24 Nov
2004
24 Nov
'04
1:22 a.m.
I don't think I posted this already :)
Does anyone have any info lurking online about the Ferranti Mercury
(specs, what roles the handful of machines that were made took on etc.)?
The chap we got the BeBox, Lisa etc. from has an original programming
manual for one (although nowhere does it say Ferranti - just 'Mercury')
and it'd be nice to give him a bit more info about the machine itself.
Google didn't turn up much when I tried, other than the single picture
of the machine which seems to be common to a lot of sites.
cheers
J.
24 Nov
24 Nov
8:33 a.m.
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Does anyone have any info lurking online about the
Ferranti Mercury
(specs, what roles the handful of machines that were made took on etc.)?
The chap we got the BeBox, Lisa etc. from has an original programming
manual for one (although nowhere does it say Ferranti - just 'Mercury')
and it'd be nice to give him a bit more info about the machine itself.
Holy crapola, a lot of the best software development in the
world was done on Ferranti machines. English computers from
that era (50's) had index regs, stacks and subroutine support
back when the Americans were still trying to put square wheels
on their wagons.
The Mercurys (Mercuries?) were late 50's? developed
versions of the Manchester thread machines. It had a fancy
autocode. Transistorized I assume.
I don't think I have any hardware descriptions of it, and it
would take me some time to look at, but I do have this picture
http://wps.com/archives/Ivall/Ferranti-Mercury-computer.jpg
and others at that base URL.
8:53 a.m.
At 02:33 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote:
I don't think I have any hardware descriptions of
it, and it
would take me some time to look at, but I do have this picture
http://wps.com/archives/Ivall/Ferranti-Mercury-computer.jpg
Well, if it's so great, where's the steering wheel! :-)
Ed K.
10:01 a.m.
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Ed Kelleher wrote:
At 02:33 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote:
Sold on eBay!! :-)
I don't think I have any hardware
descriptions of it, and it
would take me some time to look at, but I do have this picture
http://wps.com/archives/Ivall/Ferranti-Mercury-computer.jpg
Well, if it's so great, where's the steering wheel! :-) 
11:45 a.m.
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 14:53 -0500, Ed Kelleher wrote:
At 02:33 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote:
Hahahhahahahah!
:)
Yeah, and what about the DECWriter? :)
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
I don't think I have any hardware descriptions
of it, and it
would take me some time to look at, but I do have this picture
http://wps.com/archives/Ivall/Ferranti-Mercury-computer.jpg
Well, if it's so great, where's the steering wheel! :-)
8:59 a.m.
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 11:33 -0800, Tom Jennings wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Now it would be interesting to know if it was fully transistorised for
the logic (core memory still, no doubt! :)
Both our big Marconi TAC and the Elliott 803 are transistorised machines
and date from circa 1959 - it'd be interesting to know what machines
using transistors were in use before then.
Does anyone have any info lurking online about
the Ferranti Mercury
(specs, what roles the handful of machines that were made took on etc.)?
The chap we got the BeBox, Lisa etc. from has an original programming
manual for one (although nowhere does it say Ferranti - just 'Mercury')
and it'd be nice to give him a bit more info about the machine itself.
Holy crapola, a lot of the best software development in the
world was done on Ferranti machines. English computers from
that era (50's) had index regs, stacks and subroutine support
back when the Americans were still trying to put square wheels
on their wagons.
The Mercurys (Mercuries?) were late 50's? developed
versions of the Manchester thread machines. It had a fancy
autocode. Transistorized I assume. I don't think I have any hardware descriptions of
it, and it
would take me some time to look at, but I do have this picture
http://wps.com/archives/Ivall/Ferranti-Mercury-computer.jpg
That's the same pic everyone seems to have :)
You've got some interesting other stuff on there, though.
I know we've got various Pegasus, Deuce and Leo documentation at the
museum, but I've not seen anything of the Mercury so it's something of
an unknown to me!
cheers
Jules
10:05 a.m.
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
That's the same pic everyone seems to have :)
You've got some interesting other stuff on there, though.
They're all from a book that's reasonably available:
Computer Design and Hardware Electronic Computers, Principles and Applications T.E.
Ivall 1960 Iliffe and Sons Overview, history, direction, pictures, for tech audience,
analog, digital state of the art
Hmm, paste from OOo, ugly, data there. Try abebooks.com
Mostly English machines, obviously. My next concentration...
