IDing old hardware

[Andrew]

My father died last year and I'm sorting through his effects. He was an
engineer and there's a bunch of old parts I can't identify, including an
interesting piece with serial number 0001 that appears to be a prototype
board for...something. The P/N is 09-10012 but Google is being unhelpful
with that.

My knowledge of computer hardware only goes back about fifteen or twenty
years. Anyone know a good site, forum, or whatever dedicated to old or
antique hardware, that might be able to help me ID some of this stuff?
Anyone here an expert in 70s-80s hardware? (wouldn't be surprised....) I
don't think there's anything earlier than ~1975, and newer stuff I would
probably recognize.

--
Andrew

IT is a filter. It accepts masochists on stdin and emits misanthropes on
stdout.

[detha]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 03:56:56 +0000, Andrew wrote:

> My knowledge of computer hardware only goes back about fifteen or twenty
> years. Anyone know a good site, forum, or whatever dedicated to old or
> antique hardware, that might be able to help me ID some of this stuff?
> Anyone here an expert in 70s-80s hardware? (wouldn't be surprised....) I
> don't think there's anything earlier than ~1975, and newer stuff I would
> probably recognize.

alt.folklore.computers might be able to help.

-d

[G. Paul Ziemba]

detha <de...@foad.co.za> writes:

>On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 03:56:56 +0000, Andrew wrote:

>> [old electronics]

>alt.folklore.computers might be able to help.

Please put photos on the web and post a link here and afc.
--
G. Paul Ziemba
FreeBSD unix:
1:16PM up 41 mins, 1 user, load averages: 1.03, 1.09, 0.99

[Andrew]

On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:18:24 +0000, G. Paul Ziemba wrote:

> detha <de...@foad.co.za> writes:
>
>>On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 03:56:56 +0000, Andrew wrote:
>
>>> [old electronics]
>
>>alt.folklore.computers might be able to help.
>
> Please put photos on the web and post a link here and afc.

My thanks. I threw the pictures up on photobucket; I think this is the
correct link. There are descriptions for each image including part
numbers and the like. I'm mostly interested in knowing what they are (for
the ones I haven't figured out) and whether they'd be of interest to a
museum or collector.

http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/

I'll post the same on afc.

--
Andrew

IT is a filter. It accepts masochists on stdin and misanthropes on stdout.

[David Gersic]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:39:58 +0000 (UTC), Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see any descriptions or
part numbers on these pictures. So, a few guesses from what's left of
my memories of the 1980s PC.

This one:

http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/media/IMG_0697_zps64e5fd6e.jpg.html?sort=3&o=1

looks like a Hard Card (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcard) to me.

This picture:

http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/media/IMG_0696_zps82c68f48.jpg.html?sort=3&o=2

looks a lot like a CGA / composite video adapter (left) and what could
be a memory expansion card (right).

This one:

http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/media/IMG_0694_zps07f7867a.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4

is a hard disk and controller. Could be MFM, RLL, or ESDI. With a part
number, model number off the drive, or something like that, it might
be possible to identify more accurately.

[Andrew]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:55:47 +0000, David Gersic wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:39:58 +0000 (UTC), Andrew
> <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/
>
> Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see any descriptions or
> part numbers on these pictures.

Someone mentioned the same in AFC, so it's not just you. The descriptions
should be on the right hand side under "Media Info" when an individual
image is selected. At least that's where they appear to me, but I haven't
used photobucket before. I don't know if it's showing me something
different because it's my account.

If it's definitely *not* there for anyone but me, I'll either get
pictures of the labels or put it up somewhere else where I can include
public descriptions, and then I'll burn down photobucket HQ.

--
Andrew

IT is a filter. It accepts masochists on stdin and emits misanthropes on
stdout.

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

On 4/14/2013 9:08 PM, Andrew wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:55:47 +0000, David Gersic wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:39:58 +0000 (UTC), Andrew
>> <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/
>>
>> Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see any descriptions or
>> part numbers on these pictures.
>
> Someone mentioned the same in AFC, so it's not just you. The descriptions
> should be on the right hand side under "Media Info" when an individual
> image is selected. At least that's where they appear to me, but I haven't
> used photobucket before. I don't know if it's showing me something
> different because it's my account.
>
> If it's definitely *not* there for anyone but me, I'll either get
> pictures of the labels or put it up somewhere else where I can include
> public descriptions, and then I'll burn down photobucket HQ.
>

It appears to be normally hidden in the "Media Tags" window to the right.

First picture - That looks like an external TV tuner, possibly to add TV
to a monitor? Can't say, can't see the ports on the back.

Second picture - you have two sets of ROMs (actually, I'd bet UVEPROMs).
The midplane looks more like 4 slots to me. And the card IS a
HardCard - 80M of 8 bit ISA goodness.

Third picture is a CGA adapter (left) and a memory card to flesh out the
64K/256K on a IBM PC/XT MB to its max of 576K/640K. Or at least get
close to it.

Fourth picture - I THINK both are T1 aggregators - the one on the right
is, takes up to 16 T1s in, spits the data out on a V.35 serial link.
The left one is possibly an aggregator also.

Fifth picture - If my memory serves me right, that's a 10M IBM fixed
drive for an IBM XT. The controller would be a MFM controller.

The last pic - I THINK, but may easily be wrong, that it's designed to
allow you to tap into one of the T1/E1 channels the other boards
aggregate for you.

That's my two cents worth.

If any of these are still UI for anyone here, you have my sympathy.

RwP

[mrob...@att.net]

Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/

The descriptions are there under "media info", but that box is collapsed
by default. Once you open it, it stays open as you navigate.

Caution: long post ahead.

