test-drb March 1999

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

191 participants
1003 discussions

by peterutz＠worldnet.att.net

Please post this in your newsletter, with responses to come to me directly at peterutz(a)worldnet.att.net as I am not a subscriber. LOOKING FOR A GOOD HOME I have 3 Sony SMC70 CPUs, and loads of related stuff: Boxes of cables, TV interfaces, a monitor, 64K RAM cache drive (a big deal back then), loads of software for word processing, CPM utilities, titling and graphics, and instruction books for it all (hardware and software). All 3 machines worked a year ago, but one has a couple non-operating characters on the keyboard and another has a nonfunctioning serial port.The third was perfect, but a year idle in the basement may have taken some toll. I have maybe 50 3.5" floppies for the SMC70. I'll sell the works for $200 plus postage from NJ, or will sell specific cables and books for $15 each. I used these machines from about 1980 to 1986 for word processing, television graphics, and to operate an interactive laser videodisc. They have lightpen, audiocassette, and keypad ports, along with parallel, serial ,and external devices ports and dual SSSD 3.5" floppy drives.

25 years, 4 months

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

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<> Didn't all the lead technicians who built NT come from DEC? In fact <wasn't Dave Cutler, NT head honcho, the designer of VMS? < <Yes and yes. Not quite. Cutler was the designer of RSX-11 and files-11 all of which were part of VMS but not VMS it self, his direct involvemnt was near nil by the mid to late 80s. His contribution to NT was at the higher archetectual level. Allison

25 years, 4 months

classic operating systems

by mbg＠world.std.com

>You can get an 'ancient unix' source license for $100. It gets you the >source to unix 7th edtion and earlier for personal use. I *think* it might also give you rights to use 2.11BSD, the most recent BSD for pdp-11s, which also comes with source. Best to contact PUPS to find out... 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 | +--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

25 years, 4 months

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

by drbilling＠ucdavis.edu

At 08:21 PM 3/15/99 -0000, you wrote: >Dean Billing <drbilling(a)ucdavis.edu> wrote: >> After M-Squish designed NT, they hired one of the VMS gurus from DEC > >No, they weren't *that* stupid. They hired him at let him design it. >The actual operating system deep in the bowels of Windows NT isn't so >bad. This doesn't sound right to me. I guess there are so many legends about the NT design team that we would have to name each person and understand their contribution. Very early on, when NT betas were being distributed free, and I got one of them, the lore going around that NT core was canabalized from the new Mach kernel. Later, I heard that one of the VMS gurus was hired by MS. I find it very difficult to believe that they would hire a DEC VMS guru before NT was cast in iron and then "...let him design it." If NT was based, even loosely, on the Mach kernel, why would they hire a VMS guru? Why not a Mach kernel guru? >But they have lventy-seven layers of crap on top of it to keep >you from seing anything that might be simple and elegant. Every operating system today has "...lventy-seven layers of crap on top of it..." including UNIX with an X client and then applications or AIX with SMIT on top of an X client or even VMS. >> ... >No, it isn't. The underlying operating system is nothing like Unix, and >only vaguely like Mach (which are themselves two entirely different things). OK, but isn't the general end result of using the Mach kernel, a UNIX system? >However, as a "normal" Windows programmer (for the Win32 subsystem), you >can't even get to the operating system. You can only call the Win32 >layer. VMS protects itself in the same way. If you are writing well behaved applications, you can only make VMS system calls, even if you are writing drivers. >> Therefore, they have not been able to implement a true clustering system >> and IMHO because the DEC software engineers came late to the game, they >> were unable to design the basic reliability into the operating system >> software interfaces. > >Again, that's not the fault of the kernel. The kernel is pretty good. The >problem is the leventy-seven layers of crap above it. I believe it is the fault of the kernel, for without a kernel with a built in distributed lock manager, you can't implement true clustering. You get something like IBM AIX with HACMP which is a "...lventy-seven layers of crap on top of it." to simulate a "cluster" in a UNIX environment, except you have a system disk on each CPU which must be synchronized with every other system disk. >And the I/O architecture is even OK, but unfortunately you end up with >hundreds of device drivers written by bozos running at ring zero, so >naturally the system isn't as robust as it should be. DEC was in complete >control of the VAX, so most VMS sites didn't run any drivers that were >written by clueless morons. This is surely not the case of sites that used VAXen for process control, which was a primary feature of VMS in the early days; VMS being an extension of RSX-11. DEC also has documentation to write drivers properly, as I would assume MicroSoft does for NT. I doubt whether all of the problems with NT are bad drivers written by our local " ... clueless morons." ... since we don't do that, and our NT systems still crash frequently. > ... >Um, what do you mean by "doing development work on them"? I mean doing any kind of application software development work simultaneously with using it for a server, which is what we do every day on our VAXcluster and IBM RS/6000 UNIX servers. >If you want a file server to be as robust as possible, it should be used for >nothing but serving files. That was true even in the old days. That would be news to any large VMS or IBM mainframe shop. >Nowdays people load all kinds of crap on their NT file server. It's no >wonder the things fall over every few days. We have loaded all kinds of applications and third party software on our VAXcluster, from Interleaf, Sapiens, Oracle, MEC, and others and it has never crashed except during hardware failures which have ocurred every few years. >Of course, if NT didn't have the problems discussed above, it should have >been able to go weeks or months without falling over. > >> Another drawback to NT is that many software >> upgrades and application installation/deinstallations require rebooting, >> something unheard of with VMS. > >This problem is definitely a matter of poor design. I'm pretty sure this >one is also not the fault of the kernel, but of the leventy-seven layers >of crap above it. The programmers were too lazy and/or in too much of a >hurry to bother to figure out how to make changes without rebooting. Agreed. -- 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

