test-drb June 2013

test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

216 participants
271 discussions

bad engineers, was Re: NetBSD's i386 support, was Re: Old UNIX Systems

by barythrin＠gmail.com

I've often referred to programming to folks as a game. You have rules, and commands you give to get what you want to happen. The rest is sort of a game to put it together and get it to work right. Given I also don't finish most games and I'm not a career programmer :-) but the initial proof of concept stage for me is usually fun.

10 years, 11 months

[cctalk] OLD V NEW (Was: Old UNIX Systems

by b4＠gewt.net

On 4 Jun 2013, at 21:13, "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: > > On 4 June 2013 23:29, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: >> On 06/04/2013 03:40 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>>>> Of course. But why I said what I said above, out of exasperation, is that >>>>>> you call architectures that are currently developed, sold, and used, and have >>>>>> been for decades, with no end in sight, "failures". That's insane. >>>>> >>>>> They went up against Intel. They used to come in a wide variety of >>>>> machines: low-end to high-end desktop, laptop, small server, big >>>>> server. >>>>> >>>>> They don't any more. Now they are high-end or nothing. >>>> >>>> ...which is where they belong. Sun *workstations* aren't needed anymore >>>> because cheap PeeCee hardware actually has usable graphics now. They didn't >>>> back then. They didn't "go up against Intel" at all...they owned that >>>> market, because of graphics capabilities, and when cheap PC hardware could do >>>> it, it did. >>> >>> OK, good. That's exactly the direction I wanted you to go. >> >> *sigh* You have more free time than anyone else I know. > > Yeah, I spend way too much time online. :( >> >>> So, my next >>> question is: what if (or more to the point,when) cheap PC hardware >>> delivers the same features & performance that SPARC and POWER do for >>> servers now? >> >> If and when something BETTER comes along, they will be displaced, of >> course. This is textbook first-year economics. > > OK, right. > >> But it has to be BETTER. > > The big question is, does it? > > Is Unix better than Lisp Machines were? Is Solaris better than Linux? > Are cheap x86 Linux servers better than SPARCs with Solaris or > RS/6000s with AIX? Is Unix better than OpenVMS? Is running your own > servers better than outsourcing it to the "cloud"? > > I would not answer an unambiguous "yes" to any of these. > > "Better" is a composite, which comes out of lots of factors - in this > context, fitness for purpose; performance; power usage; cooling > requirements; expected service life; and of course, the big one and > increasing, cost. > > At the end of the day, in most thing, cost tends to win out. > >> Clueless outfits will buy the cheap crap, just as >> they do now, and just as they always have, since it has been available. > > Sure, yes. > >> But >> where build quality and reliability matters, you won't see any eMachines (or >> similar) sitting on rackmount shelves in datacenters anytime soon. > > No. But these days, they're absolutely full of Dells. Dell is not a > byword for quality in my mind; is it to you? > > Google, of course, run more servers than anyone anywhere, and they, > famously, use bare generic motherboards in specially-designed trays in > racks and design their systems for very high redundancy and > failure-tolerance. They've run the numbers and found this is the most > economical option. > > Few are brave enough to follow them, not yet - but more and more > businesses are finding it economical to just rent capacity on demand, > in the cloud, and they have no real idea what their workloads are > running on. It could be quality kit, it could be bare boards in a rack > drawer. You don't know, but if the price is right, you buy it. And I will laugh when the "cloud" companies go under or lose all of their data. ;) > > I'd love to run Sun x86 workstations, or Macs, as my PCs, but I can't > afford to. I have PCs to earn me money, not as a hobby, so I run the > absolute cheapest kit I can and try to make sure that I always have at > least one other fallback box to go back to in the event of a system > failure. A fallback PC desktop, a Mac too, a fallback notebook, etc. > > Cheaper. > >> Do not attempt to "lead" me in this manner again. It is childish and >> petty, and it is a waste of your time and mine. Up until now I've derived >> *some* degree of enjoyment from our debates...but when you start acting like >> your predictions are automatically foregone conclusions, and then you try to >> "lead" people in this way, it just becomes little more than infuriating. > > I should not have said anything. I have been trying to learn to > improve my debating style, but I find it unexpectedly difficult. I > qualified as a TESOL (TEFL) teacher in February and in so doing I > learned an awful lot about presentation techniques and so on. Some of > them I find have application in every day life. > > Your approach to conversation and debate, Dave, is /exceptionally/ > confrontational and quickly and easily turns hostile. You