30 May
2013
30 May
'13
1:06 p.m.
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
What good are old UNIX systems? I'm curious, what
are people using things
like Sparc 2's through 20's for?
I used to run Sun gear all the time at home. I just don't power it up
anymore, so
the strict answer to your question is "keeping the shelves from being empty".
At one time, old Sun gear was a great gateway to learning "real" Unix and a
foot
in the door for a "real" job. It's been far, far less true for coming
up on 10 years.
And then, around 4 years ago, give or take, if the job postings said "Solaris
experience required", it was Solaris 10 or nothing, something you can't do
with SPARC hardware from the 1980s.
I've turned down more free Sun hardware in the past 2 years than I've
kept. It's
still elegant, and it still runs DNS and web servers, and plenty of
other things,
but I personally don't care to spend that much on electricity for those sorts
of services at the bandwidths I require - an old laptop running Linux can do
everything I "need" at home in the way of services and suck up 90W or less.
I also have VAXen that I only turn on for special occasions - too hungry to
leave powered on all the time like we used to do back in the day. Of course,
in the winter, it's "electric heat", so no harm there, but it's summer
up here
now, so most of that stuff stays off except for a few hours here and there.
-ethan
30 May
30 May
10:19 p.m.
On May 30, 2013, at 1:06 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:04 PM, Zane H. Healy
<healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
Sadly this pretty much parallels where my mind has been going. For the past several years
the only server I've had running is a 12 year old Pentium 3. The VMS servers and Sun
boxes have been powered down. In fact for several years I've threatened to replace
the P3 with an Atom-based server.
Suddenly though I find myself thinking of adding 3+ Linux boxes for a project.
Zane
What good are old UNIX systems? I'm curious,
what are people using things
like Sparc 2's through 20's for?
I used to run Sun gear all the time at home. I just don't power it up
anymore, so
the strict answer to your question is "keeping the shelves from being empty".
At one time, old Sun gear was a great gateway to learning "real" Unix and a
foot
in the door for a "real" job. It's been far, far less true for coming
up on 10 years.
And then, around 4 years ago, give or take, if the job postings said "Solaris
experience required", it was Solaris 10 or nothing, something you can't do
with SPARC hardware from the 1980s.
I've turned down more free Sun hardware in the past 2 years than I've
kept. It's
still elegant, and it still runs DNS and web servers, and plenty of
other things,
but I personally don't care to spend that much on electricity for those sorts
of services at the bandwidths I require - an old laptop running Linux can do
everything I "need" at home in the way of services and suck up 90W or less.
I also have VAXen that I only turn on for special occasions - too hungry to
leave powered on all the time like we used to do back in the day. Of course,
in the winter, it's "electric heat", so no harm there, but it's summer
up here
now, so most of that stuff stays off except for a few hours here and there.
-ethan 
31 May
31 May
4:32 a.m.
On May 31, 2013, at 1:19 AM, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
wrote:
On May 30, 2013, at 1:06 PM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
Sadly this pretty much parallels where my mind has been going. For the past several
years the only server I've had running is a 12 year old Pentium 3. The VMS servers
and Sun boxes have been powered down. In fact for several years I've threatened to
replace the P3 with an Atom-based server.
Suddenly though I find myself thinking of adding 3+ Linux boxes for a project.
I run a reasonably recent 8-core Xeon as my primary server. I don't get
that much traffic, it's just more convenient to have a machine that I can
run heavy compute loads on from remote locations. I have a dual P3 as a
secondary DNS server.
I'm set to acquire a few more classic systems in the near term, though.
If any of them can be run 24/7 without breaking the bank, I'll probably
change my primary public-facing services to them, partly for the "fun"
factor (none of the sites I host get enough traffic to justify anything
near an 8-core Xeon) and also because something like OpenVMS on an Alpha
is a much less likely target for random attacks by script kiddies.
- Dave
7:50 a.m.
