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Kaypro Damage by Local Government - is it just an Australian thing?

cjs said:
Oh, I don't know. I've had plenty of times in my life when I've been frustrated enough during a debugging session, that, had the idea just popped into my head, I definitely would have gone in and started stabbing the traitorous DRAM chips. :)



Oh, this is brilliant! Please start a thread with some pics of your JR-100U, and post a ROM dump! (Oops, should have looked. I've found the existing thread; I'll comment more there.) I have never seen one, though I have seen pics of the foreign JR-200. Which BIOS, too, come to think of it, I do not have a copy of. (Though perhaps it was unchanged?) I have only the Japanese JR-200 (two versions) and JR-100.

I have dumps of the both JP BIOSes and the BASIC, along with partially disassembled versions of them, and lots of other docs in my retroabandon/panasonic-jr repo. That machine is also one of the reasons why I wrote my 6800 simulator. I'd love to get back to doing more work on it, if you're interested.

I don't know what happened to the photo I posted; it looked ok when I originally posted it. But here's another try:

View attachment 1272049
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Oh, that is a nice word processor. Small, neat and a wide screen CRT. Stuff like this was cutting edge before LCDs came out cheaply enough.
OK, I'll pull out the JR-100 and dump the ROMs but it's a Japanese model. The only difference between Japanese models and non-Japanese models is the power supply. Everything else was the same.

My father nearly got me the JR-200 but it was a lot more expensive than the 100 and he felt that the only difference was color and the space bar... He had no idea how much more powerful the JR-200 basic is over the JR-100 and it has real world interfacing capabilities. If I had the JR-200 I might not have gotten a Spectrum and would have followed a different path, but the Integer maths pushed me to upgrade sooner.
 
cj7hawk said:
OK, I'll pull out the JR-100 and dump the ROMs but it's a Japanese model. The only difference between Japanese models and non-Japanese models is the power supply. Everything else was the same.
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Interesting. I know on the JR-200U they changed the keyboard slightly by covering over one key (the kana key, I think), and they also changed the character set to substitute European characters for the kana, I believe. But I was surprised at how little they did; even the underbar was still in the traditional Japanese position, on the shifted key between the question mark and the right shift.

But it may not be worth dumping the ROM; I have both 5.00 (white text, black background and border on startup) ) and 5.01 (blue text, cyan background and green border on startup) dumped and in this repo. Note that the startup banner displays "5.0" for both versions.

You could, however, check the BASIC ROM version string at $BFF2-$BFF6 to see if yours says something other than "V5.00" or "V5.01" in those locations. If it does, I definitely want a copy!

cj7hawk said:
My father nearly got me the JR-200 but it was a lot more expensive than the 100 and he felt that the only difference was color and the space bar... He had no idea how much more powerful the JR-200 basic is over the JR-100 and it has real world interfacing capabilities
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Also the JR-200 has a fully programmable character set; the initial glyphs are downloaded from ROM into the microcontroller into the 4K of video SRAM. The JR-100 could program only 32 characters, I think. The JR-200 also has considerably better sound, and joystick ports.

I actually have yet to get my JR-100 up and running; it came without a PSU and I've not gotten around to plugging it in to my four-rail supply. But I guess I should try that soon, get the ROMs dumped, and start disassembling them.
 
I'm also in Australia and sometimes go and look at what people have put out for council cleanup, but the professional scroungers always get in first. One time I found two japanese 1990s electric typewriters that had had the leads cut off right at the plug. And the cut-off plugs were left in the same box.
Never have heard of any 'government intervention' though, that's a completely new one to me.
I've also purchased equipment from eBay US and in one instance the power cable had been cut off. I think it's just a thing that means the recipient/finder has to go out of their way to rewire and power it up, and if it bites them then that's their problem.
 