The Scientific Atlanta box is a "cable box" from the early 80s or so.
It will have two coaxial connectors on the back - one for the feed
from the cable TV company and another that outputs to your TV set on
channel 3 or 4. It may also have a convenience outlet; this was so you
could plug the TV into it and still only need one wall outlet. The big
knob selects the channel and the small knob shifts the tuning frequency
(I think) a little for the best picture.

The way cable TV worked back then was that several analog TV channels
would be sent down the same cable on different carrier frequencies.
From an end-user point of view, it was like having an antenna that
picked up 30 or 40 channels. However, they deliberately did not use all
the same frequencies that TVs of the era could tune - partly because it
was easier for them to use lower frequencies than broadcast TV did, and
partly to prevent people from hooking a TV straight to the cable and
getting all the channels. These boxes changed the cable TV frequencies
to something the TV could accept. They were supposed to be supplied by
the cable TV company only; under no circumstances were you to order one
from a PO box in the back of Radio-Electronics or Popular Mechanics
magazines and hook it up yourself, because that would be illegal.

Under one scheme, channels 2-13 were the same frequencies for broadcast
and cable, and 14 was the first channel that was on a different
frequency for cable. For a long, long time, a lot of US cable systems
had HBO on channel 14. One way DRM (ARM?) was implemented by
deliberately injecting interference on the premium channels; if you paid
for one of those channels, a tech would visit your house and install a
notch filter at the pole that removed the interference. Again, under no
circumstances were you to order your own notch filters...

Sometimes you could use the "fine tune" knob to get far enough away from
the interference to get a picture, but you usually also lost the color
when you did that. If you had an old B&W TV hooked up to it, this
didn't matter. The TV audio would still have a series of beeps or be
otherwise garbled; for that you would hook an FM tuner to the cable TV
line, because they would rebroadcast the audio on FM frequencies so you
could get stereo sound, which TVs of the time didn't have. (You had to
tune both the cable box and the FM tuner when you changed channels.) I
can neither confirm nor deny that Skinemax^WCinemax was viewable in this
manner, particularly on Friday nights. [0]

The second picture (IMG_0697) has some EPROMs, a HardCard, and some
kind of backplane card. EPROMs were how you did firmware before there
was flash memory. Depending on era, they varied in capacity from maybe
2 KByte on up. When you figured out what the firmware should be, you
would put the EPROM into a programmer, which was often hooked to a PC
parallel port. The programmer used higher-than-usual voltages to blow
or not blow little chemical fuses inside the EPROM. If you screwed up
the firmware, you peeled off the sticker on the top of the EPROM,
exposing a little clear window, underneath which was the chip. If you
had money you then put the chip in a box with a fluorescent tube that
emitted UV light for 15 minutes or so. If you didn't have money you
then put the chip outside in the sun for a few weeks. This "reset" all
the chemical fuses so you could program them again.

Your gadget would have one or more sockets for the EPROMs, depending on
how much space was needed. If there was more than one socket, sometimes
chip 1 had (say) bytes 1-4096 and chip 2 had (say) bytes 4097-8192.
Sometimes chip 1 had bytes 1, 3, 5, 7, ..., 8191, and chip 2 had bytes
2, 4, 6, 8, ..., 8192. I swear I am not making this up. Firmware
upgrades happened by unplugging the old chips and plugging in the new
chips. Oops, not all the pins went in the socket, try again. Okay, now
it won't boot... oh, it's rotated 180 degrees in the socket, unplug it
and try again. Oops, one of the pins broke off...

The HardCard was a "simple" way to add a hard drive to a system; you
didn't have to string cables around from the controller card to the
disk drive itself. It was also a space-saving trick. The original IBM
PC had two full-height drive bays (full height is twice as tall as a
modern desktop CD or DVD drive), and these often each had a full-height
5.25" floppy drive in them. People didn't want to give up one floppy
drive for a hard drive, so a HardCard allowed the hard drive to live in
one of the expansion slots.

I am not as sure what specifically the backplane card is for, other than
to say that some industrial computers were built that way. Rather than
having a motherboard with CPU, support chips, and several connectors for
expansion cards, you had a "dumb" backplane that just carried signals
between card connectors and maybe provided power. The CPU was on a card
that plugged into one slot, and other peripherals plugged into other
slots. These got used (among other places) for automated test
equipment; you might buy a backplane, plug a CPU card in, plug in a
digital input card, a digital output card, an analog input card, etc,
depending on what inputs and outputs you needed. There were/are several
standards for this; VME is one but many others exist.

The third picture (IMG_0696) has probably a CGA or possibly EGA video
card (the big one) and a memory expansion card (the smaller one). I
remember CGA cards having composite video output (the RCA connector) but
I don't remember if EGA cards did. CGA to a dedicated computer monitor
could do 80 column text, but to a TV set could only do about 40 columns
due to bandwidth limitations.

The memory expansion card was designed to allow you to add memory to a
PC that didn't have sockets for more chips on the motherboard. Those
three rows of sockets at the back are for the memory chips; often the
same card would be sold with different numbers of sockets populated for
different prices. Each chip was often 1 bit wide by thousands of bits
deep, so you had to install them in sets of 8 or 9 (parity) at a time.
Early in the game, the expansion cards were not standard, and you had
to check that each application could talk to the specific card you had.
Later on, there were standards, including LIM (Lotus-Intel-Microsoft).
(Intel and Microsoft are obvious. Lotus was there because business
people that had never owned or used a computer before would go out and
buy one just to run the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.)

The fourth picture (IMG_0695) I am less sure about... at this point I
would go with Ralph Wade Phillips' ID as telecom-y things for handling
T1 circuits.

