HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Budi Rahardjo)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Apple ][ cassete port (was Re: Apple ][ gritty digitizer)
Keywords: sound, cheap
Date: 8 Apr 92 22:08:37 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

jay@puppsr5.Princeton.EDU (Jay Shrauner) writes:
...
>This was the only use I ever found for that cassette port---

Well, I connected the cassete port to a 2-m FM transmitter/receiver.
Then I broadcasted msgs on my Apple ][ to several friends listening on
the same frequency. We took turns (poll) to send msgs. That was fun.
Also we were able to send graphics (I am not sure whether it was hi-res or
lo-res).

Obhack: Semi-automatic one-way newsfeed.
Wrote a perl-script to check my .newsrc, collect newer articles
in a file, compress it (with zoo), and update .newrc. Downloaded the news
to a PC every morning manually (was planning to write a kermit script
on the pc to be executed by a cron like program). Wrote a C program to
to uncompress the file and fed each article to the proper directory 
(execute rnews) on my PC running Waffle as BBS. Neat newsfeed.
That was before I got a real UUCP connection.

-- budi
-- 
Budi Rahardjo <rahardj@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Unix Support - Computer Services - University of Manitoba
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: The Hacker Test PROGRAM!
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 02:41:11 GMT

In article <1992Apr12.202824.26662@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> jmlake@grimm.cogsci.uiuc.edu (J M Lake) writes:
>peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>>Wimps. You're all spoiled by all these large-address-space machines.

>This said by a man who has a PostScript signature.  Oy vey!

Yeh, but I do my Postscript on a dot matrix printer. And I still use our 48K
Atari 800. Well, I don't do Postscript on it... just Forth (and get ticked
off at the wimps at Adobe who refused to learn from the mistakes made in
Forth: they made all the classic ones, and invented a whole new bunch of
their own).

I'd do a Forth signature but nobody would understand it.
-- 
base @ hex : `-_-' 22 emit type 22 emit ; : U type ; : (") r> dup count +
=cells >r ; : " state @ if compile (") else here then 22 word here count
=cells allot ; base ! cr " Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-' cr
." Taronga Park BBS +1 713 568 0480 2400" cr " Peter da Silva" U cr
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Subject: Re: DSing the SS (was Re: Apple ][ gritty digitizer)
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 22:13:41 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Apr9.183353.4565@julian.uwo.ca> magundi@gaul.csd.uwo.ca (john macdonald) writes:
>In article <GLENN.92Apr9103152@curie.ces.cwru.edu> glenn@curie.ces.cwru.edu (Glenn Crocker) writes:
>
>You forgot to mention that we had to make the disks out of solid rock.
>With our bare hands!!!

You had HANDS?   (see Approved line... this IS getting silly)
-- 
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures.  Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
From: mvp@netcom.com (Mike Van Pelt)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Credit Card Authorization Machines
Date: 9 Apr 92 07:12:00 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

I used to know a bit about Verifone boxes -- I wrote a program for them
to be used as engineering timeclocks at a local Silicon Valley
company.  *Gad*, what a grundgy hack!  But it worked, and the customer
was happy, so what the heck.

Verifones contain a Z80 and 64K (32K for the Jr.) of RAM.  But you
can't program them in Z80 assembler.  You have to use their built-in
"language".

Verifone programs (rolling back old, dropout-ridden memory tape
here...) are sequences of characters followed by numbers. The character
was the "function" name, the numbers were parameters.  There was PC
software to "compile" programs; which mostly just meant crunching off
the comments and spaces, plus downloading the program to the Verifone
box.

A program would typically look something like this.  (Note, this
is entirely made up.  I don't still have any programs or manuals,
and I'm sure none of these commands are correct.)

$140            ;  put this stuff in memory location 140
     *I,0,1     ; force modem off hook
     J100       ; dial the number in memory location 100
     C150       ; call subroutine at location 150
     D20        ; wait up to 20 seconds for carrier else reset
     *W"login:" ; wait for login  prompt

... etc.  Inside the Verifone memory, you could examine the program
with FUNC-7, and it'd look like  *I,0,1J100C150D20*W"login:"  You could
even patch and change the programs with FUNC-8.

Each "memory location" could hold a certain number of characters --
someting like 40, as I recall.

The  customer was one of those government contractor sites with
a government requirement that they account for every engineer's time
by the minute, so each engineer got a barcode sheet with codes for 
whatever projects they were working on.

