6 Apr
2001
6 Apr
'01
8:23 p.m.
I've been noticing a very disturbing trend...anything that isn't an
overclocked Intel box is "old" or "legacy".
For those of us who care about the quality of what we put on our
desktops (and in our computer rooms), this is pretty frightening.
-Dave McGuire
On April 6, Curt Vendel wrote:
Joe,
Old Odd Machine??? The HP 9000 K520 isn't that terribly old, I installed
one of those with HPUX 11.3 at GT Interactive in Manhattan back in 95' A
damn good and powerful machine.
Curt
Joe wrote:
> FWIW there were two of these for sale at the auction at the Goddard Space
> Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama this past week. A guy that I know went
> to the auction and I asked him to try and pick them up for me but I don't
> know if he did or not. He should be back in a day or two and then I'll
> know. The point is there's still lots of these old odd machines around if
> someone is willing to search for them.
>
> Joe
5:30 a.m.
Just wait until ES/NMCI starts taking over the federal
government computers and networks. Then anything that isn't supplied
by them and isn't running Win2000 will be considered 'legacy' and
basically unsupported.
Jeff
I've been noticing a very disturbing
trend...anything that isn't an
overclocked Intel box is "old" or "legacy".
For those of us who care about the quality of what we put on our
desktops (and in our computer rooms), this is pretty frightening.
-Dave McGuire
--
Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems:
Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
5:54 a.m.
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Jeff Hellige wrote:
Just wait until ES/NMCI starts taking over the
federal
government computers and networks. Then anything that isn't supplied
by them and isn't running Win2000 will be considered 'legacy' and
basically unsupported.
What is ES/NMCI?
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
7:29 a.m.
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Jeff Hellige wrote:
EDS (my mistype) is Ross Perot's company and they now have a
signed contract with the Dept. of Navy to take over the LANs and
pretty much every other aspect of computers and thier maintainance.
NMCI is the arm of the company doing it. The contract is for an
astronimical amount of money and the closest comparison is the Borg:
they are coming in, taking all exisiting equipment, replacing it with
a 'one size fits all' desktop and charging you handsomely for both
the replacement and every little thing you want to do with it.
Nobody has a choice in the matter either...like it or not, they will
be assimilated. NMCI has dubbed themselves the 'NMCI Strike Force'
and they think they're going to do all troubleshooting over the
phone. The contract was pushed through relatively quietly and caught
a whole lot of higher-up types off guard and not much has been said
about it in the normal papers and such either. This one with the
Navy is just the first step...eventually it will spread to nearly all
branches, not just DOD, though the Air Force has said that at least
for the moment they have no intention of going that route.
Ever wonder what the real reason for Ross Perot stepping down
Just wait until ES/NMCI starts taking over the
federal
government computers and networks. Then anything that isn't supplied
by them and isn't running Win2000 will be considered 'legacy' and
basically unsupported.
What is ES/NMCI? from the Presidential race was?
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
7:59 a.m.
New subject: EDS (was RE: HP 9000 520)
Jeff Hellige wrote:
On Sat, 7 Apr 2001, Jeff Hellige wrote:
EDS (my mistype) is Ross Perot's company and they now have a
signed contract with the Dept. of Navy to take over the LANs
[Accurate representation of how delightful it is to work with EDS,
snipped]
I was (and am) involved with the deployment of code to UBS/WDR/whatever
they're calling themselves today, which is another shop that outsourced
"operations" to EDS.
The people at UBS hate it. The vendors hate it. In fact the only people
who seem to like it are the EDS drones, who work 9 - 4:59, five days a week.
Some EDS policies we've collided with:
- "We reboot all Unix servers once a week. This makes our NT servers more
reliable, so obviously it will do the same for older technology like
Solaris".
- "We can't accept this Microsoft-signed DLL that's distributed with VS as
a bug fix because it's not part of our standard distribution".
- "We can't supply you with an 800 MHz machine for these floating point
intensive jobs of yours. We'll give you a dual 400 MHz instead. What
do you mean 'individual floating point instructions don't benefit from
multithreading'? You must not understand multithreading."
Most people at UBS have already started hording torches and pitchforks for
the
day that the contract expires...
--
Chris Kennedy
chris(a)mainecoon.com
http://www.mainecoon.com
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
Just wait until ES/NMCI starts taking over the
federal
government computers and networks. Then anything that isn't supplied
by them and isn't running Win2000 will be considered 'legacy' and
basically unsupported.
What is ES/NMCI? 
10:21 a.m.
New subject: EDS
NMCI has dubbed themselves the 'NMCI Strike
Force'
and they think they're going to do all troubleshooting over the
phone. The contract was pushed through relatively quietly and caught
a whole lot of higher-up types off guard and not much has been said
about it in the normal papers and such either. This one with the
Navy is just the first step...eventually it will spread to nearly all
branches, not just DOD, though the Air Force has said that at least
for the moment they have no intention of going that route.
Ever wonder what the real reason for Ross Perot stepping down
from the Presidential race was?
