8 Oct
2008
8 Oct
'08
12:31 p.m.
There is an NEC "supercomputer" currently with no bids ($100 starting) on Ebay
(140272067125). I would hate to see it get scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it.
There are not many hits on the auction page, so I thought I would spread the word here.
Only a few hours left.
Jon
8 Oct
8 Oct
3:47 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 12:31 PM, <auringer at tds.net> wrote:
There is an NEC "supercomputer" currently
with no bids ($100
starting) on Ebay (140272067125). I would hate to see it get
scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it. There are not many
hits on the auction page, so I thought I would spread the word
here. Only a few hours left.
I'm going to see if I can grab that. I'll be in that area with a
truck in a few weeks.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
4:01 p.m.
---- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On Oct 8, 2008, at 12:31 PM, <auringer at
tds.net> wrote:
I live about 70 miles away from it. I _may_ be able to lend a hand. Let me know what your
plans are.
Jon
There is an NEC "supercomputer"
currently with no bids ($100
starting) on Ebay (140272067125). I would hate to see it get
scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it. There are not many
hits on the auction page, so I thought I would spread the word
here. Only a few hours left.
I'm going to see if I can grab that. I'll be in that area with a
truck in a few weeks.
4:06 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 4:01 PM, <auringer at tds.net> wrote:
I live about 70 miles away from it. I _may_ be able to lend a hand.
Let me know what your plans are.
Will do, thank you. My trip plans haven't gelled yet. I'll let
you know when they do.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
There is an NEC "supercomputer" currently
with no bids ($100
starting) on Ebay (140272067125). I would hate to see it get
scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it. There are not many
hits on the auction page, so I thought I would spread the word
here. Only a few hours left.
I'm going to see if I can grab that. I'll be in that area with a
truck in a few weeks.
9:17 p.m.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 4:01 PM, <auringer at tds.net> wrote:
I live about 70 miles away from it. I _may_ be able to lend a hand.
Let me know what your plans are.
I scored the SX-4B. Well, actually my (sorta-) boss did, on my
behalf. He's in Oshkosh. I'll let you know how my travel plans
shape up; I'm putting together a large trip involving two Sun E10Ks
and two modern Sun big-iron boxen for work; I'll probably lump this
machine in with that trip.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire Ahh, you voted for Bush?
Port Charlotte, FL Happy now?
There is an NEC "supercomputer" currently
with no bids ($100
starting) on Ebay (140272067125). I would hate to see it get
scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it. There are not many
hits on the auction page, so I thought I would spread the word
here. Only a few hours left.
I'm going to see if I can grab that. I'll be in that area with a
truck in a few weeks. 
4:04 p.m.
silly question...what would a person do with it? Yes some people actually do look for
utility in some of their old clunkers (and that one isn't that old I reckon). Could
I...surf the web? Could I...play some games? Obviously the thing could emulate anything on
the planet (I realize that's a possible response, so the sky is the limit). But what
are the practical applications that this thing could be set to use from the get-go?
--- On Wed, 10/8/08, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
Subject: Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Cc: "cctalk at classiccmp.org" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 3:47 PM
On Oct 8, 2008, at 12:31 PM, <auringer at tds.net> wrote:
There is an NEC "supercomputer"
currently
with no bids ($100
starting) on Ebay (140272067125). I would hate to
see
it get
scrapped, but I am not in a position to buy it.
There
are not many
hits on the auction page, so I thought I would
spread
the word
here. Only a few hours left.
I'm going to see if I can grab that. I'll be in
that area with a
truck in a few weeks.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
9 Oct
9 Oct
2:56 a.m.
On Oct 8, 2008, at 4:04 PM, Chris M wrote:
silly question...what would a person do with it? Yes
some people
actually do look for utility in some of their old clunkers (and
that one isn't that old I reckon). Could I...surf the web? Could
I...play some games? Obviously the thing could emulate anything on
the planet (I realize that's a possible response, so the sky is the
limit). But what are the practical applications that this thing
could be set to use from the get-go?
Surf the web or play games? No. Fortunately, I don't do either
of those things.
The SX-4B, like most supercomputers, is a math machine. It is
very good at many types of tasks that are mathematically intensive.
Image processing, fluid mechanics, weather simulation, cryptography,
etc. There's a lot more to computers than such trivial wastes of
time as surfing the web and playing games. ;)
As many here know, I have a few Cray supercomputers. Like the
SX-4B, they are math machines. As a specific example, I bought my
first Cray system for about $12,000.00. I used that machine to
develop and test image processing algorithms for a digital video
surveillance system that I built. I made back that $12,000.00 on the
first sale of that system. This SX-4B is quite a bit faster than
that particular Cray.
To be fair, I could've done that image processing work on my (very
fast) SGI desktop workstation instead of the Cray, but each test run
would've taken days rather than hours, and I'm a very impatient man.