are very > fast to get personal, to go for the "hey buddy, I've been doing this > for years, don't you try to tell me" response. > > I was thus trying something different, something I got from Dale > Carnegie - rather than telling you what my view was, to try to draw > you out and get you to go to the same place on your own, because as > far as I can tell, you are the sort of person who will instantly > rebuff anything you're just told, just by innate reaction, even if it > is actually something that you personally would normally agree with. > > You are possibly the most in-your-face person on this whole list, and > I was trying to avoid provoking your very common "I know better than > you so STFU" style of response. Instead, by admitting what I was > doing, I've evoked it a different way. That's a shame and I have blown > it. :?( > >> Of course that may be what you're going for. But your writing is good >> enough, and your OPINIONS are well-thought-out enough that I'm sure you're >> not a complete idiot...so I doubt you're just so bored as to spend your time >> riling people up on mailing lists. So I guess I just don't know what to make >> of you and your motivations. > > I don't really have any single identifiable set. I'm interested in > classic computing and I find this list to be one of the most > interesting places to read that I am regularly on. I find a lot of > stuff out here. Some of it, occasionally, is even useful. I've also > met a few people IRL, which has been a great extra bonus - they've all > been fascinating chaps & I enjoyed meeting them. > >>>> Be careful; that "niche" is where a lot of heavy lifting gets done. >>> >>> Yes indeed. It's turning into a commodity market, which tends to mean >>> lowest-common-denominator kit. >> >> Except where it matters. > > Not sure about that. I am seeing a general overall trend towards > commoditisation in all aspects of computing, and I do mean all. If > there are exceptions - and I am not saying that there are not - then > they are in areas that I don't know about. But there are lots of > those! > >>>> We'll >>>> see what happens in 5Y, and I suspect (and hope) that you and I will be there >>>> to discuss it, but those machines have been there for a very long time, and I >>>> don't see them going anywhere. >>> >>> Not overnight, no. But I foresee gradual shrinkage. A slow death, just >>> like Itanium. >> >> That may very well be. But if it does happen, it's a long way off. My new >> Core i7 Quad is now JUST able to keep up with my eight-year-old Sun V480 that >> I just decomissioned. At almost three times the clock rate. > > Fascinating. For what kind of workloads? What do you ascribe this to? > >> If anything >> causes "slow death" anytime soon, it's not likely to be PeeCees. It might be >> ARM, but that'd be a ways off too, for that level of performance. > > I bought into ARM in about 1989 because at that time the > price:performance was absolutely unrivalled. My ?800 2nd-hand > Archimedes A310 was /considerably/ faster than the top-of-the-range > machine my work sold at the time, an IBM PS/2 Model 70 386DX desktop > running at 25MHz with /secondary cache/ (woo!). > > The PS/2 cost about ?10,500 excluding optional extras such as a > keyboard and a copy of MS-DOS 3.3. > > Over 10? the price (OK, new versus used, but still, around that new vs > new) and somewhere around a quarter down to an eighth of the > performance. And the PS/2 didn't have a 386 in, so we're not including > FP, just plain integer performance. An 8MHz ARM2 with slow DRAM ran > *rings* around an 80386DX with cache and expensive quick RAM. > > So, yeah, back then, ARM was a performance king. At the time - I did > check, but I am not sure of my prices >25y later - the next box I > could find with integer performance similar to my Archie was a Sun > workstation costing well over ?20,000, possibly up to ?30K or even > ?40K. > > We sold Apple kit, too. We had a Mac II. It wasn't even in the ring. > The IIx that replaced it was closer and the IIfx got competitive. :?) > It was about ?15K, I think. > > But the 486 closed the gap, the Pentium equalled contemporary ARMs, > the Pentium Pro edged ahead in some tasks and around the time that the > Pentium II came out, Acorn gave up and closed down its workstation > division. Great shame. The specialist chipset, graphics, sound and OS > were just too expensive to develop and build. > > Doubly sad because on price:performance of just the CPU+RAM subsystem, > ARM still kicked Intel's butt. Or in performance:Watt, too, but that > was not an issue back then, of course; notebooks didn't really exist > yet, just clunky low-powered things like the GRID or Mac Portable. > > ARM is in the ascendant now because performance:Watt is becoming a > decisive factor, and the humble Raspberry Pi shows that it can still > score in price:performance too. But in raw performance, it hasn't got > a hope and I don't think it ever will again. > >> Or we could just wait and see. I'll keep doing it, and you keep writing >> about it. > > Well, that's the plan! > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven > MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 >

