From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

-J
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.

o.O
--
Don't JimBeam me up, Scotchie! I found life down here!
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 2025-06-02, John <john@somewhere> wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

-J

I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters in conjunction with CP/M having faded into history.

I have no hardware capable of running it, use 'jstar' under Linux for my WordStar fix and read the group for nostalgia's sake.

pH in Aptos,CA
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 2025-06-02, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef

Oh! Is that the Board from Steve Ciarcia of Byte Magazine? Was it a Hitachi chip? I don't recall....and was it CP/M 3? Memory fades.....

pH
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 8:31 AM, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

-J

Well..
I still have quite a few machines that run CP/M:
Altair 8800b
IMSAI 8080 (actually ZCPR3)
Northstar Horizon
Heathkit H8
Osborne 01
Osborne Executive
Kaypro 2X
Kaypro 10

I get it that the youngsters don't have the old machines, as they seem
to expend a lot of effort recreating workalikes.
So... where have the machines gone?
When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

It seems only a few years ago there were many posts here.
Now it's dead quiet.


-J
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 9:38 AM, John wrote:

When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

They are thrown out.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 10:37 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

On 6/2/25 9:38 AM, John wrote:

When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

They are thrown out.

or a flipper goes to an estate sale and attempts so sell them on eBay for thousands of dollars

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 11:38 AM, John wrote:

It seems only a few years ago there were many posts here.
Now it's dead quiet.

This probably has a lot to do with ISPs dropping support for Usenet.

My ISP (Earthlink) did this in stages. First they tore down their NNTP servers. Contracting with a third party (Giganews) to provide the
service. Then they only provided this service to existing customers.

Then they finally gave up on that so I could find another service. At
least they provided some warning, unlike when they tore down their
support for customer web sites.

In any case, Usenet was always a pretty niche sort of thing. It is a lot harder to find now.

On the other hand, Google tells me that the most frequent search terms
leading to my web site involve CPM. OK, not really that many clicks.
--
http://davesrocketworks.com
David Schultz
"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." - Sam Spade
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 12:38 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

On 6/2/25 10:37 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

On 6/2/25 9:38 AM, John wrote:

When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

They are thrown out.

or a flipper goes to an estate sale and attempts so sell them on eBay
for thousands of dollars

Ugh. This is so sad.
Both the hardware lost and the next generation being technically
illiterate and/or ambivalent to historical relevance.
-J

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 2:02 PM, David Schultz wrote:

On 6/2/25 11:38 AM, John wrote:

It seems only a few years ago there were many posts here.
Now it's dead quiet.

This probably has a lot to do with ISPs dropping support for Usenet.

My ISP (Earthlink) did this in stages. First they tore down their NNTP servers. Contracting with a third party (Giganews) to provide the
service. Then they only provided this service to existing customers.

Then they finally gave up on that so I could find another service. At
least they provided some warning, unlike when they tore down their
support for customer web sites.

In any case, Usenet was always a pretty niche sort of thing. It is a lot harder to find now.

On the other hand, Google tells me that the most frequent search terms leading to my web site involve CPM. OK, not really that many clicks.

I've never used my ISP to access Usenet.
Used Thundernews for years with no problems.
So I guess I'm in the dark on the issues there that people are having.
But I can see how it would affect traffic.
And btw, nice rockets on your page!
Another of my hobbies of old.

-J
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 15:54:42 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:

I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters in conjunction with
CP/M having faded into history.

The RC2014 is very popular and runs CP/M.

There are a bunch of RC2014-like kits out there too that use CP/M,
including a reproduction Altair 8800 - complete with the switches and
lights.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 11:38:49 -0500, John wrote:

I get it that the youngsters don't have the old machines, as they seem
to expend a lot of effort recreating workalikes.

I don't know about others, but part of my interest in vintage machines was
to learn about computers in general. And the old machines are simpler
with more discrete components - not everything bundled into one chip that
you can't modify.

