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Metal Geir Skogul posted:One of those nerd traps where you have an infinite grid of 1 ohm resistors and you need the resistance between two points? I know we have positive identification on it now, but this would be way too much work for a nerd trap.
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Nov 1, 2016 16:35
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Shadowbox that sucker, put it on the wall, and bet all visitors a dollar they don't know what it is. (Wow, that is one cool artifact.) Please do this, and holy crap that is a lucky find.
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Nov 1, 2016 16:45
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Yeah, finding a memory board from that manufacturer out in the wild like that. That's two of the BUNCH this year, wonder if somebody's going to find old UNIVAC or Honeywell components in their grandfather's attic next.
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Nov 1, 2016 16:55
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So I'm gathering this thing is rare? I don't understand the thing I'm looking at pls help. Older computers really confuse me even though they should be easier to understand.
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Nov 1, 2016 21:21
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Wasabi the J posted:So I'm gathering this thing is rare? I don't understand the thing I'm looking at pls help. Draw a line. At the left end is stuff easy to find, so start with gold-foil pikachu Pokemon cards, then to the right of that put working Atari consoles, then, slightly to the right of that, put working console TVs, then basically run eighty miles and maybe you're in the neighborhood of that thing It's an incredible find and I'm immensely happy I got to see even a photo of the drat thing.
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Nov 1, 2016 21:53
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Wasabi the J posted:So I'm gathering this thing is rare? I don't understand the thing I'm looking at pls help. That's a component out of what was, in all likelihood, a business mainframe computer. Made in the early 1970's, by somebody who wasn't IBM. Considering it's a 50 year old piece of obscure technology, it's a minor miracle it still exists. edit: I'd be surprised if NCR had sold a thousand Century 100s.
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Nov 1, 2016 22:07
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for weird obsolete memory, nothing beats NCR'S CRAM, RAM made of a mechanical card file of magnetic cards blown around by compressed air
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Nov 2, 2016 00:34
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Kwyndig posted:Yeah, finding a memory board from that manufacturer out in the wild like that. That's two of the BUNCH this year, wonder if somebody's going to find old UNIVAC or Honeywell components in their grandfather's attic next. someone recycled a cardboard box full of a jumble of IBM mainframe card modules from the 60s/70s in it at work. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it
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Nov 2, 2016 00:40
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atomicthumbs posted:someone recycled a cardboard box full of a jumble of IBM mainframe card modules from the 60s/70s in it at work. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it <indy voice> It belongs in a MUSEUM!</indy voice>
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Nov 2, 2016 00:45
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atomicthumbs posted:someone recycled a cardboard box full of a jumble of IBM mainframe card modules from the 60s/70s in it at work. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it Ask the Computer History Museum if they know anyone who’d want it. e:f;b
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Nov 2, 2016 00:46
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You don't even have to give it away if you don't want to. You just put it on semi-permeant loan to a museum.
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Nov 2, 2016 00:50
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atomicthumbs posted:someone recycled a cardboard box full of a jumble of IBM mainframe card modules from the 60s/70s in it at work. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it Do you mean Hollerith cards (the "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" kind that look like a long rectangle with a corner snipped off)? If they're scrambled they're a mill a dozen, but they make fantastic bookmarks. My mom used to use them as grocery lists.
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Nov 2, 2016 00:56
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I don't know what happened to the NCR memory plane sadly - I stopped working there three years ago, and at the time it was in a small glass-fronted alcove in a quiet hallway with a few other bits of old technology (huge hard drive, old-but-functional dot-matrix printer, 5 1/4" floppy, etc.). The mystery of how it ended up in a high school in a regional Australian town will remain unsolved... Kwyndig posted:Yeah, finding a memory board from that manufacturer out in the wild like that. That's two of the BUNCH this year, wonder if somebody's going to find old UNIVAC or Honeywell components in their grandfather's attic next. What was the other one?
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Nov 2, 2016 01:10
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A couple of pages ago a guy found a Burroughs adding machine just gathering dust in a warehouse. Those aren't as rare but it's still surprising to find one not in the hands of a collector or museum.
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Nov 2, 2016 01:23
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I picked up a tin of ferrite cores intended for memory as well as suitably-small enameled wire so that I could make my own core memory example board, but I never got around to doing much with it. I knew I'd have to figure out the hysteresis curve of the curves, but without a binocular microscope and appropriate tools they are a bitch to thread together properly.