10 years, 11 months

Stuff for rescue in Las Vegas

by evan＠snarc.net

Someone contacted me about stuff for sale/rescue in Las Vegas. I have no connection to the person and no details beyond what's in this message. Contact: Lou (grandieri at gmail.com) He wrote: >> DecMate II with CP/M board. I will have to cable it up, it been sitting in my garage for about 20+ years now. It was in excellent working condition when I last used it last. May need some dusting on the inside, wipe down outside. ? Pre-formatted RX-50 Disks. Boxed sets of all software & Manuals?for DecMate II, CP/M Software & Manuals,?Boxed Training Discs ? IBM PC (aftermarket XT, DOS, monochrome display?) -?Gently used, works, has dial-up modem ? IBM PS/2 (8086 with Intel speed chip added, DOS)?- Like New ? Diablo 1640 Daisy Wheel Printer (Serial?cable, external keyboard with cable added)?- Like New Diablo 1650?Daisy Wheel Printer (Serial Cable, with built-in keyboard) - Like New Diablo Maint.?and Operator Manuals, various font daisy wheels, extra parts, extra boards, extra power supply, tractor feed, pin feed platen?- all new ? Zentec Zyphyr ZMS-35 Smart Computer Terminal - Like New ? Panasonic Senior Partner Portable (with Manuals,?built-in printer and 2 -?5 1/4 " Drives, DOS OS, mono screen - color output) - Like New. http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/panasonic-sr-partner/

10 years, 11 months

Still looking for a VT100 keyboard

by earl＠retrobits.com

Hi everybody, I've got two VT100 terminals, but only one keyboard. I'd love to have a keyboard for the second unit. If anyone has one they'd part with for a reasonable price, please drop me a line. I understand there are a few VT1xx models that had compatible keyboards. Thanks! - Earl

10 years, 11 months

NRI-832 info

by derschjo＠gmail.com

Hi all -- Another long shot, but does anyone here happen to have a copy of the NRI-832 assembly manual? I just acquired an 832 (see http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/nri_832.html for more info) and it looks like assembly on itwas never completed. It's mostly there but I'm missing the 128front panel switches + PCB and so a future project will be to rebuild this portion to get the machine running. I have the technical reference and the schematicssoI should be able to make a replacement without too much issue (just a lot of soldering). I don't know if the assembly manual has PCB layouts, but if it does it'd be nice to have so I can attempt to fabricate a replacement that looks more authentic. Anyone have any idea how many of these kits were produced? It's a very early computer kit (contemporary of the Kenbak-1) so I can't imagine that there are too many of these floating around. Looking forward to getting this running and seeing what kind of fun I can have writing programs with 16 bytes of ROM and 16 bytes of RAM :). Thanks as always, - Josh

10 years, 11 months

cctech Digest, Vol 118, Issue 4

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

On Jun 3, 2013, Tony Duell wrote: > I didn;'t reverse-engineer the 85 because the service manual is already > avaialble. It's called the 'assembly level' service manual, but it does > include full scheamtics (but no step-by-step comonnet level > troubelshooting). I didn't realize that, I'd never read through all the war to the rear! There are nice wave form and voltages indicated at various points in the circuits, which should make troubleshooting easier.