So... where have the machines gone?
When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

eBay, estate sales, etc.

Plenty at the Vintage Computer Festivals.

As I get older, I'm making plans to liquidate my collection at some
point. I'll probably get a table at a VCF near me and sell them, with the assurance that they are going to people who know what they are.

Not perfect, but it's the best that I think is humanly possible.

It seems only a few years ago there were many posts here.
Now it's dead quiet.

Probably because Google stopped accepting new messages. Many BBSs (yes,
they still exist) were using Google as a message-base-Usenet gateway and
the amount of spam was getting pretty bad in some groups. So Google
turned it off.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025, Al Kossow wrote:

On 6/2/25 9:38 AM, John wrote:

When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

They are thrown out.

I am an old codger with a Kaypro 4 sill boxed up in the closet. I paid
good money to have the CPU "souped up" to 5MHz. It came with CP/M 2
and the "Perfect" suite of s/w, the old kind that said they would
sacrifice your firstborn if you dared to breach their licensing
agreement. It has been years since I took it out of the carton, and
after all this time I suspect that the old 5 1/4" floppies are not
readable. I live alone, and I expect that when I am gone, whoever
cleans out my apartment will have no idea what to do with the Kaypro
and will just discard it.
--
Paul Bartlett
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

or a flipper goes to an estate sale and attempts so sell them on eBay
for thousands of dollars

You forgot the next phase, where the flipper is enraged that no one
will _pay_ thousands of dollars, and scraps the stuff instead of
taking hundreds.

De
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 6:14 PM, Paul Bartlett wrote:

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025, Al Kossow wrote:

On 6/2/25 9:38 AM, John wrote:

-aWhen grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

They are thrown out.

I am an old codger with a Kaypro 4 sill boxed up in the closet.-a I paid
good money to have the CPU "souped up" to 5MHz.-a It came with CP/M 2
and the "Perfect" suite of s/w, the old kind that said they would
sacrifice your firstborn if you dared to breach their licensing
agreement.-a It has been years since I took it out of the carton, and
after all this time I suspect that the old 5 1/4" floppies are not
readable. I live alone, and I expect that when I am gone, whoever
cleans out my apartment will have no idea what to do with the Kaypro
and will just discard it.

Maybe best to sell it now.
At least you will some degree of control over it's destiny.

-J
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 4:58 PM, Captain Nemo wrote:

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 11:38:49 -0500, John wrote:

I get it that the youngsters don't have the old machines, as they seem
to expend a lot of effort recreating workalikes.

I don't know about others, but part of my interest in vintage machines was
to learn about computers in general. And the old machines are simpler
with more discrete components - not everything bundled into one chip that
you can't modify.

100% agree! I've met many clueless youngsters. Or, even worse, those
whose education consisted of web searches and YT videos.
I call it the 'Swiss cheese effect'. Gaping holes in their knowledge
because they didn't know what questions to ask. And they come off as
they know what they are talking about because they simply don't know yet
what they are missing. 'Poseur' is sometimes an appropriate appellation.
Some seem to think the totality of computer science is learning to code
in Python. Make me cringe. I'm the old geezer that gives Heathkit
ET-3400's to kids for Christmas. :)

So... where have the machines gone?
When grandad dies, does he leave them to a museum?

eBay, estate sales, etc.

Plenty at the Vintage Computer Festivals.

As I get older, I'm making plans to liquidate my collection at some
point. I'll probably get a table at a VCF near me and sell them, with the assurance that they are going to people who know what they are.

Not perfect, but it's the best that I think is humanly possible.

I'm in the same boat. I've collected/restored machines since the 90's
and properly seeing to their disposition would be a time consuming
chore. Even arranging transport to a (somewhat) local VCF entails many details and layers of protection. And I don't fancy lugging them up to a
hotel room or keeping them in a vehicle overnight. If I had a few small laptops, OK, but I have mainly big S-100 boxes. Maybe I should start
working out more?

