From editor@telecom-digest.org Mon Oct 4 19:01:46 2004 Received: (from ptownson@localhost) by massis.lcs.mit.edu (8.11.6p3/8.11.6) id i94N1ks13738; Mon, 4 Oct 2004 19:01:46 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 19:01:46 -0400 (EDT) From: editor@telecom-digest.org Message-Id: <200410042301.i94N1ks13738@massis.lcs.mit.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: massis.lcs.mit.edu: ptownson set sender to editor@telecom-digest.org using -f To: ptownson Approved: patsnewlist Subject: TELECOM Digest V23 #468 TELECOM Digest Mon, 4 Oct 2004 17:01:00 EDT Volume 23 : Issue 468 Inside This Issue: Editor: Patrick A. Townson Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (D Garland) Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium (S Sobol) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Dave Thompson) Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? (Scott Dorsey) Re: Call Accounting Project (David Clayton) Re: Call Accounting Project (Justin Time) Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal (Rick Merrill) Re: Toll Free Number Registry? (Clarence Dold) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Gene S. Berkowitz) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Justin Time) Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? (Rick Merrill) Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone Used (R Merrill) Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #?) (Julian Thomas) Re: Need Help With External Port (Julian Thomas) Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (Julian Thomas) Re: Three Million Scans Uncover 83 Million Spywares (Rick Merrill) Last Laugh! Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Arrest (SELLCOM Tech) All contents here are copyrighted by Patrick Townson and the individual writers/correspondents. Articles may be used in other journals or newsgroups, provided the writer's name and the Digest are included in the fair use quote. By using -any name or email address- included herein for -any- reason other than responding to an article herein, you agree to pay a hundred dollars to the recipients of the email. =========================== Addresses herein are not to be added to any mailing list, nor to be sold or given away without explicit written consent. Chain letters, viruses, porn, spam, and miscellaneous junk are definitely unwelcome. We must fight spam for the same reason we fight crime: not because we are naive enough to believe that we will ever stamp it out, but because we do not want the kind of world that results when no one stands against crime. Geoffrey Welsh =========================== See the bottom of this issue for subscription and archive details and the name of our lawyer; other stuff of interest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Dave Garland Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 22:20:37 -0500 Organization: Wizard Information It was a dark and stormy night when dave@compata.com (Dave Close) wrote: > Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? Yep. > If so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? So long as *all* telcos stop charging extra for LD (I suppose this will mean we won't need to subscribe to a LD company any more, because the local telco will handle it at no additional charge), without raising local rates at all. Then there's no toll, so no need for an alert. Let us know when all numbers within the NANP can be dialed without any charge other than that for local phone service. ------------------------------ From: Steve Sobol Subject: Re: Vonage Upgrades Local Unlimited Calling Plan to Premium Date: Sun, 03 Oct 2004 23:24:44 -0700 Organization: Glorb Internet Services, http://www.glorb.com Dave Close wrote: > Are there any proponents of 1+ toll-alerting still on this list? If > so, isn't it time to admit that it's time to end that vacuousness? I didn't care up until I moved here, but now that I'm in an area where I can dial even long distance calls using seven digits (as long as they're in my area code), I'd prefer to have 1+. :) JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, http://JustThe.net/ Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net PGP Key available from your friendly local key server (0xE3AE35ED) Apple Valley, California Nothing scares me anymore. I have three kids. ------------------------------ From: Dave Thompson Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 07:27:54 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 07:02:35 GMT, bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi) wrote: > In article , > Dave Thompson wrote: > Sorry, there is use that predates the personal computer -- with a > modem on a dial-up to a mainframe time-sharing service. 