10 years, 11 months

[cctalk] Old UNIX Systems

by seefriek＠gmail.com

From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> > One would reasonably think so, but it generally doesn't work out that way. [rant deleted] I'm not sure what you are responding to with this, but it's certainly not related to what I wrote. P.S. - While I get it's your standard dismissive line, it's a bad assumption that I don't have extensive experience with embedded systems and production operations.

10 years, 11 months

Odd printer cable

by jon＠jonworld.com

Folks, I found an HP C6680-80003 printer/parallel cable. It's normal, 25 pins at one end, and "mini-Centronics" at the other. I've never heard of it until I found it in my "basket of cables" and I have no idea where it came from! Is anyone interested in it? FFS from 46219. -Jon

10 years, 11 months

cctech Digest, Vol 118, Issue 4

by cruff＠ruffspot.net

> On Mon, 3 Jun 2013, Mike Loewen wrote: > Silly question, but have you actually looked at the belts? On my > 9895A, both belts had fallen off, due to rough handling. Yes, I have the top cover off, and can see the belt is in place and the floppy medium is turning until the head loads, and starts turning again when the head unloads. I'll have to measure the length around the pulleys and order one up.

10 years, 11 months

[cctalk] Look at CUA

by cubexyz＠gmail.com

People may not be aware that a lot of the ideas for Motif/CDE and Windows and later versions of MSDOS actually came from IBM's Common User Access. Not everything came from CUA, but a good chunk of it did. Microsoft's windows 95 didn't invent all that. The task bar itself appeared earlier in Arthur OS, I think it was back in 1987. Even Amiga's Workbench had a lot of the GUI elements although in a more primitive form. Did the KDE guys make their DE look a lot like win95? Yeah, I think they did. So did IceWM and probably other ones. Icewm has a lot of differences though, it's a lot more light-weight. But even with KDE 3.5.X there's a bunch of things that are different from win95... On 6/3/13, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote: > On 3 June 2013 19:55, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: >> On 06/03/2013 02:41 PM, Liam Proven wrote: >>>> I live in a VERY high-tech >>>> area and even I don't see stuff like that given away. (well, actually, >>>> thinking about that a bit more...There are "clueful" people around >>>> here; >>>> stuff like C2D machines are more likely to be found running Linux or >>>> NetBSD >>>> around here.) >>> >>> It's rare and I got lucky. Also, I think some people recognise my name >>> from my written stuff. >> >> Hey, whatever it takes! >> >>> (Pimps new article: >>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/03/thank_microsoft_for_linux_desktop_f… >>> ) >> >> Very well-written as always, but this time I couldn't get past the >> first >> paragraph. I have great difficulty imagining a day when I could do my job >> on >> a tablet. > > Then don't. > > Imagine it's a laptop. Imagine it's a dual-head desktop with 24" > displays. Whatever it takes. > > For now, the old form-factors will stick around, but in a decade, if a > "PC" is a flexible A4 tablet, the thickness and weight of thick card, > which connects wirelessly to its peripherals and is driven by touch, > speech and the view from its multiple cameras, I submit that few will > prop it in a stand and drive it from a keyboard. But some will, and I > am sure that for them it will be perfectly possible - possibly driving > a tiled array of large screens which are the thickness (and > approximate power-draw) of paper and similarly can be rolled up for > transport or storage. > > Computers are shrinking and using less power. This is more or less a > fact of life. They are not going to remain humming beige desk-side > boxes; those are already in decline, have been for a few years now, > and it's steepening. > >> The press (as a whole) really needs to understand that "what sells best >> in >> department stores" does not define the entirety of, or even a significant >> part of, society's computing activities. Everything is WAY too tainted >> by >> journalists' personal (and sometimes myopic) points of view, something >> that >> journalism is, well, sorta supposed to be about not doing. > > You're right. In businesses, increasingly, the beige boxes are being > replaced by graphical terminals to OS instances running in VMs on > remote hosts. > >> But either way...fantastic writing, as always. > > Thank you. > > -- > Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile > Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven > MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven > Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 > >

10 years, 11 months

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test-drb June 2013