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Tracy Kidder, Author of ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ Dies at 80

by Christian Liendo

Tracy Kidder, Author of ‘The Soul of a New Machine,’ Dies at 80 A Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative journalist, he wrote deeply reported books that often focused on heroic goodness in people. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/books/tracy-kidder-dead.html?unlocked_ar…

3 months, 2 weeks

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George Goble passed away

by Christian Liendo

George Goble passed away https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/wlfi/name/george-goble-obituary?id=611… From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Goble George Harry Goble (December 11, 1952 – March 18, 2026) was an American scientist and academic, who was a staff member at the Purdue University Engineering Computer Network and a 1996 Ig Nobel Prize winner. Goble was commonly known as ghg, since he used that as a login id and signature in digital communications from the 1970s. He received his BS in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University. In 1981, he wired together the backplanes of two DEC VAX-11/780 systems and made the first multi-CPU Unix computer, preceding DEC's dual processor VAX-11/782.[1] The operating system was based on the 4.1 BSD kernel,[1]: 293 and the modifications thus eventually made it into the 4.3 BSD Unix release.[citation needed] At the beginning of the 4.3 BSD user manuals, Bill Joy wrote a special note of thanks to GHG for being courageous enough to put the multi-CPU kernel into a production environment before anyone else did.[2] (However, the frequent crashes for a while inspired the writing of many humorous text files by the Purdue University Electrical Engineering student body, such as "The VAX had a Blowout", to be sung to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down".) The development of the Dual-CPU Unix system was the subject of Goble's Master's thesis. Around this time, Goble, along with Bill Croft, also developed a networking protocol for Unix, referred to as pnet, which was used at Purdue at the time before being displaced by TCP/IP. Pnet allowed remote logins, and remote execution of commands, among other capabilities.[3] In the late 1980s, Goble started experimenting with refrigerants, due to increased danger and lower thermodynamic efficiency of the recently introduced R-134a compared to the older R-12 which was being phased out due to concerns about damage to the ozone layer, and the incompatibility of R-134a with the lubricating oil and other materials used in systems built for R-12. In 1987, he converted the beverage refrigerators in the Eta Kappa Nu lounge in the basement of the Purdue Electrical Engineering building to using a refrigerant of his own devising. This refrigerant is now recognized as R-406A by ASHRAE and is available commercially under the trade name AutoFrost. He later developed another refrigerant which is compatible with R134A lubricants, but which is superior in thermodynamic efficiency and lower system internal pressures called GHG-X8. In 1996, Goble was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for preparing a barbecue for cooking in less than 5 seconds by the use of a smoldering cigarette, charcoal and LOX (liquid oxygen).[4] This act attracted the attention of the West Lafayette, Indiana fire department, which warned him to never let them catch him in the possession of LOX near a barbecue fire ever again. Goble was also noted for driving a vehicle with the Indiana license plate UNIX, and also GHG-1 https://engineering.purdue.edu/ECE/Alums/OECE/2022/George-Goble

3 months, 3 weeks

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Compaq 9.1GB Ultra3 SCSI disks + Hot Plug Drive Trays

by Johan Helsingius

Anyone need Compaq hot plug SCSI drives and/or drive trays (part number 386536-001)? I have 16 of them spare. Julf

3 months, 3 weeks

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Apple

by Murray McCullough

According to legend, so it has been proven to be a fact, Apple was created 50 years ago today. The classic computing world is one reason we as members can look back and witness the contribution Apple has played. Whether this is a mixture of delight or sadness doesn't take away the contribution Jobs and Wozniak played in my and others interest in keeping classic computing alive. Happy computing all. Murray