'Terminal' is > the correct word. > Yeah, it got more common with the 1st generation hobby computers, like > SWTPC, and MITS. But there was prior art. :) Yes I know about terminals -- they're exactly what I described. I think the problem is that I took "standard TV receiver display" to mean a receiver, i.e. a complete set, used as a display, and disagreed with that; but you meant any display using a raster CRT in the same fashion as TV, i.e. receiver less tuner, audio, and later color. And as long as we're nitpicking for 3270s in particular it was almost certainly a leased line, and for other video terminals well might be . In fact a terminal could be hardwired to the next room to a normal comms port and still be a terminal, but the same display and keyboard handled by special logic (or microcode) was a console. And there were plenty of applications other than timesharing. >> But this is anachronistic (mythtaken?). The first "textual" video >> displays used in any number were IBM 3270 series, which were either >> 12x40 (model 1, cheaper) or 24x80 (model 2). They clearly got the 80 >> from cards, but I have no idea where they got the 24 -- possibly so >> that, as you also noted, the screen buffer is < 2KC. By "textual" I >> mean a raster chargen display as opposed to some earlier vector or >> "graphic" displays which could build a few characters out of line >> segments, but would flicker unusably for more than a few full lines of >> text; and Tektronix storage tubes which solved the flicker problem at >> the cost of taking a minute or several to draw each page, up to about >> 80x120 (squarish) IIRC, which then could not be edited. > A TEK 4019, with the high-res option, had an addressable matrix of > 3072x4096 points. It was -not- a 'raster' device, but rather, a pure > -vector- one. You didn't turn 'dots' on/off to make lines, you could > connect _any_ pair of arbitrary points with an actual straight line. Right. That's why I described it "as opposed to [raster]". > It also had hardware to draw actual circles (or arcs), given a > center-point and a radius. In the smallest rendering from the > on-board character generator, you got two columns of 80-column text. > With about 60 (66?) lines in each column. I do remember two columns, but I'm not certain you could get 80 chars in each without overlap. Even so your result 60?x160 is not that different from my vague recollection of 80x120. > Makes the quality of today's 'high resolution' 1280x1600 displays look > like sh*t. At least when doing technical graphics, like architectural > plans, or electronics schematics. For resolution absolutely. Contrast wasn't so oustanding under even moderate lighting -- I found myself holding a file folder or something to shadow the display a fair bit. (And AIUI this was a fundamental limitation; the "flood" electron energy had to be significantly less than the writing beam, which was itself constrained by the usual power and shielding/EMI considerations.) Actually the ones I used were IIRC 4021 and 4025; as I recall the model differences were minor, the dominant characteristics always being point-addressable and storage. And as I noted, not good for _editing_ or other interaction. > The 3270 used "standard TV" video circuitry. Slightly tweaked. > instead of 525 lines/frame interlaced, it used 262/field lines > non-interlaced (equivalent to 524 lines/frame), 60 fields/sec. Of > those 262 lines,242 were 'visible', giving a max vertical resolution > of 242 dots. > This allowed the use of 'commodity' components for the CRT and the > sweep circuitry. As well as allowing for maintenance with 'standard' > diagnostic and troubleshooting gear. I'm willing to believe the amp and H/V drives, although I wouldn't have thought that was a big deal considering the amount of additional (unsharable) digital circuitry for comms (or host interface), storage, and chargen. I didn't hear 15.75kHz tone from them -- in those days I could -- which might be just better manufacture and maintenance, but see below. The CRTs couldn't be; for years 3270s were green-only, and TVs weren't. Though I'm sure they were made by the same manufacturers, in almost the same process (modulo phosphor, and that same as 'scopes). > The 3270 was a 'smart' terminal -- necessitated by IBM's "block mode" > architecture -- and used 16 bits per displayed character. 1 byte for > the character itself, and one byte for the 'attributes'. things like > 'bright', 'blank', 'input', 'protected', etc. > Thus 12x80 was all you could get with _one_ 2k RAM for video memory. Not initially. "Basic" 3270s had only field attributes occupying a separate buffer position -- the "attribute byte". And only uppercase -- thus you only needed 6+1bits (although I believe they did 8 for parity) * 24*80. It was in the '70s sometime that "extended" character attributes and some additional field attributes were added, necessitating 16bits per cell. And optional RGB color. In a slight correction to Nick Landsberg elsethread: Yes you (the host program/mer) only need to store a field attribute byte at the beginning of each field, defined as when basic attributes changed or you need to separate input data. You might already be at the correct buffer position following previous data or start; (only) if not you position with SBA (Set Buffer Address) plus two bytes which together encode row*width+col. In either case you then do SF (Start Field) followed by the attribute byte, and then data if any. On normal input (not "read all" and not "unformatted") you get back SBA pos pos SF attr data for each field marked "modified", which as several people have indicated meant _either_ that the user typed into or edited it, _or_ it was initially marked that way by the program and could be hidden (blanked) and/or protected as well. Most(?) other