My "timeclock" program would accept transactions from the barcode
reader.  (That's what one of those DIN plugs on the back is for; the
other is RS232.)  They'd scan  their badge, then scan the appropriate
boxes on the sheet whenever they switched from one project to another,
or left to go to the bathroom or something.  (I want to vomit just
thinking about this.  I don't see how anybody can work at government
contractor sites.  Anyway...) The box would automatically go into
upload mode after <x> minutes of inactivity, or when its memory was y%
full.  Then it'd dial into the mainframe, go into the database program,
and pretend it was a data entry clerk at a vt100 keying in the data.
Once it verified that the data had been accepted, it would erase the
transactions from its memory.

-- 
Mike Van Pelt            Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
mvp@netcom.com           Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide,
                         Slosh it around and impregnate your brain
                         With dichlordiphenyltrichloroethane.
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: steveha@microsoft.com (Steve Hastings)
Subject: Apple ][ sound bytes
Date: 08 Apr 92 19:08:54 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Applications Division
Summary: 1-bit sound sampled through the joystick port

When I was in high school, we had a "computer lab" full of Apple ][+
computers.  Once, I set one up to record and play back sound samples.

Now, I'll admit right now that I don't get many hack points for this,
because I was working from a magazine article instead of a brilliant idea
from my own brain.  But I did set it up and hack around with it.

The hardware was minimal, or else I could never have afforded to play
around with it.  My memory is dim -- I believe the sound input was through
the cassette recorder port, and I believe I recorded the sounds to sample
on a cassette tape and then played the cassette tape through the port.  (It
could have been the joystick port, but I think it was the cassette port.)

The software was, of course, assembly language; BASIC would never have been
fast enough.  Even though it was assembly language, the sofware was very
simple and easy to understand.

To record samples, a tight loop read the input port and decided whether
the incoming signal was above or below a certain threshold.  If it was
above, the software stashed a "1" bit in the data bank; if it was below,
the software stashed a "0".

For playback, there was another tight loop that ran at the same speed as
the tight recording loop.  It would fetch a bit, and if the bit was "1" it
would click the speaker.  If the bit was "0" it would leave the speaker
alone.

There was a little more code for saving sampled sounds to disk, and
fetching them from disk for playback.  48K of RAM was enough for perhaps
ten seconds of sound.

That's it!  It was only 1-bit sound, but it sure was fun to play around
with, and it was a very educational experience for a high-school hacker to
do.  It showed me how basically simple the idea of sampling sounds is.
-- 
Steve "I don't speak for Microsoft" Hastings    ===^=== :::::
uunet!microsoft!steveha  steveha@microsoft.uucp    ` \\==|
From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Those Apple ][ days of yore...
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 22:11:07 GMT

If you're an Apple-II hacker, you NEED to get an Amiga. It has all the
hacking space of the Apple-II with none of the disadvantages.
-- 
/F{findfont exch scalefont setfont}def /S{moveto show}def /T{/Times-Roman F}def
6 T (Have you hugged your wolf today?)468 20 S 9 T (Taronga Park BBS)24 35 S 10
/Courier F(`-_-')488 40 S ( 'U` )488 30 S 6 T (+1 713 568 0480 2400/n/8/1)24 27
S (+1 713 568 1032 Trailblazer)24 20 S 12 T (Peter da Silva)24 45 S showpage
From: flaps@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: DSing the SS (was Re: Apple ][ gritty digitizer)
Date: 9 Apr 92 03:39:14 GMT
Organization: Dynamic Graphics Project, University of Toronto

clb@hp835.mitek.com (Chris Boyd) writes:
>ObHack:
>Making my own punch to cut a write protect notch on the other
>side of one of those $4.50 SSSD disks so's that I could write
>data on the flipside of the disk.

ha!  We just cut 'em out with scissors.  Easy to miss the media.  Lots of
leeway in there.
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Organization: large
Date: 15 Apr 1992 12:00:34 EDT
Expires: 1 Apr 93 12:34
Subject: quarter steps
From: hobbit@babyoil.ftp.com (*Hobbit*)

What you're all vaguely hinting at is PWM.  By wailing the stepper back and
forth about 5000 times a second with a predetermined duty cycle, you could
in theory address anywhere between two tracks, or half-tracks, or whatever.
Unfortunately, steppers don't respond linearly to this sort of thing, but
it's fun to play with.  I'm using this technique with a stepper with a
mirror attached, to pick different color lines off a laser.  The duty cycle
is adjustable with KNOBZ [yay analog!...]

obhack, if you insist: babyoil.ftp.com:/hobbit/Hinews.tar

_H*
From: jim@rand.org (Jim Gillogly)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: TV guide codes
Date: 12 Apr 92 18:36:43 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Banzai Institute

In article <1960@lehi3b15.csee.Lehigh.EDU> cbracy@lehi3b15.csee.lehigh.edu (Chris Bracy) writes:
>
>Does anybody out there know the secret to the numeric codes used
>by TV Guide to program VCRs.  Or a suggestion for another group to ask?

