test-drb March 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

292 participants
932 discussions

by meltlet＠fastmail.fm

Hello all! I'd like to get in contact with anyone that has access to a DECstation 3100 with Ultrix. My problem is that I have a Cranfield DECstation which was built to run in a NFS environment. I've rebuilt the network scripts &c to get it to boot 'multiuser', but as it's missing the whole of /usr and refuses to present me with a login prompt (good thing really - lack of usr means I cannot change passwords anyway). I would really appreciate it if you have a working copy you could tarball /usr for me or point me towards somewhere with a publicly accessible archive...? TIA Alex

22 years, 9 months

Blank Paper Tape Question

by cdl＠proxima.ucsd.edu

> Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 19:36:13 -0600 (CST) > From: Bill Richman <bill_r(a)inebraska.com> > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Blank Paper Tape Question > > Does regular paper tape normally come with the sprocket holes pre-punched, > or does the device that punches the data holes also punch the sprocket > holes? I recently bought some "paper tape" from eBay, and it looks like > the right stuff except it's totally without holes. I don't think I've > ever seen "virgin" tape before, but I had the idea that the sprocket holes > down the middle came with the tape. I'm kicking around trying to build my > own tape punch, since I have been unsuccessful at scrounging or buying one > so far. I picked up some stainless steel flat and some rod of the > appropriate diameter for the holes today, along with some solenoids for > actuating said rods. I'm thinking of machining the stainless to make my > own punch, but the lack of sprocket holes on the new tape has me confused. > Do I need to add another solenoid and pin to punch a smaller hole for the > sprocket, or did I just buy some odd-ball tape? That's the way it is. The sprocket hole gets punched along with all the data holes. Even the TTY33-ASR did it that way. Otherwise you would have a tough alignment problem between the data and the "timing track". carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu

22 years, 9 months

IBM 3840

by pat＠purdueriots.com

An IBM 3840 Tape System just came in recently at Purdue University Salvage and Surplus. The guy that works there (Don) said he would try and figure out a price for it. The system includes: 1) 1x3840 A22 controller 2) 2x3840 B22 dual-tape drive 3) 1x3840 B22 dual-tape drive with autochanger. The item was in 'unknown status', but appeared to be complete. I've asked him to hold off on scrapping the system until at least next Tuesday. If you're interested, contact me off list, and I'll try to see what he'll want for it(you can make an offer for him). Currently, I don't have any way to move it or store it (more than a couple days in my apartment that is) so the pickup would either have to be by Tuesday by you or I'd have to rent a truck to move it to my place for temporary storage (which I'd ask $20+truck charges for). If no-one's interested by next Tuesday, I'll tell him to go ahead and scrap it, so make up your minds soon... I'll post a price for it as soon as I find one out. -- Pat

22 years, 9 months

Intel iPSC/1, TI Explorer II, Symbolics 3620 documentation, software sou...

by Innfogra＠aol.com

In a message dated 3/8/02 1:20:39 PM Pacific Standard Time, rigdonj(a)cfl.rr.com writes: > > > What's an iPSC? Isn't that the first intel Parallel Super? Computer. I think I still have some cards for that, with multiple 82586 ethernet coprocessors on a Multibus II card. I have always wanted one of those. The closest I ever got was an empty tower and bunches of cards, and that was 10 years ago. Paxton Astoria, OR

22 years, 9 months

Grant cards (was Re: MicroVAX-II questions)

by healyzh＠aracnet.com

> > > M9047 Grant card > > > > What ever you do, don't let this card out of your sight. > > No kidding. I think I've seen three Qbus grant cards in my life. What I find amusing is the stack of them I got out of a PDP-11 that was controlling a Cameca Microprobe. They'd already disassmebled everything by the time I got the stuff, but they must have had a blank card in every slot! The interesting thing is they'd made they're own grant cards out of Q-Bus prototyping cards! Zane

22 years, 9 months

OT Mitsubishi Monitor Weirdness

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

On Fri, 8 Mar 2002; Julius Sridhar <vance(a)ikickass.org> wrote: > Hi people. I have a Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 900u (nowhere near on-topic > but I figure people here might know better what causes this kind of > problem). If I provide it with a sync-on-green signal to its BNC > connectors (It has five, I connect three), the monitor syncs up just fine, > but all the areas that are black show up with a green cast. The white > areas show up just fine. I haven't looked at an image with color yet, but > I would guess that all the colors would probably be shifted towards the > green. Any ideas? I use to see this often during my tour as a television studio engineer. It all came down to one word: TERMINATION. I had forgot to terminate the video cables going into a monitor, or disconnected the monitor at the end of a chain. We all know to terminate the SCSI bus, and the other day there was a discussion of terminating the floppy cable as part of Dave Jenner's thread on multiple floppies. We also need to remember that any time you run a signal down any wire from point A to point B, it needs to be terminated in its characteristic impedance. If it isn't, some bad things can happen. As an example, I use to work on some navigational transmitters with power output of a few hundred watts. There was a test jack for sampling the RF output and you hooked a scope to the jack. The gotcha was when you hooked the coax cable to the transmitter first instead of the scope. If you did that, the transmitter went down within seconds. The open circuit at the other end of the coax got reflected back to the transmitter as a low impedance and detuned it, and the monitoring circuits would detect the detuning and pull the plug. On the back of my Mitsubishi Diamond Pro 20 there is a switch next to each BNC, used to terminate each input. If the monitor does not provide terminate switches, you can always try BNC T connectors and 75 ohm terminators. In a later message, Julius Sridhar <vance(a)ikickass.org> also wrote: > Never mind. The Clamp pulse setting was in the wrong position. I am curious to know if your monitor has termination switches. If so, how about setting the clamp pulse back to what it was and then terminating the inputs. If not, do you have the T's and terminators to try it that way. I would be interested to know the results. Mike