1944GPW said:
I'm also in Australia and sometimes go and look at what people have put out for council cleanup, but the professional scroungers always get in first. One time I found two japanese 1990s electric typewriters that had had the leads cut off right at the plug. And the cut-off plugs were left in the same box.
Never have heard of any 'government intervention' though, that's a completely new one to me.
I've also purchased equipment from eBay US and in one instance the power cable had been cut off. I think it's just a thing that means the recipient/finder has to go out of their way to rewire and power it up, and if it bites them then that's their problem.
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If that's the idea then it's not legally sound. It's like auto makers selling cars without wheels then blaming the buyers for having accidents. The main issue for liability IIRC, is foreseeable outcomes. If the outcome is foreseeable - eg, children picking up a loose plug or wiring it up and electrocuting themselves, then the actor is still liable. If there's a motive for someone to wire it up, making it more dangerous to "harm" someone who wants to fix it would be the likely perspective rather than "Protecting" them.
 
cj7hawk said:
If that's the idea then it's not legally sound. It's like auto makers selling cars without wheels then blaming the buyers for having accidents.
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IANAL, this is not legal advice, go talk to a lawyer if you need legal advice, etc. That said, here's my take on it.

There's a very large difference between selling something you expect them to use, and trying to throw something in the trash.

In the automobile case you describe, the seller clearly expects that the buyer will want to attach wheels, and probably indeed would be liable if they don't provide proper specifications for the wheel and instructions that can reasonably be followed by their customers to safely do this.

But when you're trying to throw something away, your obligation is simply to avoid creating something along the lines of an attractive nuisance. It is reasonable to foresee that if someone who doesn't know anything about electricity finds a toaster sitting out in the open, that they might pick it up, take it home and plug it in. The law might reasonably find that if it bursts into flame and burns down the house that you should have taken some reasonable steps to prevent this from happening.

But cutting off the power cord would probably be seen as a reasonable step. It prevents people from unwittingly trying to use the device, people who know nothing about electrical wiring are unlikely to try to wire it up, and the kind of people with the skill to wire it up likely also have the knowledge that they need to be prepared for this eventuality.

Sure, people with no knowledge could try to wire it up and burn down their house, but everybody knows that electricity can be dangerous, so if they're approaching it with no knowledge at all, they're not a "reasonable person."

I don't think you need to make an attempt to mitigate every possible circumstance that could arise from you trying to throw out a toaster, just those ones that could affect reasonable people, as opposed to "Florida man."
 
Probably someone sometime successfully sued a unit of local governance. And then for caution this pro-forma cable cutting began.

Overall, in any democratic country if this reached a court high enough it would be dismissed.
I can go to a convenience store, get a bottle of acid, and leave it on the street. Legally. If someone takes it and mishandles it it's not my problem or the problem of the store or council. There is a hazard label on the packaging. Even if it wasn't, common sense applies, that a person that opens unlabeled bottle off the street and consumes it lacks. Only if I intentionally stripped off the label or something like that, but even then the person lacking common sense couldn't sue for damages, only state would sue me for reckless/criminal behaviour.

I am playing football on free, public, concrete-paved pitches. I've cut both of my palms open, tripped and landed on hands, years ago. Why should I have legal rights to sue anyone?

Following the legal news from America I can conclude that a lot of rules and regulations are put because some stuff might be open for interpretation. So everyone wants to protect himself. Heard a case in a southern country where it was legal to put up an electric fence but warning signs had to be on multiple languages. I guess there was a 1% chance of a court deciding against the owner of the fence if a non-english speaker runs into it, and they didn't want to take any chances.
 
cjs said:
Interesting. I know on the JR-200U they changed the keyboard slightly by covering over one key (the kana key, I think), and they also changed the character set to substitute European characters for the kana, I believe. But I was surprised at how little they did; even the underbar was still in the traditional Japanese position, on the shifted key between the question mark and the right shift.

But it may not be worth dumping the ROM; I have both 5.00 (white text, black background and border on startup) ) and 5.01 (blue text, cyan background and green border on startup) dumped and in this repo. Note that the startup banner displays "5.0" for both versions.

You could, however, check the BASIC ROM version string at $BFF2-$BFF6 to see if yours says something other than "V5.00" or "V5.01" in those locations. If it does, I definitely want a copy!


Also the JR-200 has a fully programmable character set; the initial glyphs are downloaded from ROM into the microcontroller into the 4K of video SRAM. The JR-100 could program only 32 characters, I think. The JR-200 also has considerably better sound, and joystick ports.

