test-drb March 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

191 participants
1003 discussions

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<>So I guess Dave Cutler was there from the beginning of VMS development. < <However, it's my understanding he left somewhere shortly after Version 1.0 Yep! Cutler was long gone from active product design DEC before the advent of NT. DECwest was the research facility. Allison

25 years, 4 months

MiniScribe 3438 --- HELLLP!!!!

by roblwill＠usaor.net

Does anyone on this vast earth know the jumper settings for a MiniScribe 3438 hard drive??? I've searched EVERYWHERE, and found the following: - It is either MFM or RLL - It is either 32 or 22 MB - It is either 5.25 HH or 3.5" FH. Of the sites I've found, one says that it's RLL, another says it's MFM. Another site says it's both. Between the sites, one said it was 22 MB, the other two said 32. One of the sites said that it was a 5.25" HH drive, and the last said that it was a FH 3.5" (is there even such a thing?). Other than the fact that it's 5.25" HH, I know NOTHING (useful) about this drive. The jumper settings seem to have vanished, along with the physical drive specs. Help!.... -- -Jason Willgruber (roblwill(a)usaor.net) ICQ#: 1730318 <http://members.tripod.com/general_1>

25 years, 4 months

[OT] NT, software reliability, and the lack thereof.

by drbilling＠ucdavis.edu

Eric - At 11:46 PM 3/15/99 -0000, you wrote: >Because it *isn't* based on Mach. Roger. >Which part of that is hard to understand? >The historical record of this is fairly well documented. I stand corrected. I guess the early hype I heard about NT was entirely falacious and a complete figment of my imagination. >There are some "UNIX servers" that can be run on top of Mach, but >Mach is not UNIX. I don't think I ever stated ... "Mach is UNIX". I will be more careful in the future to distinguish that UNIX might be layered on a Mach kernel, then again, it might not. >IIRC, the NT kernel *has* a built-in distributed lock manager. If not, it >would be easy to add it. The NT kernel is actually small, simple, and >almost elegant. ... If it was as trivial as you indicate, then there would be NT clusters as far as the eye could see. It took Digital several versions of VMS to support clusters. >Certainly you *can* run applications on your file server. And on a good OS, >it will work OK. But that doesn't prove that it is the best way to do >things. It is the only way to do things if that is what you can afford. It appears that I have been much less fortunate than you in my selection of employers. -- Dean =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Dean Billing Phone: 530-752-5956 UC Davis FAX: 530-752-6363 IT-CR EMAIL: drbilling(a)ucdavis.edu One Shields Way Davis, CA 95616

25 years, 4 months

wanted: muMath and/or muLisp for Apple II or CP/M

by eric＠brouhaha.com

I seem to have misplaced my copies of muMath and muLisp for the Apple II. If anyone would like to sell their old ones to me, please let me know. The CP/M version would also be of interest. If all else fails, I could live with the PC-DOS version, but I don't want Derive (the product that replaced muMath). Thanks! Eric

25 years, 4 months

[GIVEAWAY: Vax 8650 in Medford, MA by Mar. 18] (fwd)

by jimw＠agora.rdrop.com

ALERT! Large VAX in danger of hitting the dumpster! Contact information follows. (please do not reply to the list) -jim --- jimw(a)agora.rdrop.com The Computer Garage - http://www.rdrop.com/~jimw Computer Garage Fax - (503) 646-0174 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 14:11:56 -0500 From: Jason Scott <jason(a)snuh.com> Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec Subject: GIVEAWAY: Vax 8650 in Medford, MA by Mar. 18 My company is decommissioning a VAX 8650 with Expansion Unit and while the current plan is to throw the thing into the dump, if there are souls out there who want one of these things for Nostalgia, Spare Parts, or to drop out of a plane, give me a holler at (781)-393-3283 and we'll talk. Or, mail to jason(a)snuh.com works just as well. If you think you can stop by with a Toyota and put this thing in the trunk, you don't want it. Vax 8650's are the size of large meat lockers and you'll need at least a truck to pick it up. The power needs are beyond imagining. The only real use for these things are spare parts or some sick project I can't think of, but I can't bear to not take at least a try at finding them a home. The VAXen are located in Medford, MA, just about 5 miles north of Boston, off Route 93. We're throwing the things out Thursday Night (March 18) so act fast. First call and show, first serve. Thanks! - Jason Scott

25 years, 4 months

Medieval methods... (was Re: Got a question....PDP? VAX?)

