25 Jul
2001
25 Jul
'01
2:41 p.m.
Imagine different front panels depending on which
PDP11 you software
configure...
And none of them have the feel of the real thing...
-tony 
25 Jul
25 Jul
3:49 p.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
Correct as necessary.
I know a few things about networking, and that's the
problem, I'm a dozen or so facts short.
I Have learned to network RJ45/10baseT through
?active? hubs and DEC-AUI through DELNI hubs, etc.
So far so, uh, ? good..
But I was looking at some DEC branded
BNC-coax/?ThinNet?/10base2 cables and it dawned on
me that this connection method looks hubless, with all the
tee connectors hanging around. Could this be right?
10b2 ?passive? hubs are just tee connectors?
Sorry for the IQ level of this question but I don't want to blow
up my workstations, even if they were free.
John A.
4:31 p.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
----- Original Message -----
From: John Allain <allain(a)panix.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 26, 2001 1:19 PM
Subject: ThinNet Hub
Correct as necessary.
I know a few things about networking, and that's the
problem, I'm a dozen or so facts short.
I Have learned to network RJ45/10baseT through
?active? hubs and DEC-AUI through DELNI hubs, etc.
So far so, uh, ? good..
Yes.
But I was looking at some DEC branded
BNC-coax/?ThinNet?/10base2 cables and it dawned on
me that this connection method looks hubless, with all the
tee connectors hanging around. Could this be right?
10b2 ?passive?
Correct, it is simply a daisy chain of machines on a common cable segment.
Like most things it has advantages land disadvantages.
By it's nature it has to be half duplex (only one path), restricted to
<10Mbps and a break in the cable will kill
all the workstations on that segment, however, very long runs (180m) are
possible and
NO HUB of any kind is required.
You nead a 50 ohm termination at each end of the daisy chain to make sure
there is equal current distribution, but
that's about it. Cable is more expensive, but for some layouts you need
less of it (if you have several machines close together for instance)
and it can also be connected to a hub with a t piece and allow a common
network. You need a miniumum of about a metre or so between t pieces. It
was common practice at one point to use 10B2 as a trunk to connect distant
hubs, since the 180m segment length was nearly twice the max for 10BT.
Hope this helps
hubs are just tee connectors?
No they are just t-connectors, not hubs at all.
Sorry for the IQ level of this question but I
don't want to blow
up my workstations, even if they were free.
NO stupid questions, only stupid answers, and it would be stupid not to ask.
Cheers
Geoff in Oz
9:03 a.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
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10:45 a.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
Actually I Was just considering a pair 10bT/2 transcievers
for just that purpose, portable, cable-powered hub, for 10bT
equipment
Tony,
Even if we all ante'd up 2? a recipient, as if your answers
amounted to the proverbial "2? worth", we would STILL owe
you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Of course we all
know your answers are worth quite a bit more.
I.E.: Thanks Again!
John A.
11:31 a.m.
New subject: Ethernet -- thicknet and thinnet before 10BaseT
Several transceivers connected to the same cable allow
several machines
to communicate. In a sense, the transceivers together with the coax cable
form the hub.
The T-pieces are, indeed passive (all 3 connectors connected in parallel
in the obvious way), but they're not really the hub.
-tony
It's really that the hub doesn't exist on a bus network like 10Base2
or 10Base5... all the Tee connectors are doing is replacing
the vampire tap on thicknet...
The thinnet "Transceiver" is really built on to the card on
most PC's and is the same (basically) as the old thicknet
transceiver attached to my Sun my Unix boxes -- they can go from
Thinnet to Thicknet by swapping the N-Connector top to the
BNC connector top. And thinnet can go to thicknet with just an N to BNC
adapter -- but the max length and specs drop to thinnet specs.
Hubs really distort the logical ethernet bus topology.
Now 10/100 switches really screw with it.
Bill
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org
27 Jul
27 Jul
9:54 a.m.
New subject: Ethernet -- thicknet and thinnet before 10BaseT
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26 Jul
26 Jul
12:29 p.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:03:02PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
It's better to think of the 'hub' as being
distributed in the 10base2
transceivers (the modules that connect between the AUI port and the
Well I have seen hubs to which coax is connected. Some were probably
arcnet, but weren't coax hubs ever used for thinnet? Maybe to boost
the signal and get past the length limitation, or maybe to isolate
"problem" branches so they don't interfere with other branches?
--
_______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud(a)bigfoot.com
(_ | |_) http://ecloud.org kb7pwd(a)kb7pwd.ampr.org
__) | | \________________________________________________________________
12:41 p.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:03:02PM +0100, Tony Duell
wrote:
There were thinnet repeaters which provided segment isolation and regenerated
the signal onto other segments...
The DEC Delni comes to mind.
Bill
It's better to think of the 'hub' as
being distributed in the 10base2
transceivers (the modules that connect between the AUI port and the
Well I have seen hubs to which coax is connected. Some were probably
arcnet, but weren't coax hubs ever used for thinnet? Maybe to boost
the signal and get past the length limitation, or maybe to isolate
"problem" branches so they don't interfere with other branches?
--
_______ Shawn T. Rutledge / KB7PWD ecloud(a)bigfoot.com
(_ | |_) http://ecloud.org kb7pwd(a)kb7pwd.ampr.org
__) | | \________________________________________________________________
4:10 p.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
Shawn T. Rutledge skrev:
On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:03:02PM +0100, Tony Duell
wrote:
> It's better to think of the 'hub' as being distributed in the 10base2
> transceivers (the modules that connect between the AUI port and the
Well I have seen hubs to which coax is connected. Some
were probably
arcnet, but weren't coax hubs ever used for thinnet? Maybe to boost
the signal and get past the length limitation, or maybe to isolate
"problem" branches so they don't interfere with other branches?
We're using such a beast at the usergroup, it's a modular 3C588 repeater with
fourteen card slots so that it may be customised the the particular topology
of the customer. Ours if filled with cheapernet cards, and it certainly makes
the network more managable, granting some of the benefits of 10BaseT (central
"administration", blinking lights) while still retaining the basic bus
topology of 10Base2, which is preferable in many cases to the tentacle-like TP
nets.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is
sickening to your friends. You are cold and unemotional and
sometimes fall asleep while making love. Virgos make good bus
drivers.
28 Jul
28 Jul
1:26 a.m.
New subject: ThinNet Hub
According to Shawn T. Rutledge:
On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 10:03:02PM +0100, Tony Duell
wrote:
Actually, they are not hubs, they are ethernet repeaters. I have a
DEC one litting in the lab right now, but I can't imagine what I might
do with it. The electricity it would use in a year is more than enough
to pay for a 100baseT switch.
bill
--
Bill Gunshannon | de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n. Three wolves
bill(a)cs.scranton.edu | and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton |
Scranton, Pennsylvania | #include <std.disclaimer.h>
It's better to think of the 'hub' as
being distributed in the 10base2
transceivers (the modules that connect between the AUI port and the
Well I have seen hubs to which coax is connected. Some were probably
arcnet, but weren't coax hubs ever used for thinnet? Maybe to boost
the signal and get past the length limitation, or maybe to isolate
"problem" branches so they don't interfere with other branches?
26 Jul
26 Jul
10:41 a.m.