I am currently using another Cray system in a medical application
that I can't talk about right now. (NDA) It is mathematically-
intensive and suits the architecture well.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
3 a.m.
On Thu, 9 Oct 2008, Dave McGuire wrote:
I am currently using another Cray system in a
medical application
that I can't talk about right now. (NDA) It is mathematically-
intensive and suits the architecture well.
Can you tell us about the Cray system you're using?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
8 p.m.
On Oct 9, 2008, at 3:00 AM, David Griffith wrote:
The code is being developed on a (slow but cheap to run) YMP-EL,
and it will eventually run on a (fast but expensive to run) SV-1.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire Ahh, you voted for Bush?
Port Charlotte, FL Happy now?
I am
currently using another Cray system in a medical application
that I can't talk about right now. (NDA) It is mathematically-
intensive and suits the architecture well.
Can you tell us about the Cray system you're using?
10 Oct
10 Oct
1:27 a.m.
On Thu, 9 Oct 2008, William Donzelli wrote:
Along those lines, it doesn't appear that Cray has a vector machine in its
current lineup. Am I wrong or does nobody make vector supers anymore?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
The code is
being developed on a (slow but cheap to run) YMP-EL, and it
will eventually run on a (fast but expensive to run) SV-1.
Who is actually still using an SV1 in production? It is a ten year old super. 
11 Oct
11 Oct
3:55 a.m.
On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 22:27:23 -0700 (PDT)
David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
Am I wrong or does nobody make vector supers anymore?
The SX9, successor of the SX-4, is a curret product.
It approaches 1 Peta-FLOP.
http://www.nec.com.br/download/sx9/SX9_Specs.pdf
http://www.nec.com.br/download/sx9/nec_sx9_brochure.pdf
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
10 Oct
10 Oct
1:52 a.m.
On Oct 9, 2008, at 11:26 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Eight, actually. My employer is about to be, and there are quite
a few others. With design cycles measured in years rather than
weeks, the supercomputer world doesn't consider things "obsolete" as
quickly as the PC world. Indeed, the code is being developed on a 25-
year-old super, but admittedly only because it's available and
compatible.
Besides, SV1ex machines are still pretty pricey, and T90s are
pretty difficult to find, and WAY out of any reasonable price range.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
The code is
being developed on a (slow but cheap to run) YMP-EL,
and it
will eventually run on a (fast but expensive to run) SV-1.
Who is actually still using an SV1 in production? It is a ten year
old super. 
2:58 a.m.
New subject: Beat the super was (RE: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
Dave,
I am sure you guys are really smart, but may have overlooked something or want to listen.
I will make a guess, that this is gene sequencing related.
Data small, search field large, and iterations many.
Have you considered a FPGA for this?
Tell me what you are doing, I might be able to help or present some hardware speedup
alternatives.
Randy
From: mcguire at neurotica.com
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:52:13 -0400
To: cctech at classiccmp.org
CC: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay
On Oct 9, 2008, at 11:26 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Eight, actually. My employer is about to be, and there are quite
a few others. With design cycles measured in years rather than
weeks, the supercomputer world doesn't consider things "obsolete" as
quickly as the PC world. Indeed, the code is being developed on a 25-
year-old super, but admittedly only because it's available and
compatible.
Besides, SV1ex machines are still pretty pricey, and T90s are
pretty difficult to find, and WAY out of any reasonable price range.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
_________________________________________________________________
Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live.
http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!5…
The code
is being developed on a (slow but cheap to run) YMP-EL,
and it
will eventually run on a (fast but expensive to run) SV-1.
Who is actually still using an SV1 in production? It is a ten year
old super. 
9:44 a.m.
Eight, actually. My employer is about to be, and
there are quite a few
others.
Still, getting long in the tooth.
Wiki says ten years.
With design cycles measured in years rather than
weeks, the
supercomputer world doesn't consider things "obsolete" as quickly as the
PC
world.
OK, but you have to admit that the SV1 line is at the end of the line.
Indeed, the code is being developed on a 25-year-old
super, but
admittedly only because it's available and compatible.
Well, that was one of the major selling points of the EL line.
Besides, SV1ex machines are still pretty pricey, and
T90s are pretty
difficult to find, and WAY out of any reasonable price range.
Is anyone even using a T90, for that matter? They are older than SV1s.
--
Will
12 Oct
12 Oct
5:18 p.m.
On Oct 10, 2008, at 9:44 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
Not sure I agree, there.
No, the J90 is at the end of the line. ;)
Yup. Now THAT is what I'd call "vintage".
Yup. They're also faster than SV1s. There are quite a few C90s
in production, and they're even older.