by fmc＠reanimators.org

Philip.Belben(a)pgen.com wrote: > I think Leo Computers may be regarded as the world's first > commercial computer manufacturer. But I don't think they existed as > early as the '40s. I think the original LEO project was early '50s, > and Leo Computers (as a manufacturer) mid '50s and later. But I'm > not sure... > Anyone care to add to the above? Correct my mistakes? Etc.? There's a recent book: LEO: The Incredible Story of the World's First Business Computer by David Caminer (ed.), John Aris, Peter Hermon, Frank Land published by McGraw-Hill, December 1997 ISBN 0-07-009501-9 Basically, yes, they realized that automation of their data processing was a desirable thing, and a survey of the market for such machines in 1949 or so forced them to conclude that if they wanted it done in any reasonable time they would have to do it themselves. So they did, and they ended up with a computer that was pretty good at doing what Lyons needed done. BTW, the people who wrote and edited this book are the people who designed and built LEO: it's really a collection of their writings about their work. Reading it I had the impression that Caminer went around and darn near forcibly extracted a chapter from everyone he could. I gather the machine had some sort of support for doing arithmetic on pre-decimalized currency, does anyone here know what that looked like? It wasn't explained very well in the book. -Frank McConnell

25 years, 4 months

Medieval methods... (was Re: Got a question....PDP? VAX?)

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

Further from The Dream Machine, after many pages about IBM: "The British computer industry, started by Lyons in the late 1940s [by sending two people to the EDVAC team] never had a chance. In 1963, after selling only [!] 100 computers, Lyons sold their computer division to the English Electric Company. ..... After several mergers the English Electric Company would be absorbed into ICL, ... in 1990 Fujitsu bought 80 % of ICL." John G. Zabolitzky

25 years, 4 months

Medieval methods... (was Re: Got a question....PDP? VAX?)

by Jgzabol＠aol.com

Concerning the LEO:

25 years, 4 months

classic operating systems

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<There is a lot more, of course (variables, loops, conditionals, accessing <memory, even defining words used to make new definitions (you could <define a word like : which is then used to define a new type of object)), <but that will do to start with. And if you have a postscript printer (or running Ghostscript) you can do that and print the results too.! Allison

25 years, 4 months

Medieval methods... (was Re: Got a question....PDP? VAX?)

by Philip.Belben＠pgen.com

>> I guess it is time to auction off some punch cards now ... one at a time >> :). Actually, I am toying around with putting one punch card on ebay just >> to see what would happen. It is a bit unusual though in that it is imprinted >> with "Leo Computers", and just to keep it a set, perhaps putting one sheet >> of original Leo Computers stationary. Anyone here remember Leo Computers >> (late 40's, early 50's)? > > You mean Lyons, the people who produced the LEO? I think it was the first > commercially sold computer; it was a cleaned-up version of one of the > British research machines (Manchester Mark I? EDSAC?). The story as it is usually told here in the UK: Lyons had a large chain of tea shops across the UK. They had a system that worked well for ordering stock for the shops and dispatching it, but it was data-processing-intensive and they knew they needed to streamline in order to survive. What do you do if you have a system that's DP-intensive and needs streamlining? Obvious! You computerise it! (All Lyons' DP was being done by hand at that time) Right. Who sells computers for business? Well, a few DP machines (tabulators etc.) exist, and can probably be bought, but nobody sells computers at all! Lyons had the far-sightedness to push ahead with their plans to computerise, and sent two (?) technicians to Cambridge to work on the EDSAC project (a rare example of collaborative research actually working!) The technicians duly went and worked on EDSAC, and came back to Lyons well knowledgeable about computers. Lyons then set out to design their own computer, which they called LEO. They soon discovered that other companies, seeing the benefit that computerising the business had had for Lyons, wanted business computers too. And thus Leo Computers was born - a subsidiary of Lyons, who made and sold business computers. I think there's about one each of their later (solid state) and original (hollow state) machines still around... I think Leo Computers may be regarded as the world's first commercial computer manufacturer. But I don't think they existed as early as the '40s. I think the original LEO project was early '50s, and Leo Computers (as a manufacturer) mid '50s and later. But I'm not sure... Anyone care to add to the above? Correct my mistakes? Etc.? Philip. PS Let us know how the Leo Computers punched card sells! Should fetch a lot!

25 years, 4 months

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test-drb March 1999