Zane H. Healy wrote:
[Snip]
Where I see emulation as useful is when you need a laptop version of the
system, or you just don't have a chance of getting the hardware (and/or
don't have the space even if you could). There are also commercial
situations where using a emulator makes good business sense. Oh, the other
use, in the case of the PDP-8 emulators with front panel emulation, is so
that you can see what you should be seeing when running diagnostics on a
system you're trying to repair (when you've never used a PDP-8).
Jerome Fine replies:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
under an emulator is much more straight forward, much easier AND MUCH
FASTER.
For example, on a real 11/83, it takes about 6 minutes to assemble one of the
files I am working on. Even with a Pentium 166 MMX, it takes only a couple
of seconds more than 2 minutes - which is more than long enough to wait.
Plus a full scale test to produce more than a dozen versions on the real hardware
takes more than an hour. Under emulation, under 30 minutes.
Then, there is the use of ram for memory. On the real hardware, I need almost
15 MBytes for a full test. Using real hard drives slows things down. Under
the emulator, with just 128 MBytes of total memory, the RAM: disks provide
me with THREE 32 MByte "disk" drives. I am sure that very little, if any,
new development is taking place for PDP-11 software, but when it does
take place, even if a final checkout on real hardware is needed as the final
step, an emulator seems a bit more practical.
Even when I crash the operating system because of a stupid mistake, I rarely
loose even the VM: disk from the operating system since the emulator boot
code does not clear all of memory as the DEC hardware boot code does.
And although I might lose the emulated hard disks that are in RAM:, I can't
remember the last time that happened. PLUS, since the container files
that represent the starting point of the OS are READ ONLY, they are
never overwritten - I can do that on the real PDP-11 hardware, of course,
but it is less convenient.
Note that I am not trying to contradict Zane where he is looking at the
situation from a hardware point of view, but to add to the software side
of the picture and suggest that an emulator has certain advantages. Mind
you, when I am using a VT320 on a COM: port and I forget that the operating
system has been locked out while the debug program has control, even
with a simple DL emulation, no input characters are lost, although nothing
happens on the output end until normal operation proceeds. With a real
PDP-11, those input characters on a DL channel are just lost.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
11:41 a.m.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
Jerome Fine replies:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
Hmmmm, this IS the classiccmp list isn't it?
under an emulator is much more straight forward, much
easier AND MUCH
FASTER.
...and emulators are very, very, boring; and, if run under M$-Windoze,
much less reliable and more likely to crash or lose data. The sound
of fans, the chatter and kerchunking of disk drives, the clicking
contactors when mains power is applied, the vacuum and whirring sounds
of a mag tape drive starting up, the blinking of lights, etc. are all
parts of the experience of using vintage computer systems.
Aye Jerome, surely you don't want to be thought of as an
anti-classic-computer emulator loving weenie, do you? ;-) After all,
can it not be said that emulators are, for the most part, preferred by
weenies who can't lift a PDP-11/44 PSU and are afraid of being shocked
by one, who can't pop a tall cabinet into the back of a real, not one
of those little foreign match-box size, station station wagons to haul
it home, who don't know a screwdriver from an SMD drive cable, or who
can't even figure out how to disassemble and reassemble a couple of
linked paperclips?
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.net beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
11:45 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great R. D. Davis once stated:
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
True, but there are some of us that are more interested in old software
than the hardware. I for one, love to study old operating systems and see
just how much has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
(the two worst things to happen to the industry but some might argue about
the Unix bit 8-)
-spc (Have compiler, will program ... )
Jerome Fine replies:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
Hmmmm, this IS the classiccmp list isn't it?
12:06 p.m.
-spc (Have compiler, will program ... said:
True, but there are some of us that are more interested in old software
than the hardware. I for one, love to study old operating systems and see
just how much has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
(the two worst things to happen to the industry but some might argue about
the Unix bit 8-)
-spc (Have compiler, will program ... )
No arguments from this ex-DEC Field Grunt turned Unix Sysadmin.
Actually, I'll live with BSD but SysV with the self-destruct filesystem
made me like the VMS Mount verification in progress message a lot.
Bill
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org
12:11 p.m.
Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
just how much has been lost to time in the onslaught
of Microsoft and Unix
(the two worst things to happen to the industry but some might argue about
the Unix bit 8-)
At the risk of pandering to a troll, what were/are the alternatives?
I am not interesting in hearing about MS as having had to deal with it
for 17 years, I've lived why it was a bad thing.
Unix - well fragmentation is the only thing I can think of, which is
being mirrored in Linux these days.
what alternative(s) was there?
--
Terry Collins {:-)}}} Ph(02) 4627 2186 Fax(02) 4628 7861
email: terryc(a)woa.com.au www: http://www.woa.com.au
WOA Computer Services <lan/wan, linux/unix, novell>
"People without trees are like fish without clean water"
4:35 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Terry Collins once stated:
Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
VMS is a very nice system but gets slagged by Unix weenies. Okay, so it's
a bit verbose in the command line, but it is very consistent and the
security model is much much better than the ``ROOT IS GOD'' mentality of
Unix. It also clusters much better than Unix.
QNX is a very cool operating system, which unfortunately (from my
perspective) runs only on the Intel platform. It's a true microkernel and
unlike Mach (which is about the only microkernel that is widely known) it
actually runs fast! And it has an incredible network filesystem/message
passing paradigm that blows Unix out of the water (imagine being able to run
a program on one computer, pipe the output to a program on a second computer
and send that to a printer on a third computer---all from the command line
ala Unix?).
Plan-9 seems interesting in that it's more Unix than Unix ever was
(Unix: everything is a file, well, except for network connections,
semaphores and shared memory. Plan-9: everything is a file. Everything).
As far as single user OSes go, OS/2 is very nice and rock solid. AmigaOS
(pick your version) is also very good, and a very clean microkernel design
(even the kernel is treated as a shared library, and device drivers are
nothing more than shared libraries. Heck, they stopped just shy of making
applications shared libraries, but really, there isn't anything really
stopping one from doing that under AmigaOS).
just how much has been lost to time in the
onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
(the two worst things to happen to the industry but some might argue about
the Unix bit 8-)
At the risk of pandering to a troll, what were/are the alternatives? Unix - well fragmentation is the only thing I can
think of, which is
being mirrored in Linux these days.
There is a lot wrong with Unix, fragmentation aside. Interprocess
communication is practically non-existent (pipes? Fine between two
processes, but horrible if you want multiple processes to talk to a single
process. Messages? Not supported on all Unix platforms, and for systems
that do support it, can leak resources if the program crashes and has a high
creation overhead. Shared memory? Same problems as messages. Signals?
Heh. Yea, right). Threads? Okay, there's the abortion known as pthreads,
but half the time it's userland threads, not true threads. And the API is
just horrible (and still no decent semaphore support!) Only Linux got
threading right as it's more Unix than pthreads is.
And I won't even get into the problems with NFS, file locking, removable
media and removable peripherals (like modems and printers).
-spc (Sadly, worse is better)
27 Jul
27 Jul
1:55 a.m.
In addition to the ones stated, I would suggest that VM with MVS, DOS/VSE,
CMS, OS/VS, etc, make surprisingly good workstation OSes.
