test-drb October 2000

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

184 participants
568 discussions

Idiotic people who do not know the value of classic equipment

by rmeenaks＠olf.com

Hi, A friend of mine works for a robotics engineering firm who were heavy users of transputers. Well, the moved away from transputers a while back and are using PCs to do all their vision calculations, etc. I asked him to hold on to all of the unwanted transputer equipment (T801 trams with 4Megs of memory, B008s, PowerPC Trams, etc, etc) and he agreed to it. Well, when he was on vacation, the company decided to clean up their old equipment and throw away all of their so-called junk. They threw away graphics board that were brand-new still in the box, tons of UPSs still new, i860 processors, C004s, trams, tram boards, etc, etc. All really good and quite expensive stuff. He promised me he will look for other transputer stuff that may be lying around after the cleanup, but this really really BITES! Ram

25 years

Recovering Sysadmin

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> There's no such thing as a recovering sysadmin. > It's not like alcoholism... > It's a fatal disorder... > > One more late night I'm coming home and my wife's gonna kill me... Closest comparison I can make is that the dog spends a _long_ time sniffing me each night to see who I am... -dq

25 years

forklift rental in San Jose, CA?

by mmcfadden＠cmh.edu

Moving large cabinets and racks can be a pain. One of my friends had RP04's moved disguised in boxes as a washer and dryer. I think we all need to rephrase the problem of moving a computer from lift trucks, hydraulic lift gates, and cranes to many bodies and a universal solvent, BEER. I once saw several doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers move a large power boat that was upside down in a yard back into the lake for free beer. Of course I moved an entire 20 X 24 roofed boat dock by taking it into small pieces, carrying it down the hill and assembling it. I bet if you placed a case of beer on top of the computer you could find somebody to move the whole thing. Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu

25 years

MS Laugh-In

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

>this rant just came to me: > > "Windows Me" > Rant #n+1 Win98 was supposed to be the end of the line with W2000 being the replacer... then it was Win98se now win98me (yes it's w98!). I take it the market doesn't yet trust W2000 and SP3 will be a while yet. Allison

25 years

Enough already! (was: Re: MS Laugh-In)

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> > On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Ernest wrote: > > > > > I humbly apologize for so deeply, deeply hurting you, Sellam, with my > > > > Thanks. Now apologize for annoying me. > > > > > Life goes on, Sellam, and someday you'll look back at this and think, > > > "Gosh, maybe I over reacted just a little bit," and that's OK. We all > > > grow up at our own pace. > > > > Mmmmm, probably not. > > > > Sellam, why do I have the strongest feeling that you're either a sysadmin > or a recovering sysadmin? *grin* Hey! Some of us resemble that remark... ;-) -dq

25 years

Varian 620/L-100 Maintenance Manual for sale

by jdarren＠ala.net

original vendor (1973) issue in near-unused condition. $40 plus preferred shipping. Chapters ---------- 1. Introduction 1-1. specifications 1-2. technical manuals 2. Installation 2-1. system layout and planning 2-2. physical description 2-3. system interconnection 2-4. system interrupt priority 3. Operation 3-1. control panel operation 3-2. manual operations 3-3. preliminary operating procedures 4. CPU 4-1. functional description 4-2. theory of operation 4-3. maintenance 5.Memory 5-1. functional description 5-2. theory of operation 5-3. maintenance 6. DMA Interrupts 6-1. functional description 6-2. interface data 6-3. theory of operation 6-4. maintenance 7. Power Supply 7-1. theory of operation 7-2. maintenance 8. Mnemonics 9. Waveforms 10. Multiply/Divide and Extended Addressing 10-1. introduction 10-2. operation 10-3. theory of operation 10-4. maintenance plus 8 appendices

25 years

Honeywell and other books for sale

by jdarren＠ala.net

all original vendor manuals in good shape. $12 each, plus shipping. 1. Honeywell Series 16 Software - Program Interrupt Structure, 06/1971 2. Honeywell System 700 Software - Verification Service Library, 03/1972 3. Honeywell Series 16 Software - O16-XREF, SSUP, And MAC Source Language Processors 4. Honeywell Wirelist - 516 Memory, 1974 5. Honeywell Wirelist - Series 16 IOBCU, 1974 6. Honeywell Series 16 Hardware Documentation - DDP-516 Memory Expansion, Models 516-05/06, Instruction Manual, 1973 7. Honeywell Wirelist - 516-20 Direct Multplex Control, 1974 8. Honeywell Wirelist - X5B Mainframe, 1974 9. Honeywell Series 200 214-1/214-2 Card Reader/Punch Theory of Operation Manual, 1968 10. Teletype Model 35 ASR Technical Manual, 1971

25 years

Who remembers CDC Plato?...run it again on a cyber at home... could it be done?