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Nov 2, 2016 01:39
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Platystemon posted:Ask the Computer History Museum if they know anyone who’d want it. I did; they said they didn't have any sort of use to them but could give them out to visitors on guided tours. Arsenic Lupin posted:Do you mean Hollerith cards (the "Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate" kind that look like a long rectangle with a corner snipped off)? If they're scrambled they're a mill a dozen, but they make fantastic bookmarks. My mom used to use them as grocery lists. By "mainframe cards" I mean SLT modules. Previous (late) owner was an IBM mainframe technician in the 60s; his estate contained 4-5 pickup truckloads of 90s computer junk, with a few cool things like said mainframe bits.
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Nov 2, 2016 05:46
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Since I've got ancient idiot computers that predate USB and may not even have working CD drives, I've held onto a coughing old IBM Thinkpad R40 saddled with an equally old Ultrabay FDD for "floppy slave" duty. Something that can accept burned optical discs or USB units and dole it out onto a series of 1.44MB chunks. However, that one might find itself in the bin soon since I just got a really fresh-looking Thinkpad A31p for a song. this thing is such an imposing slab of heavy, obsolete muscle that I can't help but adore it and its giant IPS panel
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Nov 2, 2016 18:35
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atomicthumbs posted:for weird obsolete memory, nothing beats NCR'S CRAM, RAM made of a mechanical card file of magnetic cards blown around by compressed air Huh, that's neat - kind of the same idea as the IBM noodle masher where you have something like magnetic tape split into "cards" to drastically cut the worst-case access time.
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Nov 2, 2016 19:01
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Boiled Water posted:Hey John where do you live? Oh next to the highway. No like in between them. Take a left after Clusterfuck Cul de Sac, follow Discombobulation Drive for about 5 blocks, hang a right on Loopy Lane, use the Road Rage Roundabout and take the second exit to Pile-Up Place
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Nov 2, 2016 22:21
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atomicthumbs posted:for weird obsolete memory, nothing beats NCR'S CRAM, RAM made of a mechanical card file of magnetic cards blown around by compressed air This is only a drawing but you can see a CRAM card on the cover of this promo. Also weird to see the phrase ON-LINE on something so old. 
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Nov 2, 2016 22:50
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Dick Trauma posted:This is only a drawing but you can see a CRAM card on the cover of this promo. Also weird to see the phrase ON-LINE on something so old. Its popularity follows a constant upward slope from 1960.
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Nov 2, 2016 23:03
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Dick Trauma posted:This is only a drawing but you can see a CRAM card on the cover of this promo. Also weird to see the phrase ON-LINE on something so old. I didn't see this post [ed: the post that this one quotes] before, but it's way more creative than my boring old metal sticks. The Wikipedia article links to a product brochure (http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/NCR/NCR.CRAM.1960.102646240.pdf), which has a bunch of photographs and illustrations. Apparently a CRAM drive can perform a merge sort that would require four separate tape drives, and you can have an unlimited number of offline CRAM cartridges! Through the use of a Remote Inquiry Station, humans can even be permitted to interrogate the computer! I hope this doesn't sound sarcastic, it's genuinely fascinating... well, some of the advertising claims are just amusing. I wonder if there's any memoirs from NCR engineers... edit from wiki: quote:If the card didn't succeed in dropping there was a "magic wand" similar to a pencil available to solve the problem... One feature of this device was the potential for a "double drop", where two cards would drop at once... This would result in a high pitched noise with which operators were very familiar and could hear even outside the computer room, and damage to the cards... Ha, of course they don't mention any of that in the brochure... uvar has a new favorite as of 05:52 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 00:13
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What a wonderfully bizarre way to achieve computer memory. Like a compressed air jukebox with magnetic cards. I really like the retro graphic design in the brochure. GRINDCORE MEGGIDO has a new favorite as of 02:47 on Nov 3, 2016 |
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Nov 3, 2016 02:29
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Kelp Me! posted:Cities: Skylines is relaxing as hell, I'm a huge fan of it, and I'm in the camp that says SC2K was the last good one. It feels very natural, I love the road-drawing possibilities, and it really plays the most like SC2K updated for today. A week late, but folks interested in this stuff might enjoy Cichlidae's thread Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!.
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Nov 3, 2016 04:19
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Dick Trauma posted:This is only a drawing but you can see a CRAM card on the cover of this promo. Also weird to see the phrase ON-LINE on something so old. online just means it's run constantly instead of as a batch job, I think. pre-timesharing!