I know we've got various Pegasus, Deuce and Leo
documentation at the
museum, but I've not seen anything of the Mercury so it's something of
an unknown to me!
10:13 a.m.
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Tom Jennings wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Speaking of photos of old computers, I was watching Revolution OS last
night (I give it a thumbs up so far...really good history on GPL, OSS,
etc. right from the folks who started it all) and they had some nifty
pictures of the PDP-1 at MIT and other machines that I've never seen
before. Good stuff.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
That's the same pic everyone seems to have :)
You've got some interesting other stuff on there, though.
They're all from a book that's reasonably available:
Computer Design and Hardware Electronic Computers, Principles and Applications T.E.
Ivall 1960 Iliffe and Sons Overview, history, direction, pictures, for tech audience,
analog, digital state of the art
Hmm, paste from OOo, ugly, data there. Try abebooks.com
Mostly English machines, obviously. My next concentration... 
10:31 a.m.
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Tom Jennings wrote:
Heh. I got to see that flick's premiere at the SXSW film festival
here. The guy who made that movie, JT Moore, presented the movie and
gave some commentary about both the making of the movie and his view of
the OSS/FSF/GNU/Linux culture. He really is a total geek. He obviously
also started that process without any agenda or points to prove.
For once we agree, Sellam. The movie's about a lot more than just
Linux, and while it's very pro-Linux and pro-OpenSource in general, it
comes off as pretty even-handed and non-fanatical. People like Bruce
Perens and Eric Raymond get as much credit as Stallman and Torvalds do.
There's also a lot of history there for anybody who ever installed
AIX or SunOS or A/UX or *IX and then spent hours downloading GNU tools
to make it useful.
I didn't know it was out on DVD, either. There's something cheap for
my Christmas list....
Doc
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Speaking of photos of old computers, I was watching Revolution OS last
night (I give it a thumbs up so far...really good history on GPL, OSS,
etc. right from the folks who started it all) and they had some nifty
pictures of the PDP-1 at MIT and other machines that I've never seen
before. Good stuff.
That's the same pic everyone seems to have :)
You've got some interesting other stuff on there, though.
They're all from a book that's reasonably available:
Computer Design and Hardware Electronic Computers, Principles and Applications T.E.
Ivall 1960 Iliffe and Sons Overview, history, direction, pictures, for tech audience,
analog, digital state of the art
Hmm, paste from OOo, ugly, data there. Try abebooks.com
Mostly English machines, obviously. My next concentration... 
10:41 a.m.
On Wednesday 24 November 2004 16:31, Doc Shipley wrote:
Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
HP was distributing copies a while back, but a NW company complained about
the graphic on the front cover.
--
Collector of vintage computers http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600
Machines to trade http://www.ncf.ca/~ba600/trade.html
Open Source Weekend http://www.osw.ca
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Tom Jennings wrote:
I didn't know it was out on DVD, either. There's something cheap for
my Christmas list.... On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Jules Richardson wrote:
Speaking of photos of old computers, I was watching Revolution OS last
night (I give it a thumbs up so far...really good history on GPL, OSS,
etc. right from the folks who started it all) and they had some nifty
pictures of the PDP-1 at MIT and other machines that I've never seen
before. Good stuff.
10:50 a.m.
Mike Kenzie wrote:
Yeah, I missed out on those, and I hear that now the HP release is a
major R@R3 collector item.
Doc
On Wednesday 24 November 2004 16:31, Doc Shipley
wrote:
I didn't
know it was out on DVD, either. There's something cheap for
my Christmas list....
HP was distributing copies a while back, but a NW company complained about
the graphic on the front cover. 
11:02 a.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
[oops. severely off topic. aren't I allowed one of these per quarter? :-)]
Doc Shipley wrote:
comes off as pretty even-handed and non-fanatical. People like Bruce
Perens and Eric Raymond get as much credit as Stallman and Torvalds do.
I think that's a shame. I remember the original email Linus sent out
(on usenet) about this "new os".
And I think Stallman is head and shoulders above all of them.
He may be mad, and a total 'PITA', but he's 10x the programmer and
visionary.
And I think he deserves a lot more of the credit for the open source
movement. Stallman was working on open source when Linus was still in
grade school.
-brad
11:21 a.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
Brad Parker wrote:
[oops. severely off topic. aren't I allowed one
of these per quarter? :-)]
Doc Shipley wrote:
Ahh. I'm sorry, I wasn't being nearly as clear as I thought I was.