Jeff
Welcome to the real world. 8-)
BTW -- Ross Perot gave up control of EDS about 10 years ago
in a stock and control battle with GM.
What you're describing is the exact kind of stuff that goes on since
the financial folks began taking control of IS departments everywhere
including Lucent Technologies who outsourced to IBM Global Services
in a 10 year no cut guarantee contract from hell.
I worked for IBMGS elsewhere as a Unix Sysadmin...
I've only seen a disaster like your description at Lucent. The problem
is IBM and EDS guarantee to control the IS cost structure and put in
place controlls over things like upgrading without testing software...
and wild developers changing on-line computer systems every day
breaking the business systems... But they also strangle innovation
with a bureaucracy from hell run by non-techie finance types.
The name of the game these days is cost containment.
I could tell you horror stories.
--Bill
--
bpechter(a)monmouth.com | FreeBSD since 1.0.2, Linux since 0.99.10
Brainbench MVP | Unix Sys Admin since Sys V/BSD 4.2
Unix Sys.Admin. | Windows System Administration: "Magical Misery Tour"
10:43 a.m.
New subject: EDS
I worked for IBMGS elsewhere as a Unix Sysadmin...
I've only seen a disaster like your description at Lucent. The problem
is IBM and EDS guarantee to control the IS cost structure and put in
place controlls over things like upgrading without testing software...
and wild developers changing on-line computer systems every day
breaking the business systems... But they also strangle innovation
with a bureaucracy from hell run by non-techie finance types.
One can only imagine then what implementing that type of
model on a scale like that of the Federal Government will come out
looking like. Even if it's 'just' the DOD/DON LANs at this stage,
that's still a pretty massive scale. The truly scary part of it is
that when the reps of NMCI are asked questions during user's
meettings, they rarely have any kind of answers or a long term plan.
It's interesting hearing of Admirals losing their cool and cussing
the reps out during these meetings.
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
6:05 a.m.
Darn...some mornings I can't type....that should have been
'EDS/NMCI'....
Jeff
Just wait until ES/NMCI starts taking over the federal
government computers and networks. Then anything that isn't
supplied by them and isn't running Win2000 will be considered
'legacy' and basically unsupported.
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
5:57 a.m.
At 01:23 AM 4/7/01 -0400, Dave wrote:
I've been noticing a very disturbing trend...anything that isn't an
overclocked Intel box is "old" or "legacy".
Unfortunately you're correct (with the exception of the i-Macs). I guess
that's thanks to the mass merchandising of Win-Blows.
For those of us who care about the quality of what we put on our
desktops (and in our computer rooms), this is pretty frightening.
Yeap, you'd better grab the older "good" stuff while you can.
Joe
8:52 a.m.
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8 Apr
8 Apr
9:17 a.m.
At 06:52 PM 4/7/01 +0100, Tony wrote:
Tony's right. I have lots of old engineering books and many of them are
much better written than the current crop of books. I particurly like the
old McGraw-Hill series of engineering books, I pick up just about everyone
that I find.
Joe
I've been noticing a very disturbing trend...anything that isn't an
overclocked Intel box is "old" or "legacy".
The same seems to apply to books as well. I keep on finding excellent
electronics books in second-hand bookshops that have been 'withdrawn'
from some company library or other. Doubtless to be replaced by much
poorer modern books (there simply aren't enough good modern books to
replace as many books as I find second hand...).
9:36 a.m.
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9 Apr
9 Apr
11:08 a.m.
At 07:36 PM 4/8/01 +0100, Tony wrote:
Cool find! I found an old RCA data book that had what looked like the
anode driver in it but I hadn't had a chance to verify that is was indeed
the part that HP used. If it is, then that means there is some hope of
finding replacement parts.
>
It's a databook (no matter how old or what company, I am sure to come
across at least one of the devices one day. For example I picked up an
RCA linear databook the other day. It's got the data sheet for the anode
driver chip used in the HP67 in it...)
It relates to a machine, or series of machines, that I am seriously
interested in. I'll buy all such books, no matter how elementary the
information they contain.
Ditto. I usually pick them up even if it's not a machine that I'm
immediately interested in. I pass them on to other collectors or just save
them.
It's part of a series of books that I am trying to obtain. Like the
(classic) MIT Radiation Lab series [1]
[1] For those who've not seen these, they are 28 (I
think) volumes
describing electronics, particularly for radar and radio navigation, as
it was done in the 1940s and 1950s. Lots of _great stuff_....
These are a VERY interesting series. Basicly they cover subjects that
they discovered/developed during WW II while developing RADAR, the atomic
bomb and other fancy toys. I've only been able to find one of them so far.
I think it's on Pulse Generating circuits.
Incidentally, unless I misuderstood the copyright
notice in these books,
it appears they are now public domain (it claims they will become public
domain 10 years after the date of publication, which was about 50 years
ago). I am suprised nobody has reprinted them, or scanned/OCRed them or
something.
Joe
11:05 a.m.
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