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Nov 3, 2016 20:58
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Kwyndig posted:We don't use core memory tech anymore, because it was destructive readout, if you accessed the data the act of accessing the data erased it, so any instructions had better write the data back in (usually from a different, nondestructive source) if you still needed it. It was pretty fast for the time though. That's not the reason we're not using core memory any more. Dynamic semiconductor RAM in all its variations (DRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, DDRx, ...) also has destructive reads, and it's even worse in that it needs to be constantly refreshed because the tiny capacitors are always leaking. Core memory was persistent even when powered off. The main reasons we're using semiconductor RAM are price and capacity. I don't even want to guess what 1GB of core would weigh...
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Nov 4, 2016 21:40
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GRINDCORE MEGGIDO posted:I really like the retro graphic design in the brochure. Some of those explanatory graphics just need an additional "ALL poo poo BREAKS LOOSE HERE" added for accuracy.
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Nov 4, 2016 22:41
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Wasabi the J posted:Adium was osx flavored trillian. I used both. Uh, no, it's OSX Pidgin. Literally uses the same libpurple core. Edit: So does Finch, which is basically pidgin for people who don't use X. Meebo used it too. Keiya has a new favorite as of 23:02 on Nov 4, 2016 |
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Nov 4, 2016 22:50
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A trip report of sorts. So maybe a month or 2 ago I yearned for a phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard. I used to have a Nokia N97 years ago when they came out. So I found one cheap on ebay then a N900 popped up really cheap with none of the USB or key lifting issues. For around a month I have tried so hard to just use either of these phones for everything I would my busted rear end S4. Nope. I always thought those phones were so cutting edge and would be able to do everything I ever would use a phone for. Lucky I still carried the smartphone around as a backup in case because I neglected to remember that I have a number of things that require 2 factor authentication. Also my banking RSA token keyfob got smashed so whelp getting into my banking accounts on those old phones. Had to install the RSA SecurID 'app' to get by  Now both the N97 and N900 are sitting on my desk as SSH clients. My name is Humphreys and thank you for reading my story. - Posted on my Nokia N900
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Nov 5, 2016 06:15
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Humphreys posted:
Well, there's always one last option (which totally fits here) 
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Nov 5, 2016 06:33
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The Droid 4 is hands-down the greatest QWERTY smartphone ever made: If I could get one of those with modern specs I'd be all over it in a heartbeat, the sliding mechanism was solid as hell, keys felt great and it really wasn't that much thicker than the average Android phone at the time.
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Nov 5, 2016 06:49
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Kelp Me! posted:The Droid 4 is hands-down the greatest QWERTY smartphone ever made: It... It's beautiful...
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Nov 5, 2016 13:19
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Kelp Me! posted:The Droid 4 is hands-down the greatest QWERTY smartphone ever made: That looks like everything my old HTC G1 wished it was.
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Nov 5, 2016 13:37
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The arrow keys were god-tier too since my #1 annoyance on mobile is how much of a pain in the rear end it is to highlight specific text to edit
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Nov 5, 2016 14:04
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Shugojin posted:I'm not sure about the others but yeah the three 12ax7s you should pretty easily be able to get $30-50 each. Too bad they're not one of the magic brands like the SUPER MAGIC WEST GERMAN TELEFUNKENS, you can apparently sell those to audiophile idiots for like a thousand a pop if you're lucky enough to find one Few pages late.......And no idea if they work but i got Telefunken PCL82 - PCL84 - PY88 - DY86 - ECH81 Siemens EC92 Valvo PCF802 - PCF80 - DY86 Well, no 1000$ for me but thanks for reminding me to finally look them up.
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Nov 5, 2016 17:00
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Kelp Me! posted:The arrow keys were god-tier too since my #1 annoyance on mobile is how much of a pain in the rear end it is to highlight specific text to edit What smartphone do you have where you cannot hold down the spacebar, then swipe left or right to move through the text you have written?
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Nov 5, 2016 23:50
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I didn't say I can't do it that way, I said it's a pain in the rear end and I preferred having a physical keyboard with arrow keys
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Nov 6, 2016 00:31
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treiz01 posted:What smartphone do you have where you cannot hold down the spacebar, then swipe left or right to move through the text you have written?  What keyboard does this?e: oh, the default Google keyboard. I'm still on Swype & they don't have that as an option.
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Nov 6, 2016 00:55
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Or double-tap a word to highlight it. Then you can drag sliders left or right to include more text. What's the problem?
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Nov 6, 2016 01:14
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The 3D Touch keyboard navigation on iOS is genius.
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Nov 6, 2016 01:23
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