I think you're thinking the production HPC world (as opposed to
"research HPC") has faster "turnover" than it actually does.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Eight,
actually. My employer is about to be, and there are quite
a few
others.
Still, getting long in the tooth. Wiki says ten years.
It was built in 2000.
With design
cycles measured in years rather than weeks, the
supercomputer world doesn't consider things "obsolete" as quickly
as the PC
world.
OK, but you have to admit that the SV1 line is at the end of the line. Indeed, the
code is being developed on a 25-year-old super, but
admittedly only because it's available and compatible.
Well, that was one of the major selling points of the EL line. Besides,
SV1ex machines are still pretty pricey, and T90s are pretty
difficult to find, and WAY out of any reasonable price range.
Is anyone even using a T90, for that matter? They are older than SV1s.
9 Oct
9 Oct
6:37 p.m.
OI I know what supercomputers are used for. The essence of my question is are these things
at all user friendly? What familiar apps COULD be run if I was disposed to want to?
--- On Thu, 10/9/08, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
Subject: Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
Cc: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, October 9, 2008, 2:56 AM
On Oct 8, 2008, at 4:04 PM, Chris M wrote:
silly question...what would a person do with it?
Yes
some people
actually do look for utility in some of their old
clunkers (and
that one isn't that old I reckon). Could
I...surf
the web? Could
I...play some games? Obviously the thing could
emulate
anything on
the planet (I realize that's a possible
response,
so the sky is the
limit). But what are the practical applications
that
this thing
could be set to use from the get-go?
Surf the web or play games? No. Fortunately, I
don't do either
of those things.
The SX-4B, like most supercomputers, is a math machine.
It is
very good at many types of tasks that are mathematically
intensive.
Image processing, fluid mechanics, weather simulation,
cryptography,
etc. There's a lot more to computers than such trivial
wastes of
time as surfing the web and playing games. ;)
As many here know, I have a few Cray supercomputers.
Like the
SX-4B, they are math machines. As a specific example, I
bought my
first Cray system for about $12,000.00. I used that
machine to
develop and test image processing algorithms for a digital
video
surveillance system that I built. I made back that
$12,000.00 on the
first sale of that system. This SX-4B is quite a bit
faster than
that particular Cray.
To be fair, I could've done that image processing
work on my (very
fast) SGI desktop workstation instead of the Cray, but each
test run
would've taken days rather than hours, and I'm a
very impatient man.
I am currently using another Cray system in a medical
application
that I can't talk about right now. (NDA) It is
mathematically-
intensive and suits the architecture well.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
10 Oct
10 Oct
1:40 a.m.
On Oct 9, 2008, at 6:37 PM, Chris M wrote:
OI I know what supercomputers are used for.
Ahh. That's surprising, given your question. ;)
The essence of my question is are these things at all
user friendly?
It's a UNIX box, man. The most (programmer-)friendly OS in
existence. At least for even moderately technical people.
What familiar apps COULD be run if I was disposed to
want to?
Familiar apps? Well, pretty much anything that runs under UNIX,
possibly given some porting effort. Hell, my friend James Sharp
ported Apache httpd to my Cray J90 and ran a web server on it.
As far as "familiar apps", though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on. But surely you have a modern
computer (or even a not-so-modern one, if you're still running
Windows) for stuff like that.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
9:09 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
As far as "familiar apps",
though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on.
On one hand I suspect the numbers don't make sense in terms of "familiar app
speed" vs. power required to run the machine. On the other hand, vintage
computer collectors don't generally run their hardware for efficiency reasons
anyway :-)
Having said that, running "familiar apps" on a supercomputer seems a bit like
only ever running console apps on a graphics-laden SGI; it's only using a
fraction of the machine's capability, which seems a bit pointless.
cheers
Jules
4:24 p.m.
OI but what if you just wanted to play and not run some complicated simulation BY Crikey!
--- On Fri, 10/10/08, Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Jules Richardson <jules.richardson99 at
gmail.com>
Subject: Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay
To: "On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Date: Friday, October 10, 2008, 9:09 AM
Dave McGuire wrote:
As far as "familiar apps",
though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on.
On one hand I suspect the numbers don't make sense in
terms of "familiar app
speed" vs. power required to run the machine. On the
other hand, vintage
computer collectors don't generally run their hardware
for efficiency reasons
anyway :-)
Having said that, running "familiar apps" on a
supercomputer seems a bit like
only ever running console apps on a graphics-laden SGI;
it's only using a
fraction of the machine's capability, which seems a bit
pointless.
cheers
Jules
5:16 p.m.
On Oct 10, 2008, at 9:09 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Perhaps, but this is hardly a "vintage computer".
As far as
"familiar apps", though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on.