Peace... Sridhar
4:45 a.m.
QNX is a very cool operating system, which
unfortunately (from my
perspective) runs only on the Intel platform. It's a true microkernel and
unlike Mach (which is about the only microkernel that is widely known) it
actually runs fast! And it has an incredible network filesystem/message
passing paradigm that blows Unix out of the water (imagine being able to run
a program on one computer, pipe the output to a program on a second computer
and send that to a printer on a third computer---all from the command line
ala Unix?).
Do some research, QNX runs on a *LOT* more than IA, and yes, it seems to be
pretty cool.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
5:19 a.m.
Another option is to build a PDP11 from the things you paid too much for on
eBay. Take a look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1257207414
Someone just bid more than $500 for an RD52 with RSTS/E v9 on it. No
computer, mind you -- just the disk.
Yikes!
-- Tony
5:34 a.m.
Another option is to build a PDP11 from the things you
paid too much for on
eBay. Take a look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1257207414
Someone just bid more than $500 for an RD52 with RSTS/E v9 on it. No
computer, mind you -- just the disk.
Yikes!
-- Tony
They weren't bidding on the Hard Drive, they were gambling they'd be able
to get RSTS/E V9 off of it. Of course if they're willing to gamble that
much, they should have enough money to just go buy the license and media
for the current version! Granted that would be quite a bit more, but
still...
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
9:16 p.m.
Don't you think it strange the bidding went from $50 to $600 in one bid?
When $50 seemed to high?
I smell a wumpus, or a rat!
Jim Davis.
Tony Eros wrote:
Another option is to build a PDP11 from the things you paid too much for on
eBay. Take a look here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1257207414
Someone just bid more than $500 for an RD52 with RSTS/E v9 on it. No
computer, mind you -- just the disk.
Yikes!
-- Tony
10:33 a.m.
Do some research, QNX runs on a *LOT* more than IA, and
yes, it seems to be
pretty cool.
One of the many supposed 'saviors' of the Amiga after the C=
bankruptcy. I think I still have the Amazing/Amiga here that talks
about the initial deal to use QNX as the basis for the NG Amiga.
Jeff
--
Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems:
Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
10:34 a.m.
New subject: QNX (was Re: building a PDP11 from the things you find at home)
--- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote:
Agreed. I heard of QNX _years_ ago on the mc68k platform, long before
I saw it for the first time (on a 486, running the air handlers and
environmental controls at the science lab at McMurdo; they also use it
on the research boats for data collection as well as environmental
monitoring and control).
-ethan
=====
Visit "The Seventh Continent"
http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
QNX is a very
cool operating system, which unfortunately (from my
perspective) runs only on the Intel platform...
Do some research, QNX runs on a *LOT* more than IA, and yes, it seems to be
pretty cool. 
10:52 a.m.
New subject: QNX hosts
I think you must be mistaken. Perhaps you're thinking of another system?
I was in high school hanging out at the University of Waterloo when
Danny Dodge (??)came to pick up his lineprinter listings I happened to
be reading. It was the source code to what became QNX. He was
part of a 3 member team writing a real time kernel as an assigment
for a 3rd or 4th year real-time programming course. At the time
the target was a generic intel 80186 box. Most interesting was that
the cross development was done on a Honeywell Gecos mainframe...
I later acquired QNX 1.0 for the 8088 IBM PC, Nabu 1600 (8086) and
Cemcorp Icon (80186 bionic beaver, a machine put into every Ontario school)
I still have all these machines - QNX was a perfect match for <512K
mmu-less memory systems. The Nabu also has an add-on discrete mmu
which allowed it to run Xenix in 512 K... amazing for the time as it benched
close to the speed of a VAX even with miserably slow WD MFM drives.
Could you be thinking of OS-9 ? for the 6809 or OS-9000 ?
Regards, Heinz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 6:34 PM
Subject: QNX (was Re: building a PDP11 from the things you find at home)
--- "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh(a)aracnet.com> wrote:
> > QNX is a very cool operating system, which unfortunately (from my
> >perspective) runs only on the Intel platform...
>
> Do some research, QNX runs on a *LOT* more than IA, and yes, it seems to
be
pretty cool.
Agreed. I heard of QNX _years_ ago on the mc68k platform, long before
I saw it for the first time (on a 486, running the air handlers and
environmental controls at the science lab at McMurdo; they also use it
on the research boats for data collection as well as environmental
monitoring and control).
-ethan
=====
Visit "The Seventh Continent"
http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger
http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ 
29 Jul
29 Jul
6:40 a.m.
New subject: QNX hosts
Re:
I later acquired QNX 1.0 for the 8088 IBM PC, Nabu
1600 (8086) and
Cemcorp Icon (80186 bionic beaver, a machine put into every Ontario school)
...
I agree...I seem to recall talking to the QNX people circa late 1981 or
early 1982, when we (Next Generation Systems) were thinking of porting our
FORTH to it from the PC.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com>
> Agreed. I heard of QNX _years_ ago on the mc68k platform, long before
> I saw it for the first time (on a 486, running the air handlers and
> environmental controls at the science lab at McMurdo; they also use it
Stan Sieler sieler(a)allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html www.allegro.com/sieler
26 Jul
26 Jul
11:15 p.m.
Terry Collins skrev:
Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
> just how much has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
> (the two worst things to happen to the industry but some might argue about
> the Unix bit 8-)
At the risk of pandering to a troll, what were/are the
alternatives?
The Mac /is/ an alternative, present tense. If you're using Windows, you're
just really a misguided Mac user nowadays.
I am not interesting in hearing about MS as having had
to deal with it
for 17 years, I've lived why it was a bad thing.
Unix - well fragmentation is the only thing I can think
of, which is
being mirrored in Linux these days.
UNIX is for masochists. I'll never get along with that system, it's so
unfriendly, it was perceived as unfriendly even back in the seventies. And it
will never conquer the desktop.
what alternative(s) was there?
AmigaOS, BeOS, TOS.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Haben Sie schon mal einen Wegweiser gesehen, der selbst den Weg geht, den er
weist?
--- Ludwig XV (K?nig von Frankreich, 1710-1774)
27 Jul
27 Jul
4:52 p.m.
UNIX is for masochists. I'll never get along with
that system, it's so
unfriendly, it was perceived as unfriendly even back in the seventies. And it
will never conquer the desktop.
MacOS X. I'm a believer. First Unix that manages to avoid looking like Unix
(except if you want it to). I've never seen an X windows manager that did
any good other than making the Unix metaphor just pretty, not less complicated.
OS X, on the other hand, does an excellent job at hiding it away from the
casual user, but not making it ridiculously difficult for people to get
their hands dirty if they want.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- How are you gentlemen? All your base are belong to us! ---------------------
28 Jul
28 Jul
2:38 a.m.
Cameron Kaiser skrev:
> UNIX is for masochists. I'll never get along
with that system, it's so
> unfriendly, it was perceived as unfriendly even back in the seventies. And
> it will never conquer the desktop.
MacOS X. I'm a believer. First Unix that manages to
avoid looking like Unix
(except if you want it to). I've never seen an X windows manager that did
any good other than making the Unix metaphor just pretty, not less
complicated. OS X, on the other hand, does an excellent job at hiding it away
from the casual user, but not making it ridiculously difficult for people to
get their hands dirty if they want.
Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX. They not only took the
kernel, but the entire environment as well.
Otherwise, (this wioll keep us within the ten-year rule), it reminds me of
MiNT/MultiTOS. Incompetent OS programmers who can't make a functioning, full-
featured system of their own just take a kernel off the rack and add some
glue. Granted, OSX is an entirely new system of its own whereas MiNT retained
TOS capability. But it's a tried and old concept.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
We have support for the PMAGC-B's on pmax right? That is a PixelVision based
card right? I see Bt 463, that chip looks bigger than the 21164! Just looking
at it makes me want to write an Xserver!
Chris Tribo, NetBSD/pmax
12:24 p.m.
Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX.
They not only took the
kernel, but the entire environment as well.
Otherwise, (this wioll keep us within the ten-year rule), it reminds me of
MiNT/MultiTOS. Incompetent OS programmers who can't make a functioning, full-
featured system of their own just take a kernel off the rack and add some
glue. Granted, OSX is an entirely new system of its own whereas MiNT retained
TOS capability. But it's a tried and old concept.
It's still easy to see the NeXTstep heritage in OS X too. If
a person is familiar with the way that NeXTstep/OpenStep does things,
OS X should be an easy transition. There's no doubt that NeXTstep
made for a more powerful OS but did the things taken from the classic
Mac OS make it easy enough to use for even a beginner?
Jeff
--
Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems:
Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
4:14 p.m.
It's still easy to see the NeXTstep heritage in
OS X too. If
a person is familiar with the way that NeXTstep/OpenStep does things,
OS X should be an easy transition. There's no doubt that NeXTstep
made for a more powerful OS but did the things taken from the classic
Mac OS make it easy enough to use for even a beginner?
*I* think so. User levels range from Unix fr33kZ like me to another guy
I know, who knows nothing about Unix and doesn't care, but he loves the
interface and it looks like a cool, more stable OS 9 with great glitz.
(And the fact he can Force Quit without running the risk of memory
corruption is appealing, so in some small sense he does appreciate the
Unix background, even if it's transparent/uninteresting to him. :-)
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space. -- G. Steinem -
1:01 p.m.
On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 03:38:46PM +0100, Iggy Drougge wrote:
Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX.
They not only took the
kernel, but the entire environment as well.
Otherwise, (this wioll keep us within the ten-year rule), it reminds me of
MiNT/MultiTOS. Incompetent OS programmers who can't make a functioning, full-
featured system of their own just take a kernel off the rack and add some
glue. Granted, OSX is an entirely new system of its own whereas MiNT retained
TOS capability. But it's a tried and old concept.
Actually, as far as I can tell, OS X is a revamped NeXTStep.
Didnt anybody else laugh with glee (to themselves) when Apple
releasd the G4 cube?
"Wait a minute, i've seen this before.."
Bill
--
Bill Bradford
mrbill(a)mrbill.net
Austin, TX
4:06 p.m.
Actually, as far as I can tell, OS X is a revamped
NeXTStep.
Didnt anybody else laugh with glee (to themselves) when Apple
releasd the G4 cube?
"Wait a minute, i've seen this before.."
Bill
Here is the chain of events for the OS itself, I think I've got just about
everything here.
Apple buys NeXT (mainly to get Steve Jobs back I believe)
Prelude to Rhapsody given out at at WWDC and shipped to developers (it's
OPENSTEP 4.2). Remember with V4.0 NeXTstep became OPENSTEP.
First Rhapsody beta's run on both x86 and *ALL* PCI based Mac's, they've
got also got the classic mac interface.
Rhapsody released as "Mac OS X Server"
Mac OS X Beta's
The Aqua interface is released on a Beta of Mac OS X
Mac OS X Released
In about 2 months Mac OS X 1.1 will be out.
The question is, how many Mac users are still taking a wait and see
attitude towards it? I just *FINALLY* upgraded from Mac OS 8.6/G4 to 9.1
*after* I bought the release version of Mac OS X. I used Mac OS X for a
total of about a week after it came out. Once a Mac OS X native version of
eXodus is released I'll give OSX a serious thought. The real problem I see
for it is that there are currently no Adobe products except Acrobat Reader
that run on it native.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
4:34 p.m.
The question is, how many Mac users are still taking a
wait and see
attitude towards it? I just *FINALLY* upgraded from Mac OS 8.6/G4 to 9.1
*after* I bought the release version of Mac OS X. I used Mac OS X for a
total of about a week after it came out. Once a Mac OS X native version of
eXodus is released I'll give OSX a serious thought. The real problem I see
for it is that there are currently no Adobe products except Acrobat Reader
that run on it native.
That, and the fact that OS X is still really dicey on Old World Macs (not
Apple's fault, they never supported them in the first place), is why I
don't run OS X at home. However, in the office on the G4/450, it's a happy
camper. I need to repartition the hard drive, though, since I skimped on
space initially.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- If your happiness depends on anyone else, you've got a problem. -- R. Bach -
7:43 p.m.
The question is, how many Mac users are still taking a
wait and see
attitude towards it? I just *FINALLY* upgraded from Mac OS 8.6/G4 to 9.1
*after* I bought the release version of Mac OS X. I used Mac OS X for a
total of about a week after it came out. Once a Mac OS X native version of
eXodus is released I'll give OSX a serious thought. The real problem I see
for it is that there are currently no Adobe products except Acrobat Reader
that run on it native.
I am on another list that while informal, is made up of hard core mac
supporters and developers, and the consensus is that they play with each
release, but don't expect it to be ready for prime time for another 6
months or so.
For myself I am setting at 8.6 as my most advanced install and have system
running that I use back to 7.5.3 on powermacs and farther on older systems.
Moving back and forth between various OS releases is pretty painless too.
29 Jul
29 Jul
4:39 p.m.
--- Bill Bradford <mrbill(a)mrbill.net> wrote:
Actually, as far as I can tell, OS X is a revamped
NeXTStep.
Didnt anybody else laugh with glee (to themselves) when Apple
releasd the G4 cube?
"Wait a minute, i've seen this before.."
Except black is cooler than clear anyday.
-ethan
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30 Jul
30 Jul
12:24 a.m.
Especially black with heatsinks 8-)
Peace... Sridhar
On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Ethan Dicks wrote:
--- Bill Bradford <mrbill(a)mrbill.net> wrote:
Actually, as far as I can tell, OS X is a
revamped NeXTStep.
Didnt anybody else laugh with glee (to themselves) when Apple
releasd the G4 cube?
"Wait a minute, i've seen this before.."
Except black is cooler than clear anyday.
-ethan
=====
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28 Jul
28 Jul
4:23 p.m.
MacOS X.
I'm a believer. First Unix that manages to avoid looking like Unix
(except if you want it to). I've never seen an X windows manager that did
any good other than making the Unix metaphor just pretty, not less
complicated. OS X, on the other hand, does an excellent job at hiding it away
from the casual user, but not making it ridiculously difficult for people to
get their hands dirty if they want.
Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX. They not only took the
kernel, but the entire environment as well.
29 Jul
29 Jul
2:16 p.m.