It was covered in sci.crypt and some of the consumer electronics type
groups a few quarters ago.  There wasn't a complete break, but the first
1000 VCR+ codes were broken and a program posted.  The authors were
extending it to the first 10000 (if memory serves), but were approached by
the VCR+ people, who took umbrage at the idea of somebody breaking and
posting their algorithm. "Everybody" agrees that it's silly for them to
think they have a trade secret without patenting or copyrighting it, but
the hackers evidently didn't think it was worth the legal hassle.

ObHack: Lots of false positives in the PKZIP encryption challenge, but
there's evidently no way to know when one is finished, since the encrypted
data appears to be random (i.e. no compression).  Pretty silly, if you
ask me.  Don't bother trying 3-letter pws or printable 4-letter ones. :-)
And we can't try to break the encryption itself, if the plaintext is really
random.  Yup, silly.

-- 
 Jim Gillogly | Actually the Bush administration is just preparing the public
 jim@rand.org | for its planned confiscation of Panama under RICO. Dan Eldred
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: The Hacker Test PROGRAM!
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 09:59:40 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <chris.702814116@rufus> chris@state.COM.AU (Chris Keane) writes:

>BB1TSPNW@MIAMIU.BITNET writes:

>>section 1 of uuencode 4.02 of file hacktest.zip    by R.E.M.
>> 
>>begin 644 hacktest.zip
>                    ^^^

>You already lose :-)

Not necessarily--not if it was compressed with a version of zip that the
original poster ported to a new machine personally.  Smart hackers are
all running the new beta version of the portable zip--though the ones
that have zoo 2.10 may be doing it just for fun.  Compress is a complete
waste of time and storage, and no serious hacker would use it for
anything except to distribute code to those places still so lost in the
dark ages that they have nothing else available.  :-)

ObHack: rewriting most of Apple II DOS 3.x in Forth so that I could get
high-speed random access to text files, rather than using the
mind-bogglingly slow CIN calls to read the text a byte at a time.
I even managed to get payed for this (does it still count as a hack?)
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't |   I figure the odds be fifty-fifty:
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | I just might have something to say. --FZ
From: fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Apple II disk controllers
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:05:57 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA

In article <1992Apr13.183032.19859@microunity.com> jsw@thalia.microunity.com (Jeff Weinstein) writes:
>  If I recall correctly the quarter track method involved moving
>the stepper alternately between two half-tracks quickly enough that
>it would not actually be able to move.  The stepper would not actually
>stay at a quarter track by itself.

I believe that, on most drives, you could tell it to start moving, and then
turn on two adjacent magnets simultaneously.  This would freeze it on the
quarter track.

Variations in drive mechanisms prevented quarter-tracking from working on
certain drives though (which provided me with an incentive to break Sierra
On-Line's Frogger game, which used the Spirodisk scheme).

>Jeff Weinstein - X Protocol Police

-- 
fadden@uts.amdahl.com (Andy McFadden)
[ Above opinions are mine, Amdahl has nothing to do with them, etc, etc. ]
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: The Hacker Test PROGRAM!
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 01:14:54 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <WOHE9C@taronga.com> peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) writes:

>In article <xzvjqyf.xtifr@netcom.com> xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:
>>Compress is a complete
>>waste of time and storage, and no serious hacker would use it for
>>anything except to distribute code to those places still so lost in the
>>dark ages that they have nothing else available.  :-)

>Wimps. You're all spoiled by all these large-address-space machines.

Nope, my brother ported unzip to the Apple II.  Hardly a large machine.

'Course he *did* have to rewrite it in assembly....  ;-)

>Sometimes even compress is too much. Plus, zip breaks the division between
>tools by combining an archive format with a compression program, so you
>can't pipeline the two jobs.