On one hand I suspect the numbers don't make sense in terms of
"familiar app speed" vs. power required to run the machine. On the
other hand, vintage computer collectors don't generally run their
hardware for efficiency reasons anyway :-) Having said that, running "familiar apps"
on a supercomputer seems
a bit like only ever running console apps on a graphics-laden SGI;
it's only using a fraction of the machine's capability, which seems
a bit pointless.
Completely.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
14 Oct
14 Oct
8:54 a.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Oct 10, 2008, at 9:09 AM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Perhaps, but this is hardly a "vintage computer".
Point taken - it applies equally to modern 'unusual' machines that aren't just
a network of PCs :-)
As far
as "familiar apps", though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on.
On one hand I suspect the numbers don't make sense in terms of
"familiar app speed" vs. power required to run the machine. On the
other hand, vintage computer collectors don't generally run their
hardware for efficiency reasons anyway :-) 
10 Oct
10 Oct
9:38 a.m.
On Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 01:40:39AM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
Nice.
On Oct 9, 2008, at 6:37 PM, Chris M wrote:
There are UNIX-compatible people and non-UNIX-compatible people
(cf Unix Hater's Handbook).
Personally, I fell in love with UNIX from the first day I
ran across it in 1984, but the 36-bit crowd was, um,
resistant.
OI I know what supercomputers are used for.
Ahh. That's surprising, given your question. ;)
The essence of my question is are these things at
all user friendly?
It's a UNIX box, man. The most (programmer-)friendly OS in
existence. At least for even moderately technical people. What familiar
apps COULD be run if I was disposed to want to?
Familiar apps? Well, pretty much anything that runs under UNIX,
possibly given some porting effort. Hell, my friend James Sharp
ported Apache httpd to my Cray J90 and ran a web server on it. As far as "familiar apps",
though...it's not exactly the type of
equipment you'd want to run Firefox on. But surely you have a modern
computer (or even a not-so-modern one, if you're still running
Windows) for stuff like that.
If I had a Cray at my disposal, I'd probably give LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try, but that's strictly out of
of the same perverse sense that makes someone want to run
a webserver on a platform that isn't exactly built for "mudane"
sorts of apps. I really don't know what I'd do to "open up the
throttle" on a Cray.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 10-Oct-2008 at 13:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -65.9 F (-54.4 C) Windchill -104.2 F (-75.6 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 13.3 kts Grid 25 Barometer 674.6 mb (10833 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
10:41 a.m.
It's a
UNIX box, man. The most (programmer-)friendly OS in
existence. At least for even moderately technical people.
There are
UNIX-compatible people and non-UNIX-compatible people (cf
Unix Hater's Handbook). 
12 Oct
12 Oct
8:19 p.m.
der Mouse wrote:
Even aside from that, I'm not convinced. I think Symbolics Genera is
arguably more programmer-friendly, though that could just be because I
find Lisp a much nicer language than C. (There may be even better
OSes; that's just what I have personal experience with.)
I find programming under batch-mode OS to be more pleasurable.
Peace... Sridhar
It's a UNIX box, man. The most
(programmer-)friendly OS in
existence. At least for even moderately technical people.
There are
UNIX-compatible people and non-UNIX-compatible people (cf
Unix Hater's Handbook). 
9:38 p.m.
In article <48F29422.5090702 at gmail.com>,
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
I find programming under batch-mode OS to be more
pleasurable.
...and I find batch mode to be highly frustrating. I learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
9:49 p.m.
Richard wrote:
...and I find batch mode to be highly frustrating. I
learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).
But back then ... you could go for a coffee break.
Now days you have to baby sit the computer when it reboots, after a
interactive edit under win-*insert year here*
11:03 p.m.
On Oct 12, 2008, at 9:49 PM, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
Heh...*you* do. I don't put up with that crap; I don't have the
patience!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
...and I find
batch mode to be highly frustrating. I learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language
pisses
me off :-).
But back then ... you could go for a coffee break.
Now days you have to baby sit the computer when it reboots, after a
interactive edit under win-*insert year here*
11:22 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Heh...*you* do. I don't put up with that crap; I don't have the
patience!
I don't have the patience to try several versions of linux to have one
that likes
my hardware. Oddly I find linux a pain since that is becoming too
graphic for
my liking. Still I think things have be come far worse since Dynamic
link libraries
have come into effect. You never know what is linked in.
I guess I used to small programs and memory spaces.
-Dave
11:36 p.m.
On Oct 12, 2008, at 11:22 PM, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
It's only graphic if you tell it to be. I manage about half a
dozen Linux systems (for an employer) and none of them have had
monitors attached to them since they were installed. =)
But for *real* work, I run Solaris on Sun hardware. No messing
around; I have work to do. My PDP-11s are for hobby stuff...the
tools for work WILL *just work*, or they will hit the trash. Zero
tolerance, zero patience.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Heh...*you*
do. I don't put up with that crap; I don't have the
patience!