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> The OS that ran on the system was called KRONOS. It was a multi-user > multi-executive OS that did both interactive and batch processing. There > were a number of RJE stations around the campus that had punch card > readers and printers that users could submit their F77 (Fortran 77) > and PASCAL jobs to remotely. How pleasant to find someone else who worked at a Kronos site instead of the more usual SCOPE sites. We had Kronos at IU on a CDC 6600/Cyber 174 Multi-Mainframe system (using some code >from Cambridge University and some Z-80 based disk controllers designed by a guy named Steel at Purdue). > > What are my chances of fiding one? > > Next to nil, I would guess. They were loaded with precious metals (gold!) > and lots of good scrap metal too. The scrappers loved 'em. There are still some 64-bit era Cybers in service; Syntegra (the remnants of CDC) still support NOS (nee Kronos), NOS/BE (nee SCOPE), and NOS/VE (the 64-bit OS). -dq

25 years

Operating systems / Best in "isolation"

by tarsi＠binhost.com

At 08:59 AM 10/20/00 -0500, you wrote: >I don't know how to state this, so I will blunder in -- > >I have been trying to follow this wide-ranging discussions >about the woes of Microsoft products, of Linux, and so on. > >This may sound anti-Internet, but I see two themes in the >back of these discussions -- > >1. The need to be isolated > >2. consumerism (or vender vs. user choice) > >For the first, with computers so widespread and the ease >to communicate between users so prevalent these days, maybe >we need the exact opposite -- for each of us to be isolated >from one another and not see the other's toys. As I think >Ernest recently said, he was happy with his first Commodore 64 >until someone told him otherwise. If we would instead just >cherish what we have, and <grin> otherwise sit in Dilbert-like >mini-cubicles without the ability to see your neighbor, >then we wouldn't know what we are missing... > >(For you software developers and hardware techs of yore -- >did you complain about the software and hardware 20 years >ago in the same fashion as I hear complaining today? I suspect >so, it is just that we didn't hear it so often as we were >isolated. But then again I can dream that it was better then...) > >For the second, I would like to think that our need to upgrade >should be driven by *our* needs to fix something. I dislike it >when the direction comes from the other end -- that is from the >vender or developer telling me I must upgrade and/or replace something. >When the needs are not truly user driven, then we are in a >marketing situation only, and you know the group of people >that is intended to benefit from that...it doesn't include me. > >I am not exactly thrilled with Microsoft products, and would >rather not buy them. But then again BSD won't serve my family's >needs. Just what is available as a viable alternative for the >"average Joe"? Not much from what I can see. So maybe we shouldn't >be using computers -- they aren't essential, after all <grin> -- >societies flourished for many centuries before the present (and >there is no promise that this society won't "die" just like others >in the past have). > >Just pondering on a Friday -- Luddism and communism in the >morning. Grins.. >Have a good weekend everyone and simmer down. > >Cheers/TTFN, >Kevin Anderson, Bismarck, North Dakota (where I can see the frontier, >and there are unfortunately no PDP 8s or 11s in sight....) >home: K9IUA(a)juno.com >alt: kla(a)helios.augustana.edu

25 years

Operating systems / Best in "isolation"

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> For the first, with computers so widespread and the ease > to communicate between users so prevalent these days, maybe > we need the exact opposite -- for each of us to be isolated > from one another and not see the other's toys. As I think > Ernest recently said, he was happy with his first Commodore 64 > until someone told him otherwise. If we would instead just > cherish what we have, and <grin> otherwise sit in Dilbert-like > mini-cubicles without the ability to see your neighbor, > then we wouldn't know what we are missing... I don't think any of us really want to be isolated, we just don't want to suffer from undesirable connectivity. > (For you software developers and hardware techs of yore -- > did you complain about the software and hardware 20 years > ago in the same fashion as I hear complaining today? I suspect > so, it is just that we didn't hear it so often as we were > isolated. But then again I can dream that it was better then...) 20 years ago, I was a systems programmer on a pair of Prime minis. As with most Prime sites in those days, we had the source code to every release of Primos (the OS) that came out, and we had things we thought we could improve on, and did. Since we could just get in there and change it, we didn't think to complain. That included having the source code to the compilers (except now that I think of it, the COBOL compiler), so we could at least find out *why* what we were trying to do didn't work. Prior to that, while in college, I had access to the source code for the CDC Kronos OS, and most of its compilers. I didn't have similar access on the DEC-10 or the IBM 370/158 AP, but on the DEC-10, we had RWATCH in source code form, which let us do almost anything the system operator could do. > For the second, I would like to think that our need to upgrade > should be driven by *our* needs to fix something. I dislike it > when the direction comes from the other end -- that is from the > vender or developer telling me I must upgrade and/or replace > something. Hey, that's called supply-side economics, supposedly a Good Thing. ;-) -dq

25 years

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test-drb October 2000