Peter's z80.eu site blog

OT: For those who would like to travel through time ...

Peter Dassow — Sun, 31 Jan 2016 12:00:00 GMT

It's slightly off-topic, but interesting. It's an explanation why time is going always forward, not backward. An asymmetry exists between time and space in the sense that physical systems inevitably evolve over time whereas there is no corresponding ubiquitous translation over space.
The asymmetry is represented by equations of motion and conservation laws that operate differently over time and space. But there are reasons for it, which are digged deeper into theoretical physics.
It seems to be related with K and B meson particles and their behaviour (spin and state) and balance between them. Experiments to test the time-reversal symmetry exists already.

Now think about trying to manipulating exactly what was mentioned (K and B mesons).
It can be the way travelling through time, although it can be done only in a microscopical way, and only for a very small area. I am not sure how to accomplish this without an extraordinary amount of energy and without destroying anything with a bit complexity (means if you can accomplish it by a supernova, it will not help you).

See related link for a general overview.

Ho ho ho - Merry christmas and a happy new year 2016

Peter Dassow — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 23:00:00 GMT

It's not the best animation, but perhaps one of the best known XMAS demo:

Just grab your C64 out of the cellar, get the (SX-64) demo program (see related link), and run it on a real Commodore 64 or at least on one of the many emulators (like WinVICE).

Almost already vintage: LTO-2 and LTO-3 tape drives with Windows 7

Peter Dassow — Sun, 13 Dec 2015 11:00:00 GMT

I got some SCSI LTO tape drives, and so I started to resurrected my LSI Logic SCSI 20160 (53C1010-66) adapter (SCSI controller for PCI bus). I wrote "started" because it's not so easy to get a "Windows 7" compatible driver for a ten year old SCSI controller. Last but not least I discovered that the controller was used by another company but under a different name, "Dawicontrol DC-29160 U3W SCSI Hostadapter", and Dawicontrol still offers drivers.

After being able to use the SCSI controller, I was also stuck with getting a working tape backup software - that's because after Windows XP, Removable Storage Manager (RSM) was not included anymore (still present on installation media in Windows Vista), and so NTBACKUP or similar software does NOT work anymore with tape drives.

I've found at least two products which supports the LTO tape drives without any driver, Novabackup and Z-DATdump. I was still not able to use something like "mt", "tar" and similar UNIX stuff. So I download "GnuWIN tar 1.13" which does run under Windows 7, and also the tools found at http://www.tecno-notas.com/winnt.htm , "mt" and "tapecopy", included in LCUtils.zip.

The UNIX tools I downloaded still didn't work, also because I was not able to use the "TAPE0" or "TAPE1" device name. This happened because you have to have an unknown "Other device" in device manager first (if not, no chance), to install the proper "sequential device driver" for the LTO drive (here: I looked for "ultrium 3 scsi sequential device driver").
HP does offer the drivers at hp.com Drivers & Software.
This was finally not necessary, because Windows searched for the proper driver of this "sequential device driver" for itself (online), so the result looks like this:

After having this device driver installed, Acronis Backup or Iperius Backup and may be some other commercial software will work also. Again, if you have only installed the SCSI controller driver, this is NOT enough.

I am still having some problems with GNUWin tar, because if the filenames getting too long, or special chars are included in a filename, tar fails. Tar fails also having too much parameter (using wildcards). This "GNUWin tar" is really still unfinished, not fully developed or ported for Windows.
Please remember also you must have local admin rights for your command line to use mt and tapecopy, and please DO NOT leave the inserted tape inside the device before powering off - so EJECT the tape always after using it.

Btw. "WINTAR" from sourceforge does not work - that was my first try.

Ultra rare Texas Instruments Portable Professional Computer (PPC)

Peter Dassow — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 22:00:00 GMT

These "non-compatible" PCs are almost forgotten, but there were many interesting portable ones, like the Sirius Victor "Luggable", which has a very sophisticated video card (for its time) but with a very strange disk format (similar to the Commodore GCR format).
And there was also a 8086 portable computer from Texas Instruments - they didn't produced only the TI 99/4(A) and their famous calculators in the eighties, but also these non-compatible PCs.
Derived from the Texas Instruments PC, the TI PPC was the one you could try to carry with you.
It can read IBM PC formatted disk (that's really an advantage) but that was the only obvious common thing. The graphics had 720x300 pixels (NOT Hercules Graphics compatible!), it has a build in (optional) COLOR MONITOR (rare!) and the computer was expandable up to 768KB RAM. Even the keyboard was different from the IBM PC !
Not only MS-DOS 2.1 was available, but also CP/M-86, UCSD-P System and Prologue.
You could be lucky if you own one, because they became very rare nowadays.