I meant that in a relative sense, ERS and Perens got as much credit for
their work as Stallman and Torvalds got for theirs. Generally they get
completely ignored.
comes off as pretty even-handed and non-fanatical.
People like Bruce
Perens and Eric Raymond get as much credit as Stallman and Torvalds do.
I think that's a shame. I remember the original email Linus sent out
(on usenet) about this "new os". And I think Stallman is head and shoulders above all
of them.
He may be mad, and a total 'PITA', but he's 10x the programmer and
visionary.
And I think he deserves a lot more of the credit for the open source
movement. Stallman was working on open source when Linus was still in
grade school.
No doubt. I do a lot of Linux training, some of it for seasoned *nix
admins "crossing over". They're about the only ones I run into who know
that GNU/FSF isn't an offshoot of Linux.
I don't know Stallman personally (except through some email
correspondence on behalf of a LUG), but I think your assessment is spot
on. I do know and work with a couple of people who worked directly with
him at FSF in the '80s and '90s, and they are completely insufferable,
much in the way that Christian Scientists, Moonies, or Jehovah's
Witnesses are. "If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True", and intrusive as
hell.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest* of CCTalk.
Oh, well.
Doc
11:58 a.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
"If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True",
and intrusive as hell.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest* of CCTalk.
Oh, well.
Well, no, not me. I'll just say that I use BSD for a reason, and leave it
at that.
--
---------------------------------- personal: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Floodgap Systems Ltd * So. Calif., USA * ckaiser(a)floodgap.com
-- Put your Nose to the Grindstone! -- Plastic Surgeons-Toolmakers Union Ltd. -
12:03 p.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 16:21 -0600, Doc Shipley wrote:
I don't know Stallman personally (except
through some email
correspondence on behalf of a LUG), but I think your assessment is spot
on. I do know and work with a couple of people who worked directly with
him at FSF in the '80s and '90s, and they are completely insufferable,
much in the way that Christian Scientists, Moonies, or Jehovah's
Witnesses are. "If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True", and intrusive as
hell.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest* of CCTalk.
Oh, well.
I fully agree with you, in fact. I work on an open source project to
bring Linux software and thin clients into schools, called Skolelinux
(Skole being the Norwegian word for School). I have heard rumours of a
FSF fanatic (might have been RMS himself) arguing with our project
leader about the title, wanting us to change the title to
"Skole-GNU/Linux"!! :D
--
Tore S Bekkedal <toresbe(a)ifi.uio.no>
12:12 p.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
Tore S Bekkedal wrote:
On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 16:21 -0600, Doc Shipley wrote:
That doesn't sound like just a rumour.
I mentioned corresponding with RMS on behalf of a LUG here, the
University of Texas SIGLinux. RMS was planning a speaking tour and SIGL
invited him here. The official FSF position, which was later verified
by personal email from Stallman, was that he would be very happy to
speak in Austin.
As long as the official name of SIGLinux was changed to include GNU.
I absolutely see RMS as the father of the open intellectual
"property" revolution, not just open software. Bu after the SIGLinux
deal, I have to say he's gone right over the top.
Doc
I don't know Stallman personally (except
through some email
correspondence on behalf of a LUG), but I think your assessment is spot
on. I do know and work with a couple of people who worked directly with
him at FSF in the '80s and '90s, and they are completely insufferable,
much in the way that Christian Scientists, Moonies, or Jehovah's
Witnesses are. "If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True", and intrusive as
hell.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest* of CCTalk.
Oh, well.
I fully agree with you, in fact. I work on an open source project to
bring Linux software and thin clients into schools, called Skolelinux
(Skole being the Norwegian word for School). I have heard rumours of a
FSF fanatic (might have been RMS himself) arguing with our project
leader about the title, wanting us to change the title to
"Skole-GNU/Linux"!! :D 
3:25 p.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
I absolutely see RMS as the father of the open
intellectual
"property" revolution, not just open software. Bu after the
SIGLinux deal, I have to say he's gone right over the top.
He went over the top a *YEARS* ago, and personally I think he does
more harm than good.
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, |
| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
25 Nov
25 Nov
7:33 a.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
At 05:12 PM 11/24/2004, Doc Shipley wrote:
I mentioned corresponding with RMS on behalf of a LUG
here, the University of Texas SIGLinux. RMS was planning a speaking tour and SIGL invited
him here. The official FSF position, which was later verified by personal email from
Stallman, was that he would be very happy to speak in Austin.
As long as the official name of SIGLinux was changed to include GNU.
