14 Apr
2013
14 Apr
'13
9:26 a.m.
On Apr 14, 2013, at 11:59 AM, John Wilson wrote:
I can see how multi-hour SYSGENs are a trip for people
who have a choice,
but they were no fun in the old days when we didn't (especially swapping
packs multiple times, with a risk of expensive damage at every step -- and
a floppy-only SYSGEN is not funny) so I'm extremely relieved that those
days are over.
I didn't say that part was *fun*, just an educational
experience. :-) Coming back down to the basement after
half an hour, expecting it to be mostly done, and seeing
that it was still in the middle of executive assembly
made me do a double-take. That's when I realized why
the build process has timestamps all over the place.
But of course, I'm biased. And I certainly did
get a big
kick out of it when I first got E11's raw floppy driver working and was able
to boot RT-11 from 8"-workalike 5.25" disks. I didn't realize that series
of clicks and whirs had been so deeply imprinted on my brain!
I'm much the same with the Apple II drives; it's just
not the same without the "chugging" sound of the disk
drive establishing track 0. Gerd Knorr's "Virtual II"
emulator actually duplicates a lot of the drive sounds
for startup and disk activity, which I thought was a
hoot.
- Dave