On 6/2/06, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
> My DEC PWS 433au is right at about 10 years and gets continuous use.
> It runs 24x365, and has for the last 6 years. A lot of people have
> VAXen that they been using for 10+ years (if not 20+), same with
> PDP-11's. In the DEC world 10+ years isn't so much unusual, as the
> norm. Some DEC systems have been in continuous use for 30+ years.
Hear, hear. The oldest (to me) DEC machine in my posession I got in
1982 (PDP-8/L); it
works, but I don't use it every day. I do have some stuff from the
late 1970s and
early 1980s that I have every expectation to work on those occasions when I do
fire it up (few times per year). The stuff from the early 1960s I'm
less confident about, but I'm not terribly worried about the
electronics (just the electrolytic caps).
-ethan
I was just reading through the MSJ (May 1987) and it has an interesting article
called "Evolution and History of MS-DOS" and some of it is quoted below. Does
anyone know whatever happened to Tim Patterson? I never hear his name mentioned,
and am just curious.
>From that article:
*********
January 1975: MITS introduces the $400 Altair computer; it has no keyboard, no
monitor, no disk, and no operating system.
February 1975: Paul Allen and Bill Gates develop and sell their own verion of
BASIC to MITS for the Altair:
February 1976: Paul Allen, now working for MITS, asks Bill Gates to write a
disk-based version of BASIC for the Altair. Bill Gates creates a working model
of his disk BASIC in 10 days. He designs a disk layout and file structure based
on a centralized File Directory and File Allocation Table (FAT). He also
includes a rudimentary set of file services in the disk BASIC he is developing.
1976-1978: Microsoft Disk BASIC is ported to all jmajor 8 bit personal
computers. An assembler and linker are developed for 8080 and Z80 based systems.
April 1978: Intel announces the 8086, a 16 bit processor.
January 1979: Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products begins work on a plug-in
8086 processor card to bring the power of the 8086 to the S-100 bus.
June 1979: Microsoft and Tim Patterson show Microsoft's BASIC running on
Paterson's 8086 card at the National Computer Conference in New York.
April 1980: Delays hold up the delivery of CP/M 86. Tim Paterson decides to
write his own "Quick and Dirty" OS, which becomes known as 86-DOS. He
incorporates the FAT structure first designed byt Bill Gates for Disk-BASIC, and
some features and techniques underlying MS-DOS.
August 1980: IBM takes its first stept owards producing the IBM PC, planning to
use readily availble, off-the-shelf 8 bit hardware. IBM visits Microsoft, asking
if Microsoft can write a ROM-based BASIC for the computer IBM is develop9ing.
Microsoft suggests that IBM consider the 16 bit architecture. IBM's "Project
Chess" goes on to become the 8088 (8086 based) IBM PC. The first working version
of 86-DOS runs on Tim Paterson's 8086 card. This is essentially the birth of
what will become known as MS-DOS.
September 1980: IBM asks Microsoft to provide COBOL, FORTRAN and PAscal for
their personal computer. Microsoft suggests to IBM that an operating system
would be necessary to develop the additional lnaguages.
October 1980: Microsoft submits a proposal to IBM that includes MS-DOS.
November 1980: The proposal is accepted by IBM. A prototype machine arrives at
Microsoft and a small DOS team begins a concentrated period of work.
February 1981: 86-DOS runs on the prototype for the first time. Over the next
half year the OS is refined and becomes MS-DOS 1.0.
August 1981:IBM introduces the IBM PC, and annoucnes three operating systems:
MS-DOS, CP/M 86, and the P System. For several months, MS-DOS is the only OS
available. It is also priced substantially lower than CP/M. ...
...
June 1982: MS-DOS, Version 1.1 is announced, providing support for double-sided,
eight sector diskettes on the IBM PC.
I think that Sun's biggest problem is still residual from the UltraSPARC II debacle- they angered management by lying aboug why the new $100k+ computer wasn't working,
and they really p***ed off sysadmins by alledging that they were incompetent. It would be a while before I'd recommend a Sun after that . . .