At 7:32 AM -0400 5/31/13, David Riley wrote:
On May 31, 2013, at 1:19 AM, "Zane H. Healy"
<healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
I'm typing this on a fairly modern Dual 4-Core Xeon, but this is my
desktop, I don't feel a need for more CPU power than a P3 for a
server. OTOH, I need as much as possible on the desktop, as I spend
most of the time in Photoshop. Though realistically at the moment I
need more I/O power.
My primary OpenVMS server, the one I ran 24x7, and served up data on
the Internet for years moved from an Alphastation 200 4/233 -> DEC
3000/300LX -> 433au -> Compaq XP1000/667. It also started with a
single internal SCSI HD, made it up to two BA350's that were mostly
full, and now has dual 3-drive SCA JBOD boxes. It also has 4mm DAT
and DLT tape drives (in the past it's had 8mm and DLT tape libraries).
The XP1000 has plenty of CPU power, RAM, and disk space for RDB and
WASD, but the configuration sucks power like crazy. Still I
seriously miss having a VMS server online, and am considering moving
it back to an AlphaStation 4/233.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
| My Photography Website |
| http://www.zanesphotography.com |
On May 30, 2013, at 1:06 PM, Ethan Dicks
<ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
Sadly this pretty much parallels where my mind has been going.
For the past several years the only server I've had running is a 12
year old Pentium 3. The VMS servers and Sun boxes have been
powered down. In fact for several years I've threatened to replace
the P3 with an Atom-based server.
Suddenly though I find myself thinking of adding 3+ Linux boxes
for a project.
I run a reasonably recent 8-core Xeon as my primary server. I don't get
that much traffic, it's just more convenient to have a machine that I can
run heavy compute loads on from remote locations. I have a dual P3 as a
secondary DNS server.
I'm set to acquire a few more classic systems in the near term, though.
If any of them can be run 24/7 without breaking the bank, I'll probably
change my primary public-facing services to them, partly for the "fun"
factor (none of the sites I host get enough traffic to justify anything
near an 8-core Xeon) and also because something like OpenVMS on an Alpha
is a much less likely target for random attacks by script kiddies.
8:21 a.m.
On May 31, 2013, at 10:50 AM, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com>
wrote:
At 7:32 AM -0400 5/31/13, David Riley wrote:
I run big FPGA builds on my server, so I can benefit from pretty
much whatever I can throw at it. FPGA build engines still aren't
parallelized very well, so I benefit more from increased clock
speed than more cores, but it can still use 4 of the 8 for about
20% of the build. Plus, I can run multiple ones in parallel when
that's necessary.
The web/DNS/mail/file server parts of it could probably be pretty
easily handled by a 68k running NetBSD, but I already have this
running for compute tasks and it barely even registers the server
tasks, plus it has an OK SAS controller so I can use nicer disks
once I can afford them.
I run a reasonably recent 8-core Xeon as my
primary server. I don't get
that much traffic, it's just more convenient to have a machine that I can
run heavy compute loads on from remote locations. I have a dual P3 as a
secondary DNS server.
I'm set to acquire a few more classic systems in the near term, though.
If any of them can be run 24/7 without breaking the bank, I'll probably
change my primary public-facing services to them, partly for the "fun"
factor (none of the sites I host get enough traffic to justify anything
near an 8-core Xeon) and also because something like OpenVMS on an Alpha
is a much less likely target for random attacks by script kiddies.
I'm typing this on a fairly modern Dual 4-Core Xeon, but this is my
desktop, I don't feel a need for more CPU power than a P3 for a
server. OTOH, I need as much as possible on the desktop, as I spend
most of the time in Photoshop. Though realistically at the moment I
need more I/O power. My primary OpenVMS server, the one I ran 24x7, and
served up data on
the Internet for years moved from an Alphastation 200 4/233 -> DEC
3000/300LX -> 433au -> Compaq XP1000/667. It also started with a
single internal SCSI HD, made it up to two BA350's that were mostly
full, and now has dual 3-drive SCA JBOD boxes. It also has 4mm DAT
and DLT tape drives (in the past it's had 8mm and DLT tape libraries).
