If you're just going to run a modern NetBSD, why on earth would you bother
running it on slow, memory-constrained hardware from the 80's?
This is what lead to my not doing much additional work on NetBSD for VAX.
Basically if you're going to run period hardware, it makes sense to run
period software, otherwise you end up with one of those oldtyme radios that
is spewing gangsta rap from an embedded transistor receiver :-)
Of course the challenge then is of course documentation. Early 90's was the
'great darkening' where suddenly everything became 'not consumer
friendly'.
Computer companies stopped publishing hardware descriptions, appliance
manuals stopped including schematics, cases because locked together and
more "appliance" like. A sad time we have not recovered from.
--Chuck
On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 8:25 AM, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
> On 7/14/14 8:07 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>
>> On 14 July 2014 15:39, Christian Liendo <christian_liendo at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> One person's take on retro computing older Unix machines.
>>>
>>>
>>>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qkuRiDS-gU
>>>
>>
>> Engagingly inept in places -- I'm amused at how XScreensaver kept
>> kicking in -- but enthusiastic and he raised a lot of good points.
>>
>> For me, part of the appeal of old kit is old software, but running it
>> with a modern OS would reduce a lot of the problems, it's true...
>>
>>
>>
> Someone needs to write a real introduction. As you say, 'engagingly inept'.
> The one thing that struck me was he glossed over how difficult detailed
> hardware maintenance information is to find for all of these machines. I've
> been actively looking for it for 30 years, the tiny bit of early Sun and
> SGI
> docs I have came from old-timers I knew at the companies that saved it.
>
> I guess it isn't surprising that people are having trouble now finding
> software
> and docs for late-80s, early-90's Multiframes, etc.
If you're just going to run a modern NetBSD, why on earth would you bother
running it on slow, memory-constrained hardware from the 80's?
>
>
>
>