I don't have the patience to try several versions of linux to have
one that likes
my hardware. Oddly I find linux a pain since that is becoming too
graphic for
my liking. Still I think things have be come far worse since
Dynamic link libraries
have come into effect. You never know what is linked in.
I guess I used to small programs and memory spaces.
13 Oct
13 Oct
1:43 a.m.
In article <48F2A90D.8050701 at jetnet.ab.ca>,
"bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca" <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> writes:
Richard wrote:
Honestly, I have no idea what you people do with your Windows
installations that makes them ticking time bombs. Maybe you should
just stop doing whatever you are doing to your Windows installations
if that's how it always ends up.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
...and I find batch mode to be highly
frustrating. I learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).
But back then ... you could go for a coffee break.
Now days you have to baby sit the computer when it reboots, after a
interactive edit under win-*insert year here* 
14 Oct
14 Oct
1:49 a.m.
Sort of on the topic of number-crunching, but on PCs, is anyone
currently using CUDA?
Just wondering,
Chuck
3:21 a.m.
New subject: PC term on 5.25" disk
Any list members in Australia that can provide me with a terminal program
(Telix or ProComm Plus strongly preferred) on a 360k 5.25" floppy ?
tnx,
Lance
12 Oct
12 Oct
10:08 p.m.
On 12 Oct 2008 at 19:38, Richard wrote:
...and I find batch mode to be highly frustrating. I
learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).
Another case of WYKIWYL - what you know is what you like. Even
today, with all of the fancy development environments, I develop
essentially in batch mode. Lots of desk and paper-and-pencil work
before writing the first line of code. When a snake shows up, go
back to the desk and run the code through in your head until things
make sense.
I find using an interactive IDE to be almost counterproductive--I
can't keep my thoughts as well organized.
When Sunnyvale was doing OS work for the CDC STAR-100, we used a
couple of hardware emulators, STAR-1Bs, that ran at perhaps 1/100-
1/500 the speed of the real thing. Used the same peripherals and
stations, just a great big pile of microcode to do all of the CPU
stuff. (CDC eventually disposed of the things with two CEs working
for a week with bolt-cutters and sledge hammers reducing them both to
scrap. I still have a rectifier and heatsink from the PSU).
Making an OS change and recompiling the kernel was a "submit your
changes before you leave at night and hope the all-night compile
works--and the machine stays up". Boot your new kernel, watch the
system crash and burn and figure out why just in time for you to
submit your changes for the next all-night compile.
The only alternative was to hope you could snag some time from one of
the STARs at LLL. Or catch a plane to Arden Hills and use the STAR at
ADL.
You learned to be very careful--and very patient.
Cheers,
Chuck
10:17 p.m.
New subject: Batch vs Interactive (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 07:38:37PM -0600, Richard wrote:
In article <48F29422.5090702 at gmail.com>,
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
The one assignment I ever turned in late for my one FORTRAN class in
college was because of the batch environment and job priority scheduling.
I had a typo in a line-spacing specification, so my output wasn't identical
to the format required by the assignment, and I had to resubmit my batch
job. Normally, this is no problem - we were running on an Amdahl (OSU in
the mid-1980s), and we were using WATIV or WATV (WAT-four or WAT-five),
IIRC, and *most* assignments for my 200-level class were passed through
the "quick-job compiler" - the highest priority with some miniscule CPU
limit. The one late assignment was in FORTRAN-77 at six priority levels
lower. I started writing the assignment the day before it was due (again,
normally not a problem), but because I had to compile it 3 times to get
the bugs out, it took 6 hours each time to bump up one priority level per
hour to finally get submitted.
It was my one experience being locked into a batch environment and it
was quite unpleasant. Interesting, but aggravating. At least I knew
where the 3270 terminals were so I didn't have to use the WYLBUR line
editing terminals. By the time I took FORTRAN in school, I'd already
been using FORTRAN on VAXen and PDP-11s and PDP-8s, with screen editors
(TECO w/VTEDIT macro or EDT), so stepping back to a line editor wasn't
my idea of fun. They had recently (within 5 years) eliminated punch
cards as a primary submission method, so I've done it, but wasn't
_forced_ into it. Again, interesing, but occasionally aggravating.
I never wanted to run any programs on my own that needed the resources
of the Amdahl, so I was perfectly happy to have a PDP-11 to myself
or to share a VAX with 50 co-workers, even if the VAX did swap and
slow down when more than about a dozen folks were sitting in MAIL.EXE.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 13-Oct-2008 at 02:00 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -54.8 F (-48.2 C) Windchill -77.8 F (-61.0 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 5.5 kts Grid 65 Barometer 671.9 mb (10935 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
I find programming under batch-mode OS to be more
pleasurable.
...and I find batch mode to be highly frustrating. I learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).