terminals did direct positioning, if at all, with separate row and column bytes, and later with escape sequences having separate row and column number strings, but not 3270. > The 3270 was engineered from day one to be a 24x80 display. The model 1 > displayed a (manufactured) blank line between each line of 'real' > text. And column similarly? I admit I never saw an actual m1, the places I worked had m2's for programming, although there were still some apps designed to handle 12x40 _datastreams_ to and from (user) m1's which were used because they were reportedly cheaper. Although it wouldn't be the only time IBM hit a price point by overdesigning and hobbling. > Virtually _everything_ up to the 'MDA' for the IBM PC used standard > TV-type video raster circuitry. Tweaked slightly to eliminate the > interlace, resulting in 242 visible lines out of 262 intervals. 60 > Hz refresh. A great many of the DEC and other terminals -- which > were almost all white display and so could be stock CRTs -- were as > I said 24+1 lines, which for 5x9 or 7x9 +1 on each side is 250 > lines. That would require 12/262 < 5% retrace, which is pushing it > but I would believe possible. I do believe pretty much everyone did > use 60Hz for the same reason (US) TVs did, to avoid interference (or > worse beat) from AC power. But I see no reason a modestly different > horiz freq couldn't be used. And some of the non-IBM (&clone) terminals did have per-any-character attributes from their beginning, hence ~16bits memory per character. >> It was over a decade later when hobbyist computers like Apple, Altair, >> Imsai, Cromemco, Ohio Scientific wanted to use cheaply available >> consumer TVs that the NTSC limits of about 240 lines usable per field > Yes, and no. *Manufacturing* (including maintenance/repair/cali- > bration) economies dictated the use of standard tubes and > sweep-circuit componentry. See above about CRTs; I can't believe sweeps were that significant, and anyway should have been usable over at least a 10 or 20% range. Heck, IIRC "standard" commercial electronic components were only sold to 5% tolerance in the first place. >> and 400-some dots usable per line in the standard video bandwidth of >> ~4MHz became an issue, and yes 24x80 was pushing it and often less and >> often only uppercase 5x7 or 5x9 was used. > Building higher-bandwidth (well, within reason :) video amps is > relatively cheap. which is all that is necessary to get crisp 80 col > (or even 132 col) display, even at 'standard' sweep rates. Right. In fact even on consumer TVs I think you could get more than 4MHz from the (baseband) video circuitry, if you braved the HV and connected inside the set; the biggest problem was the intentionally and necessarily band-limited RF tuner. > 'TV video bandwidth' was an issue only when trying to use a 'consumer > grade' TV device as the display output. even back in the 60's-70's, > 'commercial grade' video monitors had response bandwidths well above > 10mhz. more than sufficient for 'crisp' 80-col upper-lower display. And I'm pretty sure I saw marketing (e.g. brochures) claiming at least some had nonstandard horiz freqs giving line count higher than 262 -- usable only for closed-circuit or maybe instrumentation, not from (or to) broadcast. But would not be affordable for a (typical) hobbyist. - David.Thompson1 at worldnet.att.net [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: In the real old days -- when I had my OSI-C1P computer with upper case only and a television set as the display monitor I found the only way I could get clear, sharp, easy- to-read characters was by turning the knobs on the back of the TV set; the knobs used for horizonal and vertical hold; by 'squaring up' the picture a little and lowering the brightness a little bit while increasing the contrast. In summary, fixing it so it could never again be used as a satisfactory television set. PAT] ------------------------------ From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) Subject: Re: What is the Name of #? How did # Get its Name? Date: 4 Oct 2004 10:51:26 -0400 Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000) Justin Time wrote: > Datapoint developed a split speed modem for use with their timesharing/ > data entry terminals. They had a 300/1200 baud modem, 300 transmit > because it was keystrokes and 1200 receive to handle the display > character input. This meant you could "paint" a full 1920 character > screen in about 1 1/2 seconds -- and that was pretty darn fast for > those days. But then computers had cycle times -- one trip through the > main timing chain to process a single instruction -- measured in > multiples of whole microseconds. This sounds to me like the old Bell 201 standard, which gave you 1200 bps forward and 110 bps return. Worked very well (and is still in some use on packet radio networks). Does anyone, by the way, have any specs on the proprietary Datapoint programming languages? I keep meaning to look for manuals to torture my students with. --scott "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." ------------------------------ From: David Clayton Subject: Re: Call Accounting Project Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 16:25:02 +1000 wuzzybunny@yahoo.com (Mike) contributed