Cameron Kaiser skrev:
> >MacOS X. I'm a believer. First Unix that
manages to avoid looking like
> >Unix
> >(except if you want it to). I've never seen an X windows manager that did
> >any good other than making the Unix metaphor just pretty, not less
> >complicated. OS X, on the other hand, does an excellent job at hiding it
> >away from the casual user, but not making it ridiculously difficult for
> >people to get their hands dirty if they want.
>
> Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX. They not only took the
> kernel, but the entire environment as well.
You have in fact used it? Or did you just see it in a
shop and pass judgement
on it at long range?
I'll go for number two, Cameron.
When you start up OS X, you aren't confronted with
arcane pathnames or
/dev/thisnthat, or anything like what you'd get from X. You don't start off
with an Xterm, a spartan file manager and a shell prompt; you get the dock
and desktop icons. It looks like a futuristic, glitzy Mac, not like a window
manager. That's what it's supposed to do.
Might I add that I find the interface apalling?
The environment is there, yes, but it's well
hidden. If you go to Terminal,
you get a real live tcsh, and then the Unix pedigree becomes apparent when
you start digging around in the filesystem with the usual suspects. But
you don't need to do any of this because the Finder keeps the old MacOS
conventions as a veneer. You need no Unix experience to use it, and there are
people around here who have none, but still love it. This is not true of Red
Hat, or Mandrake, or any of the other "Unix for dummies" dists despite what
they trumpet. The environment and the fact it's Unix is thrown in your face
with those -- but not here. You get the Unix environment in OS X when you ask
for it, but not before.
IOW, only when you want to use the shell and do lower-level system management.
That's too much UNIX for me, thank you.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
8 Aug
8 Aug
12:26 a.m.
At 03:38 PM 7/28/01 +0100, Iggy wrote:
Personally, I think there's too much UNIX in OSX.
They not only took the
kernel, but the entire environment as well.
Otherwise, (this wioll keep us within the ten-year rule), it reminds me of
MiNT/MultiTOS. Incompetent OS programmers who can't make a functioning, full-
featured system of their own just take a kernel off the rack and add some
glue. Granted, OSX is an entirely new system of its own whereas MiNT retained
TOS capability. But it's a tried and old concept.
"He who doesn't comprehend UNIX is destined to redesign it poorly."
Does anybody know the origin of this quote?
Carlos (I'm way behind in my reading).
--------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org
5:53 a.m.
"He who doesn't comprehend UNIX is destined to
redesign it poorly."
Does anybody know the origin of this quote?
Carlos (I'm way behind in my reading).
Sounds like it's based on a quote that goes something like this, "those who
don't know history are doomed to repeat it". What I want to know is why
does every OS seem to think it needs to look like UNIX these days?
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
8:50 a.m.
Zane H. Healy skrev:
>"He who doesn't comprehend UNIX is
destined to redesign it poorly."
>
>Does anybody know the origin of this quote?
Sounds like it's based on a quote that goes
something like this, "those who
don't know history are doomed to repeat it". What I want to know is why
does every OS seem to think it needs to look like UNIX these days?
Because some ignorant people think it's either that or MS-DOS.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Amiga 4000/040 25MHz/56MB/20GB RetinaBLTZ3/VLab/FastlaneZ3/Ariadne/Toccata
26 Jul
26 Jul
12:47 p.m.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
True, but there are some of us that are more
interested in old software
than the hardware. I for one, love to study old operating systems and see
Actually, that sounds like a very worthwhile thing to do. :-)
just how much has been lost to time in the onslaught
of Microsoft and Unix
Lots... What do you think about a UNIX-AOS/VS-VMS-MPE-Guardian hybrid?
(the two worst things to happen to the industry but
some might argue about
the Unix bit 8-)
As much as I like UNIX, I'd also like to see more of a variety in the
area of popular operating systems. Having only UNIX and M$-Windoze as
popular operating systems isn't much of a choice. Doesn't that limited
choice stifle innovation and creativity?
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.net beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
1:38 p.m.
just how much
has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
Lots... What do you think about a UNIX-AOS/VS-VMS-MPE-Guardian hybrid?
2:51 p.m.
--- Eric Dittman <dittman(a)dittman.net> wrote:
Two examples of the results of that... AmigaDOS, BeOS. There are others.
-ethan
Disclaimer - I love the Amiga and have never used BeOS but have nothing against
it. They were popular but eventually orphaned, in part because they did not
receive the blessings of MicroSoft - Word, and eventually Office, in
particular.
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> just how
much has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and
> Unix
What I'd like to see is a community effort to make a new OS that does what
needs to be done without worrying about being compatible with something that
currently exists.... Sure, it may not have a lot of software available...
4:36 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
--- Eric Dittman <dittman(a)dittman.net> appears
to have written:
> What I'd like to see is a community effort to make a new OS that
> does what needs to be done without worrying about being compatible
> with something that currently exists.... Sure, it may not have a
> lot of software available...
Hmmm... my only concern about compatibility would be that files could
be transferred to and from other systems, and that ASCII could be used
to make the exchange of e-mail, Usenet news, etc. possible. I won't
mention a desire for TCP/IP, as, perhaps someone might come up with an
idea (as someone may already have done in the past) for superior
networking.
Regarding file transfers, perhaps a UFUTS filename universal
translation system (UFUTS) could be used so that u don't spend too
much time futzing with file names after copying them; that is, so no
one would have to spend time STUFUing over filenames after copying
them.
While kermit often does a reasonable job, there can be problems when
multiple files have to be translated, and when copied back to the
original system from another system that, let's say, supports fewer
filename characters, etc., the name will not be what it originally was.
So, perhaps each system could contain a translated filenames database
that also contains a special datafile for each system that it exchanges
files with that uses different naming standards.
I guess that's still not too clear of an explanation, so, please allow
me to expand upon that. Let's say that system A allows only the
ASCII alphanumeric characters in filenames, but allows 1024 characters in
a filename. System B allows no more than 10 characters in a filename,
yet, it allows many different graphical images to be used as special
characters in filenames. Now them, let's suppose that system A knows
about the special characters used with system B, and system B knows about
the lengthy filenames used with system A, for the following reason: When
the file transfer first began, systems A and B checked to see if the
UFUTS database contained a special datafile for the others system/OS type.
If that file didn't exist on either system, then it would be transfered
to the system, or systems, needing it, prior to the transfer of the file,
or files, that need to be transfered.
The above is, perhaps, a great oversimplification of my idea, however,
using this basic sort of technique, files could hypothetically be
transferred from system to system, and, when transferred back to the
system of the type on which they originated, the file names would
automagically become the original filenames that they started out life
as.
This may be of particular use to users of classic systems who want to
archive and preserve many different types of files on a live
filesystem for safe-keeping over the years, as well as of interest to
those using emulators.
After someone mentioned PERQs, this idea came to me after I began
thinking about problems that I had when attempting to transfer large
numbers of PERQ files to a UNIX system via kermit. Also, if this file
translation and transfer mechanism could also recurse directories, and
transfer the knowledge of the directory structures between the
systems, as it would with the filename format information, it could be
even more useful, allowing for entire hard disks to be archived on
other "non-compatible" systems.
What are the thoughts of others regarding this idea and UFUTS?