The fifth picture (IMG_0694) is probably a 10 or 20 megabyte hard drive,
full height, with its controller card. If I remember correctly, it was
possible to run two hard drives off of one controller card. I remember
for sure that one of the cables had the same connectors as a
contemporary floppy drive cable, but was wired differently; using a
floppy cable on a hard drive was a quick way to fry things. This
would have gone in an 8088 or 8086 PC, or *maybe* a 286.

The controller card had a lot of influence over the analog signal being
presented to the magnetic heads in the disks. Early disks used what was
called Modulated Frequency Modulation (MFM) encoding. Later on, you
could buy a different controller card that could do what was called Run
Length Limited (RLL) encoding. [1] The reason you would do this is
that it gave you more space on the same hard drive. The drive
manufacturers warned that putting an RLL card on an MFM drive would
curve your spine, warp your mind, and cause you to have ugly babies;
they wanted you buy an official RLL-compatible drive at official RLL-
compatible prices. People used RLL controller cards on their MFM
drives anyway, and it worked. Usually.

The sixth picture (IMG_0693) I am again less sure about; I'll go with
Ralph's idea about telecom-y things. Gargling "Paragon Networks
Transmaster" yields
http://www.at2.com/downloads/documents/all_others/transmaster.pdf
, copyright 2001.

You might know this already, but sometimes you can date things by the
date codes on the ICs. There are many schemes, but a common one is a
4-digit number by itself, which decodes as YYWW. YY = year % 100 and
WW = week-of-year. 8306 would be mid-February 1983 and 9551 would be
a few days before Yule 1995.

Pardon me, I have to go see how Spinrite is coming along.

Matt Roberds

[0] Why do you think the net was born?

[1] These were the popular names. The technical differences are
probably more subtle.

[TimC]

On 2013-04-15, mrob...@att.net (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:

> Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/
>

> I am not as sure what specifically the backplane card is for, other than
> to say that some industrial computers were built that way. Rather than
> having a motherboard with CPU, support chips, and several connectors for
> expansion cards, you had a "dumb" backplane that just carried signals
> between card connectors and maybe provided power. The CPU was on a card
> that plugged into one slot, and other peripherals plugged into other
> slots. These got used (among other places) for automated test
> equipment; you might buy a backplane, plug a CPU card in, plug in a
> digital input card, a digital output card, an analog input card, etc,
> depending on what inputs and outputs you needed. There were/are several
> standards for this; VME is one but many others exist.

Yeah, the pull tabs look exactly like the VME boards we used at
$WELOOKATTHESKY.

I was glad to get rid of those $6000 VME video boards and replace them
with something that had 8 inputs and could talk V4L2 for $200. And
1GbE on the other end.

--
TimC
"I often hear people claim they perform skills better slightly drunk if
they learned that skill drunk. I wonder if that applies to Perl. Get good
and liquored up, dash off a few scripts, see how you like it." -Rob Chanter

[G. Paul Ziemba]

Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> writes:

>http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/

Here are my guesses:

1. Scientific Atlanta box. This looks like a cable TV converter. I didn't
see a rear view but I'll guess that it has an input "F connector"
that the TV cable connects to, and an output F connector to attach
to the TV VHF inputs. Maybe there is a switch on the back to
choose channel 3 or 4 output. Use the big dial on the front to pick
the channel to view.

2. 27128 UV-eraseable PROM 16KB (128Kb)
Hardcard II 80 is an 80MB disk on a card (ca. 1990)

No idea on the ITT chips or the paragon midplane board

3. Left board says "color graphics board," so maybe a CGA adaptor?
Video output on the DB9 connector. Maybe it puts composite on
the RCA connector?

Need a closeup of the right board to read chip numbers. Given
the chip sockets, I agree that "memory board" is a good guess.

4. TDM cards of some sort?

5. Yep, hard drive and adapter card

6. E1 is a 2Mb TDM data link standard used in !(.us|.ca|.jp)

--
G. Paul Ziemba
FreeBSD unix:

1:11AM up 12:36, 1 user, load averages: 1.17, 1.18, 1.11

[Andrew]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:33:01 +0000, mroberds wrote:

> Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> http://s1350.photobucket.com/user/andrewtest/library/
>
> The descriptions are there under "media info", but that box is collapsed
> by default. Once you open it, it stays open as you navigate.
>
> Caution: long post ahead.
>

> <snip *long* post>

That's the most detailed response I've had by far, here or in AFC.
Thanks. Do you think any of it is worth keeping? I don't collect old
hardware myself, but I thought the prototype in particular might be of
some value to someone who does. It sounds as if the random old PC parts
are worthless.

I'm catching a plane home tomorrow and this stuff needs to either go in
the dumpster or on the plane. I don't want to accidentally throw out
something I shouldn't.

> You might know this already, but sometimes you can date things by the
> date codes on the ICs. There are many schemes, but a common one is a
> 4-digit number by itself, which decodes as YYWW. YY = year % 100 and WW
> = week-of-year. 8306 would be mid-February 1983 and 9551 would be a few
> days before Yule 1995.

I did not know that. I do now. It's not UI, so much obliged.

> [0] Why do you think the net was born?

Nature thought it would be ironic for humans to exterminate themselves
through neglect. It's taking a few generations for internet porn to get
immersive enough for that, but Nature doesn't mind. Nature can wait.

--
Andrew

IT is a filter. It accepts masochists on stdin and emits misanthropes on
stdout.

[Andrew]

We also found a TI-99/4a shrinkwrapped in the box, by the way.