Nobody is FORCING you to use the archive features of zip or zoo.  It's
perfectly possible to zip up a tar file (usually gives better
compression if you do that, too!)  Both zoo and portable zip support
pipelines!
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't |   I figure the odds be fifty-fifty:
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | I just might have something to say. --FZ
From: jprevost@visual.spk.wa.us (Jack Prevost)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: My first Unix hack: Uploading batch of e-mail
Date: 6 Apr 92 07:01:01 GMT
Organization: The Visual Market Public Access Site - Spokane, WA

>Approved: Fermat's Last Theorem?  Yeah, I proved it.  Trivial, really.

<grin>  Now that's one of the best approved lines I've seen in a
while...
 
_______________________________________________________________________
|jprevost@visual.spk.wa.us|"Reality is a Retreat of the Unimaginitive"|
|.signature virus was here|          =//= Bishop d'Song =//=          |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: drb@cs.brown.edu (Dan Bornstein)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Apple ][ gritty digitizer
Date: 7 Apr 1992 19:40:09 GMT
Organization: Brown Computer Science Dept.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cslab9d.cs.brown.edu
Keywords: sound, cheap

In article <468@rri.UUCP>, grantham@rri.UUCP (Brad Grantham) writes:
>Anyone ever write a digitizer using the Apple ][ cassette port?
But of course! Mine was called "Reel-to-Reel" and was my opus
magnum of 6502. In order to get maximum sampling time, I made my
code run in the $D000-$F000 range (replacing BASIC). Variable
sampling rates, with three cycle-counted loops (bit-level, byte-
level, page-level)--play and record (and play-backward!) routines
had identical timings for all three loops. "Oscilloscope" display
and "tape counter." Even a little textified reel-to-reel icon
that would show if the tape was fully rewound or fast-forwarded.
Editing capabilities (copy one area to another, erase parts).
Online help. Choice of "beep" sounds. And the best part: It did
a check for keypresses in the sample/playback loops, so you could
interrupt midstream and do stuff like hold down the "skip-back" key
and repeat while playing forward and get strange reverby effects.
It could also playback over the phone if you had an AppleCat modem.

What? Reminiscing about previous hacks isn't enough for this group?
Okay, last week I decompiled some SPARC code with a friend.

-dan
drb@cs.brown.edu      You have to go to school because YOUR PARENTS ARE ALIENS!
                      And when you leave they SHED THEIR HUMAN SKIN and
                      BREATHE DRYER LINT!
                          -- Dr. Stupid
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: DSing the SS (was Re: Apple ][ gritty digitizer)
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 11 Apr 92 03:02:20 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

imp@solbourne.com (Warner Losh) writes:
> You could type?  Pure luxury.  At least you had a keyboard.  We had to
> key in the entire operating system using front pannel switches....

You had an operating system?

ObHack:
$if p1.eqs."." then p1:=[-]!'f$ver(0)'
$if p1-"["-"<"-":".eqs.p1 then p1="[.\"+p1-"\."-"\"+"]"-".]"
$if p1-"[".nes.p1 then p1=p1-"]"+"]"
$x=f$pa(p1,"[]")-"]["-"000000."-"].;"
$p=f$sear(f$pa(x+".-].dir",f$pa(x+"]")-(f$pa(x+".-]")-"].;"-"000000")-"]"-"."))
$if p.nes."" then p1=f$ele(0,"]",p)+".''f$pa(p,,,"NAME")']"-"000000."
$set def 'p1'
$show def

--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                        don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre            don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand              +64-4-495-5052
From: grs01132@runt.appstate.edu
Newsgroups: alt.education.disabled
Subject: Wanted: Ideas on mainstreaming
Date: 12 Apr 92 04:06:47 GMT
Organization: Appalachian State University

I am researching methods to promote peer and/or teacher interaction in 
integrated settings.  My research is geared toward mainstreamed preschools but
I would appreciate ideas for all ages.  

Please send E-mail because I don't read this newsgroup often.  Thanks in 
advance.
-- 
Cecilia Adams     			The only things certain in life are	
<GRS01132@stat.appstat.edu>             death, taxes, and the Duke Blue
<GRS01132@appstat.bitnet>               Devils in March.
Appalachian State University            Sweet Repeat in '92
Academic Computing                      Threepeat in '93
Newsgroups: alt.education.distance
From: lg273116@hp9k.lag.itesm.mx (Fernando Cisneros Mtz.)
Newsgroups: alt.dcom.telecom
Subject: modem question
Keywords: modem standards
Date: 6 Apr 92 23:35:20 GMT
Article-I.D.: hp9k.lg273116.702603320


       I need some info on modem standards, I'd like to know if 
I could connect synchronous comunications between modems with
v.27 or v.28 standards. It wold help if you can send me some
info on that subject.