It seems only a few years ago there were many posts here.
Now it's dead quiet.

Probably because Google stopped accepting new messages. Many BBSs (yes,
they still exist) were using Google as a message-base-Usenet gateway and
the amount of spam was getting pretty bad in some groups. So Google
turned it off.

Classic case of putting all your eggs in one basket.
And trusting a company like Google.

I've had good results with the VCFed forums.
But, frankly, a lot of the traffic is the newer machines (Apple,Atari,Commodore, etc.) and that doesn't interest me a whit.
Even back in the day, I viewed these 'mass market' machines with a
degree of contempt. They were for those who didn't know which end of a soldering iron to hold. Business wise, it was the right move for them,
of course. But for me, it was just a rewarding hobby. So I guess you
could say I prefer 'hobby computers' to 'home computers'. And I still
tinker to this day.

-J

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 19:14:08 -0400, Paul Bartlett wrote:

suspect that the old 5 1/4" floppies are not readable. I live alone, and
I expect that when I am gone, whoever cleans out my apartment will have
no idea what to do with the Kaypro and will just discard it.

Even Goodwill knows the value of vintage computers. So hopefully it would
go to Goodwill and then to someone who knows how to use it.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025, pH wrote:

I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters in conjunction with CP/M having faded into history.

I have no hardware capable of running it, use 'jstar' under Linux for my WordStar fix and read the group for nostalgia's sake.

pH in Aptos,CA

I do have some machines that could run CP/M-80 or 86 natively, though one would need a ROM swap plus me putting together the disk add-on.

-uso.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

I get it that the youngsters don't have the old machines, as they seem
to expend a lot of effort recreating workalikes.

We are still in the window when building something new with dip parts and VERY inexpensive PCBs that are available out of
China makes sense, or just running a simulation on modern hardware with todays tools instead of stone knives and bearskins
makes complete sense.

100% agree!-a I've met many clueless youngsters.-a Or, even worse, those whose education consisted of web searches and YT videos.
I call it the 'Swiss cheese effect'.-a Gaping holes in their knowledge because they didn't know what questions to ask. And they come off as
they know what they are talking about because they simply don't know yet what they are missing. 'Poseur' is sometimes an appropriate
appellation.

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't have to go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.
Now, Chatbots and their ilk are destroying the ability to obtain reliable answers with references to the source material. I am not happy.

I'm in the same boat.-a I've collected/restored machines since the 90's and properly seeing to their disposition would be a time consuming
chore.

And having to vet every random trying to determine if they are just cherry-picking through everything you own to flip on eBay.
I took a truckload to VCF-W last year to find proper homes for some of my collection, and I'm not going to go through that again this year.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 02.06.25 17:55, pH wrote:

On 2025-06-02, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef

Oh! Is that the Board from Steve Ciarcia of Byte Magazine?

Yes. I did have a GT180 as well, but that didn't survive a faulty power connection (as did the SB180FX, but I managed to get replacements for
all the chips on that board).

Was it a Hitachi
chip?

Yes, an HD64180.

I don't recall....and was it CP/M 3?

It was a CP/M clone called Zsystem.

At the time I worked for a computer manufacturer who occasionally sold
surplus stuff to employees, so I had quickly added a 10MB (in words: TEN MEGABYTES ... ALL FOR ME!!!!) hard disk through an Adaptec host adapter,
later a Quantum 40MB SCSI disk, but now it has a solid state SCSI flash
disk. Also, as I feared that the floppies wouldn't last longer, I
replaced the FDDs with a USB-Floppy-Adapter, allowing me to have almost
all floppies online.

Memory fades.....

What was it we were talking about? ;-)

Josef

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 2025-06-03, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 17:55, pH wrote:

On 2025-06-02, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef

Oh! Is that the Board from Steve Ciarcia of Byte Magazine?

