-----Original Message-----
From: Allison J Parent <allisonp(a)world.std.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Monday, 25 January 1999 9:44
Subject: Re: Legitimacy of the Ten Year Rule.
><5. The ten year rule should apply to the date when a thing dropped off
>< in popularity; if it was still in common use eight years ago, it is
>< not yet classic. (Justification: if it is still in common use,
>< there will be other places to discuss it.)
>
>Humm. This one is tough. We talk about VAXen and the MicroVAX is only
>about 14-15 years old and some models do persist but they are uniquly
>new compared to others. Example, we wouldn't be talking about 6xxx series
>as the oldest ones are early 90s.
Ahem, I've got one here that is stamped 89. I understood they went into
production in 88.
I have another that is stamped JAN 1990. I suggest that these are "classic"
machines in their own right anyway, age notwithstanding. However I would
accept the consensus of the list members on the legitimacy of this. How
say you?
>The keys are OLDness, UNIQUEness and desireability. I'm sure there are
>technical aspects that would qualify like machines with unusual word
>length or the like but, they should be 80s or earlier in introduction
>or common use.
>
>So long as it's related to the collecting, preserving and discussion
>centered around older machines there is little conflict.
Agree totally. As I said earlier, the 10 year bit should be a guide, not a
lockout.
All of this is IMHO only, of course.....
Cheers
Geoff Roberts
Computer Room Internet Cafe
Port Pirie
South Australia.
netcafe(a)pirie.mtx.net.au
On Jan 25, 1:32, Tony Duell wrote:
> > On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Bill Yakowenko wrote:
> > > 2. Nothing PC- or Mac-compatible can ever be classic. Sorry, that's
> > > just an indisputable fact. :-)
> >
> > How about a VAX emulating a PC?
>
> Or more seriously an Acorn Archimedes running the PC-emulator. The
> Archimedes is undoubtedly a classic (or will be as the machines get to 10
> years old). It was the first (popular?) desktop system to use a RISC
> processor.
The first Archimedes 310 was sold in July 1988. It might just qualify as
the first desktop machine using a RISC processor, though there's not a
whole lot of difference between that and a small deskside machine.
Machines using MIPS chips, the Clipper, and the IBM RT were around first,
but they were at least an order of magnitude more expensive. The
Archimedes real claim is that it was the first mass-market RISC-based
computer.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Dept. of Computer Science
University of York
>It's looking like there is something with the way I ran a SYSGEN a few
>days ago. It turns out that I can't even boot the SJ monitor, and the FB
>monitor won't let me install the EQ driver. However, the XM monitor
>which I didn't even touch will let me install the EQX driver.
I don't know the restrictions for EQ (under TSX, I suppose), but
having been the designer and implementer of the ethernet drivers
under RT-11, I can tell you that they won't run under SJ and FB.
By the time we started working on Ethernet, the target system for
most installations was XM. When I started working on the design
for the ethernet drivers, there were several factors which guided
the decision to be XM-only:
1) It was procedural to add and remove buffer descriptors
from the ring -- you had to ensure that the adapter
would not use one while the driver was working on it
2) Receive buffers had to essentially always be available
or performance would have been abyssmal.
3) There was a recommended minimum number of receive buffers, or
again, performance would suffer.
4) Maximum sized receive buffers were required or we would
have had to support buffer chaining (which would have
added to the size and complexity of the driver code,
and as anyone familiar with RT knows, low memory is
at a premium -- and moving them to high memory was
not available under SB/FB)
So, since we had to have a minimum of 6 receive buffers, at the
maximum size (1600 bytes), that would have been just over 9kbytes,
and we haven't even added the space for the code. This was
unacceptable for SB/FB. It was decided that they would be supported
under XM only.
>I think my next step is to either redo the SYSGEN on the SJ and FB
>monitors, or to copy over the XM versions of the TCP/IP software. I'll
>probably copy over the XM versions first. Unfortunatly we've got a
>downtime at work tonite, so I've got to go into work in the next hour and
>most likely won't be able to try this tonite :^(
I don't think you have to do this... TSX doesn't use the exact same xx.SYS
drivers that SB/FB use, it uses rebuilt ones with a file type
of .TSX So, as long as your TSX sysgen includes the driver, it
should be available...
And remember, TSX essentially takes over the machine, kicking the
former OS (RT-11 SJ) out of memory...
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
| Unix Support Engineering Group | (home): mbg!world.std.com |
| Compaq Computer Corporation | addresses need '@' in place of '!' |
| 110 Spitbrook Rd. ZK03-2/T43 | URL: http://world.std.com/~mbg/ |
| Nashua, NH 03062 | "pdp-11 programmer - some assembler |
| (603) 884 1055 | required." - mbg |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
<On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, Allison J Parent wrote:
<> Unix didn't always have the idea of virtual memory. See Minix for an
<> example of that also V4 and maybe V5 unix didn't either.
