28 May
2003
28 May
'03
3:37 p.m.
Jay West wrote:
Jim;
As I read your email a profound sadness overcomes.... I guess this hobby
(moreso, to people like us) can very easily become all-consuming both
financially and psychologically. I, and I am quite sure others on the list
definitely feel and share your pain. Several times since getting into the
hobby I have been to the point of just giving up, feeling that required
items for a particular system are simply never to be found again. Or seeing
a particular piece and not being able to swing the cash at the time. Or
putting the family through grief when I stay up till the wee hours for weeks
on end trying to get something working. Or wondering how on earth I'm going
to get a piece that I have obtained transported. Or storage once it
arrives... well, I'm sure everyone here can identify. So far, fortunately,
every time I've hit that point I've been able to overcome it - either with
unwarranted optimism or by walking away from it for a month or so.
Jerome Fine replies:
I am very much in agreement with your response. Since I originally
required real PDP-11 hardware to run the RT-11 programs, I was
also concerned with finding enough hardware at a reasonable price
to support my addiction.
For myself however, my real collection is software. Thus there
is absolutely no value there at all from hobby users. All I can do
is copy the programs to a CD and then beg people to use them.
I also understand about taking off some time and coming back to
working with the things which are so challenging. Over the two
decades that I have working with RT-11 on my own, I have made
a few enhancements that I have found extremely useful just for
my own requirements.
It royally sucks to me that many of us (probably not
me, but many here
anyways) have extremely important ranges of computing history - and that
without us, they will NOT survive from what I can see, at least as a
representative range of systems. Most museums simply don't care, or want to,
represent the whole of computing history. That is something that is so
central to our culture, the very fabric of our current daily lives. I'm not
talking about a classic "straight 8", or a DG nova - these will likely be
represented. But the entire gamut that we have (most of us) lived through -
from the DECs to the altair and apples and heathkits up to, yes... I'll say
it... modern PC's. Pick any one of them, and unless they were in the top
tier of name recognition I don't think they will be around in museums - an
exidy sorcerer for example - unless we preserve them. Future generations
must know that it wasn't just the Apple and IBM PC. It is this very
degeneration of view into "years ago people used apples and PC's" that is
so
wrong, given that the whole progress was possible because of VARIED systems.
Almost everyone used something different; that's what got our technology
where it is today. That's why we are a bit stagnated with the current
Windows monopoly.
I agree that the competition was probably useful to allow
so many different ideas to be tested. However, I suspect
that most people on the classiccmp list tend to focus almost
totally on the hardware - whereas I am of the opinion that
the software is equally important.
Note that I do agree that the hardware is essential as well,
but I don't agree when the software is only used for showing
that the hardware is working.
Indeed, in my opinion, while the marriage of the hardware
and software to produce the final result is dependent on
both parts, the software can often make up for the areas
where the hardware is deficient - at least in the short run.
And more recently, it would seen that using an emulator
to run PDP-11 instructions is no longer self-defeating,
at least from my point of view, especially after DEC
stopped further enhancement of the PDP-11. Being able
to run RT-11 on a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 under Ersatz-11
at 75 times the speed of a real DEC PDP-11/93 is
hardly something to sneeze at. And that is just the start
of the advantage of using Ersatz-11 under Windows 98 SE
on a Pentium 4 system. Being able to have up to 12 "jobs"
running at the same time and switching from one job to
another at the touch of one keystroke on the same monitor
(which can't be done on a real DEC PDP-11) let alone
the speed of the output which is NOT restricted by a serial
line running at 19,200 baud (sometimes it is actually TOO
fast) is just another advantage.
But I digress. The key point is, as you have stated, that almost
every museum rarely have dynamic displays, let alone take
the trouble to fix bugs in old code. And enhancements are
totally out of the question. And as for saving the old versions
of the OS, well if the system is not running, who cares.
And the final problem is that the OS is never able to handle
future dates - VMS on Alpha excepted. That problem I
hope to resolve for RT-11 by making V05.03 both Y2K/Y10K
compliant - perhaps even by the end of 2003 when the DATE
value on older RT-11 distributions actually breaks. Since
V05.07 of RT-11 is now able to handle dates until 2099,
I intend to provide code which is compatible with V05.07
until 2099 after which I am hoping that changes made to
V05.03 will also be incorporated in V05.07 to allow both
versions to continue to be used for the foreseeable future.
To bring in another thread that's been going on on
the list... I am also
very concerned that many of these systems need to be preserved NOW, rather
than later with regards to the ability to repair them. Yes, new (young)
people can be trained in basic TTL repair and troubleshooting. But I don't
see a lot of that going on, or at least, not enough to make sure that a fair
number of these machines stay running.
That preservation aspect probably applies to software as well.
I am also concerned that old versions of RT-11 will be lost.
My goal is to copy as many of the old distributions of RT-11
up to V05.03 along with layered products to a CD so that
they can be used by hobby users under the Supnik emulator.
Since the code is in "C", it should be possible to continue to
use the Supnik emulator for a very long time.
Long story short, I am very concerned with the trend.
I wish I had answers.
Jim, I sincerely hope that you manage to at least hold onto a system or two,
and can stay active on this list. I'm sure we all empathize and wish you the
very best, as well as sincerely thank you for your past participation here.
Regards,
Jay West
Likewise. I know that I will also need to dispose of 95% of my PDP-11
hardware - and since no one seems to want it, probably Dan Cohoe
will end up with all of it if no one else is interested in sharing it.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
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