classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subj: Re: Mini & Mainframe Power Requirements
William Donzelli wrote:
>OK, running a big mini or a mainframe class machine is not for everyone.
>However, running a processor plus a single disk and perhaps a tape may not
>be all that bad. Water cooled machines, however, would be too much to
>handle.
>
>For those that only want to plug things into the wall, turn back now!
>
>A typical mainframe machine from the past is going to want 3-phase power.
<more scary power specs snipped>
Well not necessarily. Of late IBM has been putting effort into making
S/390 (note: less than 7 years old and not quite a classic) available
to small shops: via the P/390 (a 7490 mainframe on a chip hosted by a pentium
running OS/2) and the R/390 (also a 7490 with an AIX host - RS/6k or PPC).
I must apologize: in a previous message I had referred to the mainframe on
a chip as a "3490" which is a tape drive not a CPU model number.
To the extent that S/390 derives its heritage from S/370 and S/360 such a
box may serve the needs of the mainframe hacker with a small power
capacity/budget. IBM's amazing efforts at preservation of backward
compatability are a big plus here: to a first approximation S/390 simply
adds features to S/370 (the parallel sysplex clustering ability allegedly
being quite highly advanced nowadays e.g.). Unfortunately the purchase
price won't help the budget minded hacker: a new P/390 runs $50k to $100k and
the R/390 a bit more.
I've used a P/390 and must say that it is quite a machine: all DASD
communication channels are actually handled via a software emulation that
runs under the host OS/2 machine, but other than that it seems much like a
mainframe. You can run with RAID 0,1,3,5 using PC type drives.
The 7490 can run OS/390 (the new name for MVS), VM/ESA, as well as VSE/ESA
(the new name for DOS since about 1987).
Interestingly enough IBM recently upgraded their P/390 production line
to move from 90 MhZ Pentiums to 200 MhZ Pentiums and touted that customers
could expect throughput rates to increase a whopping 10% (this gives you an
inkling of how much the host OS adds in overhead). According to an IBM
technical contact there are shops that are actually running P/390s in a
production environment: doing payroll, accounting and whatnot. This
despite the fact that the intended market was primarily for software shops
porting code to S/390.
Perhaps the most unusual thing about S/390 are the OpenEdition environments
that run under the various OSes. They give you unix on the mainframe and the
OpenEdition environment under OS/390 is now known as "UNIX System Services for
OS/390". The irony being that MVS is actually 3-4 years younger than UNIX:
UNIX started in 1969, MVS was announced in 1973 and shipped in 1974.
At any rate keep an eye out for P/390 on a PC Server 500 (maybe the P90s will
wind up on the used market?) and the equivalent R/390 machine - they take only
wall plug 110 AC and will let you hack JCL, assembler, and CLISTs to your
heart's content - destined to be classics.
Peter Prymmer
Would any collectors be interested in Kaypros.
I have four -- some complete with original advertisement, software,
manuals, etc.
Time to free them from the storage bin.
In a message dated 98-01-18 17:11:29 EST, you write:
<< Just acquired a Compaq luggable (don't know the model, but it's an XT)
that's pretty hefty. I forgot how much I love mono screens, though.
The case reminds me of an airline carry-on cat container...stands on end,
with the handle on top.
>>
ive got two IBM portable pc's (5155 i think) which are the same thing. also
has built in handle and a 5 inch screen. both that i have are upgraded to
640k, and one has one floppy removed and a hard drive in its place.
david
Sam Ismail <dastar(a)wco.com> wrote:
> (2) 21MX E computers (one having 1MW of memory, the other with 256MW)
For Joe: MW == megawords. These being 2100-family machines a word is
16 bits.
> (1) HP1000A
Um, no, I think that is an HP1000 F-series. (I have trouble keeping
1000 M/E/F-series straight though, really should copy those pages out
of the test equipment catalog and paste them to my monitor or
something.)
> (1) HP1000 model 600A (hard drive, 3.5" floppy)
Cute little thing, in a deskside tower chassis.
And a 2621P terminal that I am guessing was last used as its console:
it's got the fiber-optic console interface attached.