				Fernando Cisneros.

                             lg273116@hp9k.lag.itesm.mx
Organization: Masters student, Information Networking Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: alt.dcom.telecom
Date: Tue,  7 Apr 1992 11:12:56 -0400 
From: Luis J Mendez <lm2k+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Survey

	Sorry for the waste of bandwidth...
	My name is Luis Mendez, student at the Information Networking Institute
at Carnegie Mellon and I am working on a survey for an Industrial
Administration course.  The purpose of the survey is to collect
information regarding the characteristics that industrial customers look
for in a firm from which they plan to buy a product or service and how
those characteristics affect the selection process.  As area of study, I
have chosen computer hardware firms.  It is of my interest to learn what
characteristics are considered by corporations when deciding from which
firm it is desirable to buy computer hardware.  If any of this netnews'
readers would like to participate on this survey, please send me an
email and a fax number where I can reach you, and I will fax you back
the questions and all the information concerning the survey.  Any help
you can bring me will be really appreciated.  Copies of the team's final
report will be available upon request.  Thanks for your help.

	Luis Mendez
	lm2k@andrew.cmu.edu  
Newsgroups: alt.dcom.telecom
From: n1gak@netcom.com (Scott Statton)
Subject: Re: ANAC List I
Date: Thu, 09 Apr 92 18:53:08 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Distribution: na
Keywords: ANAC


Some thoughts on ANAC.  I too, get really miffed when I hear people call it
ANI.  In fact, if you ask Joe Installer "What's the ANI number here?" He'll
often say "Huh?  THere's no such thing".  ANI being the mechanism for outbound
sgnalling on Toll trunks, etc.  If you ask "Come on, dude, I've got 48 
lines in my house - I could really use ANAC to keep my IW straight" <Don't
laugh -- in my last house, I had 27 analog trunks ... A buddy of mine has over
50 lines plus four T-spans>.  Anyway - the ONE and ONLY reason that crafts-
people are trained to keep ANAC a "big dark secret" is resource allocation.
In most offices [And I've worked in a lot] there is precisely ONE ANAC box.
Another tidbit -- often the audio from THE box is piped over a PA speaker near
the MDF.  So if you sit calling ANAC over &over, there's probably some crafts-
person giggling to himself and spilling coffee ... 
Topologically:  ANAC is almost always configured as a toll-trunk-group with
only one trunk, and as simple a dialing-pattern as you can get to it.  For 
example, in Stoneham MA (617-438) a DMS-100, ANAC is 200-HELP.  200 is 
treated as an NPA and sent out on the trunk group that ostensibly lands in 200
land which is a single trunk that plugs into an ANAC.  [BTW according to 
manufacturer sales-sheets ANAC means "Automated Number Announce Circuit", so
ANAC Circuit is redundant redundant.]  Various vendors get sneakier and
sneakier.  Some ANACs have "secure" and "non-secure" mode.  In secure mode,
it takes a "code" to get it to speak.  [I.E. a longer number].  

Another tidbit about ANAC:  Since the call is treated as an outbound toll
call, it generates AMA.  I'm sure there's some executroid sitting in an office
on the sixth floor of accounting counting the number of times you call
ANAC :-)  God only knows what will ever HAPPEN with that accounting ... *sigh*

Now - in nice modern CO's which is to say, #5E, which I've never had the
pleasure of tinkering with, ANAC might be a software feature.  But in MOST
offices { 1SXS, 5XB, 1E, 1AE, DMS-100 } It's a box on a shelf.  If I can
find it, I'll get my big box of Sales stuff from CO equip vendors and cite
some statistics.  

 'nuf for now

          Scott
From: hobbit@babyoil.ftp.com (*Hobbit*)
Newsgroups: alt.dcom.telecom
Subject: fbi wants your isdn
Date: 31 Mar 92 14:56:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: babyoil.29d87e64
Expires: 1 Apr 93 12:34
Distribution: na
Organization: large


The recent foofaraw about telcos spending a lot of extra money to help the FBI
et al be able to easily tap ISDN lines leads me to wonder this:  Wouldn't the
ISDN lines be set up so that the verification mechanism would work just the
same with them as any other line?  I.e. do they need special hardware, really?

_H*