I actually have yet to get my JR-100 up and running; it came without a PSU and I've not gotten around to plugging it in to my four-rail supply. But I guess I should try that soon, get the ROMs dumped, and start disassembling them.
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It's V5.01

( And V5.0 in the startup ).

And I get the colors as you describe also.

OK, JR100 stuff. The ROM is from $E000 to $FFFF. I can send a MSAVE also if that helps.


And the MSAVE as an audio,


After I desoldered the ROM, tested it, ripped the data, soldered it back ( in a socket ), tested again, then put the screws in and my JR100 just gives a white screen. After 30 minutes of panic and pull out the CRO, I notice the CRO sees the video signal just fine... Reset the monitor, all's good... Not a good time for my monitor to glitch!... Lol!
 
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cjs said:
There's a very large difference between selling something you expect them to use, and trying to throw something in the trash.
Click to expand...

It's probably different in Australia because some kids have been killed / injured by pickup rubbish, so some things like leaving fridge doors on will get you in trouble with the local council, and maybe the police also. But there are no rules around removing power cables as long as your actions don't lead to a hazard - hence the safest thing is to leave them on.

I've posted the files you're needing :)
 
Zare said:
Probably someone sometime successfully sued a unit of local governance. And then for caution this pro-forma cable cutting began.

Overall, in any democratic country if this reached a court high enough it would be dismissed.
I can go to a convenience store, get a bottle of acid, and leave it on the street. Legally. If someone takes it and mishandles it it's not my problem or the problem of the store or council. There is a hazard label on the packaging. Even if it wasn't, common sense applies, that a person that opens unlabeled bottle off the street and consumes it lacks. Only if I intentionally stripped off the label or something like that, but even then the person lacking common sense couldn't sue for damages, only state would sue me for reckless/criminal behaviour.
Click to expand...

The USA is an amazing place. The grand canyon is incredible. I was culture shocked by the people walkined around on ledges just a few meters wide with their children, and no safety rails. That could never happen in Australia. This is a place where you aren't even allowed to have a weapon ( of any type ) to defend yourself, and if you do use one, you might have to prove you never planned to use whatever it was (especially a firearm) as a weapon even if the person attacking you wasn't harmed. Dinkum.

But smash someone in the face with a glass held in a punch and shred their skin, leaving them permanently disfigured and maimed? That's OK, and you'll only be charged relevant to the damage you caused and for causing fear. And you might get off that too. Just so long as you didn't bring the glass with you. If you brought the glass with you, it's a weapon, and you go to jail.

Yeah, it's a bit crazy here at the fringes of the law.

IANAL also. Just stuff I've observed... Though mostly it's actually a peaceful country and you can walk most places without fear except for Melbourne and the protesters.
 
Well Australia does go to great lengths to ensure safety. Because it's quite a dangerous environment.

I think Americans do good job with nature parks as they don't ruin them with unnecessary safety. We also don't. And we routinely have search and rescue over mountains or the sea for unsuspecting people that think mountains and flip flops go together. Nobody is going to install infrastructure and ruin nature to deny them the 'pleasure'. When they screw up, SAR rescues them free of charge.

And yeah our legal is a lot like Australia too. If a cop discharges a weapon that one bullet is going to be headline for days. If you beat somebody up and pull a couple of strings, tell your math teacher to appear at court and testify you were good in school, tell local grandma to testify you walked her across the road, they let you go with probation.

While we're offtopic the biggest blunt with judiciary is giving someone 4 years and 10 months for a very serious crime like manslaughter. Below 5 years you don't have to start the sentence immediately - and you're defending yourself from freedom or from investigative jail, which is far far less strict than prison. So couple of strings pulled, enough for proceeding with appeals to last for years, and then in the end judge orders that you've already served 80% of the sentence in time passed and you're let go.
 
cj7hawk said:
OK, JR100 stuff. The ROM is from $E000 to $FFFF. I can send a MSAVE also if that helps.
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Thanks for that! I've stuck it in my JR reverse-engineering repo; I'll be uploading my ROM dump there when I get around to it. And I'll probably eventually do at least a partial disassembly of that ROM.

cj7hawk said:
This is a place where you aren't even allowed to have a weapon ( of any type ) to defend yourself....
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Some would argue that if you feel you need to carry around a weapon (particularly a firearm) to defend yourself, wherever you live has bigger problems it should be dealing with. But each to his own.
 