--
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All Rights Reserved misuse of good pasture and farm land often
rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 perpetuated by those who are capable of
http://www.rddavis.net neither farming nor riding.
6:25 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
What I'd like to see is a community effort to make
a new OS that does
what needs to be done without worrying about being compatible with
something that currently exists.
Man, I'd really like to do that someday. I've thought about that
particular subject a lot for nearly as long as I've had to interact with
an operating system.
Imagine, a system that incorporates all the good ideas and none of the bad
ones, is ultra-powerful for smart people but simple enough for idiots,
doesn't have anything to be backwards-compatible with, and runs on
anything. Please excuse me while I wipe this puddle of drool off the
floor.
ASCII
One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the internationalization problem.
Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
this Unicode crap.
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss(a)subatomix.com
27 Jul
27 Jul
2:28 a.m.
New subject: ASCII (was: Universal filename translation)
On Fri, 27 Jul 2001, Jeffrey S. Sharp wrote:
One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the
internationalization problem.
Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
this Unicode crap.
I agree.
This reminds me of something that Frances Uruqhart (sp?), played by
Iain Richardson, said in "House of Cards." I don't have the exact
quote, but he suggested that what the Europeans need is not a common
currency, but a common language, namely English. :-)
That sounds like what the U.S. needs as well, with all of the idiotic
bizdroids over here bowing down to the speakers of Spanish. Even when
calling the telephone company one has to "press 1 to hear this
recording in English, or [some weird foreign sounding phrase with the
word espanol in it]. Alas, Georgieporgie Dubya amBush isn't going to
help things, as he appears to have the idea of transforming the
U.S.A. into the U.S. of Mexican Jumping Beans (this probably has
something to do with why they have cars modified to jump up and down
on air-shocks in Mexico and California).
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.net beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
28 Jul
28 Jul
3:12 a.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
Jeffrey S. Sharp skrev:
One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the
internationalization problem.
Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
this Unicode crap.
Great idea, Geoff. Oh, wait, there is already such a system... I think it
starts with a U, the there's an X in the back...
I welcome Unicode. Everyone should, since it would solve this
internationalisation problem.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Menyn ?r inte lika sexig som telnet, det ?r h?rt men sant.
Petri Oksanen #38 p? SUGA BBS
29 Jul
29 Jul
10:53 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
>One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the
internationalization problem.
>Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
>English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
>this Unicode crap.
Great idea, Geoff. Oh, wait, there is already such a
system... I think it
starts with a U, the there's an X in the back...
And to make it worse, they introduced dozends of 8 Bit codes ...
I welcome Unicode. Everyone should, since it would
solve this
internationalisation problem.
Jep. Unicode is, for most circumstances a real relif.
Even when you still do 8 Bit systems (8 Bit character
sets) it will help a lot - for example we can't convert
our application to 16 Bit characters, since on the /370
part this would require more than a few lines of code.
On the other hand we had to support different code sets
in different installations (from Arabic and Cyrillic
to Greek and Turkish and of course the funny French/
Spanisch accented caracters) while still manage a common
code base and online data exchange. Unicode did give us
a good base to define our codesets as subsets and to define
interchange rules.
Back to File Name Translation: does someone remember the
name translations GSOS 6 on the Apple did when reading
DOS or ProDOS Files ? AFAIR in DOS/ProDOS any character
was allowed in the file name.
Gruss
H.
BTW: the 9900 looks like a great Unicode machine - eventualy
one should drop all this unnecersary byte operation :)
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
30 Jul
30 Jul
1:31 a.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Hans Franke wrote:
Back to File Name Translation: does someone remember
the name
translations GSOS 6 on the Apple did when reading DOS or ProDOS Files
? AFAIR in DOS/ProDOS any character was allowed in the file name.
DOS allowed up to 30 character filenames with any characters save for the
comma (which was used to delineate parameters) and maybe one or two other
characters I'm forgetting. But even control characters were allowed (and
these were used to "hide" files sometimes or confuse people trying to load
them, since they didn't show up in the catalog).
ProDOS only allowed 15 character filenames, alphanumeric and periods only.
I never used GSOS but I assume it used a similar directory format.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
1:02 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system (was: building a PDP11...)
Hans Franke skrev:
> >One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the
internationalization problem.
> >Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
> >English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
> >this Unicode crap.
> Great idea, Geoff. Oh, wait, there is already such
a system... I think it
> starts with a U, the there's an X in the back...
And to make it worse, they introduced dozends of 8 Bit
codes ...
I've found no trace of anything above the seventh on our OpenBSD system.
> I welcome Unicode. Everyone should, since it would
solve this
> internationalisation problem.
Jep. Unicode is, for most circumstances a real relif.
Even when you still do 8 Bit systems (8 Bit character
sets) it will help a lot - for example we can't convert
our application to 16 Bit characters, since on the /370
part this would require more than a few lines of code.
On the other hand we had to support different code sets
in different installations (from Arabic and Cyrillic
to Greek and Turkish and of course the funny French/
Spanisch accented caracters) while still manage a common
code base and online data exchange. Unicode did give us
a good base to define our codesets as subsets and to define
interchange rules.
I'd just like to be able to run a Japanese text editor in one window without
having my ???'s garbled in the other one. =)
At least with 8 bits, we're better off than back in the ISO-646 days.
BTW: the 9900 looks like a great Unicode machine -
eventualy
one should drop all this unnecersary byte operation :)
9900 what?
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
Och har du en TV utan Scart, vilket nittionio procent faktiskt har, kommer de
f?rmodligen att ringa fr?n Antikrundan.
Martin Timell
8:03 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system
>> >One of my crazy ideas is how to solve the
internationalization problem.
>> >Use extended ASCII or some now 8-bit-wided character set, and declare
>> >English to be the official international language of the platform. Screw
>> >this Unicode crap.
>> Great idea, Geoff. Oh, wait, there is already
such a system... I think it
>> starts with a U, the there's an X in the back...
>> I welcome Unicode. Everyone should, since it
would solve this
>> internationalisation problem.
>Jep. Unicode is, for most circumstances a real
relif.
>BTW: the 9900 looks like a great Unicode machine -
eventualy
>one should drop all this unnecersary byte operation :)
9900 what?
Texas Instruments TMS 9900 and it's brothers ans sisters.
AK TI 990/xx
The CPU used for example in the TI 99/4, or the Tomy Tutor.
A nice clean 16 Bit design.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
31 Jul
31 Jul
1:04 a.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system
Texas Instruments TMS 9900 and it's brothers ans
sisters.
AK TI 990/xx
The CPU used for example in the TI 99/4, or the Tomy Tutor.
The 9995 in the TT is even nicer, with a 256-byte on chip RAM "register
cache".
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- An apple every eight hours will keep three doctors away. -------------------
1:55 a.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system
Hans Franke skrev:
> >BTW: the 9900 looks like a great Unicode
machine - eventualy
> >one should drop all this unnecersary byte operation :)
> 9900 what?
Texas Instruments TMS 9900 and it's brothers ans
sisters.
AK TI 990/xx
The CPU used for example in the TI 99/4, or the Tomy
Tutor.
A nice clean 16 Bit design.
Ah, you're right about that. Shame that I've never seen it in a decent system.
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
7:54 p.m.