11 Oct
11 Oct
4 a.m.
On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:38:10 +0000
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> wrote:
If I had a Cray at my disposal, I'd probably give
LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try
Well, at least some of the SGI Origin
machines had a LCD like this in
every node, diplaying various things like CPU utilization etc..
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
4:39 a.m.
New subject: Textual LCDs on servers (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 10:00:49AM +0200, Jochen Kunz wrote:
On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:38:10 +0000
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> wrote:
Interesting. The largest/newest SGI machines I ever got to play
with were Onyx and Crimson boxes.
Could you access the LCD from user-land processes, or was there
always a system monitor running on them?
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 11-Oct-2008 at 08:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -55.3 F (-48.5 C) Windchill -94.7 F (-70.4 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 17.6 kts Grid 35 Barometer 676.9 mb (10745 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
If I had a Cray at my disposal, I'd probably
give LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try
Well, at least some of the SGI Origin machines had a LCD like this in
every node, diplaying various things like CPU utilization etc.. 
5:45 a.m.
New subject: Textual LCDs on servers (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
On 11/10/2008 09:39, Ethan Dicks wrote:
It's not in every node -- a node is usually taken to mean a processor
board, with two R10K or R12K processors and some RAM on it, 4 boards to
a module, and two modules per rack. Each module can be used as an 8-CPU
system, and has its own local management unit, which can control the
power, reset line, etc. The module midplanes are interconnected with a
Craylink to make a larger system, up to 256 CPUs. The main rack in such
a system has an LCD working off a little 486-based controller running a
ROM-based monitor. It acts as a system monitor and overall manager,
being connected to the console serial lines of the management units of
the modules in the rack. Under Unix you can send messages to the 486,
and the kernel does this to display system utilisation.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 10:00:49AM +0200, Jochen Kunz
wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:38:10 +0000
> Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> wrote:
>
Well, at least
some of the SGI Origin machines had a LCD like this in
every node, diplaying various things like CPU utilization etc..
Interesting. The largest/newest SGI machines I ever got to play
with were Onyx and Crimson boxes.
Could you access the LCD from user-land processes, or was there
always a system monitor running on them? 
8:23 a.m.
New subject: Textual LCDs on servers (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
On 11 Oct 2008, at 09:39, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Could you access the LCD from user-land processes, or
was there
always a system monitor running on them?
I've never owned/tinkered with an Origin, so I can't comment.
The Cray T3D used an Apple Powerbook built into the cabinet.
Apparently its only purpose was to display Cray logos and associated
animations!
-Austin.
12:19 p.m.
New subject: Textual LCDs on servers (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
If I had a Cray at my disposal, I'd probably give
LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try
Well, at least some of the SGI Origin machines had a LCD like this in
every node, diplaying various things like CPU utilization etc..
12:38 p.m.
New subject: Textual LCDs on servers (was Re: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
In article <20081011083922.GA31671 at usap.gov>,
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at usap.gov> writes:
Could you access the LCD from user-land processes, or
was there
always a system monitor running on them?
I believe it always ran a system monitor; I haven't yet attempted to
power up my Reality Monster which has such a display.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
12 Oct
12 Oct
4:46 p.m.
If I had a Cray at my disposal, I'd probably give
LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try, but that's strictly out of
of the same perverse sense that makes someone want to run
a webserver on a platform that isn't exactly built for "mudane"
sorts of apps. I really don't know what I'd do to "open up the
throttle" on a Cray.
This is something that got me wondering: How much processing power a
cray (any model/age, just for comparison) has against a current Pentium quad
or Turion or whatever?
I got a quad core but I'm still unninpressed by it :oP
Alexandre
5:18 p.m.
On 12 Oct 2008 at 17:46, Alexandre Souza wrote:
This is something that got me wondering: How much
processing power a
cray (any model/age, just for comparison) has against a current Pentium quad
or Turion or whatever?
I got a quad core but I'm still unninpressed by it :oP
I'm more impressed by the graphics chips, such as the Nvidia GT200
that features SIMT (single instruction multiple task) facilities.
Cheers,
Chuck
14 Oct
14 Oct
9:07 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'm more impressed by the graphics chips, such as
the Nvidia GT200
that features SIMT (single instruction multiple task) facilities.
I wonder how long it'll be before modern OSes run entirely within the
framebuffer, and use the system CPU purely for IO... :-)
2:27 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Personally, I think we're headed for mainframe-style coprocessed channel
I/O.
Peace... Sridhar
I'm more impressed by the graphics chips,
such as the Nvidia GT200
that features SIMT (single instruction multiple task) facilities.
I wonder how long it'll be before modern OSes run entirely within the
framebuffer, and use the system CPU purely for IO... :-) 
3:06 p.m.