cj7hawk said:
It's probably different in Australia because some kids have been killed / injured by pickup rubbish, so some things like leaving fridge doors on will get you in trouble with the local council, and maybe the police also. But there are no rules around removing power cables as long as your actions don't lead to a hazard - hence the safest thing is to leave them on.
Click to expand...
Well, it seems to me pretty reasonable that you don't leave locking doors on fridges you're disposing of if there's any chance that there's kids around. Same way that if you have a deep, disused swimming pool, you should have a fence around it if there's kids around. These all come under the category of "attractive nuisance."

I personally feel that cutting power cables off of electrical appliances is going further than one needs, though I've not really studied up much on the effects of that, so I could be wrong. But I see why people might feel they want to (or have to) do it. And it doesn't seem particularly harmful, either; I have no problem putting on a new power cord (and checking for RIFA caps, and...).

On the other hand, murdering to death vintage DRAM by stabbing, well, I might have a little argument with people like that. :)
 
cjs said:
Some would argue that if you feel you need to carry around a weapon (particularly a firearm) to defend yourself, wherever you live has bigger problems it should be dealing with. But each to his own.
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Oh, I'm not talking about walking around with weapons... Nobody does that in Australia, except maybe youth gangs and the likes, and that's pretty rare... Most commonly knifes and people who come here from cultures where they form ethnic gangs that would be more normal in other countries but don't mix well with our values. You're pretty safe on the streets.

I'm actually talking about weapons being prohibited within the house itself. Where you sleep and where you're most targetted. You can't have anything in the home for use as a weapon either. That includes things like pepper spray or tasers which are considered to be a firearm and prohibited weapon in Australia, but would include something like a sturdy stick as well, and definitely no martial arts weapons.

Actual guns are almost never used in self defence as the victims would be prosecuted for defending themselves no matter what the circumstances ( yes, this regularly happens )

Walking around is fairly safe though. You're at most risk in your home where home invaders usually target individuals away from cameras/societal view etc.
 
cjs said:
Well, it seems to me pretty reasonable that you don't leave locking doors on fridges you're disposing of if there's any chance that there's kids around. Same way that if you have a deep, disused swimming pool, you should have a fence around it if there's kids around. These all come under the category of "attractive nuisance."

I personally feel that cutting power cables off of electrical appliances is going further than one needs, though I've not really studied up much on the effects of that, so I could be wrong. But I see why people might feel they want to (or have to) do it. And it doesn't seem particularly harmful, either; I have no problem putting on a new power cord (and checking for RIFA caps, and...).

On the other hand, murdering to death vintage DRAM by stabbing, well, I might have a little argument with people like that. :)
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LoL, Not locking doors. *any* fridge door. Locking fridge doors haven't existed for a long time and I've never seen one here.

The stabbing of the DRAM though - That was pretty interesting. It left small cross-shaped holes in the DRAM that I needed a microscope to see. I started repairing one that was damaged, then noticed a tiny ( less than 1mm across ) hole in another, then checked all with the microscope and they had stabbed every single one... With a small jewelers screwdriver. They had literally removed the screws from the memory and drive covers and stabbed everything they could see, which fortunately, was all modular stuff I could remove and replace.

I get the feeling maybe there was something originally on the laptops they didn't want anyone to see, so they tried to "delete" the memory... Amazingly they succeeded. That and one Wifi card as well. Well, two free laptops for me :)
 
cjs said:
if you have a deep, disused swimming pool, you should have a fence around it if there's kids around
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OT but IMO if there's one thing we do well in Australia, it's the tight regulations on pool fencing. There'd be no "should have a fence" debate here, it's have a certified fence or cop the penalties from the pool inspectors. We love our outdoors, beach and swimming culture a great deal, yet still there are sad incidents of infant and child drownings in backyard pools. But, we do try.
 
I have often wondered why some stuff I picked up had the power cord cut off. I never considered it to be a government conspiracy! :)

It was never an obstacle for me to simply put on a new cord. But for someone who is not familiar with electrical cords I can see the logic in "preventing" electrocution.

This was a funny thread!

Seaken
 
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