the following: > Hi, I'm upgrading my existing PBX to a nex neax 2400 ipx later this > year. After installation I'm intending on writing call accounting > software and GPLing it. What I am wondering if any one would be able to > provide me with a sample (a few thousand lines) of the text output > from a neax 1400 ipx system, or if anyone happens to know where I can > find samples prior to the system being installed. You need more than samples of data, you need the specification document explaining all the various record types and how they are to be used. Commercial Call Accounting vendors can take many, many man-hours to fully analyse and get right the CDR stream from a particular PBX -- and this also doesn't take into account the various versions and variations depending on what software is running in the PBX! Regards, David Clayton, e-mail: dcstar@XYZ.myrealbox.com Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. (Remove the "XYZ." to reply) Dilbert's words of wisdom #18: Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience. ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Call Accounting Project Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:36:36 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com wuzzybunny@yahoo.com (Mike) wrote in message news:: > Hi, I'm upgrading my existing PBX to a nex neax 2400 ipx later this > year. After installation I'm intending on writing call accounting > software and GPLing it. What I am wondering if any one would be able to > provide me with a sample (a few thousand lines) of the text output > from a neax 1400 ipx system, or if anyone happens to know where I can > find samples prior to the system being installed. > Thanks in advance, > Mike Try the NEAX User Group. neaxug.org. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Wrong Address For 911 Caller a Tragic Ordeal Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 01:22:18 GMT Dave VanHorn wrote: > Given that houses don't often move, why not go with a fixed IP, and > tie the IP to the address (as it probably already is, in the billing > records). Someday. But for now it's unregulated. At the moment it is the user's responsibility to update the records via the VoIP provider's web site. ------------------------------ From: dold@XReXXTollX.usenet.us.com Subject: Re: Toll Free Number Registry? Date: Mon, 4 Oct 2004 01:41:28 UTC Organization: a2i network TELECOM Digest Editor noted in response to CrowT : > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I would suggest you ask our 800 number > advisor here on our staff at the Digest. Judith Oppenheimer knows all > about those things and may be able to find a good number for you. You > can reach her at http://www.icbtollfree.com and if i am not mistaken > also at http://whosells800.com. She is *very experienced* at finding > and maintaining toll free numbers. PAT] I would have said that as well. Although I've never done business with her, I have corresponded with her, and in some ways considered myself a competitor. Judith has been around long enough that there is no concern over her business abilities, and she seems not to do the self-agrandizing posts to this group that made me think she was a fly-by-night when she started. Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8-122.5 [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: For a long time, Judith was submitting news stories here on a regular basis, then she got angry -- I suspect -- at someone here while I was in the nursing home recovering from my aneurysm, and she essentially quit writing news reports here. Now I rarely here from her any longer. Ditto Lisa Minter; she started off here with a bang and much enthusiasm, then a former reader/writer here trashed her so badly she more or less quit entirely. Now Lisa is back helping me with feature articles on the weekends mostly (she did get married a short time ago however), and I wish Judith Oppenheimer was still sending in her news reports as well. PAT] ------------------------------ From: Gene S. Berkowitz Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2004 23:04:54 -0400 In article , hiker@h.com says: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. ... well, it doesn't explain all the people worldwide struck by lighting who WERE NOT carrying a cell phone ... --Gene ------------------------------ From: a_user2000@yahoo.com (Justin Time) Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Date: 4 Oct 2004 08:41:04 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com hiker@h.com wrote in message news:: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. It wasn't the cell phone that attracted the lightning but the person acting as an antenna. The battery of the cell phone just showed the effects. I bet the results of an autopsy would show the entry/exit point of the strike and the burn from the cell phone battery are all different points on the body. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Cell Phone Attracts Lightning? Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:20:26 GMT hiker@h.com wrote: > What do people think about this? > http://www.hotelcorsaro.it/ > On 15th September a lightning killed a person while in excursion at > high altitude on Etna. He was our guest and he worked for a French > travel agency. He was a mountain expert but this time he has been > unlucky. Mobile telephone could be reason he was hit by a > lightning. His phone, in fact, exploded while his body and all other > affairs didn't show visible signs of what happened. We feel close to > Nicoladze family. He leaves his wife and two sons. Perfectly reasonable: the antenna was the highest point and the cell phone was the path of least resistance, which is all it takes. ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Voicepulse Disconnects Remote Computers When Phone is Used Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:09:29 GMT Rick Merrill wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> Chris Eilersen wrote: >>> I have a Linksys wireless-G router which is connected to one main >>> computer. I have 3 other computers in remote locations throughout my >>> house which with NIC cards and I share my internet bandwidth with >>> these machines through the Linksys router. >>> I recently got Voicepulse phone service and it works fine except I >>> just noticed that my network connection on the remote machines only is >>> lost when I use the phone. >> You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs >> this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so >> that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow >> down the computer connections. >> -- RM >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I tried the above set up with my Vonage >> phone since I had Quality of Service issues with my Vonage phone and >> the rest of my network. After I made that change, the Vonage phone >> mostly worked fine. But ... a big problem (at least, I thought it >> was). The Vonage TA (a Motorola box and firewall) sat there looking at >> the router (and its firewall). The two firewalls staring at each other >> were *always* causing me hassles. I never could get them to 'play >> nicely' with each other. Yes, they would work, a little, but I had to >> spend more time rebooting the firewalls than working on line it >> seemed. The NetGear router did *not* appreciate having its connection >> to the WAN or wide area network being another firewall (Motorola). And >> forget about the idea of getting any file transfers in from people >> over networks such as AOL, or Yahoo, or Microsoft Instant Messenger. >> Time and again the whole system would freeze up and have to be rebooted. >> I went back to my old way of doing things, which was having the Vonage >> telephone adapter just being a port on the router, and living with the >> occassional drop outs in voice quality when one of the computers >> wanted to do something. I am not in a position to buy a wide enough >> pipe to the net to fix it so it does not matter. PAT] > I have Dlink DVG1120M and IT has both NAT and DHCP so it assigns an IP > to the router (using 192.168.15.xxx) and router (having NAT and DHCP) > assigns an IP to the PC(s) (using 192.168.0/1.xxx) - so everybody is > happy as a clam. The SECRET is the 2 minute drill: power all off, > power modem, wait 2 min; power TA, wait 2 min; power router; wait 2 > min; power PC and you're in like flint. - RM > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Yeah, that's what NetGear and Motorola > both told me about my setup. It does not sound like 'two minutes' to > me, It is called "2 min. drill" but as Alice said, "that's not really what it is." > it sounds more like 8-10 minutes out of service by the time you give > every device on the line its own two minutes. Most modern devices only need 20 seconds. > And what happens when I wake up tomorrow morning and find it all > crashed overnight? Anther 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus 2 plus hope I got it > right? PAT] 'Twon't happen: it'll just look like a power failure ; - ) Clark W. Griswold wrote: > Rick Merrill wrote: >> You should have modem <==> VoicePulse <==> router <==> PCs >> this way QoS (quality of service) can be maintained by the voicepulse so >> that when it requires bandwidth to maintain voice quality it can slow >> down the computer connections. > Voicepulse uses the Sipura 2000 VOIP adapter, which does not do > ethernet passthrough or provide any router functions. That said, I > have not noticed any problems just hanging it off a spare port on my > Linksys WRTG54G. No "ethernet passthrough" == No QoS. i.e. if you're doing a Long Web Download, what happens to the voice part of the bandwidth? > They do provide a means of configuring the Sipura box to control the > amount of bandwidth it uses, but since the max is 64Kbps, I never saw > the need. