Subject: Magtapes - 9 Track Available

From: "Jerome H. Fine" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Apr 30 00:41:07 2003

Are you interested in magtape just for the media [has old National
Library
of Medicine stuff? (this would be at least another box)
==================================================
I have been advised that the above tapes are available, probably about
at least a dozen tapes for either the contents or for scratch.  The cost

will be for shipping.  They are in New York City, but may need to
first be sent to Buffalo.

If they are of interest, please advise and I will try and find out
what arrangements can be made.

I might also be looking to have 3 or 4 magtapes copied to a TK50
(or other suitable media) and might need some help in this regard.
They have RT-11 file labels if that is helpful information, so probably
RT-11 would be needed to make to copies.  Eventually, I would like
to copy the contents to a CD.

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
--
If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail
address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk
e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be
obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the
'at' with the four digits of the current year.

---

From: "Mike Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Apr 30 00:41:26 2003

I wanted to let everyone know that I have a group of forums (70 
total) that cover a variety of areas that I'm interested in.  One 
group of forums is dedicated to Vintage Computers and Calculators.

They are at: 
http://www.msdsite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=17

The main entry to all forums is at:
http://www.msdsite.com/index.php

These have been up and running for a couple of years but I have not 
advertized them much.  Only those that stumble across them know about 
them, for the most part.

My forums cover areas of interest of calculators, computers, 
military, Marine Corps, competitive shooting, firearms, and even the 
war on terrorism.  There are currently over 400 registered members 
and we need more.  

Feel free to stop by and browse.  I can start any forum of interest 
within any of these groups.  Just ask.

Thanks,

---

From: Kevin Handy <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Apr 30 00:42:04 2003

>of Medicine stuff? (this would be at least another box)

If you do an exact copy of the tapes, the directory format doesn't
matter during the transfer. The only thing you need to worry
about is that the destination device has enough space available for
the copy. I have copied many tapes for several OS's using just a
TSV05 and TK50 drive using RSTS/E.  I used a program called
TAPCOP, where TCOPY is another name for it. There are several
other copy programs (some using the same name). This is a Basic+
program that copies the tape to the disk, then copies to the other
tape (which is actually much faster than trying to go tape-to-tape
due to many reasons). I can send you a copy if you want it, but
it originally came from a Decus tape.

The directory structure only becomes important when you want
to access the data. If you wanted to see individual files, than it
would become important.

---

From: "James B. DiGriz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed Apr 30 12:57:47 2003

> within any of these groups.  Just ask.

Great to see more vintage and classic forums being listed. The only 
thing I hate to see is the fragmentation.

Usenet, FTN-style and Qwk networks on BBS'es, etc. used to be able to 
bring together scattered groups of people and individuals all over the 
world in a non-centralized, non-single-point-of-failure way. Web-based 
forums have really not tried to go there yet, in part because some are 
commercial and sometimes proprietary, with excessive numbers of PHB's 
and lawyers making policy decisions instead of the moderators and/or 
users, and because even the more independent forums are usually not up 
on stuff like RDF feeds or nntp backends, or aren't in a position to 
implement them with their hosting services.

It's even harder now in the climate of DMCA and super DMCA's etc. that 
have an effect on way more than just retransmission of movies and audio 
CD's, at least when you're thinking of gating Yahoo groups or something. 
Compilation copyrights, TOS's, and all that bs. Nevertheless, I'm 
setting up a few FTN echos that will also be available by nntp, RDF,  a 
web based-forum/news site, mailing lists, etc. if anyone is interested.

It really helps everyone, though, especially in the long run. Different 
forums or forum hosts come and go, and so on. Look at what has happened 
to all the forums on the old online services. Most of that info is now 
just plain gone, or going fast, subject to being tossed out at any time. 
There is no Google archive for CIS, Delphi, the Source, etc. There is 
Google, for web sites, but again, there is just all that fragmenation 
which makes it hard to search for anything, and prevents discussions 
from happening to begin with.