Having heard the story before, I've always wondered why they didn't
simply change the name for a month or two, then change it back. :-)
- John
24 Nov
24 Nov
3:22 p.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
I don't know Stallman personally (except
through some email
correspondence on behalf of a LUG), but I think your assessment is spot
on. I do know and work with a couple of people who worked directly with
him at FSF in the '80s and '90s, and they are completely insufferable,
much in the way that Christian Scientists, Moonies, or Jehovah's
Witnesses are. "If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True", and intrusive as
hell.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest* of CCTalk.
Oh, well.
It's the GNU Fanatics that bother me. Personally I'm more than a little
sick of the whole lot. I'd love to see a version of Linux that uses the BSD
tools rather than the GNU tools, though getting rid of gcc would be more
than a little difficult.
Zane
6:48 p.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
I do know and work with a couple of people who worked
directly with
[Stallman] at FSF in the '80s and '90s, and they are completely
insufferable, much in the way that Christian Scientists, Moonies, or
Jehovah's Witnesses are. "If It Ain't GNU, It Can't Be True", and
intrusive as hell.
Yeah, anyone who's drunk the kool-aid is, pretty much regardless of
whose kool-aid it was.
And yeah, I probably just managed to offend the *rest*
of CCTalk.
Being an equal-opportunity offender :), I'll note that I've seen this
phenomenon not only with Linux evangelists but with NetBSD evangelists
as well (and probably would have seen it for OpenBSD and FreeBSD too,
if I hung out in those circles). I've seen it for qmail evangelists
(oddly enough, very much less for other MTAs; I have naught but
speculation as to why). I've seen it for "Christian"s (quotes because
such people generally aren't very good Christians as I prefer to use
the word, in the sense of living Jesus's teachings). I've seen it for
twelve-steppers (in my case mostly CoDA, co-dependency being the issue
that brought me into contact with twelve-step programs). I'm sure it
exists in a whole raft of other areas that either I've not run into or
that I can't recall right now.
Evangelism - at least, anything that involves in-your-face conversion
attempts - is one of the few things I am completely unapologetic about
my intolerance towards.
/~\ The ASCII der Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
11:43 a.m.
New subject: movies, open source, RMS and linux...
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Brad Parker wrote:
Doc Shipley wrote:
The refreshing thing about the film is that you don't have any ego or
one-upmanship apparent in the interviews. Stallman is very complimentary
about Torvalds and speaks highly of his contribution. He also very
rationally explains how it came to be that they made all these excellent
GNU tools but didn't have a kernel by the time Linus made his, and then
how people put the two together to form a perfect marriage and have a full
free *-nix OS.
I'd heard that Stallman was pissed that Linus got all the credit, but that
didn't come off at all in the film. And now that I have a much better
understanding of the whole story (I must admit I never really followed it)
I see now how Stallman does have a point regarding who should get the real
credit for Linux. They both do really.
Anyway, I've still go 40 minutes to watch so maye the mudslinging happens
later on in the film. As far as fanaticism and propaganda, Bruce Perens
comes off as the most obnoxious in that vein. He takes a few
opportunities to slam Microsoft, and while it is deserved, some of it is
a bit over the top, like his claim that Microsoft was the compnay that
started the whole proprietary software thing. I suppose he's never heard
of IBM, as one example?
The film is available through Netflix (highly recommended...say BYE BYE
Blockbuster).
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
comes off as pretty even-handed and non-fanatical. People like Bruce
Perens and Eric Raymond get as much credit as Stallman and Torvalds do.
I think that's a shame. I remember the original email Linus sent out
(on usenet) about this "new os".
And I think Stallman is head and shoulders above all of them.
He may be mad, and a total 'PITA', but he's 10x the programmer and
visionary.
And I think he deserves a lot more of the credit for the open source
movement. Stallman was working on open source when Linus was still in
grade school.
9:04 a.m.
At 02:33 PM 11/24/2004, you wrote:
The Mercurys (Mercuries?) were late 50's?
developed
versions of the Manchester thread machines. It had a fancy
autocode. Transistorized I assume.
Looks like 4 power supply cabinets to the right.
I'd think it was tube based (no pun intended).
Ed K.
7251
days inactive
7252
days old
21 comments
12 participants
participants (12)
-
brad＠heeltoe.com -
doc＠mdrconsult.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
kenziem＠sympatico.ca -
mouse＠Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA -
Pres＠macro-inc.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tomj＠wps.com -
toresbe＠ifi.uio.no -
vcf＠siconic.com