I wonder how long it'll be before modern OSes run
entirely within the
framebuffer, and use the system CPU purely for IO... :-)
I think I've mentioned before that I have an old Xterminal that uses and
80188 for I/O (keyboard, mouse, serial port, ethernet, etc) but runs the
Xserver on the (TMS34010) video chip.
-tony
9:42 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
In article <m1KppE9-000J3QC at p850ug1>,
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
Tony, do you have pictures or techie docs on this thing? It sounds
interesting! I admit to having read a lot about TMS340x0 display
processors, but I never got to program directly for one.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
I wonder how
long it'll be before modern OSes run entirely within the
framebuffer, and use the system CPU purely for IO... :-)
I think I've mentioned before that I have an old Xterminal that uses and
80188 for I/O (keyboard, mouse, serial port, ethernet, etc) but runs the
Xserver on the (TMS34010) video chip.
15 Oct
15 Oct
1:56 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
I think
I've mentioned before that I have an old Xterminal that uses and
80188 for I/O (keyboard, mouse, serial port, ethernet, etc) but runs the
Xserver on the (TMS34010) video chip.
Tony, do you have pictures or techie docs on this thing? It sounds
16 Oct
16 Oct
9:02 a.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
Tony Duell wrote:
There are 5 PCBs inside the case. One just holds 2
LEDs. Another is the
SMPSU. Which leaves 3 boards for digital stuff. One has the 80188 and
peripheral interface chips -- I forget the details, but theu're all
pretty standard. Another has The TMS34010, RAMDAC and lots of RAM on it.
And the last is a daughterboard for that one and contains 10 or so EPROMs
containing the XSerer and fonts.
Interesting. I've seen quite a few network interfaces controlled via 80188
CPUs in larger systems around the mid-late 80s - I wonder if they borrowed one
such design and added the ability for it to drive keyboard/mouse interfaces,
or whether they designed the network side from scratch...
I'm not familiar with the TMS34010 though. The only xterm I have is an NCD 88k
one; there's just one main board (CPU, RAM, display) and a daughterboard
(network and ROMs). Same deal as yours, though - takes a standard ps/2
keyboard and RS232 mouse. Video was via a DB26 though, for some obscure reason
(IIRC most of the pins were n/c - maybe they had some future functionality in
mind that never happened)
cheers
Jules
4:46 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
There are 5
PCBs inside the case. One just holds 2 LEDs. Another is the
SMPSU. Which leaves 3 boards for digital stuff. One has the 80188 and
peripheral interface chips -- I forget the details, but theu're all
pretty standard. Another has The TMS34010, RAMDAC and lots of RAM on it.
And the last is a daughterboard for that one and contains 10 or so EPROMs
containing the XSerer and fonts.
Interesting. I've seen quite a few network interfaces controlled via 80188
CPUs in larger systems around the mid-late 80s - I wonder if they borrowed one
such design and added the ability for it to drive keyboard/mouse interfaces,
or whether they designed the network side from scratch...
5:46 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
In article <m1KqZjh-000J1gC at p850ug1>,
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
The video PCB contains the 34010, a apir of 27512
EPROMs. 8 megabytes of
DRAM, 1 megabyte of video RAM and an 81C176 RAMDAC. The EPROM
daughterboard contains 14 more 27512s
I would be very interested to see a dump of the EPROMs, if you ever
get a round tuit.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
4:49 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
Tony Duell wrote:
If not, you're welcome to drop them on my web server.
Peace... Sridhar
I would be
very interested to see a dump of the EPROMs, if you ever
get a round tuit.
I am sure I have them dumped, but the total is pretty large. Can you cope
with 1Mbyte+ e-mails?
7:52 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals (was: NEC SX-4B on Ebay)
In article <m1Kqumw-000J12C at p850ug1>,
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
Yes, I can. I can also provide an FTP dropoff if that's easier for you.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
I would be
very interested to see a dump of the EPROMs, if you ever
get a round tuit.
I am sure I have them dumped, but the total is pretty large. Can you cope
with 1Mbyte+ e-mails? 
15 Oct
15 Oct
2:10 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
Richard wrote:
In article <m1KppE9-000J3QC at p850ug1>,
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
Tony, do you have pictures or techie docs on this thing? It sounds
interesting! I admit to having read a lot about TMS340x0 display
processors, but I never got to program directly for one.
Weren't the vt1000 and vt1300 also made like that ?
34010 and some OTS CPU for I/O ?
Cheers
I wonder
how long it'll be before modern OSes run entirely within the
framebuffer, and use the system CPU purely for IO... :-)
I think I've
mentioned before that I have an old Xterminal that uses and
80188 for I/O (keyboard, mouse, serial port, ethernet, etc) but runs the
Xserver on the (TMS34010) video chip.
2:38 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
In article <48F63208.3060804 at e-bbes.com>,
"e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com> writes:
Weren't the vt1000 and vt1300 also made like that
?