--
Andrew

[Hans Klager]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:13:25 +0000 (UTC), Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> We also found a TI-99/4a shrinkwrapped in the box, by the way.
>

That should have some collector/museum value


--
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell

[David Gersic]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:37:19 +0000 (UTC), Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> That's the most detailed response I've had by far, here or in AFC.
> Thanks. Do you think any of it is worth keeping?

The full height hard disk, with the case removed, makes a nice looking
bookend. Beyond that, I'd toss all of this stuff in the nearest
dumpster.

[mrob...@att.net]

Andrew <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Do you think any of it is worth keeping?

Given how old the hard drives are, this probably doesn't apply, but: qb
gurl unir nal svyrf ba gurz gung fubhyq erznva pbasvqragvny?

If you have an ISA-bus computer around, it might (or might not) be
entertaining to fire up either of the hard drives on a rainy afternoon
and trawl through the files, if any. Otherwise, the hard drives (and
the controller card for the IBM one) can be recycled. I don't remember
if hard drives of that era had the nifty big magnet in them or not.

The EPROMs might make a tinkerer happy - he won't be able to use them
as-is, but he can erase them and reprogram them for use with something
that won't accept newer parts. If you don't know anyone like that,
recycle.

The prototype Paragon card might be interesting to someone that worked
there, but I don't know what the interest would be outside of that. If
you know that your dad helped develop that prototype, it might be
interesting as a conversation piece. Otherwise, recycle.

To your friendly local electronics recycler: cable box, 2-slot midplane,
CGA card, memory card, the two non-prototype Carrier Access and Paragon
cards.

The recycler will recover the metals in the hardware; he doesn't care if
the stuff works or not. Most cities have electronics recycling now,
because they don't want certain things going in the dumpster. A lot of
them charge for electronics recycling, with the effect that the stuff
goes in the dumpster anyway.

Some of the integrated circuits on some of the cards are in sockets.
You can pull them out of the socket, get a flat stick, glue them to the
stick with the pins up, and have a slightly nerdy comb.

> It's not UI, so much obliged.

Some vendors like to re-use model numbers and the date codes can be the
only way to tell which version of a product you have. Others won't
print any kind of model number on the hardware, leaving you to look at
old catalogs and guess; the date codes help you get the right decade.

> Nature thought it would be ironic for humans to exterminate themselves
> through neglect. It's taking a few generations for internet porn to
> get immersive enough for that, but Nature doesn't mind. Nature can
> wait.

And when we go, Nature will start over. With the bees, probably.

Matt Roberds

[Andrew]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:40:37 +0000, Hans Klager wrote:

> On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:13:25 +0000 (UTC), Andrew
> <and...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> We also found a TI-99/4a shrinkwrapped in the box, by the way.
>>
> That should have some collector/museum value

Someone in AFC said the same thing. Naturally I saw both posts an hour
after dropping it off at goodwill. Whee.

--
Andrew

IT is a filter. It accepts masochists on stdin and emits misanthropes on
stdout.

[David Gersic]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:33:01 +0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net <mrob...@att.net> wrote:
> The HardCard was a "simple" way to add a hard drive to a system; you
> didn't have to string cables around from the controller card to the
> disk drive itself. It was also a space-saving trick. The original IBM
> PC had two full-height drive bays (full height is twice as tall as a
> modern desktop CD or DVD drive), and these often each had a full-height
> 5.25" floppy drive in them. People didn't want to give up one floppy
> drive for a hard drive, so a HardCard allowed the hard drive to live in
> one of the expansion slots.

From what I recall, by the time the HardCards came out, full height floppy
drives were pretty much gone. Half height floppy drives had been available
for some time, but you needed two of them (3.5" and 5.25"), which filled
one bay, and the other bay may have already had two hard disks in it.
The HardCard could then be the third hard disk, plus it didn't have the
hassles of cable routing.

> The third picture (IMG_0696) has probably a CGA or possibly EGA video
> card (the big one) and a memory expansion card (the smaller one). I
> remember CGA cards having composite video output (the RCA connector) but
> I don't remember if EGA cards did.

I'm pretty sure it's CGA. I'm also pretty sure that by the time EGA came
around that composite output for the TV had been abandoned.

> The memory expansion card was designed to allow you to add memory to a
> PC that didn't have sockets for more chips on the motherboard.

We had some oringal PCs that couldn't take on-board memory up to 640k,
and had to have a card for that. By the time the XT came along, up to
640k on the system board was possible.

> Early in the game, the expansion cards were not standard, and you had
> to check that each application could talk to the specific card you had.
> Later on, there were standards, including LIM (Lotus-Intel-Microsoft).

Oh, yes, those were fun days. XMS and EMS and memory managers and ugh.

> (Intel and Microsoft are obvious. Lotus was there because business
> people that had never owned or used a computer before would go out and
> buy one just to run the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.)

And Lotus could make use of more memory to build more and more
complicated spreadsheets. Ugh.

> The fifth picture (IMG_0694) is probably a 10 or 20 megabyte hard drive,
> full height, with its controller card.

It looks like an original 10M IBM full height MFM drive and controller
to me, but I'm not sure.

> If I remember correctly, it was
> possible to run two hard drives off of one controller card.

IIRC, you're right. There were three cables used. One daisy chained,
with a flip in the middle, and one for each drive. Something like
that.

> floppy cable on a hard drive was a quick way to fry things. This
> would have gone in an 8088 or 8086 PC, or *maybe* a 286.

There were no 8086 PCs (from IBM). Those were all 8088, as were the
XTs that followed. Compaq used the 8086, which performed slightly
faster. Then there were the NEC V20 and V30, which ran a bit faster
than the 8088 / 8086 but were pin-compatible replacements.

Again IIRC, the PC was floppy disks only. The XT had the 10M hard disk
as an option.