> (1) Tape Reader Reroller (the 8th of only a few ever made)
Well, that's what the seller told us. Definitely 1960s stuff though.
The idea was that the reader would re-roll your tape into its canister
as it read. I gathered that that part didn't work too well. There were
also some drafting erasers, um I mean hand-held re-rollers in a box
nearby.
> (2) 2647F terminals (these are actually computers running Basic with
> built-in tape and external 5.25" disk drives but are used as
> terminals to the 21MX)
Take a close look at the label on the front. They say "HP3000".
That's because these 2647Fs were originally meant to be used as
consoles for HP3000 series 64/68/70 systems. (Though, in April 1984
when the shop I was at got a brand new 3000/64, the 2647F console with
it had a 2647F badge on the front.)
It's been a while since I had one of these to play with, but I'm
thinking that the BASIC was loaded from diskette. There is a sort
of command/script interpreter in the terminal though.
> (2) Mag-tape drives (Frank will provide the specs and model #s)
I think one of them has a 7970B tag and the other doesn't have a model
tag but behaves like a 7970E, meaning nine-track 1600 BPI read/write.
It's been modified, though, and I gather it started life as a
read-only drive that could read 7-track tapes, and that we may have
the parts to convert it back. Some of the parts are definitely there,
but I can't judge their condition or completeness 'til we do a
decent inventory of the lot and I try to wrap my head around the
service manual for that drive.
> (1) Big-assed line printer and stand
HP 2608A. Needs work, doesn't feed paper right.
As line printers go it's kinda dinky. E.g. you can take it off its
stand and then two people can carry it without too much trouble, so
long as there aren't stairs or doorways or RVs in the way. So if you
have Sam's attention and are near a proper line printer please
show it to him so he can get properly calibrated.
> (2) HP racks
No, two 19" HP racks on a pedestal. Apparently from an engine test
system of some sort. HP used to embed 2100-family CPUs in all sorts
of specialized test equipment and that's what these look like they
were, once upon a time.
> The guy was more interested in getting rid of it and having it go to a
> good home than getting money for it. We paid him $200. Of course Frank
> now has an invaluable contact for discussing his HP passion (the guy we
> bought the stuff from is a 26 year HP veteran).
Yeah, y'all really should have hung around a bit longer before zipping off
to unload.
> I think when it was all done Frank basically had an accident in his pants
> as he could not contain his excitement over his good fortune.
No, I was just dazed'n'confused because I really hadn't expected we'd
be moving it that day, just looking and dealing to come get it in a
couple weeks' time. So today I am playing catch-up, then maybe going
off to rearrange /dev/closet02 in the hope of making a hole that some
of this stuff can fit in.
Catch-up? Um, yeah, I have a bunch of IBM manuals and stuff to sort
through and inventory. They go with an IBM RT PC (6150). Got that too.
Up to my butt in alligators, I remain,
-Frank McConnell
Hi, Barry,
At 04:03 18/01/98 GMT, you wrote:
>>Attacment:picture of the machine "olip101.jpg"
>
>PLEASE! No more attachments, especially of that size.
>It took me dozens of tries to finally get it. (It blocked all my
>other emails.)
Hmm, sorry but I thought that 77 k attachment file would not make any
problem (it took 45 sec. to send it).
You could use the "skip big messages" option that most mail program have.
Anyway I will refrain from sending attachements to this list in future.
About my messag on Re: Firsts/programmable calculators, I received back from
classicmp only one part of the whole message wrote (very strange).
Here follows a copy without attachement:
------
Someone At 01:44 PM 1/11/98 -0500, wrote:
>>> >First programable calc
>>>
>>> Then there is the "first solid state electronic calc" which I think goes to
>>> the Busicom from Japan that employed the first production run of the intel
>>> 4000 chip set: the 4001 (2048 bit ROM), 4002 (320 bit RAM), 4003 (10 bit
>>> shift register), and the 4004 (4 bit CPU). That chip set was shipped to
>>> Busicom in March 1971 according to Michael S. Malone's "The
>Microprocessor:
>>> A Biography" ISBN 0-387-94342-0
Then William Donzell added:
>>Wang's first (or quite near their first) product was an all electronic
>>calculator, introduced in the late 1960s. They are big, but could be
>>lugged around.