34010 and some OTS CPU for I/O ?
I don't know if it contains a 34010, but the vt1300 is basically a
VAXstation 3100 with no disc, according to the web.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
3:10 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, Richard wrote:
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 12:38:39 -0600
From: Richard <legalize at xmission.com>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
Subject: Re: Interesting X terminals
In article <48F63208.3060804 at e-bbes.com>,
"e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com> writes:
No 34010 in the VT1300, but the VT1200 has one (and X11.3? or maybe even X10
something in ROM)
Peter Wallace
Weren't the vt1000 and vt1300 also made like
that ?
34010 and some OTS CPU for I/O ?
I don't know if it contains a 34010, but the vt1300 is basically a
VAXstation 3100 with no disc, according to the web.
7:25 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
Peter C. Wallace wrote:
No 34010 in the VT1300, but the VT1200 has one (and
X11.3? or maybe even
X10 something in ROM)
You're right. Went to storage and checked. The vt1200 has an 34010 in
it, bit nothing else (?) as an CPU. Didn't find any vt1300, probably
threw them out as they were so close to vs1300. Found some forgotten
vt2000 and vt2000+. VAX based again.
cheers
7:47 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
On Wed, 15 Oct 2008, e.stiebler wrote:
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:25:22 -0600
From: e.stiebler <emu at e-bbes.com>
Reply-To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
;
Subject: Re: Interesting X terminals
Peter C. Wallace wrote:
I think the only difference between a VT1300 and a VS1300-SPX is the plastic
VT1300 logo and the missing SCSI disk controller...
Peter Wallace
No 34010 in the VT1300, but the VT1200 has one
(and X11.3? or maybe even
X10 something in ROM)
You're right. Went to storage and checked. The vt1200 has an 34010 in it, bit
nothing else (?) as an CPU. Didn't find any vt1300, probably threw them out
as they were so close to vs1300. Found some forgotten vt2000 and vt2000+. VAX
based again.
cheers
7:27 p.m.
New subject: Interesting X terminals
In article <Pine.NEB.4.64.0810151208280.3772 at freeby.mesanet.com>,
"Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com> writes:
No 34010 in the VT1300, but the VT1200 has one (and
X11.3? or maybe even X10
something in ROM)
Does anyone have a VT1200 they want to get rid of? ;-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
14 Oct
14 Oct
9:03 a.m.
Alexandre Souza wrote:
It'll depend entirely on what you're trying to use it for, will it not?
One of the things the museum wanted to do was some form of performance index
to convey how fast various machines were - an idea that I think is flawed as
it can't take into account *how* the various machines were used, and so gives
a false impression.
The only way to compare is to ask "how productive does this machine make me
when doing the tasks I expect of it" - and in those terms, old Crays likely
still stand up pretty well (which in a corporate world leaves you moving on to
questions about reliability, concurrency, failsafe ability, longevity etc.)
If I had a
Cray at my disposal, I'd probably give LCDproc
<http://www.lcdproc.org/> a try, but that's strictly out of
of the same perverse sense that makes someone want to run
a webserver on a platform that isn't exactly built for "mudane"
sorts of apps. I really don't know what I'd do to "open up the
throttle" on a Cray.
This is something that got me wondering: How much processing power a
cray (any model/age, just for comparison) has against a current Pentium
quad or Turion or whatever? I got a quad core but I'm still unninpressed by
it :oP
I suspect PCs still are, and always will be, totally hampered by all the cruft
that has to exist around the CPU.
cheers
Jules
12 Oct
12 Oct
11:41 p.m.
On Oct 10, 2008, at 9:38 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yep. I've known quite a few of those guys. In every instance,
they've been the "must find something to complain about" type.
It's a
UNIX box, man. The most (programmer-)friendly OS in
existence. At least for even moderately technical people.
There are UNIX-compatible people and non-UNIX-compatible people
(cf Unix Hater's Handbook). Personally, I fell in love with UNIX from the first
day I
ran across it in 1984, but the 36-bit crowd was, um,
resistant.
Same here, in (I think) 1986.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
9 Oct
9 Oct
9:30 a.m.
On Wednesday 08 October 2008, Dave McGuire wrote:
? ?I'm going to see if I can grab that. ?I'll
be in
that area with a ?
truck in a few weeks.
Damn. I wish I saw this sooner, or could justify picking this up.
Why do you get to have all the fun stuff? :)
Pat
--
Purdue University Research Computing --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
2:38 p.m.
In article <874378.89523.qm at web65507.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>,
Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> writes:
But what are the practical applications that this
thing
could be set to use from the get-go?
SETI @ Home :-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
<http://www.xmission.com/~legalize/book/download/index.html>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://blogs.xmission.com/legalize/>
5757
days inactive
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days old
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