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Does anyone know how to patch two > routers together if four holes is not enough? Or is that even > possible? PAT] It is possible with limits: make sure the LAN has only 1 DHCP (turn off DHCP in one router ); make sure no more than 4 hub/routers between any two nodes, OR you can just use all switches. - RM ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 12:17:13 -0400 Subject: Punch Card Machines (was What is the Name of #? (please obscure my email address as usual - tnx). > The 1948 line of interpreters were NOT intended to print one character > per column -- the width of the printed character was slightly wider than > a column. Only 60 characters would fit on the top and 20 would have to > go on the next line. In practice, the interpreters were programmed by > the plug panel to print selected fields in certain places, and could do > so all over the card. This is correct. > Also, most IBM lines of keypunches included printing and non printing > models, and the non-printers were cheaper. Also correct (I'm not sure there was a non-printing 12x model -- these were the ones with a nicer keyboard introduced around 1960?). Duplication of binary cards with the printing turned on was strongly discourages, since it wrecked the printing mechanism (a matrix printer with a Rube Goldberg mechanical character generation mechanism). > They could also print a big number sideways on > the side edge so the card could be filed vertically. No. That was not the interpreter, but a function incorporated into the 519 (for example) reproducing/gang punch in the punch feed. Julian Thomas: http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org To whom the gods destroy, they first teach Windows ... ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas My serial port of my laptop is broken and I bought an external serial > port on USB. I would like to use this in DOS but all the software only > lets you select COM1 to COM4. It works fine under WinXP but not under > Dos. Pleas help me ... There is not a lot of hope for USB support under DOS, but this site may help: http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/ Julian Thomas: http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org An aquarium is just interactive television for cats. ------------------------------ From: Julian Thomas Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 13:45:13 -0400 Subject: Paper Tape; Gates at Harvard (as usual, please hide my email - tnx) > (And entirely as an aside, might Gates in 1971 even have used > some surviving paper tape reader that had been connected to > one of Aiken's early Mark xxx computers? I have no idea, and > no knowledge of how long that kind of paper tape hardware can > last; but I believe Aiken's Mark IV operated until some time in the > late 1950s.) Only the Mark I and Mark 4 were at Harvard, and only the Mark 1 used a very specialized paper tape for program control. The Mark 4 (MKIV) was still in place when a Univac 1 (complete with highspeed printer, card to tape and tape to card) was installed around 1957 or 58. Remington at that time had to make a backup machine available in the area for John Hancock, and gave the Univac to Harvard with the arrangement that it could be preempted as the backup if needed. Julian Thomas: jt@jt-mj.net http://jt-mj.net In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State! Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc http://www.possi.org In toto . . . does NOT mean "Dorothy's dog ate it!" ------------------------------ From: Rick Merrill Subject: Re: Three Million Scans Uncover Over 83 Mill Instances of Spyware Organization: Comcast Online Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 18:30:27 GMT Oh, I thought it said THREE MILLION SCAMS ! Silly me. ------------------------------ From: SELLCOM Tech support Subject: Re: Cell Phone Incident Results in DC Metro Arrest Organization: www.sellcom.com Reply-To: support@sellcom.com Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 19:43:55 GMT My name is Steve and I have a cellphone. Sometimes when I am going into a place where others are, I take out my cellphone and talk into it. Sometimes in restaurants I do that too and pretend to be real upset talking to my broker and say things like, "Man, sell everything quick". Sometimes when it is a wrong number I answer, "Wrong number how may I help you." (in a very professional business like manner). One time the lady called back and I did it again in a cheery professional voice. She sounded frustrated and shouted "What kind of company is this?". I replied calmly and professionally, "This is the wrong number. We are the ones you get when you push the wrong buttons." That was in a grocery store checkout line. Most of the time I just answer and talk to whoever is calling me. Steve at SELLCOM Statements here do not necessarily reflect the official doctrine or opinions of anyone or anything else for that matter. No warranty express or implied, at least I don't think there is ... http://www.sellcom.com Discount multihandset cordless phones by Siemens, AT&T, Panasonic, Motorola Vtech 5.8Ghz; TMC ET4000 4line Epic phone, OnHoldPlus, Beamer, Watchguard! Brick wall "non MOV" surge protection. Uniden 2line 5.8GHz cordless If you sit at a desk www.ergochair.biz you owe it to yourself. ------------------------------ TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of networks such as Compuserve and America On Line, Yahoo Groups, and other forums. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. TELECOM Digest is a not-for-profit, mostly non-commercial educational service offered to the Internet by Patrick Townson. All the contents of the Digest are compilation-copyrighted. You may reprint articles in some other media on an occasional basis, but please attribute my work and that of the original author. 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