> manufacturers warned that putting an RLL card on an MFM drive would
> curve your spine, warp your mind, and cause you to have ugly babies;
> they wanted you buy an official RLL-compatible drive at official RLL-
> compatible prices. People used RLL controller cards on their MFM
> drives anyway, and it worked. Usually.

Yeah, usually. The up side was a 50% increase in space ("20M" drive would
format to "30M" capacity). The down side was a 50% increase in drive and
data loss failures. Other than that, it worked fine.

> Pardon me, I have to go see how Spinrite is coming along.

I remember Spinrite, all too well. If you ran MFM drives with an RLL
controller, you spent a lot of time with Spinrite.

[Garrett Wollman]

In article <kki8ng$di$1...@dont-email.me>,

David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com> wrote:

>We had some oringal PCs that couldn't take on-board memory up to 640k,
>and had to have a card for that. By the time the XT came along, up to
>640k on the system board was possible.

The original (VOZ 5150) PCs were released with two different
motherboards: the original motherboard had 64k (8-bit bytes plus
parity) socketed DRAM; it was replaced in 1983 with one that had 64k
soldered (IIRC), and another 192k socketed, for a grand total of 256k.
For either model to get to 640k, you had to add it on an expansion
card. (This was possible because the ISA bus was nothing more than a
minimally buffered extension of the CPU-memory bus.) VOZ sold only
single-function expansion cards, with the exception of the Monochrome
Display and Printer Adapter, but many other vendors (most notably AST)
sold multifunction cards that combined DRAM, parallel, serial, and
battery-backed clock/calendar functions on a single full-length ISA
card. The XT came with a similar motherboard but had eight slots and
no cassette port, plus a BIOS that could boot from the 10-MB hard
drive.

Either model could take an "expansion unit", which was the same size
as the PC chassis; it had a passive backplane that was driven by an
extender card which was connected by a cable to a complementary card
in the main chassis.

While the PC and XT only ever came with 5-1/4" disks, the controller
could drive an 8" drive with the appropriate software, and a 37-pin D
connector was provided on the back of the floppy controller card for
this purpose. The CGA had, as noted upthread, a composite video
output rather than a printer port, and also began the tradition of
using inappropriate connectors for video by using a DB-9 for the
"regular" video output. VOZ sold a color monitor, at least by 1983,
but many people (my family included) bought third-party monitors from
companies like Amdek.

-GAWollman

--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993

[detha]

On Tue, 16 Apr 2013 03:20:25 +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote:

> While the PC and XT only ever came with 5-1/4" disks, the controller could
> drive an 8" drive with the appropriate software, and a 37-pin D connector
> was provided on the back of the floppy controller card for this purpose.

Or other purposes. $workplace[-mumble] had a tape drive that pretended to
be a floppy disk, and was plugged into that port. It worked, albeit
slowly, and only sometimes. Thursday backup day was hated by all, because
one's machine could not be used for anything else while being backed up.

-d

[Ralph Wade Phillips]

On 4/15/2013 8:15 PM, David Gersic wrote:

> It looks like an original 10M IBM full height MFM drive and controller
> to me, but I'm not sure.

The WD012 in the media tags identifies it as 12M raw, 10M formatted.

RwP

[Ron Parker]

On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:33:27 +0000 (UTC), mrob...@att.net wrote:
> I don't remember
> if hard drives of that era had the nifty big magnet in them or not.

I wasn't paying attention to exactly what sort of hard drive it was, but I
can provide the data point that a Seagate ST-4096 (80M MFM) hard drive had
a couple of beefy ceramic magnets in the head actuator.

[Shmuel Metz]

In <kkhd9p$ruu$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
at 05:27 PM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
said:

>The full height hard disk,

For me a full height hard disk is around 2 meters tall.

--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <http://patriot.net/~shmuel> ISO position
Reply to domain Patriot dot net user shmuel+bspfh to contact me.
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)

[Mike A]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in <516d4bbb$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2...@news.patriot.net>:

> In <kkhd9p$ruu$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
> at 05:27 PM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
> said:
>
>>The full height hard disk,
>
> For me a full height hard disk is around 2 meters tall.

s/\./, and has two HDD enclosures on it, with two volumes per enclosure./

The first edition of full height hard disks didn't have *ANY* lights on the
outside, not even POWER or READY. The next edition remedied this deficiency,
as the VOZ CEs weren't any happier than their customers about all the switches
and indicators being behind the covers.

--
I expect to get reamed twice on Nov 8. Once seeing the election
results, and again an hour later by the proctologist.
-- Brian, in the Monastery

[David Gersic]

On Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:01:47 -0400, Shmuel Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
> In <kkhd9p$ruu$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
> at 05:27 PM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
> said:
>
>>The full height hard disk,
>
> For me a full height hard disk is around 2 meters tall.

Is this the beginnings of a disk size war?

[Lawns 'R' Us]

On 2013-04-17, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com> wrote:
> Is this the beginnings of a disk size war?

Better than a deck size war - especially since I don't have a timber
deck out the back. It's on the list of things to do (those steps are a
little bit rickety and really do need to be demolished and rebuilt),
but fairly low down.

[c...@nospam.netunix.com]

Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
>
> s/\./, and has two HDD enclosures on it, with two volumes per enclosure./
>
> The first edition of full height hard disks didn't have *ANY* lights on the
> outside, not even POWER or READY. The next edition remedied this deficiency,
> as the VOZ CEs weren't any happier than their customers about all the switches
> and indicators being behind the covers.

Nice to see you back, Mike. We have not heard from you for a long while.
Someone in uk.rec.sheds posted a link to Ignition! recently which
reminded me of your choice of books.

--
From the quill of Chris Newport g4jci.