New subject: Universal filename translation system
Hans Franke skrev:
>> >BTW: the 9900 looks like a great Unicode machine - eventualy
>> >one should drop all this unnecersary byte operation :)
>> 9900 what?
>Texas Instruments TMS 9900 and it's brothers
ans sisters.
>AK TI 990/xx
>The CPU used for example in the TI 99/4, or the Tomy Tutor.
>A nice clean 16 Bit design.
Ah, you're right about that. Shame that I've
never seen it in a decent system.
Well, I'd considere the TI 99/4 a real nice system.
The designers can't be made responsible for the
faults of the chip design guys, who couldn't deliver
an 8 Bit verion in time.
Gruss
H.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
26 Jul
26 Jul
5:43 p.m.
Wasn't Plan 9 supposed to be sort of like that?
Chad Fernandez
Michgan, USA
Eric Dittman wrote:
I've thought about this, myself. Almost any new OS wants to work like Unix.
What I'd like to see is a community effort to make a new OS that does what
needs to be done without worrying about being compatible with something that
currently exists. Start off with a list of all the good things in different
operating systems, then implement them in a way that works well. Sure, it
may not have a lot of software available, but so what? The fun will be in
developing something that is well-designed, well-implemented, and solid.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman(a)dittman.net
just how
much has been lost to time in the onslaught of Microsoft and Unix
Lots... What do you think about a UNIX-AOS/VS-VMS-MPE-Guardian hybrid? 
27 Jul
27 Jul
5:55 a.m.
New subject: Custom OS ( was Re: building a PDP11 from the things you find at home
At 01:43 AM 7/27/01 -0400, Chad wrote:
There are a zillion flavors of "works like UNIX." Everything from the
command shell is similar (MS-DOS can do this) to "device drivers are
compatible." The POSIX effort to create a compatible library interface
didn't do to well in my opinion either. When I joined what was to become
the Java group at Sun it was in the 'portable OS' group. We were looking at
building an entire OS in Java (Oak at the time.) That effort I think would
be a lot of fun using a compiler that compiled Java to machine code (rather
than using a "java chip.")
--Chuck
Wasn't Plan 9 supposed to be sort of like that?
No, it was more like Rob Pike's vision of where UNIX should have gone.
Eric Dittman wrote:
I've
thought about this, myself. Almost any new OS wants to work like
Unix.
What I'd like to see is a community effort to
make a new OS that does what
needs to be done without worrying about being compatible with something
that
> currently exists.
26 Jul
26 Jul
12:04 p.m.
R. D. Davis wrote:
...and emulators are very, very, boring; and, if run
under M$-Windoze,
much less reliable and more likely to crash or lose data. The sound
of fans, the chatter and kerchunking of disk drives, the clicking
contactors when mains power is applied, the vacuum and whirring sounds
of a mag tape drive starting up, the blinking of lights, etc. are all
parts of the experience of using vintage computer systems.
Sure and I've even seen PDP8 emulation that clicked the teletype sounds
and and ran an Xterm window in 110 baud. (well, perhaps I was dreaming
on the sounds part).
If I smelled thoe overheated fans I'd have thought it was a real PDP8e.
As far as the windows part it isn't what I'm running (unless I have to
for work). My Vaxstation's starting to look like fun -- but I do miss
the PDP11/03 front end rx01 init clicks and the microdiagnostics.
But I can't afford the space or power for one in order to run the
microdiags to test wcs.
I did RT11 on the RT11 emulator on the Vax at DEC and the sysgens seemed
just the same as the ones on the 11/40 I used when I could borrow
it in the Princeton office and the emulated RT11 box could write files
to the floppy on the 11/780 that I could boot on my home PDT11/150.
Couldn't do that with the RK05's, RL02's and RM02's on the 11/40.
Bill
bill
---
Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org
12:42 p.m.
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
You know, while Jerome and I each have our preferences, I've got to admit
that for him, emulation makes a lot more sense. Shoot, I'll even admit that
at this point, PDP-11 emulation would almost make more sense for myself. Of
course neither of my main PDP-11's are exactly normal. My /73 has SCSI
tape, CD-ROM and removable 3.5" 1/3 Hieght SCSI Hard Drives, as a result, in
spite of being in a BA123, it's quieter than some of my modern hardware. My
/44 might have RL02's, but it's primary disks are SCSI. As a result I've
got capabilities on my PDP-11's that aren't really available on the
emulators available to hobbyists. As for everything you say above on disk
drives, I personally wouldn't even consider using any Hard Drives larger
than 5 1/4", and I try to stick with 3 1/2". Why? Electricity costs,
noise, heat, AND the amount of physical space that they take up.
Emulators aren't boring, unless all you're interested in is the hardware.
Personally I like them. They let you run software you wouldn't otherwise be
able to run. The perfect examples are ts10, simh, and hercules. The first
two will allow you to run PDP-10 software, and the last allows you to run
IBM 360, 370, etc. software. Granted there are a few PDP-10's in Hobbyist
hands (though I'm not sure any are fully operational), but I'm not aware of
any hobbyist having a fully operational IBM Mainframe. Thanks to simh, I've
got a emulated KS10 sitting on the net running TOPS-10 7.03. That makes me
pretty happy with emulation. Oh, and as for stability, I had TOPS-10
running for nearly 40 days straight at one point, it stopped running because
*OpenBSD* crashed! That's the second time that OpenBSD has crashed on me in
nearly 3 years on that system.
Zane
Jerome Fine replies:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
Hmmmm, this IS the classiccmp list isn't it?
under an emulator is much more straight forward,
much easier AND MUCH
FASTER.
...and emulators are very, very, boring; and, if run under M$-Windoze,
much less reliable and more likely to crash or lose data. The sound
of fans, the chatter and kerchunking of disk drives, the clicking
contactors when mains power is applied, the vacuum and whirring sounds
of a mag tape drive starting up, the blinking of lights, etc. are all
parts of the experience of using vintage computer systems.
Aye Jerome, surely you don't want to be thought of as an
anti-classic-computer emulator loving weenie, do you? ;-) After all,
can it not be said that emulators are, for the most part, preferred by
weenies who can't lift a PDP-11/44 PSU and are afraid of being shocked
by one, who can't pop a tall cabinet into the back of a real, not one
of those little foreign match-box size, station station wagons to haul
it home, who don't know a screwdriver from an SMD drive cable, or who
can't even figure out how to disassemble and reassemble a couple of
linked paperclips?
27 Jul
27 Jul
1:46 a.m.
able to run. The perfect examples are ts10, simh, and
hercules. The first
I agree that one might need to emulate the PDP-10, because of its relative
rarity. As far as IBM Mainframes, one could pick up a P/390E and put it
in a PC or RS/6000 to get a real IBM mainframe. (Or you could be me, and
go get a 9672 G5)
Peace... Sridhar
12:08 a.m.
Someone wrote...
----- Original Message -----
> While I probably don't really understand
someone who's goal is using the
> original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software
development
> under an emulator is much more straight forward,
much easier AND MUCH
> FASTER.
Ummmmmmm if software development under a given emulator is much more
straight forward and much easier, wouldn't that mean it's not a very good
emulator?
