test-drb April 2002

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

280 participants
1162 discussions

by PasserM＠umkc.edu

A relevant piece of "Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" comes immediately to mind: "No, your Real Programmer uses OS\370. A good programmer can find and understand the description of the IJK305I error he just got in his JCL manual. A great programmer can write JCL without referring to the manual at all. A truly outstanding programmer can find bugs buried in a 6 megabyte core dump without using a hex calculator. (I have actually seen this done.) OS is a truly remarkable operating system. It's possible to destroy days of work with a single misplaced space, so alertness in the programming staff is encouraged. The best way to approach the system is through a keypunch. Some people claim there is a Time Sharing system that runs on OS\370, but after careful study I have come to the conclusion that they were mistaken." And, anyway, wouldn't MVS, OS/390 or zOS, or whatever IBM marketing is calling it this week run Perl just fine under its POSIX layer (OMVS)? >> On April 22, Raymond Moyers wrote: >> > I bet perl becomes bigtime on mainframes >> >> This frightens me. >> >> -Dave. > > The 60 Billion fold increase in function ? > <snip>

22 years, 8 months

seek info for Ciprico Rimfire 3200

by aek＠spies.com

> I'm looking for any information I can find on the Ciprico Rimfire 3200 VME > SMD controller, and ideally drivers for it to run under SunOS 4.1 www.spies.com/aek/pdf/ciprico (manuals) www.spies.com/aek/CIPRICO.TAR (drivers)

22 years, 8 months

A Grand Tour

by dogas＠bellsouth.net

I'm back from my trip to Pittsburgh Pa. While there, I called around but couldn't pick up a good lead on any old computers in the area other than the 1) Goodwill Computer Center in South Side and online at http://www.goodwillpitt.org/ and during 2) an annual Garbage Day. ;) The Goodwill there actually had a cool small historical display along one wall wtih several old computers (and stats) including a Commodore Pet 2001, a TRS-80 Model 1&EI, a Apple 2e, a TI99/4&EI, a IBM PC... These were all out of reach, and not for sale, but at least nicely displayed. There was also some Mac gear and a little Sun equipment though they were a little more pricy. They've got a nice area for selling old software, hardware, and documentation. Buys included: boxed Commodore 64+4, Wolfram's Mathemattica suppliment CD, early Mac, 800k drive, Amiga TeX, and medialess software packages for MS Fortran, Bank Street Writer, and Jet all for something like $15. And on the way back home, I visited Alex Knight in North Carolina, and got to see some incredible calculators from the 60s including his programmable Merchants, and Nixietube/multiuser Wangs. I knew immediately that Alex would provide a good home for my Canon Canola SX-320 programmable... http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/d/o/dogas/Can01.jpg ...which I was able to trade for the blue Intel equipment in the next pic... http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/d/o/dogas/Imds01.jpg ;)! Joe already had dibs on the white Intel 225 (did you notice the harddisk for it?) I was happy to bring Joe's down and land the 210 system to reunite it with the tape reader I already had. http://personal.lig.bellsouth.net/lig/d/o/dogas/Imds02.jpg Thanks Alex. The Canola will ship today or tomorrow! ;) - Mike: dogas(a)bellsouth.net

22 years, 8 months

Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers)

by ajp166＠bellatlantic.net

At the time DF32s were not that small. They were however fast. The usual usage was as main store for the OS and working apps with slower device like DECTAPE or 9track tape for file data or infrequently used items. The other common usage was since it was fast (word parallel due to fixed heads and data break (DMA)) as a swap store while the system used a larger disk for other ops. Allison -----Original Message----- From: Richard Erlacher <edick(a)idcomm.com> To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Date: Monday, April 22, 2002 10:30 AM Subject: Re: Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers) >What sort of drives were the intended target of this OS? I had a colleague >who had a couple of "DF32" drives for his PDP8E (wirewrapped CPU, BTW) which >he was never able to utilize, and I've always wondered just how those drives, >with their small capacity, fit into the scheme of things. > >Dick > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Loboyko Steve" <sloboyko(a)yahoo.com> >To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> >Sent: Monday, April 22, 2002 7:42 AM >Subject: Re: Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers) > > >> I've been playing with my clone PDP-8's OS-8 >> installation, and I would say at first glance that you >> might think it was awful, but when you consider that >> it is running in 32K (x 12 bits, but still...) of RAM, >> has highly "regular" commands, has installable device >> drivers, and has a large degree of device independence >> it's really very amazing. I could say the same thing >> about Flex for the 6800 and 09. Considering their >> severely limited resources, pretty darned good. >> >> --- Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de> wrote: >> > >> > > Apple's DOS 1 and 2 had no files, or so I hear. >> > >> > AFAIR there was never a Apple DOS 1 - the first was >> > called 2 >> > (like in Apple 2, Disk 2, Dos 2) and was written by >> > the Woz >> > himself. Soon to be replaced by DOS 3 (only the low >> > level and >> > the RWTS functions taken from DOS 2 _ which barely >> > was more >> > than that), which again soon developed into 3.2 (all >> > over a >> > period of less than a half year). 3.2 was more or >> > less the >> > standard DOS for over a year, and the one commonly >> > seen as the >> > first public release. Some time later (1980?) 3.3 >> > came around >> > and the 16 sector format, picking up a development >> > done for the >> > UCSD Pascal System (Well, the P-System required you >> > to change >> > the boot PROMs for 16 sector format, and if you >> > wanted to use >> > DOS and the P-System, you either had to swap PROM >> > all the time, >> > or have at least two controllers, and boot via >> > monitor (or basic) >> > command line). Otherwise 3.3 was more or less >> > unchanged from 3.2. >> > So the main trick was the conversion from 13 sectors >> > and 117 K >> > to 16 sectors and 143 K per disk (side). >> > >> > Well, looking back, your're right - at least Apple >> > DOS 1 never >> > supported files, because it didn't exist :) >> > >> > Gruss >> > H. >> > >> > -- >> > VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen >> > http://www.vcfe.org/ >> >> >> __________________________________________________ >> Do You Yahoo!? >> Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more >> http://games.yahoo.com/ >> >> >