Got a question....PDP? VAX?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<has yet, true clustering. You can grow huge systems modularly and only <have to maintain one system disk. VMS is one of the few that can have a disk farm and a cpu farm as a result of the clustering technology. It's nice in that my MV2000 with it's tiny 159mb disk can be a cluster member to the 3100 allowing common files and all sorts of nice things including common configuration and diskless booting. <>I heard that NT has a lot of VMS engineers behind it. < <This statement might be somewhat true. After M-Squish designed NT, they <hired one of the VMS gurus from DEC and while there have been many A few but not a lot. <modifications to NT to add more VMS like features, it has one giant <drawback, the underlying operating system is UNIX based, the Mach kernel. that and how the protected kernel is not very protected. <software interfaces. NT servers usually crash regularly, i.e. in less tha <a week, sometimes several times a day, especially if anyone is doing <development work on them. Another drawback to NT is that many software <upgrades and application installation/deinstallations require rebooting, <something unheard of with VMS. I run three Nt servers (3.51 SP4) and they are extremely reliable but not heavily loaded. My understanding the NT doesn't load well. Whats funny is a could stuff a 3100m76 in there and replace the whole lot and still have cpu left over. VMS does (over)load gracefully. Allison

25 years, 4 months

Hazeltine?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<That might have been true many, many years ago, but my involvement with th <mfg of printed circuit boards started in the mid 70's, and that was not th <case from that point on. Second, the statement about dumping copper, nickel Ah I was there and it was done. there were few regulations yes but cost was a driving factor. the intervention was cost when the materiels were worth though to recover and the real pressure in the early 80s. the problem is the crap is still in the soil and spreading 20-30 years later. Allison

25 years, 4 months

IBM PC 5150 with no drives?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<I was joking when I said real-time clock since I thought the PC came with <a real-time clock. Is this not the case? Hmm, come to think of it, I <guess not since I don't see a battery on the MB of this 5150 here. Yep, XT class machines didn't have a TOY CLOCK (TOY is time of year), All the had was a periodic timer interrupt and when you power off so goes the date. Hence the stuff like smart watch. A multi-io card was typically 2 serial, joy stick. either a FDC interface. Most were commonly two serial on one card, a Video and Parallel on another with FDC being stand alone or paired up with the HDC. Clocks were commonly the smart scoket under the bios roms. I have many examples of those here. Allison

25 years, 4 months

Got a question....PDP? VAX?