3 months, 3 weeks

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QIC tape replacement bands

by Alan Perry

Hi all, I am looking for advice on some problems that I am observing trying to read QIC tapes using an Archive Viper. If you are unfamiliar with QIC tapes, tape transport is done through a single roller that moves a plastic band in tension with the outside of a portion of the tape on the reels. Over time, the band will break. A long time ago, I bought a bunch of the green plastibands to use as replacement bands. Later I bought a bunch of the clear ones. I was able to image some tapes with the plastiband replacement but not all (but rewind and retension works almost every time). Until today, I don't think I ever tried the clear ones after I bought a bag. I am preparing for a VCF and need the contents off of some of the tapes that I have, so I got out the driver and tapes. However, I have been unable to read anything from the them. The tape will jam up. It seems like what is happening is that plastiband is not providing enough tension to move the tape when reading. The tape loses tension and I see it gather instead of moving along. Sometimes the tape feels stuck to the posts that turn the tape to be parallel with the heads. I also tried a clear band for the first time and the tension with that seems too tight. What am I doing wrong? alan

3 months, 3 weeks

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Maxtor XT1140 Drives

by hupfadekroua

Hi all, are there any experiences or hints in reviving and repairing Maxtor XT1140 and 2190 drives. I do have a pile of TI-Expore Bricks. The disc drives do have issues like: - not spinning up - spinning up but not recalibrating - .. Andreas

3 months, 3 weeks

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Re: QIC tape replacement bands

by Jonathan Haddox

I was able to get some newer QIC-150 tapes by 3M and harvested the belts out of them. Dropping the belt into boiling water for 20 seconds revived their tension strength. Ultimately what brought me success though was replacing the posts in the tape cartridge with roller bearings that I purchased at a hobby store. The bearings were meant for wheels on an R/C car. Even with the sticky stuff on the tape, they did not bind up, it required a lot of cleaning of the R/W head though during data restore.

3 months, 3 weeks

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Re: Sun-1 netboot debugging

by Craig Ruff

I seem to recall that Sun 1 era systems used BOOTP for network booting. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc951

3 months, 3 weeks

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Sun-1 netboot debugging

by Mark Kahrs

We're trying to netboot a Sun-1. Initially, the machine issues the following packets (over and over...): 17:23:16.834126 In 00:00:00:00:00:00 (oui Ethernet) ethertype IPv4 (0x0800), length 90: localhost.52483 > localhost.domain: 9273+ PTR? 255.255.255.255.in-addr.arpa. (46) 17:23:16.834158 In 00:00:00:00:00:00 (oui Ethernet) ethertype IPv4 (0x0800), length 118: localhost > localhost: ICMP localhost udp port domain unreachable, length 82 After a short while (10 seconds?), it gives up (because the ndd server doesn't recognize it), it times out and then generates the following packet: 17:23:26.333093 B 02:60:8c:03:40:50 (oui Unknown) ethertype IPv4 (0x0800), length 64: 0.3.64.80 > 0.0.0.0: nd 28 Where, of course, the ...:40:50 is the MAC address in the source address. Does this ring a bell with anyone? n.b. This seems to pre-date RARP, so any insight would be valuable. T

3 months, 3 weeks

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Re: ISO: Manual for Fujitsu M2372K SMD drive

by Jacob Ritorto

I recall I trusted the Stanton geometry specs and had success with my 2372. Was working great until power supply blew. I used a QD33 and an SC41 just fine so I think you’re on course to success. Jake > On Oct 13, 2015, at 02:54, Josh Dersch <derschjo(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Subject line covers it; the M2372K manual isn't on Bitsavers (the 2382K is, but it's significantly different) and all I've found is this covering the basics, and I'm not 100% sure it's correct: > > http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/fujitsu/M2372K-824MB-8-0-FH-HSM… > > Anyone have this manual? Can you confirm that the settings listed on stason.org are valid? I'm trying to get this drive to format using an Emulex UD33 (UNIBUS SMD) controller, and I'm not having much luck. (I'm also not certain that the 2372K isn't too new for the controller; another place a manual would be of immense help.) > > Thanks, > Josh >

3 months, 3 weeks

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