<
<I would expect that the original PDP7 that ran UNIX didn't have VM...
No it didn't. I'm fairly certain that VM didn't appear until V7 on pdp-11
or maybe later.
The fact of the matter is there have been 8bit unix impmentations. The idea
that there is only 64KB is just means more reliance on things like overlays
or paging/swapping. Also many of the mid 80s 6809 and z80 system had some
kind of MMU to support large address spaces. The Z180 was good for 1mb with
it's MMU and most of the paging schemes for s100 permitted anyware from 512k
to 16mb. the late z280 allowed 16mb space using a paged MMU and added I&D
space along with user/system spaces. The latter I&D space (instruction and
data spaces) were features only found on the upper models of PDP-11
(11/44,11/45,11/60 and 11/70 and the J11 chip based systems 11/73 and
11/83). With I&D space and user/system space VM was supportable.
Allison
>
>(Translated from Latin scroll dated 2 BC)
>
>Dear Cassius:
>
>Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC to AD
is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left. I don't know
how people will cope with working the wrong way around. Having been working
happily downwards forever, now we have to start thinking upwards. You would
think that someone would have thought of it earlier and not left it to us
to sort it all out at this last minute.
>
>I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't done
something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he could
see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he simply said
that continuing downwards using minus BC won't work and as usual charged a
fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely, we will not have to throw out all
our hardware and start again? Macrohard will make yet another fortune out
of this I suppose.
>
>The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that all
usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take out
loans. Its an ill wind....
>
>As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hourglass flowing upwards.
We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who have been
working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive until it's all
over.
>
>I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at the
turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to un
backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of life.
Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transition. Anyway,
we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K problem. I will
send a parchment to you if anything further develops.
>
>If you have any ideas please let me know.
>
>Plutonius
>
>
>
<IIRC, adding virtual memory support to UNIX was the project goal for the
<CSRG at Berkeley. That was what BSD Unix was all about, and it was why the
<kernel image was /vmunix vs. the /unix which was the prior kernel image nam
<--Chuck
That also answers the part of the question of what/why is BSD significant?
Allison
Does anyone know where I can get the tool you need to use to crack open
teh case of an old MacIntosh? I seem to recall that in addition to
special torx tools, probably one with an extra long shaft, that you needed
something to pop the case open...
I'd like to upgrade the tiny hard drive in a mac se, and maybe in a mac plus
1 Meg, to use a 250 meg scsi drive.
Any idea if these units will run system 7?
-Lawrence LeMay
> > 2. Nothing PC- or Mac-compatible can ever be classic. Sorry, that's
> > just an indisputable fact. :-)
>
I disagree. (with both)
Interesting, maybe not. but the original PC and Mac are both classic.
I could agree that very few types of PC (or Mac's) were/are classics.
My opinion: The original PC, AT, are classics. A Packard Bell 286 or the
Commodore Colt is not.
The Mac 128 and Macintosh II are classics. The Plus, SE, etc, are just more
usable.
IMHO,
Kelly
<1. Ten years is just a guideline. If something is only 9 years old,
< I won't much mind hearing about it. I might even like it. But if
I happen to like that.
< it is only two or three years old, there must be a surviving
< users-group or something. Go find it, or start your own, but please
< don't clutter up my mailbox with it.
Generally PCs with 486 or Win3.1 and later are not discussion fodder for
here, too new and current.
<2. Nothing PC- or Mac-compatible can ever be classic. Sorry, that's
< just an indisputable fact. :-)
I draw a line based on two things early 386 or older and uniqueness. There
are many clones but a few were very unique and interesting of themselves.
An example is the Leading Edge Model D I have or the Kaypro ProPC both Xt
class and a bit different.
<5. The ten year rule should apply to the date when a thing dropped off
< in popularity; if it was still in common use eight years ago, it is
< not yet classic. (Justification: if it is still in common use,
< there will be other places to discuss it.)
Humm. This one is tough. We talk about VAXen and the MicroVAX is only
about 14-15 years old and some models do persist but they are uniquly
new compared to others. Example, we wouldn't be talking about 6xxx series
as the oldest ones are early 90s. However BA123 based Microvaxen
introduced in the 80s were still made in the early 90s and are able to
run current version of the OS. They are old enough to be of interest.
Another example is the DECMATE-III sold up to the early 90s but they are
related too. Why, they run OS/278 and WPS both legacy software.
The keys are OLDness, UNIQUEness and desireability. I'm sure there are
technical aspects that would qualify like machines with unusual word
length or the like but, they should be 80s or earlier in introduction
or common use.
So long as it's related to the collecting, preserving and discussion
centered around older machines there is little conflict.
Just my small cash investment in opinion.
Allison