Yes. I did have a GT180 as well, but that didn't survive a faulty power connection (as did the SB180FX, but I managed to get replacements for
all the chips on that board).

Was it a Hitachi
chip?

I seem to recall it was....6MHz?

Yes, an HD64180.

I don't recall....and was it CP/M 3?

It was a CP/M clone called Zsystem.

Is that the same as ZCPR? I remember reading about it.

At the time I worked for a computer manufacturer who occasionally sold surplus stuff to employees, so I had quickly added a 10MB (in words: TEN MEGABYTES ... ALL FOR ME!!!!) hard disk through an Adaptec host adapter, later a Quantum 40MB SCSI disk, but now it has a solid state SCSI flash disk. Also, as I feared that the floppies wouldn't last longer, I
replaced the FDDs with a USB-Floppy-Adapter, allowing me to have almost
all floppies online.

That is cool you have all that stuff. I thought that CP/M 3 /ZCPR could bank-switch 64 banks of 64K for a grand total of 8MB of memory (or so I thought...) I thought that would be good for all eternity.

Turns out I have no clue on how things really work hardware wise and CP/M 3 still had a 64K or less TPA and other banks used for buffers, i/O and
whatnot I guess. Still, that would have been a speedup and who knows what would have been cobbled together over the next couple years had King Kong
not arrived w/ the 8088 et. al.

I reemember that Philippe Kahn released Turbo Modula-2 for that machine.

What other software do you have for it? WordStar, Supercalc, CBASIC is about all I can think of. I had Mix C for my old Apple ][+ w/ cp/m card.


pH

Memory fades.....

What was it we were talking about? ;-)

Josef

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 04.06.25 06:37, pH wrote:

On 2025-06-03, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 17:55, pH wrote:

On 2025-06-02, Josef M||llers <josef@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef

Oh! Is that the Board from Steve Ciarcia of Byte Magazine?

Yes. I did have a GT180 as well, but that didn't survive a faulty power
connection (as did the SB180FX, but I managed to get replacements for
all the chips on that board).

Was it a Hitachi
chip?

I seem to recall it was....6MHz?

That was the SB180. The SB180FX has the faster CPU and runs with the
blazing speed of 9MHz.
I also have the full 512KB of memory installed.

Yes, an HD64180.

I don't recall....and was it CP/M 3?

It was a CP/M clone called Zsystem.

Is that the same as ZCPR? I remember reading about it.

Not quite. ZCPR is the "Zsystem Command Processor Replacement". The OS
is called ZRDOS. Together they are the "ZSystem".

At the time I worked for a computer manufacturer who occasionally sold
surplus stuff to employees, so I had quickly added a 10MB (in words: TEN
MEGABYTES ... ALL FOR ME!!!!) hard disk through an Adaptec host adapter,
later a Quantum 40MB SCSI disk, but now it has a solid state SCSI flash
disk. Also, as I feared that the floppies wouldn't last longer, I
replaced the FDDs with a USB-Floppy-Adapter, allowing me to have almost
all floppies online.

That is cool you have all that stuff. I thought that CP/M 3 /ZCPR could bank-switch 64 banks of 64K for a grand total of 8MB of memory (or so I thought...) I thought that would be good for all eternity.

Not quite sure about the bank switching of the OS proper, but the CPU
does has a MMU which is geared towards supporting CP/M (and thus ZRDOS)
in that it could (can, im my case ;-) ) map three sections of the
virtual address space: 0..100H, 100H..<start of the OS>, <start of the OS>..0FFFFH.

I bought it with a Modula-2 compiler which should have been able to use
that to do some parallel processing, but I never got that to work, so I
got the original compiler suite from Micromint.

I still like Modula-2!

Turns out I have no clue on how things really work hardware wise and CP/M 3 still had a 64K or less TPA and other banks used for buffers, i/O and
whatnot I guess. Still, that would have been a speedup and who knows what would have been cobbled together over the next couple years had King Kong
not arrived w/ the 8088 et. al.