The XP1000 has plenty of CPU power, RAM, and disk space for RDB and
WASD, but the configuration sucks power like crazy. Still I
seriously miss having a VMS server online, and am considering moving
it back to an AlphaStation 4/233.
Alternatively, Simh simulates a uVAX 3900 faster than my actual 3900
even on a moderately-powered Core2 machine. That could be handy if
you're not focused on having the actual iron running and have spare
cycles on a machine (on an early Opteron, I'll testify that it takes
up pretty much a whole CPU by itself, even at idle, but you can
always renice it down).
- Dave
8:49 a.m.
At 11:21 AM -0400 5/31/13, David Riley wrote:
I think it SIMH would work for DECdocument, but I'm not sure if it
could handle anything else I run. :-) Even the AlphaStation 200
4/233 would be painfully slow for some things. For a VAX I'd moved
My primary
OpenVMS server, the one I ran 24x7, and served up data on
the Internet for years moved from an Alphastation 200 4/233 -> DEC
3000/300LX -> 433au -> Compaq XP1000/667. It also started with a
single internal SCSI HD, made it up to two BA350's that were mostly
full, and now has dual 3-drive SCA JBOD boxes. It also has 4mm DAT
and DLT tape drives (in the past it's had 8mm and DLT tape libraries).
The XP1000 has plenty of CPU power, RAM, and disk space for RDB and
WASD, but the configuration sucks power like crazy. Still I
seriously miss having a VMS server online, and am considering moving
it back to an AlphaStation 4/233.
Alternatively, Simh simulates a uVAX 3900 faster than my actual 3900
even on a moderately-powered Core2 machine. That could be handy if
you're not focused on having the actual iron running and have spare
cycles on a machine (on an early Opteron, I'll testify that it takes
up pretty much a whole CPU by itself, even at idle, but you can
always renice it down). from a VAXstation 4000/vlc to a 4000/60 due to issues
with the VLC.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
| My Photography Website |
| http://www.zanesphotography.com |
9:35 a.m.
New subject: KS10 console processor (8080) firmware
Anyone happen to have access or know of an archive for the
DEC KS10 console (M8616E) firmware? The board runs an 8080A
and the firmware resides in four EPROMs as shown on pages 24-40
of the schematic:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp10/KS10/MP00540_KS10_MaintSch…
If a board is available for loan, sale, trade, etc that would
also work.
--tnx
--tom
2:51 p.m.
New subject: KS10 console processor (8080) firmware
On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 11:35:53AM -0500, Tom Uban wrote:
Anyone happen to have access or know of an archive for
the
DEC KS10 console (M8616E) firmware? The board runs an 8080A
and the firmware resides in four EPROMs as shown on pages 24-40
of the schematic:
I don't know where I put my ROM images, but centuries ago I disassembled
them into something which would build to the same binaries:
/pub/pdp10/ks10/csl52.asm (the source)
/pub/pdp10/ks10/mcs85.inc (TASM/MASM macros to build 8080A code)
That's for V5.2 of the CSL firmware, which is the newest one I know of
but maybe there's something newer.
John Wilson
D Bit
3:47 p.m.
New subject: KS10 console processor (8080) firmware
On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 05:51:56PM -0400, I wrote:
/pub/pdp10/ks10/csl52.asm (the source)
/pub/pdp10/ks10/mcs85.inc (TASM/MASM macros to build 8080A code)
Guh! Copy & paste error. What I meant was:
ftp://ftp.dbit.com/pub/pdp10/ks10/csl52.asm
ftp://ftp.dbit.com/pub/pdp10/ks10/mcs85.inc
John Wilson
D Bit
4176
days inactive
4177
days old
8 comments
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ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
uban＠ubanproductions.com -
wilson＠dbit.com