Then Joe:
> HP's first calculator, the 9100a, was introduced in 1967 or 68. It had
>no ICs, used core memories, and used logic gates made of diodes and
>resistors. It did have transistors but they were mainly used as amplifiers
>for the core memory. I guess it still qualifies as "solid state".) It was
>fully proggramable and used RPN. I have a 9100B with a 1969 date code.
>
> I believe the Japanese Busicom calculator is even older and dates from
>about 1966.
Let see if I' m able to go more back:
I translate from the URL page of the Pisa University Scientific Instruments
Preservation Dept. <
http://www.difi.unipi.it/museo/calcolat/miniepc/miniepc.html >
Olivetti Programma 101
Olivetti Programma 101
Programma 101 comes introduced in 1965 during the BEMA elecronic
show,in New York.It represents the first "desktop calculator" ever
constructed in the world.
40.000 exemplary were constructed at the price of 3.200 $
The machine offered the possibility to carry out arithmetical
operations in direct way, or of being programmed for the
calculation of complex functions.
The programs could be stored in magnetic stripes.
It was entirely planned and realized in the Olivetti research
laboratories of
Pregnana, from a group of researchers guided from the Ing. Piergiorgio
Perotto, the design was from the Arch. Mario Bellini.
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I know this is off-topic, but I think someone might be able to help me with
this here. If you want, reply privately to higginbo@netpath. net.
I haven't got a clue on this one:
I was putting together this system the other day at work, got everything
setup, turned it on, and it was fine. But when I hit reset or power down, I
can't get it to come back up at all. The hard drives would init, the cd-rom
drives would power up, but nothing would come up on screen, no memory
check, etc. I could then reset a few times and it would eventually come up.
The system is getting power, and the motherboard and case/PS are brand new.
So I'm throwing this out to you guys:
Is it the power supply not providing enough juice for all the drives? It's
a 250w PS, and everything works once it's on.
Is it the motherboard? (TX Pro chipset, el cheapo, but have had no probs
with them in the past.)
Not enough power getting to the power supply?
I'm at a loss on this one.
-John Higginbotham-
-limbo.netpath.net-
<A while ago, I mentioned that I had a DECMate III, the one without
<the hard drive. It has two DECWrite manuals, a disk set for the same,
<Could anyone tell me what OS I can use on this, where I can get it,
<and how to install it. The DEC is not at my house, and any mistake will
DECMATE-III is a sorta PDP-8 using the harris 6120 chip that is a
microprocessor clone of the basic PDP-8 with some added features.
With some notable exceptions it will run most PDP-8 software and there
are some spcific DECMATE modified veriosn out there like OS/8 and
operating system. FYI DECMATEs nominally run WPS a word processing,
list management, spread sheet and communications terminal emulation
package unique to them.
If you can surf the web most of the software for PDP-8 and DECmates are
out there along with tech info. To get the OS on the decmate there are
two paths... get someone to make a copy of the OS/8 disk set(its
permitted) or down load the files from those sites and use PUTR ot
teledisk(disk cloner) and a 1.2m 5.25" drive on a PC.
Allison
Just acquired a Compaq luggable (don't know the model, but it's an XT)
that's pretty hefty. I forgot how much I love mono screens, though.
The case reminds me of an airline carry-on cat container...stands on end,
with the handle on top.
manney
Anyone interested in a Franklin 1000? What's a good price?
manney(a)nwohio.com
----------
> From: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
> To: Manney
> Subject: 12 year old scanner needs software
> Date: Saturday, January 17, 1998 8:20 PM
>
> I'm looking for some software for the original HP ScanJet. Since the
> scanner is
> 12 years old, I thought someone in this group might be able to help.
> I need one of the following:
>
> Caere Omnipage 2.1
> ZSoft Photofinish
> and I hate to even type this, but Windows 2.0...
> or any other scanning software that supports the 9190A ScanJet
>
> Thanks,
> Don
>
>
