XKL TOAD

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Ethan Dicks
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 12:15 PM

> On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 3:05 PM, Pontus <pontus at update.uu.se>> wrote:

>> The Toad is small and cute, even cats like it, not much need for raised
>> floor, don't know about power though.

> That is small and cute.  I worked next to some Systems Concepts
> machines at the Hilliard, OH, data center in 2003 - my stuff was a
> wall of Alpha CPUs and disk, several rows away from the 36-bit
> hardware, but I still had to walk by it every day.  I _think_ it was a
> small wall of SC30s, but I could be wrong.  I was told that because of
> how CompuServe was carved up between MCI/Worldcom and AOL,
> MCI/Worldcom was still running billing jobs on the 36-bit machines and
> that more than one attempt to re-write that stuff had ended with a
> lack of success.  No idea if they are _still_ running it or not, but a
> replacement was not in sight by late 2003.

Those were SC40s.  Mike and Stewart licensed CompuServe to build their
own for a discounted fee (IIRC 40% of list).

Around 2001 we got a call from someone in one of those offices, but by
then we were completely out of the business of selling Toad-1 systems.
Too bad, because the CEO of CIS blew off a meeting (with people waiting
in his outer office) the day of the NT announcement.

> The Toad does look great, though.  For now though, like most of the
> list, I'll be getting my 36-bit fix via klh10 and the graces of Paul
> Allen.

> I occasionally check in on the 10-on-an-FPGA projects from time to
> time, but I can't allocate a lot of money to that aspect of the hobby,
> so I sit on the sidelines and see how they are coming along.

> For what I do (Zork regression testing for ZDungeon), I don't really
> need to own real 36-bit hardware, just an account is enough, so that's
> what I'm doing.  I still wouldn't mind owning real 36-bit hardware,
> but unless it was some sort of rescue, I don't see it happening in my
> future.

Happy to help!


Rich Alderson
Server Engineer, PDPplanet Project
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104

mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
(206) 342-2239
(206) 465-2916 cell