[Shmuel Metz]

In <kki8ng$di$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/16/2013
at 01:15 AM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
said:

>There were no 8086 PCs (from IBM).

FSVO. The DismayWriter used an 8086, and I believe that DataMater did
as well.

[Shmuel Metz]

In <kkg6ut$nif$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013

at 06:33 AM, mrob...@att.net said:

>EPROMs were how you did firmware before there was flash memory.

Close but no cigar. There was firmware well before EPROM came along.

[Shmuel Metz]

In <516cef2f$0$11499$862e...@ngroups.net>, on 04/16/2013

at 08:26 AM, detha <de...@foad.co.za> said:

>Or other purposes. $workplace[-mumble] had a tape drive that
>pretended to be a floppy disk, and was plugged into that port. It
>worked, albeit slowly, and only sometimes.

Sounds like Sick-80. If this is UI, may bog have mercy on your sole
(your soul is a lost cause if you're using QIC-80.)

[Mike A]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote in <516e95f7$7$fuzhry+tra$mr2...@news.patriot.net>:

> In <kkg6ut$nif$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
> at 06:33 AM, mrob...@att.net said:
>
>>EPROMs were how you did firmware before there was flash memory.
>
> Close but no cigar. There was firmware well before EPROM came along.

A modest example was the ROM of the on-board 'puter on the Apollo, which
used core rope memory: wire through a core was "1", wire not through a
core was "0".

--
Judging by this particular thread, many people in this group spend years
taking illogical, pointless orders from morons and having their will to
live systematically crushed. And that's the teachers. Think what it's like
for the kids! -- after Rayner, in the Monastery

[Peter Corlett]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
> mrob...@att.net said:
[...]

>> EPROMs were how you did firmware before there was flash memory.
> Close but no cigar. There was firmware well before EPROM came along.

Of course, *both* of you are right.

I suspect the age of EPROMs is longer than for the other kinds of firmware.
IIRC, we've only been routinely using flash for firmware since the late 1990s.
EPROMs have been around since the early 1970s.

[mrob...@att.net]

Roger Bell_West <roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:

> On 2013-04-15, mrob...@att.net wrote:
>> And when we go, Nature will start over. With the bees, probably.
>

> I for one welcome the oniscidean successor civilisation.

You mean the woodlice will take over from the bees, or the woodlice will
take over from us instead of the bees?

Matt Roberds

[Mike A]

mrob...@att.net wrote in <kkmfbd$qmd$2...@dont-email.me>:

And what makes anyone think that bees will succeed us? They're fragile,
and we've apparently driven their numbers down to (near-)crisis.

I agree with those who say that cockroaches will succeed us. They're
hardy, canny, omnivorous, and numerous -- a good recipe for survival.

[Hans Klager]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:57:53 +0000 (UTC), Roger Bell_West
<roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:

> On 2013-04-17, Mike A wrote:
>>And what makes anyone think that bees will succeed us? They're fragile,
>>and we've apparently driven their numbers down to (near-)crisis.
>

> Though a non-trivial part of this appears to be "if you truck your bee
> colonies all over the state, they get pissed off with it and leave".

It isn't just the transhumance bees that are suffering
from Colony Collapse Disorder, the static hives are suffering
too.
I keep bees, I have had one loss, but many of the
hobbyists here in California have had heavy losses.

[mrob...@att.net]

Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:

> In <kkg6ut$nif$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
> at 06:33 AM, mrob...@att.net said:
>
>> EPROMs were how you did firmware before there was flash memory.
>
> Close but no cigar.

No big loss; I don't smoke.

> There was firmware well before EPROM came along.

I will cheerfully agree that my answer was incomplete, if the goal was
"document mankind's history of computing". I had inferred the goal to
be "help a younger person understand what all this weird (to him) stuff
is", which is why I answered as I did.

We can talk about EEPROMs, PROMs, mask ROMs, a pair of wirecutters and
a board full of silicon diodes, and some other stuff if you want.

Matt Roberds

[c...@nospam.netunix.com]

mrob...@att.net wrote:
>
> I will cheerfully agree that my answer was incomplete, if the goal was
> "document mankind's history of computing". I had inferred the goal to
> be "help a younger person understand what all this weird (to him) stuff
> is", which is why I answered as I did.
>
> We can talk about EEPROMs, PROMs, mask ROMs, a pair of wirecutters and
> a board full of silicon diodes, and some other stuff if you want.

s/silicon/geranium/

[Peter Corlett]

Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
[...]

> I agree with those who say that cockroaches will succeed us. They're hardy,
> canny, omnivorous, and numerous -- a good recipe for survival.

There will be exactly two survivors of the apocalypse. The first will be the
cockroaches. The other will be beige monoliths bearing glowing runes which the
cockroaches believe are the words of God. There will be bloody holy wars over
what "PC LOAD LETTER" means.

[mrob...@att.net]

Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
> mrob...@att.net wrote in <kkmfbd$qmd$2...@dont-email.me>:
>> Roger Bell_West <roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:
>>> On 2013-04-15, mrob...@att.net wrote:
>>>> And when we go, Nature will start over. With the bees, probably.
>>>
>>> I for one welcome the oniscidean successor civilisation.
>>
>> You mean the woodlice will take over from the bees, or the woodlice
>> will take over from us instead of the bees?
>
> And what makes anyone think that bees will succeed us?

Bees were proposed by Dr. Robert Hume in the early 1980s.
Unfortunately, you will have trouble e-mailing him for further details,
as there is no terminal in operation at his classified address on Goose
Island, Oregon.