by allisonp＠world.std.com

<How does passing their building prove that they still make VAXen <(as opposed to Alpha-based hardware)? I still have friends inside. The subtle point being I used to work there and make a point of keeping in touch with the activities of what's left of the old DEC. Also I didn't say making, I said selling. I believe there is little if any VAX chip production going on. <> Also the OS is still current and planned for future for the <> Alpha. < <No, it has already been available for Alpha for eight years. It's not <planned for the future, except in the sense that they are continuing to <support it. Nit picking crap again. I was a Digit when it was ported to Alpha. While nt and Unix was more or less new to alpha I was running a Jenson (early alpha) on my desk and using VMS. Keep in mind I run VAXen, talk to Digits (now Compaq) and live local to the action so to speak. <However, a little more thorough searching reveals that as of January 25, <they still offered: < < VAXstation 4000 Model 96 < MicroVAX 3100 Model 88 < MicroVAX 3100 Model 98 < VAX 4000 Model 108 < VAX 7000 Model 810 (up to six CPUs) Asked and answered. Allison

25 years, 4 months

Hazeltine?

by rcini＠email.msn.com

On Thu, 11 Mar 1999 06:35:55 -0500, Steve Robertson <steverob(a)hotoffice.com> wrote: >>The manual for the 1420 has a date of July 1979 on it. The ID tag on the >>terminal indicates that it was manufactured in Greenlawn NY. This building is about a 20 minute drive from my house. It's on Pulaski Road in Greenlawn. The sign outside now says "GEC/Marconi/Hazeltine" and is locally acknowledged as a Superfund site (although I never checked if it made the CERCLA list or not). Place has been there forever and is a pretty unassuming 2-story Government-style office building, but with no fences or razor wire. Looking in, it appears that the interior consists of a cube-farm on the lower floor and some offices on the upper floor. I don't know if there is manufacturing in the rear or not, although it appears overall to be a large building. [ Rich Cini/WUGNET [ ClubWin!/CW7 [ MCP Windows 95/Windows Networking [ Collector of "classic" computers [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/ [ http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/pdp11/ <---------------------------- reply separator

25 years, 4 months

FW: Cleaning My Room

by kyrrin＠bluefeathertech.com

Attention, would-be rescuers in or near Milwaukee, WI! There's a graduating student (Josh Hulbert) looking to get rid of a VAXen and PDP-11 (unknown model) as freebies. If interested, contact him directly. Best of luck! -=-=- <break> -=-=- Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 16:26:47 -0600 (CST) From: Joshua Hulbert <hulbertj(a)msoe.edu> To: port-vax(a)netbsd.org Subject: Cleaning My Room Sender: port-vax-owner(a)netbsd.org Delivered-To: port-vax(a)netbsd.org Hello All, I will be graduating at the end of this quarter and moving several hundred miles away from my dorm, so I need to minimize the amount of stuff I take with me. I have the following VAX-related equipment, free for the taking: VS2000, with VR-160-DA, LK201, and puck-mouse. I have the 3-meter long cable for this one. It has an RD-54, and a RAM expansion to 20MB IIRC. I know it boots and runs NetBSD just fine, but there is nothing on the RD54. PDP-11: I know next to nothing about this thing. I picked it up for $10 at American Science and Surplus. From what I could gather, it may have been a terminal server or something. It doesn't have enough RAM to load an OS, but it has some funky ROM card. If anyone is interested, I can send the M-numbers on the cards in the cage. Heres the catch: You have to come get it, as shipping would exceed the value of these boxes. I live in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA). Again, if anyone is interested, I can send part numbers on all the parts. Joshua Hulbert Senior Electrical Engineer Milwaukee School of Engineering -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner and head honcho, Blue Feather Technologies http://www.bluefeathertech.com Amateur Radio:(WD6EOS) E-mail: kyrrin(a)bluefeathertech.com SysOp: The Dragon's Cave (Fido 1:343/272, 253-639-9905) "Our science can only describe an object, event, or living thing in our own human terms. It cannot, in any way, define any of them..."

25 years, 4 months

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test-drb March 1999