25 Jan
2013
25 Jan
'13
9:51 p.m.
On 24-jan-2013 23:27, David Riley wrote:
Nice article, did you write it?
I only got to use it a few times, but it was nice to
be able
to connect to some real iron (I still have an account on the
LCM's 11/785, I think). Service is continued on an Alpha DS20,
but my username seems to be a bit broken at the moment.
Yes, for that reason I also really like(d) FAFNER::! Lots of
great software on it, too (e.g. Rdb, LaTeX and more).
I couldn't log in either, so best is to ask for your password
to be reset and then Telnet and change it. (I wonder how he
transferred the user accounts from FAFNER:: to FASOLT::, but
the passwords or user group password 'policy' somehow didn't
survive.)
It was quite funny, actually. I wasn't aware that FAFNER::
was to be shut down, nor any intention thereto, at the time.
I hadn't logged on in a while (in my estimation, a month or
two/three) and then I was presented with... "Welcome to
OpenVMS (TM) Alpha Operating System, Version V8.3". Then I
sent an e-mail and everything became clear, I was also shown
that video on YouTube (also embedded in the article).
It's actually a DS20E, not DS20. The DS20E is a much nicer
system, if you ask me. The DS20 looks like a strangely
modernized/retrofitted EV6 AlphaServer 1000/A. The DS20E
is much leaner, allows for a bit more flexibility in terms
of storage and so on and provides EV67 and (earlier) EV68
CPU support. Speaking of the DS20 and for the sake of
comparison, EISNER:: (of DECUServe/Encompasserve) is an
actual DS20.
FASOLT:: will also be a system that won't have any issues
with SSH access. For FAFNER::, it was a bit problematic
I heard. (Although, I think mostly because of software
reliability/stability issues in UCX and not so much the
hardware lacking adequate processing power...)
Many thanks to Dr. Ulmann for running such a majestic
machine
at considerable personal expense for all to use!
Same here!
Speaking of expenses, I originally had the idea to host a remote
(and at some point even public) access VMS I64 access. I had a
bunch of maximized rx2600s and rx2620s with "Montecito" (dual-
core, HT, VT-x, etc.) processors, 24 Gbytes RAM per system, GbE
and 10GbE MSCP/VMScluster'ed, shared storage, etc. ... but, it
would've been too expensive... hot and noisy, especially during
summers.
I sold off a bunch of system. I only have one rx2620 left and
my 'pristine'/'mint' DS15 will be gone soon as well.
It sure is a shame how HP allows VMS to die such a dishonorable
death. I don't think I've ever used a nicer operating system
than VMS, even with the very measly software library as it is
today...
- MG