A couple of years ago, I got the box with the stuff out and decided it
would be fun to tinker with it. Unfortunately I had a power connector
that you could plug in either way, so one day I put 12V on the 5V line
and vice versa. Don't ask, if you don't want to see a grown man cry.
However, luckily, I was able to source most of the hardware from "the
Turkish shop in China" and from a (then) former colleague, so at least
the main board is back into working condition. And since I have replaced
all the parts that use the 12V (mainly the RS232 drivers) with something
else, eg the SB180FX has now an XPORT ethernet-to-serial interface, so I
can access it from every computer in my household.

I reemember that Philippe Kahn released Turbo Modula-2 for that machine.

What other software do you have for it? WordStar, Supercalc, CBASIC is about all I can think of. I had Mix C for my old Apple ][+ w/ cp/m card.

I did get a CP/M PD and ShareWare CD from Walnut Creek but also got some
stuff from some archive(s).

I just tried to boot the SB180FX, but I recall that I had completely disconnected the board and when I re-connected it wires from the RS232 driver/receiver socket the the XPORT broke. I shall have to warm up my soldering iron.

I just love to program on teh SB180FX ... on the bare metal ... in
direct contact with the hardware ... assembler ... fun!

Josef
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

I still have a P112 new in box from 2006.
IIRC they had CP/mMa CF card and a 3.5" floppy drive.
Are those any good?

-J

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 03/06/2025 17:09, Al Kossow wrote:

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't have to
go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.

Thank you for such a valuable resource.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 02/06/2025 14:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

Today I've been tinkering with CP/M-68k (68K-MBC) followed by CP/M-86 (V20-MBC). I'm still trying to understand those mysterious old C
compilers, not to mention K&R C.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

Al Kossow wrote:

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't have to
go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.

Thanks a lot. Bitsavers is just incredible.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/4/25 5:45 PM, Nick wrote:

On 02/06/2025 14:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

Today I've been tinkering with CP/M-68k (68K-MBC) followed by CP/M-86 (V20-MBC). I'm still trying to understand those mysterious old C
compilers, not to mention K&R C.

I learned C by buying a copy of K&R and using the Alcyon C compiler in CP/M-68K. Not a great compiler but it worked.
--
http://davesrocketworks.com
David Schultz
"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." - Sam Spade
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

In article <1845d695e96be220$116578$3102$70dd3a6b@news.thundernews.com>,
John <john@somewhere> wrote:

I still have a P112 new in box from 2006.
IIRC they had CP/mMa CF card and a 3.5" floppy drive.
Are those any good?

Yes, they are a nice system for running ZCPR3/CPM or other compatible Z80 software.
I have a CD-ROM, two 3.5" floppies, IDE HDD and CF card installed in mine. I attach
with either my laptop or a VT510 terminal to the serial port.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/3/25 11:09 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't have to
go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.
Now, Chatbots and their ilk are destroying the ability to obtain
reliable answers with references to the source material. I am not happy.

Thank you for bitsavers!
The information there has saved my 'bit' a few times when I was in a
tricky problem!
-J

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/3/25 11:09 AM, Al Kossow wrote:

And having to vet every random trying to determine if they are just cherry-picking through everything you own to flip on eBay.
I took a truckload to VCF-W last year to find proper homes for some of
my collection, and I'm not going to go through that again this year.

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in.
No concern for preserving history. Makes my stomach turn.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/4/25 7:25 PM, Craig Ruff wrote:

In article <1845d695e96be220$116578$3102$70dd3a6b@news.thundernews.com>,
John <john@somewhere> wrote:

I still have a P112 new in box from 2006.
IIRC they had CP/mMa CF card and a 3.5" floppy drive.
Are those any good?

Yes, they are a nice system for running ZCPR3/CPM or other compatible Z80 software.
I have a CD-ROM, two 3.5" floppies, IDE HDD and CF card installed in mine. I attach
with either my laptop or a VT510 terminal to the serial port.

