Modern Apps on Old Machines

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sat Jun 28 20:00:19 1997

[...]
> I love the internet, and I learned ALOT from it. sure a shell account with
> lynx is nice, as I use it for fast FTP, but when I read about a PDP11, it is
> nice to see a picture of one, rather just text.

Alternatively I could just pick up one of about 30 PDP11 manuals I have lying
about and not only see a picture of the outsides, but also see board layouts,
schematics, timing charts, microcode flowcharts, and other useful info

I've never found pictures of the outside of computers to be particularly
interesting. The useful diagrams (see above) are just as useful on a 1-bit-
per-pixel display.

> >3. What other apps are there that are REALLY useful for home use that
> >modern machines have and "home computers" don't? And is is really
>
> its not about apps, its about efficincy, and operator comfort. VGA or SVGA

OK, I'm using my (much hacked) PC/AT (true-blue IBM, and just about on-topic
here) at this moment. The display is a clone Hercules card driving that
Zenith monitor with the 'interesting' PSU. After I fixed the PSU and tweaked
the internal controls, I have an image _for text_ that's as sharp as any
cheap SVGA monitor I've ever seen. No eyestrain at all.

If you want colour, look at an old Barco (or Fimi, Philips, etc) monitor. Some
of those are very well focused and converged.


> is worth it becuse it prevents eyestrain, and you can use your system for
> longer amounts of time. I used color TV's before when I got started, and
> serious word processing was painful to the eyes. RGB's are better, but not

RGB simply means that the video signal is sent along 3 separate cables for
the 3 primary colours. Technically a VGA or SVGA monitor is an RGB monitor.


> all in all, if the machine you use now does all what you want, thats great!
> but the day WILL come where you just need to have a feature that you have

In which case I'll do what I've always done in the past when this happens. I'll
either find a classic machine that already has this feature or I'll build a
bit of hardware to add it to whatever machine I feel like.

> not got now. that is just the way the computing cookie crumbles.
>

-tony

>
Received on Sat Jun 28 1997 - 20:00:19 BST