22 years, 8 months

Bad Classic Operating Systems (was: Micro$oft Biz'droid Luser s)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Erlacher [mailto:edick@idcomm.com] > of course millions claiming to be system programmers and ...don't get me started on this one.. ;) > promote the interests of the Microsoft-haters, however right > or wrong they may FWIW, I believe they're right. I count myself among the "microsoft haters," and have no (absolutely none...) microsoft products, paid for or otherwise on any computer in my home. The computers at work, however, are not mine to do with as I please, and if they were, we wouldn't be having this conversation. :) > is concerned. Since giving bad advice can make you liable, > while being stupid > enough to follow such advice can not, I'd be really careful > about dispensing > such advice. Don't get me started on that either. ;) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dave McGuire [mailto:mcguire@neurotica.com] > Of course Emacs isn't good at word processing, because it's a text > editor. It's also not very good at schematic capture, for the same > reason. ;) Really? I thought it was a virtual memory subsystem stress tester. *duck* Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

AS/400s in the Champaign area

by mcguire＠neurotica.com

On April 21, William Donzelli wrote: > > Umm, I have to disagree with you there...the machines in question are > > indeed of a mainframe architecture, and some IBMers were calling them > > "servers" many years before the zSeries was even an itch in IBM's > > pants. > > That is exactly what I meant...just marketting... Ahh, ok...I suppose, then, I was vehemently agreeing with you. ;) -Dave -- Dave McGuire "Mmmm. Big." St. Petersburg, FL -Den

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Dave McGuire [mailto:mcguire@neurotica.com] > Has Microsoft really steered us toward a future full of nontechnical > computer programmers? Yes. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: R. D. Davis [mailto:rdd@rddavis.org] > How can anyone do anything useful with a computer without the > following? Emacs, TeX/LaTeX, dvips, the Bourne shell for scripts, Ok then, how about using the VMS LSE for text editing? I believe TeX is not required for a computer to be "useful," since I don't produce much hardcopy anyway -- same with dvips. Bourne is useful, but so is DCL, TCL, Python, you-name-it, and there's nothing that bourne will do that one of the others won't. > ghostview, gimp, xv, PostgreSQL or Oracle, Perl, C, various useful ghostview is nice to have, but I've actually used just ghostscript, myself, and I've seen utilities that use straight DPS to accomplish the same kind of thing. Gimp is nice, but there are a few other graphics editors that will do the job -- I'm thinking photoshop or Corel's offerings here. XV is indispensable for me, but I don't think it's a requirement for everyone. PostgreSQL is certainly a fine tool, but again, there are many similar offerings, no less capable. Perl is very useful, but there are other choices. C is arguably a decent an more portable replacement for an assembler in many cases, but Modula-3 is nice. ;) > UNIX utilities (e.g. tar, awk, nawk, grep, sed, dc, ed, diff, cal, at, > bc, od, lint, etc.), to name a very few of the extremely useful > programs that run on UNIX systems. I won't address these things, but it should suffice to say that if any system didn't come with these, and you found them indispensable, you could write them yourself. I find that applications alone are hardly a good argument for the use or non-use of any system, and the much better argument is in the design of the system itself. Applications can be had, one way or another. Of course, this view won't make me very popular :) Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)

by csmith＠amdocs.com

> -----Original Message----- > From: Doc [mailto:doc@mdrconsult.com] > I've seen PC/Windows shops with remarkably high uptime-to-downtime > ratios. None of them were running bargain equipment. That's ten minutes up/ten minutes scheduled downtime/15 unscheduled? ;) Ok, ok, it's a joke -- but with a kernel of truth. Chris Christopher Smith, Perl Developer Amdocs - Champaign, IL /usr/bin/perl -e ' print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n"); '

22 years, 8 months

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test-drb April 2002