppy drives and compute in silence! The 8" drives were always running and were noisy. I was one of the first to buy "Turbo Pascal". Learned a lot! I started supporting and CP/M and MS-DOS training people in small businesses and still have some of those customers. One buys 10-15 PCs from me a year, I had to hire people to write software, run cable, set-up networks, train employees, etc. My skills are now applied to designing overall solutions for what they want to do and putting the resources and people together. I still build the PCs, not for the money but to keep my hands on new hardware. This way I replace my personal stuff at least twice a year by selling off the old bits. He's the one with a boatload of Dell laptops, almost all employees have one in addition to desktops.
Reply to
Buerste
[ ... ]

8" drives (at least the 8" Shugart ones which I used) had no provisions for stopping the motor, since it was an induction motor instead of a DC motor as was found in the 5.25" floppy drives.

However, with my SSB (Smoke Signal Broadcasting) system, the same controller card could be used for both 8" and 5.25" drives, so the motor control signal was there anyway. I went into the box which housed my four 8" floppy drives and tossed in a Solid State Relay to switch on and off all four motors in parallel.

The system was a bit more sluggish just after starting, because it took a rotation or two to get up to speed, but otherwise, it worked fairly well, and reduced the heat where I was using them.

My first Pascal was not the Turbo, nor even the UCSD Pascal, but rather the ISO standard Pascal which was sold by Microware to accompany their OS-9 multi-user multi-tasking OS for the 6809 (even for a Radio Shack Color Computer.)

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

Did you try spraying the ribbon with WD-40 ? It got some additional life out of printer ribbons.

RWL

Reply to
GeoLane at PTD dot NET

Or you could buy a tube of stamp-pad ink and re-ink them with an old facecloth. I also ran labels -- 12,000/month -- and I could get a year's life, and about six re-inkings, out of an Epson ribbon, before it started to shred.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I used to sell TI 990 (as I recall) the large industrial mag memory box.

That baby ran. One utility decided to get a different printer - and in upper and lower case. A band printer. Ugh.

When I printed a banner top of * test and a bottom of *..... The TI would wham them out while the band printer had one * per side.

So it was slooooooooooooooow to print. I modified the program for that customer. The other ones wanted the way they had.

The older printers were neat to use. Had a Centronics LP and treated it as serial port. Used the serial handshaking and the output to the port just went to the parallel port once patching that in. I had a big machine language program with built in print drivers.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

You could take a typewriter ribbon, all black were available, and just replace the ribbon. I had a bunch of adding machine ribbons from my NCR days and used those.

Reply to
Calif Bill

There is a MUCH better solution. It's called "Re~InK" - made in the UK by "Lateral Developments Ltd." I've had mine for YEARS - haven't used it in at least 3 or 4.. An $8 (IIRC) can will do a hundred or so cartriges.

Reply to
clare

I think I paid $2 for my tube of stamp-pad ink, 25 years ago. I used it for about three years, until I got my laser printer and contracted out the printing of labels, and more than half of the tube is left.

That seemed like the best solution at the time. I could re-ink a ribbon in about five minutes.

-- Ed Huntress

Reply to
Ed Huntress

I've been using Steve Rayner's formula for several years now. I pay up to $2 for a Canon BJ printer, or apple equivalent provided it has a cartridge inside - no cartridge, $0.50 for the wall wart. I currently have a BJC-240 working under Vista for day to day printing including envelopes and mailing labels. Anything requiring fancier work goes through an Epson R200. Thanks Steve. Anyone have a use for surplus Canon printers? Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Reply to
Gerald Miller

since we are on the topic of printer ribbons I have three unopened EPSON MX/FX/RX100 ribbons (1/2" X 24 yards. 4M Nylon) I really don't need them, so if someone can use them for $5 each, drop me a note, or offer me something interesting in trade (a Huot letter drill index, or a Huot reamer index, or ...???) - find my email on my web page wbnoble.com if interested.

now back to the reminiscing, already in process

my first computer was a DEC PDP8-S - 13 bit core memory, all discrete components, no ICs, front panel switches, cool looking but never got it to work right - dec schematics use non-standard symobols (or they did at that time) for all the logic.

Reply to
Bill Noble

Nice to know that someone is getting some use out of it!

Steve R.

Reply to
Steve R.

For those that are truly nostalgic, there's a web site where you can buy a kit that is a true emulation of a PDP-8.

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Reply to
Maxwell Lol

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