USING classic machines

[followup text throughout document] On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, tiborj wrote: I don't think there's a single person on this list who hasn't used a modern PC, with or without Microsoft Software. As for UNIX implemetations on the PC, I certainly remember XENIX running on a 286 many years back. Mini Linux currently runs at about .02 bogomips on an XT. The biggest advance in PC architecture isn't the cheap Memory, cheap high res cards, and cheap VLSI specialty chips... it was the 386 with functional memory protection. Big deal. That said, a 386 these days is usually about as cheap as a 'classic' 8 bit machine - mostly because at a certain point a computer just can't *get* any cheaper - and will run Linux or *BSD wonderfully. Big advantage here over Atari and Amiga 68000 based hardware is the high availability of dirt cheap networking and disk hardware... other than that, I'll take the 68000 based stuff any day as a personal preferance. Here's an interesting idea, now that mini Linux seems to be up and running, there appears to be a good code base for porting it over to other old 8 bit and 16 bit chips. The TI-99/4a, RS COCO, PDP-11, and old S-100 based z80 (with MMU) boxes appear to be good candidates. Yes... there is *lots* of machine specific code in the mini Linux implementation. It would be a good deal more than just getting the boot loader up and running then tweaking and compiling the kernel. Still it might be a fun hack! I have a friend who's attempting a 3b2 Linux port single handedly... why not the Color Computer with it's fairly powerful 6809? Yes yes yes yes. SVGA is a *TOY* compared to what was available to those with million dollar budgets 20 years ago. The old hardware ran slower in clock speed but was most certainly capable of *extream* high resolution. I don't expect 2048 x 2048 displays for a few years yet on PC's, but if you were the military with a money is no object budget in 1975, you better believe such hardware was available. I like my PC just fine as well, and won't argue about processor capability, RAM requirements, and the like in comparison to a TRS-80 MOdel 1 for instance. However, the majority of software titiles around today are offshoots of software commonly available back then.... Visicalc and Wordstar are but two examples. And yes, freeware UNIX implmentations are about the most exciting thing happening on the PC today from a hobbyist hacker standpoint. The wonderful thing about Linux and NetBSD is the wide architecture support, not just the fact that serious development tools are now available for free on the PC. They are *also* availble to Atari ST fans, Amiga fans, old Macintosh hardware, Sun3 hardware, cheap Sparc and Alpha platforms... and like I suggested before, I wouldn't doubt for a minute the possibility of newer ports to classic PDP, VAX, Apollo, PRIME, and 8 bit machines. There is just so much usable hardware out there waiting for a modern OS.... [snip - re: games] Game designers have strongly benefitted from higher processor speeds and cheap RAM. Look at game consols like Nintendo 64 and Sega... they display about the same 320x200 pixel resolution, but have a much larger color pallete and much faster display hardware. The games look great! It's not surprising that newer PC and Mac hardware would also benefit from their advances. [snip] PDP-11 hardware is still widely available. You could build youself a functinal Qbus LSI-11/73 or 83 for less than $500 easy. Most of this hardware is sitting in old factories and still in production. There are many hardware outlets out there such as ELI in cambridge MA, which support and provide access to this old stuff... I would attempt to buy a non functional machine (or functional if possible) from some company about to toss it, and then upgrade from some used MINI supplier. Expect a lower heating bill and a *MUCH* higher electric bill if this is in the plans... ;-) You might also want to think of a decent used microVAX.... wonderful machine based on the same Qbus. [snip - 486's are cheap] Yup, can't argue with that. J. Maynard Gelinas