<looks over at dry robot>

Matt Roberds

[David Gersic]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 08:20:10 -0400, Shmuel Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote:
> In <kki8ng$di$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/16/2013
> at 01:15 AM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
> said:
>
>>There were no 8086 PCs (from IBM).
>
> FSVO. The DismayWriter used an 8086, and I believe that DataMater did
> as well.

Those two I never had to use. The IBM PC (tm) was 8088 based, as was
the XT that followed it.

[Brian Kantor]

In article <oms24a-...@mikea.ath.cx>, Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
>I agree with those who say that cockroaches will succeed us. They're
>hardy, canny, omnivorous, and numerous -- a good recipe for survival.

There are those who say this has already happened. They're called management.
- Brian

[Brian Kantor]

In article <kkmikh$8ae$1...@news.albasani.net>, <c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com> wrote:
>
>s/silicon/geranium/
>

Ah yes, the great flowering of memory.
- Brian

[David DeLaney]

Roger Bell_West <roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:
>On 2013-04-17, c...@NOSPAM.netunix.com wrote:
>>s/silicon/geranium/
>
>Not the most efficient or fast-switching of systems, but at least
>they're biodegradable.

And they're upgradable to tnuctipun Sunflowers!

Dave, the thread goes round ev-ery two hundred million yeeeeears...
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

[David Cameron Staples]

Would your robot like to play a game?

[John F. Eldredge]

Keith Richards will probably still be around, as well. He seems to be
unkillable.

--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly
is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria

[Brian Kantor]

John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>Keith Richards will probably still be around, as well. He seems to be
>unkillable.

I have heard it said that the eventual gravesite may have to be marked as
a toxic waste area due to the chemicals leaching out of the body.
- Brian

[Peter Corlett]

Gary Barnes <g...@adminspotting.org> wrote:
[...]
> I've always wanted a Laserjet 4[0], but have had to make do with a Laserjet
> 4000 I got from Freecycle because it needed a new transfer roller. It was
> cheapest to order a replacement from the colonies, so I got two.

I have a LaserJet 4M+ (complete with JetDirect card) that I don't want any
more. Please haul it away.

[Shmuel Metz]

In <8t814a-...@mikea.ath.cx>, on 04/16/2013

at 08:02 PM, Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> said:

>Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote

>in <516d4bbb$2$fuzhry+tra$mr2...@news.patriot.net>:

>> In <kkhd9p$ruu$1...@dont-email.me>, on 04/15/2013
>> at 05:27 PM, David Gersic <usenet_s...@zaccaria-pinball.com>
>> said:
>>
>>>The full height hard disk,
>>
>> For me a full height hard disk is around 2 meters tall.

>s/\./, and has two HDD enclosures on it, with two volumes per
>enclosure./

2302?

>The first edition of full height hard disks

You go back to the 305 RAMAC?

[Shmuel Metz]

In <kkm9qs$pe2$1...@mooli.org.uk>, on 04/17/2013

at 01:58 PM, ab...@mooli.org.uk (Peter Corlett) said:

>I suspect the age of EPROMs is longer than for the other kinds of
>firmware.

Do you date it from when they were invented or from when they achieved
market dominance? For that matter, what constitutes market dominance?

There were major overlaps for firmware in core, EPROM, EEPROM, flash,
ROM, PROM and semiconductor RAM; I wouldn't be surprised if magnetic
thin film were also used, although I'm not aware of such. The big IBM
boxen use semiconductor RAM.

>EPROMs have been around since the early 1970s.

1967 comes to mind. Or was that PROM?

[Peter Corlett]

Roger Bell_West <roger+a...@nospam.firedrake.org> wrote:

> On 2013-04-18, Peter Corlett wrote:
>> I have a LaserJet 4M+ (complete with JetDirect card) that I don't want any
>> more. Please haul it away.

> Take it to an ASRBrum? (Easiest approach is probably to borrow a heavy-duty
> wheelchair...)

A trebuchet would surely be a much more fun way to deliver it.

("I aim at the Sun box, but sometimes I hit Birmingham.")

[Steve VanDevender]

After that is forgotten, a spring forms at the gravesite and is reputed
to be a fountain of youth . . . err, maybe just a fountain of not
dying.

--
For I know what you don't know / And I see things you'll never see /
And I've a different way of living, you know / And I've such a different
frame of mind, and so ... / I'm on my way to the funnyfarm
-- Happy Rhodes, "To the Funnyfarm"

[Wojciech Derechowski]

Or Chelyabinsk. The origin, mass and the composition of that meteor are
thus revealed.

WD
--
Who is Entscheidungs and what is his problem?

[Kevin Goebel]

On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:40:57 +0000 (UTC), ab...@mooli.org.uk (Peter Corlett)
wrote:

>what "PC LOAD LETTER" means.]

Stumbled across this quote today while searching for something else:

“After a nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and
Microsoft Office.”

from:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/15-current-technologies-well-still-be-using-in-2030?slide=15


Kevin Goebel

[John F. Eldredge]

There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.

[Zebee Johnstone]

In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 24 May 2013 01:51:39 GMT

John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 23 May 2013 19:52:54 -0500, Kevin Goebel wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:40:57 +0000 (UTC), ab...@mooli.org.uk (Peter
>> Corlett) wrote:
>>
>>>Mike A <mi...@mikea.ath.cx> wrote:
>>>[...]
>>>> I agree with those who say that cockroaches will succeed us. They're
>>>> hardy, canny, omnivorous, and numerous -- a good recipe for survival.
>>
>>>There will be exactly two survivors of the apocalypse. The first will be
>>>the cockroaches. The other will be beige monoliths bearing glowing runes
>>>which the cockroaches believe are the words of God. There will be bloody
>>>holy wars over what "PC LOAD LETTER" means.]
>>
>> Stumbled across this quote today while searching for something else:
>>
>> “After a nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and
>> Microsoft Office.”
>>
>> from:
>> http://blog.laptopmag.com/15-current-technologies-well-still-be-using-
> in-2030?slide=15
>>

> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.