Jay, I'd be happy to work with you on gating the cc lists, if you're 
interested. Anyone else has any ideas on this, please chime in. I'm 
interested in what people think about the idea, and if anyone is doing 
anything like this already. Or just contact me directly.

jbdigriz

---

From: "James B. DiGriz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu May 1 00:26:19 2003

R. D. Davis wrote:
> Quothe James B. DiGriz, from writings of Wed, Apr 30, 2003 at 01:55:35PM -0400:
> 
> Yes, I know what you mean.  If these new discussion groups each had
> some particular specialty, then I could see a reason why various
> classic computer collectors would use them.  However, since they
> don't, I can't see the point in going through the extra work that it
> would take to access them.  
> 

If they shared articles/posts via RDF or XML feeds, that lessens the 
work, significantly. Pooling articles reduces exclusivity and to some 
extent individuality, of course, but at the cost of boosting the overall 
signal, promoting the development of communities of interest, etc. which 
  benefits everyone in the long run. If the object is making money with 
the site, based strictly on the editorial content, then it's easy to 
imagine the interest of the site owner to be short-sighted here, though, 
or at least that's how the short-sighted will be expected to see it. I'd 
say that the much better overall content raises the floor for everyone, 
in most situations, and that site design, other features, relevance and 
value of associated advertising and merchandising, etc. will have more 
to do with the final profitability of the site, if that's the goal or 
justification. Compare IM, ICQ, or IRC vs. a purely local chat system 
for an equivalent effect on content.

> For one thing, web-based forums are a blasted nuisance to use.
> Browsers crash, and then an entire message is gone.  If I can't use
> emacs, or some other text editor that's reasonably useful, such as vi,
> or even ed, then there's not much point to using a computer for
> writing.  The multi-line text-area fields in forms on the 'web are
> nowhere near being a reasonable substitute for a good text editor.
> 

Browsers crashing is all many people know, however. All the marketing in 
the last 8 years or so is strictly for the 'net as Web. I prefer text 
myself for discussions, period, but hardly anyone is trained on a 
command line anymore, even at the college level. Actually this has it's 
advantages sometimes, like if you have to use the library's computer and 
need to work around CIPA mandated filters, etc. Usually it's just a 
matter of the proxy settings in Exploiter, access to which will 
typically be disabled. But as we all know, there is more than one way to 
skin a cat.

If you want or need to raise the LCD, you have to make yourself 
accessible to it. It doesn't and needn't make older, more fundamental 
methods obsolete.

> What's a PHB?  Sounds like a nasty type of chemical to avoid.
> 
Pointy-Haired Boss, as in "Dilbert".

> A good reason to avoid them.  Is it just me, or does it give others
> the creeps when they see user agreements telling them that they can't
> have their first-ammendment guaranteed right to free speech on the
> 'net, whenever corporate droids, politically correct university
> bureaucrats and ambulance chasers (lawyers), etc. get involved with
> the 'net?
> 

I didn't mean to knock lawyers or suits in general here. They're just 
the instruments of bad politics and absurd premises being taken to 
logical conclusions in this case. Don't shoot the messenger, in other 
words, though there are plenty who have put their hearts into it and 
have contributed to the absurdities and badness, especially when they 
end up in legislatures and on the bench.

I should note that gating a web forum raises several spam-related 
issues, which a lot of people tend to get bent out of shape about. Also 
there is the matter of having to modify the actual body of an article if 
  it includes advertising and/or html, when sending to mailing lists 
that forbid such, or to Usenet, where it's just not appropriate. And so 
on.  It's not just a matter of jealous proprietorship.or whipped dogs 
worried about the next shareholders meeting.

jbdigriz

---

From: "R. D. Davis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 2 01:20:35 2003

-- 
Copyright (C) 2003 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals: 
All Rights Reserved            an unnatural belief that we're above Nature & 
[email-masked]  410-744-4900  her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org         beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.

---

From: Ethan Dicks <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 2 01:20:45 2003

> What's a PHB?  Sounds like a nasty type of chemical to avoid.

Pointy-Haired Boss?!? (not for internal or external use ;-)

-ethan
The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo.
http://search.yahoo.com