Cool!

I just dug mine out of storage the other day.
I think I'll give it a go.
Even though I need another CP/M system like the proverbial hole in the
head. I like this one; it's very compact.
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

I've spent decades building bitsavers.org so that people didn't
have to go through what I had to in the 70s to learn about electronics.

Thank you so much for bitsavers.org! It was (and still is) such a
valuable resource for my research, both professionally as a writer
and to satisfy my curiosity. So many documents I used to work with
and so many more that I have never seen before!

Now, Chatbots and their ilk are destroying the ability to obtain
reliable answers with references to the source material. I am not
happy.

Indeed! Let's hope that this fad will soon come to an end!
--
Nils M Holm < n m h @ t 3 x . o r g > http://t3x.org
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

Am 02.06.2025 um 16:11 schrieb Josef M||llers:

On 02.06.25 15:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

Josef

Nice part,
I have some Z80 system in my workroom.

My all-day system is a conitec P181x with CP/M3 and a CF-card adapted.
The 2nd are a Genie IIIs and a Speedmaster from TCS - both trs-80 compatible run GDOS (a german NEWDOS) and CP/M 2 / 3,
the 2rd is a NCR Decision Mate V.
And last but not leased a Siemens PC-M2 with SINIX OS.
All run well and are build in Germany.

The P181X will make a good match to the SB180X.
--
-- Fritz

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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On Thu, 5 Jun 2025 05:06:56 -0500, John wrote:

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in.
No concern for preserving history. Makes my stomach turn.

At least they are keeping them out of the dumps or recyclers.

There was a time when Goodwill recycled anything that had a CRT -
including rare, vintage computers. They seem to have been educated about
that and don't just trash them.
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 3/06/2025 7:53 am, Captain Nemo wrote:

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 15:54:42 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:

I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters in conjunction with
CP/M having faded into history.

The RC2014 is very popular and runs CP/M.

There are a bunch of RC2014-like kits out there too that use CP/M,
including a reproduction Altair 8800 - complete with the switches and lights.

It was that which got me back into CP/M albeit as an excuse to pull out
and update DX-Forth for CP/M which I'd moth-balled in 2000.

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Am 02.06.2025 um 23:53 schrieb Captain Nemo:

On Mon, 2 Jun 2025 15:54:42 -0000 (UTC), pH wrote:

I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters in conjunction with
CP/M having faded into history.

The RC2014 is very popular and runs CP/M.

There are a bunch of RC2014-like kits out there too that use CP/M,
including a reproduction Altair 8800 - complete with the switches and
lights.

Yes, I had a SC126 which is a nice part but I love my old system with even 3.5, 5.25 and 8" drives.
I gave the SC126 away as my old system even have cf-card available.

I use more an emulator than the modern RC2014 like part. https://www.myoldc.info/eaca_tcs_computer/sdltrs_and_the_videogenies.html
--
-- Fritz
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/5/25 06:06, John wrote:

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in.
No concern for preserving history.-a Makes my stomach turn.

"Wurfers". (google it) We at LSSM get hit with those guys all the
time.

Just last week we got this: "I gots this HUGE antique computer, one
of the VERY FIRST computers, I want $5K for it!" (and the pic shows a trash-picked Dell Pentium4 machine complete with bird poop on top)

-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, President/Curator
Large Scale Systems Museum
New Kensington, PA
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 10/06/2025 09:40, Fritz wrote:

I use more an emulator than the modern RC2014 like part. https://www.myoldc.info/eaca_tcs_computer/sdltrs_and_the_videogenies.html

I never realised that Lowe Electronics had their own port of CP/M. I was reading John Wilson's memoirs a while back and how Lowes bought more
Genies than they know what to do with. Their main market was ham radio equipment and general coverage receivers.I wonder if John Thorpe, their receiver designer was involved in that side too.
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/2/25 09:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

You don't get rid of me THAT easily!