First "Smart Watch" ever, decades before Apple Watch oder Samsung Gear

Peter Dassow — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 18:26:49 GMT

Just take a look at this advertisment for the Science of Cambridge Wrist Calculator, this was really one of the first (or just the first) real smart watch with computing power - and it happened about 40 years before ! It was only available as a kit, and AFAIK it can't show the time (unless you typed in appropriate digits to show up the time) ;-)

Genoa Super EGA can't replace an original Siemens PCD-2 CGA+MDA card

Peter Dassow — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 16:30:00 GMT

Meanwhile I have tried to replace my original Siemens PCD-2 graphics adapter with a (more modern) Genoa Super EGA (Modell 4880). Unfortunately even with a documentation of all dip switches and jumper, it was not possible to replace the original card, which is able to display color graphics card (CGA) and monochrome display adapter (MDA) on a monochrome monitor.
I thought I can configure the Genoa Super EGA...

... to use a monochrome monitor.

BUT NO it does not work :-(

I guess the Siemens Graphics Adapter is a very special (and rare) display adapter which is only designed to work with the Siemens Monitor. Look at the card, it has three crystal oscillators (!), which is totally unusual for dispplay adapter of 1988:

Ok, if anybody has additional suggestions how to work with that original monochrome monitor and the above mentioned Genoa Super EGA, let me know it. Switches & Jumper can be found at the "related link" below.

Microsoft's new "Privacy Statement" and conclusions: BE WARNED

Peter Dassow — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 20:20:07 GMT

No, not only Microsoft is collecting data from all users. This is done also by Apple & Google.
But they didn't do it in such an amount until Windows 10 arrived....

All of the data which will be collected is just to improve your personal expirience. This means you will get tons of advertisments but these are more personalized. Or at least unwanted "suggestions". Ugly.
Many settings are present also to reduce this acquisitiveness, but most of the very new functions can't work without collecting data from you. Cortana, your new speech recognition for example. Hand writing recognition, which adds also new learned words.
Even your Wireless LAN passwords can be shared... you don't want this by accident, I guess.

See also these articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... t-settings
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2489212,00.asp
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/windows-10 ... need-know/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07 ... -settings/

Meanwhile there are tools out there, which easily controls these settings, too.
If you're too careless, you get a new data collector installed instead.
http://pxc-coding.com/portfolio/donotspy10/ offers a tool like that, "DoNotSpy10".
This software is ok for public use, until you accept also some setup options at the time of installation - new, unwanted ad-ware or even new spy software.
So really take care and READ the options of the setup program, or do not use "DoNotSpy10".

Added a bit later: There is also a script/batch file, which can improve privacy. Please take a look inside the file (it's text, not a binary) first. See http://pastebin.com/K8Ww4j8z

Added again later: New bad news ... Windows 10 does not use certificate pinning, means someone can easily apply a man-in-the-middle-attack for each Microsoft cloud-access for example. Explanation for certificate pinning ? See >here<.

Extracting floppy drivers out of Windows 7 (for using them with Windows 10)

Peter Dassow — Sat, 08 Aug 2015 09:30:00 GMT

May be some of you still using (USB) floppy drives with Windows 7 ?

You want to upgrade to Windows 10 ?
May be this is interesting for you ...

Two driver files are necessary for it:
\windows\system32\drivers\sfloppy.sys and
\windows\system32\drivers\flpydisk.sys
extracted out of an existing/working Windows 7 installation (may work with Windows 8 also).

Additionally you need the description/installation files located in \windows\inf:
fdc.inf and
flpydisk.inf
(and perhaps also fdc.pnf and flpydisk.pnf).

These .inf files can be used to reinstall the fdc and floppy driver again, e.g. for a Windows 10 installation. At the moment I am not aware of offerings from Microsoft itself regarding the subject "floppy drive support". I've read they said only, go to your drive manufacturers pages and look for drivers.... good luck anyway for it.

Added a bit later: There is also a sample driver for a "super floppy", see https://github.com/Microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/storage/sfloppy
To compile the driver, you need the Visual Studio Community 2015 and Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 10, offered at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/dn913721.aspx, also.

Don't miss "Classic Computing 2015" - THE vintage computer exhibition and festival in Thionville

Peter Dassow — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 18:02:47 GMT

Don't miss it. You will see a lot of vintage computers and video game consoles from the eighties and beyond, many computer enthusiasts and lover of old but gold home computer equipment, starting with Amstrad, and stopping with Zenith.
Thionville is located in France, but it's really nearby Saarlouis in Germany, so enthusiasts from germany can visit it without conquering long distances too. See related link for more infos.

Very interesting project - a microbee emulated in (almost) one FPGA

Peter Dassow — Mon, 29 Jun 2015 19:00:00 GMT

The Microbee was an Australian made Z80 based computer that was able to run CP/M 2.2 and 3.0 - and it even had already some pixel graphics capabilities.

Getting such a computer isn't simple, and I do not live in Australia (btw. wonderful country).
But working with real hardware and not "emulated on PC" is still a great idea.
On fpgabee.toptensoftware.com you will be able to read all about using a FPGA development board or even a selfmade pcb for it.
With it's version 2, even harddisk access and color graphics is implemented.
And it's working with a standard VGA monitor, a PS/2 keyboard and a SD card. That's all.

It looks like this (photo taken from the above mentioned web site):

So just go on and visit the web site above mentioned (or see related link also below).