And as to the "much faster" part, for purist reasons, I put a config flag in
my HP 2100/21MX/7900/7948/7970 emulator that attempts to present a similar
instruction execution speed profile as the original hardware. Of course I
turn it off for development, but.... *G*
Jay West
29 Jul
29 Jul
11:04 a.m.
R. D. Davis wrote:
On Thu, 26 Jul
2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
Hmmmm,
this IS the classiccmp list isn't it? under an
emulator is much more straight forward, much easier AND MUCH
FASTER.
...and emulators are very, very, boring; and, if run under M$-Windoze,
much less reliable and more likely to crash or lose data. The sound
of fans, the chatter and kerchunking of disk drives, the clicking
contactors when mains power is applied, the vacuum and whirring sounds
of a mag tape drive starting up, the blinking of lights, etc. are all
parts of the experience of using vintage computer systems. Aye Jerome, surely you don't want to be thought of
as an
anti-classic-computer emulator loving weenie, do you? ;-) After all,
can it not be said that emulators are, for the most part, preferred by
weenies who can't lift a PDP-11/44 PSU and are afraid of being shocked
by one, who can't pop a tall cabinet into the back of a real, not one
of those little foreign match-box size, station station wagons to haul
it home, who don't know a screwdriver from an SMD drive cable, or who
can't even figure out how to disassemble and reassemble a couple of
linked paperclips?
Well, when you get to be my age (I just turned 63), you may sing a different
tune. This weekend, I just finished nursing a very sore back into a reasonable
disposition after working with a BA23 (NOTE: not the BA123 just the BA23)
system. I had a bad DRV11 (M7941) module that stopped the system from
booting. My first impression was that the PSU might be gone, so I transferred
just the memory to a different BA23 that I hoped was working. That worked
with an M8090, so I added a few more boards including the disk drive. When
all that worked, I transferred back to the original BA23 and it still worked. So
I swapped in the M8192 and the boot ROM board and finally the last 4 dual
boards which ended up crashing the system again. Took out the last 4 dual
boards at which point it was OK and started adding them one at a time.
Viola!!! One board to go - the M7941 and it started crashing again. Out and
replace with an M9047 - bus grant card - AND it works!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!
Anyone have a spare M7941 they want to sell? I also will need those zero
ohm resistors set to a non-standard CSR/VECTOR!!
Plus, I also would like to buy a TU-58 external tape drive - does anyone want
to swap a dozen tapes for an external TU-58 tape drive? I will also consider
buying it.
I also will consider buying a single 4 MByte PMI memory board made by
Christlen. Better still, maybe an 11/93 or an M100 from Mentec. I am
hoping to cure my 7 quad board problem in the BA123 box with the ESDI
hard disk drives. If I can put 8 quad boards into a BA23, then that will
mean that it is the BA123 that is bad. So back to swapping boards again.
Sincerely yours,
Jerome Fine
1 Aug
1 Aug
4:10 p.m.
On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
Jerome Fine replies:
Thanks for your comment - I had a good laugh. Also with a bit of tongue in
cheek, a reply ...
Good, I'm glad that it gave you a laugh. :-)
On Thu, 26 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:
While I probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
Hmmmm,
this IS the classiccmp list isn't it? Yep! It includes those nerds who need to hear the
screech of a disk drive
bearing gone bad (the RD53 whine is about the best) and the broken back
achieved while lifting an RA81.
Sounds like a rather honorable way to break one's back, what?
I will admit that on occasion, I do delight in using
VERY OLD
hardware. About 2 years ago, I needed to transfer some data to a
[...]
Ah-hah! Just as I thought. :-)
Actually, I think both the hardware and software goals
that we have are
crazy, but since we all seem to enjoy ourselves and I know of no law
that is being broken that will need to be invoked to slowly lower us feet
first into molten iron, it seems harmless enough.
Well said. What we're doing with computers here basically amounts to
having fun, which is perhaps the healthiest way to use computers!
...despite the risks we take by lifting and moving these toys about.
[...]
distribution media - not that I would EVER consider
the TK50 to be
a successful backup drive/media - although a TK70 at 256 MBytes
finally seems acceptable.
If only TK50 and TK70 cartridges were as inexpensive and easily
obtainable as 9-track magtapes.
Well, when you get to be my age (I just turned 63),
you may sing a
different tune. This weekend, I just finished nursing a very sore
back into a reasonable
That, I can't dispute; please be careful with lifting.
[...]
boards which ended up crashing the system again. Took
out the last 4 dual
boards at which point it was OK and started adding them one at a time.
Viola!!! One board to go - the M7941 and it started crashing again. Out and
replace with an M9047 - bus grant card - AND it works!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!
While I'm not at all keen on the idea of board swapping, I'll still
say congratulations on getting it running again!
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.net 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.net beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
26 Jul
26 Jul
1:13 p.m.
--- Jerome Fine <jhfine(a)idirect.com> wrote:
I agree with that. Even though I have a raft of PET hardware, it was
several times faster to hack the Infocom ZIP program from the C-64 to
the PET under VICE on my SPARC5 than to do it on the real thing. I used to
develop software on the C-64 and Apple ][ back in the day when they were
tops in the home. We had one C-64 for editing/printing, one for compiling
and one for running. I rolled my chair up and down the aisle, sneakernet
on wheels. I could get an edit/compile/test cycle down to a few minutes
that way. For the ZIP port, I had emacs open to the source, a shell
window for a cross-compiler, and a VICE window with a Zork-I disk image
mounted as drive 8 and the local directory mounted as drive 9. The
things I could have written in 1984 if I'd had that developement
environment!
The proof, of course, is that it works on the real thing. So far, I haven't
gotten around to that because I have no working BASIC 3.0 PETs and the code
I have doesn't work under BASIC 4.0 (zero page conflicts with the kernal)
Someday, though, I'll dig out my oldest PET (the one I got new in grade school)
and put the finishing touches on it. For some odd reason, all I've picked
up in the way of PETs since then have been 8032s and maybe one fat-40.
-ethan
=====
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Zane H. Healy
wrote:
[Snip]
Where I see emulation as useful is when you need a laptop version of the
system, or you just don't have a chance of getting the hardware...
While I
probably don't really understand someone who's goal is using the
original hardware, on the other hand, I find that any software development
under an emulator is much more straight forward, much easier AND MUCH
FASTER.
8542
days inactive
8556
days old
66 comments
31 participants
participants (31)
-
allain＠panix.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bill＠cs.scranton.edu -
cmcmanis＠mcmanis.com -
cmurillo＠emtelsa.multi.net.co -
dittman＠dittman.net -
ecloud＠bigfoot.com -
ethan_dicks＠yahoo.com -
fernande＠internet1.net -
foo＠siconic.com -
geoffrob＠stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au -
h.wolter＠sympatico.ca -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jhellige＠earthlink.net -
jhfine＠idirect.com -
jimdavis＠gorge.net -
jss＠subatomix.com -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com -
mrbill＠mrbill.net -
optimus＠canit.se -
pechter＠bg-tc-ppp1494.monmouth.com -
pechter＠bg-tc-ppp382.monmouth.com -
rdd＠smart.net -
sieler＠allegro.com -
spc＠conman.org -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu -
terryc＠woa.com.au -
tony.eros＠machm.org -
vance＠ikickass.org -
west＠tseinc.com