22 years, 9 months

MicroVAX-II questions

by Mzthompson＠aol.com

On Fri, 8 Mar 2002; Doc Shipley <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> scribbled: > Just got home with my brand-spanking-old MVII... All right now! > It's indecently clean inside... Don't you just hate it when that happens. You miss out on the fun of blowing the dust out and having go everywhere. > M9047 Grant card What ever you do, don't let this card out of your sight. I once rescued a good quantity of uVAX II boards. Most of them went to list members, but what to do with the big stack of M9047's. One nearby DEC reseller gave me the number of another reseller out in California who was desperate for them. For a mess of M9047's, I got a some DEC badged drives of the RZ2x variety. Who'd thunk it? > Anybody have 2 breakout boxes for the M3107, and no M3107? We could > equalize.... For that matter, if anybody needs the card, I'll just > share. When I finally got tired of all the uVAX II stuff around here, I sent it to several list members for postage. It was the odds & ends stuff and included some of the breakout boxes. So there are list members with several of these in their stash. Just gotta get 'em to 'fess up. Mike

22 years, 9 months

Hosting Recommendations

by jeff.kaneko＠juno.com

I don't know about the other carriers, but I'm here to tell you that RoadRunner (at least, it's incarnation here in Kansas) really, truly, sucks ass: 1. They charge for basic cable in addition to my network connection, even though I don't use the cable TV part. 2. ftp & http access to machines I have attached to the network is *blocked* ( can get in via TELNET; whoop, whoop). 3. Their NNTP (net news) service sucks 4. They're going to raise my rates *again*. 5. The speed is no where nearly as fast as it used to be. I'd go DSL but SBC doesn't have DSL in my neighborhood. Damn. Jeff On Wed, 6 Mar 2002 12:36:41 -0600 Christopher Smith <csmith(a)amdocs.com> writes: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Dan Wright [mailto:dtwright@uiuc.edu] > > > I was just switched from @Home to my local cable company's > (insight > > communications) network, and it's actual been more stable and > > reliable then it > > was before. @Home kind of sucked, but I've been happy with > > insight's service, > > at least so far -- it's been about a month... > > Ok, so how much does Insight cost? Will they panic if I tell them I > don't have windows, and no, it's not a Macintosh either? ;) > > Do they require you to buy cable service too, or can you get the > network hookup separately? > > I have been considering switching to cable off and on, myself. > > Chris > > Christopher Smith, Perl Developer > Amdocs - Champaign, IL > > /usr/bin/perl -e ' > print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); > ' > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.

22 years, 9 months

OpenSTEP for VMS

by cdl＠proxima.ucsd.edu

> Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2002 18:10:00 -0600 (CST) > From: Doc <doc(a)mdrconsult.com> > To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Subject: Re: OpenSTEP for VMS > In-Reply-To: <200203052244.g25Mii717665(a)shell1.aracnet.com> > Sender: owner-classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > Reply-To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org > > On Tue, 5 Mar 2002, Zane H. Healy wrote: > > > First I've heard of it. It primarily ran on NeXT hardware (of course), x86 > > systems, and had limited support for HP and Sparc. I've *never* heard VMS > > mentioned as having any sort of an OPENSTEP environment. > > We are talking about OpenSTEP, right? Not NeXTSTEP? There has > been a port of OpenSTEP to XFree86 for long and long. You mean, of course, a port of NeXTstep to Intel x86 hardware. Starting with NeXTstep 3.1 (circa 1991) and following with NeXTstep 3.2, 3.3. And OpenStep 4.1 and 4.2. carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego clowenstein(a)ucsd.edu

22 years, 9 months

Seen on RISKS-L

by dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com

> The item referred to above is as follows: > > "In 1999, USC neurobiologist Joseph Miller asked NASA to check some old data > the Viking probes had sent back from Mars in the mid-1970s. Miller wanted to > find out whether certain information on gas released by Martian soil, which > at the time had been dismissed as meaningless "chemical activity," was > actually evidence of microbial life. NASA found the tapes he requested, but > they didn't find any way to read them. It turns out that the data, despite > being only about 25 years old, was in a format NASA had long since forgotten > about. Or, as Miller puts it, "The programmers who knew it had died." What this really meant was that some manager at NASA who was in the position of responsibility for these tapes didn't have the staff or budget to deal with them. A purely political issue, and not a technical one at all. I used be one of NASA's biggest supporters, and my dream was to work there some day. Year by year, my opinion of them has decayed until we get to how they dealt with the Delta Clipper. I've read the reports, and I'm convinced they deliberately crashed it because it was in comptetition for funds for their pet project, the venturestar (X-33). Which is now dead because they can't figure out how to make hydrogen tanks for the linear aerospike engine (very cool technology from Project Sun in the 1950s) that won't leak... -dq p.s. Revive the Delta Clipper!

22 years, 9 months

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test-drb March 2002