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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/10/25 09:41, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 6/5/25 06:06, John wrote:

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in.
No concern for preserving history.-a Makes my stomach turn.

-a "Wurfers". (google it)-a We at LSSM get hit with those guys all the time.

-a Just last week we got this: "I gots this HUGE antique computer, one of the
VERY FIRST computers, I want $5K for it!"-a (and the pic shows a trash-picked
Dell Pentium4 machine complete with bird poop on top)

Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up... Most of us in the community have seen it all by now.

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On 6/16/25 8:54 PM, Steven Hirsch wrote:

On 6/2/25 09:31, John wrote:

If people have migrated to another site...
... or maybe have (gulp) died off...

You don't get rid of me THAT easily!

Death will not release me...
... I still have Teletype relays to clean...
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/16/25 21:58, Steven Hirsch wrote:

On 6/10/25 09:41, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 6/5/25 06:06, John wrote:

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in.
No concern for preserving history.-a Makes my stomach turn.

-a-a "Wurfers". (google it)-a We at LSSM get hit with those guys all the
time.

-a-a Just last week we got this: "I gots this HUGE antique computer, one
of the VERY FIRST computers, I want $5K for it!"-a (and the pic shows a
trash-picked Dell Pentium4 machine complete with bird poop on top)

Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up...-a Most of us in the
community have seen it all by now.

I tell ya Steve, the gene pool needs some chlorine. Desperately.

Good to see you here, BTW.

-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, President/Curator
Large Scale Systems Museum
New Kensington, PA
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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

Josef:

I, for one, am still lurking.
But I find little time to tinker with my SB180FX.

A most worthy system.
I donated mine to the Large Scale museum of New Kensington, PA
https://www.lssmuseum.org/

Here are pix of Rich Cini's MicroMint SB-180 in a "shoebox" case
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/mmint/index.htm
the specs
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/mmint/sb180.txt


I will forever keep my Servo-8 6 MHz Z80 single board computer running CP/M. Similar to the Ampro Littleboard but no user community :-(
It runs 8 floppy drives!

I'm writing my will to assure the estate executor
is a vintage computer fellow to properly identify and handle
all the vintage computers and electronics,
as I have done for several donors to the NJ Vintage Computer Museum.

-- Jeffrey Jonas
jeffj/at/panix(dot)com
--


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I think that Usenet is unknown to the youngsters

Thus leading to the social media platform-of-the-week club :-(

A piece of trivial net & comic history:
I used to print jmb & Moriarty's net.comics comic reviews
for Peter David and post his replies.
He enjoyed connecting with fans so much,
I got him online with a "big electric cat" account
(now known as PANIX) and lent him a
California Computer Systems S100 system (Z80, CP/M)
with WordStar (to finally word process instead of typing).

PAD died recently, but his web site lives on (for now)
http://peterdavid.net/

fondly, Jeff Jonas
--


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From Newsgroup: comp.os.cpm

On 6/17/25 15:59, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 6/16/25 21:58, Steven Hirsch wrote:

On 6/10/25 09:41, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 6/5/25 06:06, John wrote:

Ah yes, the 'collectors' who are not 'enthusiasts' or 'hobbyists'.
Somewhere they heard these things are valuable so they want to cash-in. >>>> No concern for preserving history.-a Makes my stomach turn.

-a-a "Wurfers". (google it)-a We at LSSM get hit with those guys all the time.

-a-a Just last week we got this: "I gots this HUGE antique computer, one of
the VERY FIRST computers, I want $5K for it!"-a (and the pic shows a
trash-picked Dell Pentium4 machine complete with bird poop on top)

Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up...-a Most of us in the community >> have seen it all by now.

-a I tell ya Steve, the gene pool needs some chlorine.-a Desperately.

-a Good to see you here, BTW.

I tend to lurk anywhere that promises a high S/N ratio!


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