The new product line looks good, but a bit confusing (TWO different processor architectures sharing the same "Ultra" and "Fire" names?, Why???)
I wouldn't pooh-pooh OpenSolaris, either - if you were contemplating buying a expensive computer, wouldn't SGI's financial issues give you concern about buying a
Origin? OpenSolaris gives the stability of having potential third-party support up to and including patches. Sun still is seen as the big player, and Sun Solaris will likely maintain
an edge over OpenSolaris, while allowing Sun the option of (backporting? porting? including? whatever. . .) bits from OpenSolaris, much as Apple has done with Darwin (but OpenSolaris
will likely become more of a "serious" O.S. since it doesn't have the Mach issues)
Some of this is probably wishful thinking - I do hope that Sun and IBM are both around to provide an alternative to Itanium - but I do think that Sun is getting it's act together
Now we need more people to really learn UNIX (it is rather scary the number of "computer professionals" who don't know how to use anything except Windows and perhaps Mac).
Scott Quinn
>>>> I probably was one of the first to buy one, and it
>>>> ain't here yet.
>>> nothing yet. I wouldn't recommend sending this guy
>>> any more money until we've verified that he's shipped
>>> some product.
>> Is this the guy in Tyler, TX ?
> Yep.
Two weeks now. Surely somebody has received one by now?
John A.
Tony Duell wrote:
Thing is, the electronics of the older drives uses simpler ICs, and fewer
custom parts. I would much rather repair an ST412 (for which I have
schematics anyway) than the IDE thing I've just looked at.
-----------------------------------------------------
Billy: I've data from 3 different disk drive companies over 20 years and
100+ million failed drives, that show the same thing: PCB failures are less
than 1% of the total field return failures. The vast majority are tribology
related (heads and media). I know a few specialty companies that can
recover data from crashed drives. But I know of none that try to repair
crashes. The cost is hundreds of times greater than buying a new disk.
------------------------------------------------------
> circuitry in the surplus stores. But it's the heads and platters that = >
wear > out and ferrite heads and oxide media are gone. Occasional bits and
True. But other problems inside the HDA would be much easier to repair on an
older drive with a much larger head flying height. I think it would be
possible to make a 'clean box' to open up ST412s at home and repair them and
expect the repaired HDA to be reliable enough to use. That is not the case
with modern drives.
-------------------------------------------------------
Billy: I'm not certain what you think can be repaired in an old ST412. I
know you can't make the media or rewind the heads, so I assume you are only
talking of substituting parts from another unit. Which may be in just as
bad condition. And even if you could put a new platter in, how do you do
servo track writing?
Disk drives are not designed for decades of life. They're designed to last
until the next new tech is available - cheaper and faster. Their design,
whatever era, is at the bleeding edge of available technology at time of
design. Technology pushes with each generation. Your ST412 was designed
for a range of 40-60K hours MTBF. Current products are at 1.8M hours. A
lot of that improvement comes from getting rid of the individual components,
solder joints, power consumption electronics, connectors, etc. So you can
find the odd ST412 that you recover. But is it fun? Is it worth the time
you spend vs buying a ?20 IDE drive and having time to use your system?
I know we share a love of understandable electronics and hands on computing.
And especially building our own design out of logic. But repairing old
disks because you do not want to learn new technology seems to me to be
counter-productive.
I must admit that I truly don't understand your logic in only using devices
that you can troubleshoot down to the electronic component. (It reminds me
of a few classic stories of Victorian handymen who shared that philosophy
dealing with the first electric lamps .) It seems to me that you are
severely limiting your fun by ignoring all the new technology that is out
there.
The world has moved on. Today, we often have to work with conponents that we
can't repair - such as a processor chip with 100 million transistors.
Perhaps this is where we differ. You want to work only on products that you
understand each component and can fix. I want to play with it all - even if
I can't get into all the minute details such as firmware, ASICs, or FPGAs.
Maybe I can't repair a Pentium chip. But I can make it sit up and do
tricks. And by doing so, improve my marketable skills. I was hired for my
current job at age 63 - primarily because of my knowledge of the latest
technology; not the 35+ years experience on old drives and dinosaur systems.
Billy