And Honda CX500 motorcycles.

Zebee

[Joe Zeff]

And let us not forget the ever-popular Hostess Twinky.

--
Joe Zeff -- The Guy With The Sideburns:
http://www.zeff.us http://www.lasfs.info
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to believe.

[Wojciech Derechowski]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 06:44:24 +0000, Joe Zeff wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2013 02:39:17 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
>
>> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 24 May 2013 01:51:39 GMT John F. Eldredge
>> <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
>>
>> And Honda CX500 motorcycles.
>>
>
> And let us not forget the ever-popular Hostess Twinky.
>

And JavaBeans

[Maarten Wiltink]

"John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote in message
news:b07vda...@mid.individual.net...

> On Thu, 23 May 2013 19:52:54 -0500, Kevin Goebel wrote:

[...]

>> "After a nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and
>> Microsoft Office."

> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.

Keith Richards as a honorary cockroach. Yes, that looks about right.

It may be an old version of Office by necessity, as the only,
radiation-hardened, hardware capable of running it will be slightly
behind the state of the art. Imagine the posts on the cockroach forums.

Tebrgwrf,
Maarten Wiltink

[Firesong]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 08:08:29 -0000, Wojciech Derechowski
<wdd...@um5000.mystora.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 24 May 2013 06:44:24 +0000, Joe Zeff wrote:
>> On Fri, 24 May 2013 02:39:17 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
>>
>>> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 24 May 2013 01:51:39 GMT John F. Eldredge
>>> <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>>>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
>>>
>>> And Honda CX500 motorcycles.
>>>
>>
>> And let us not forget the ever-popular Hostess Twinky.
>>
>
>And JavaBeans
>
>WD

And, most depressing for this august band, Lusers.

Firesong

[Wojciech Derechowski]

Don't talk to me about lusers.

[Peter H. Coffin]

On 24 May 2013 06:44:24 GMT, Joe Zeff wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2013 02:39:17 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
>
>> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 24 May 2013 01:51:39 GMT John F. Eldredge
>> <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
>>
>> And Honda CX500 motorcycles.
>>
>
> And let us not forget the ever-popular Hostess Twinky.

They're gone, though. Hoarders got 'em and probably et 'em already.

--
91. I will not ignore the messenger that stumbles in exhausted and
obviously agitated until my personal grooming or current
entertainment is finished. It might actually be important.
--Peter Anspach's list of things to do as an Evil Overlord

[Peter H. Coffin]

On Fri, 24 May 2013 10:19:42 +0200, Maarten Wiltink wrote:
> "John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote in message
> news:b07vda...@mid.individual.net...
>> On Thu, 23 May 2013 19:52:54 -0500, Kevin Goebel wrote:
>
> [...]
>>> "After a nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and
>>> Microsoft Office."
>
>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
>
> Keith Richards as a honorary cockroach. Yes, that looks about right.

Thanks, man, you saved me the trouble of making that joke...

> It may be an old version of Office by necessity, as the only,
> radiation-hardened, hardware capable of running it will be slightly
> behind the state of the art. Imagine the posts on the cockroach forums.

At least the complaints about Duke Nukem will have subsided. But there
will probably quite a revival in the playing of SimAnt.

--
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one
man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.

[Chris King]

On 24/05/2013 13:53, Peter H. Coffin wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2013 10:19:42 +0200, Maarten Wiltink wrote:
>> "John F. Eldredge" <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote in message
>> news:b07vda...@mid.individual.net...
>>> On Thu, 23 May 2013 19:52:54 -0500, Kevin Goebel wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>>> "After a nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and
>>>> Microsoft Office."
>>
>>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
>>
>> Keith Richards as a honorary cockroach. Yes, that looks about right.
>
> Thanks, man, you saved me the trouble of making that joke...
>
>> It may be an old version of Office by necessity, as the only,
>> radiation-hardened, hardware capable of running it will be slightly
>> behind the state of the art. Imagine the posts on the cockroach forums.
>
> At least the complaints about Duke Nukem will have subsided. But there
> will probably quite a revival in the playing of SimAnt.

(Not sure why the original went as a reply rather than a follow-up, here
we go again...)

I made a similar quip about BBC Micros, and a colleague thought that the
incredibly nasty sweet-and-sour sauce from her local takeaway was
probably recycled nuclear waste... Could you imagine a post-apocalyptic
world, populated by mutant cockroaches playing Chuckie Egg whilst
guzzling industrial-sized cans of sweet-and-sour sauce ?

(Somehow, I can't see them playing Elite, they might get miffed about
the whole Thargoid thing)

--
Chris King
(firstname@domain to reply by e-mail - or your message gets binned)

[David Scheidt]

Peter H. Coffin <hel...@ninehells.com> wrote:

:On 24 May 2013 06:44:24 GMT, Joe Zeff wrote:
:> On Fri, 24 May 2013 02:39:17 +0000, Zebee Johnstone wrote:
:>
:>> In alt.sysadmin.recovery on 24 May 2013 01:51:39 GMT John F. Eldredge
:>> <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
:>>> There's a good chance that Keith Richards will still be around, also.
:>>
:>> And Honda CX500 motorcycles.
:>>
:>
:> And let us not forget the ever-popular Hostess Twinky.

:They're gone, though. Hoarders got 'em and probably et 'em already.

they'll be back. It's the nature of US bankruptcy.

--
sig 98