22 Apr
2002
22 Apr
'02
9:22 p.m.
I didn't catch the posting that seems to have started all this, but ignorance
never seems to stop anyone *else* from stating an opinion, so here's mine :-)
A few years back I spent a little time working for a small company whose primary
focus was Unix system software. They did some Windows work, and this was their
eventual downfall because they were bought out by McAfee who didn't have a clue
what to do with the Unix stuff and weren't interested in finding out.
I was the last remaining employee of the original company. For most of the last
year of its operation I did pretty much all the system administration,
lightweight hardware maintenance, bug fixing, and many of the enhancements to
the two Unix products that had been the mainstay of the company. I forget
exactly how many machines we had and exactly what they ran, but it was something
like:
Hardware OS Notes
======== == =====
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 9.x
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 10.01 + 10.10? dual boot
DEC Alpha 2000 (?) OSF 1
Motorola Mxxx Motorola Unix v.X forgotten machine
Motorola Myyy Motorola Unix v.Y & OS version names
SUN Sparc 5 Solaris 2.5.1
SUN SLC Solaris 2.5.1
SUN 3/60 SunOS 4.1.1
IBM RS6000 AIX v.X & v.Y forgotten versions,
dual boot
Intel SCO Unix
Intel Dynix
Intel ?nix more memory loss
I am missing a couple of machines and maybe one more OS. Before I started with
the company I had never even heard of some of these variants. The point of all
this is that the same code base built on ALL these things. Sure, we had a
"portability" library of our own to make it easier, there was a fair amount of
#ifdef stuff, and we had to tinker with GNU autoconf to get the builds smooth,
but I could manage ALL of it. We used Emacs and gcc/gdb on all the machines,
and a freeware distributed backup package (Amanda) to run complete backups of
everything automatically (well, OK, I had to change the tapes manually). Of
course, with the network applications that typically come with Unix (telnet,
ftp, NFS, X Windows, etc.) I could sit at my own desk and get at every machine
conveniently and run a parallel build on all the machines. That would have been
completely impossible with the Microsoft (bundled) products available at that
time.
Now, I've watched people trying to do software development on Windows systems
over the years, and I've done a little myself here and there. Every time there
is a new service pack or OS release there are wailings and rendings of clothes
on all sides. New licenses have to be bought for compilers, new versions of the
network backup client have to be purchased, very often a whole new machine has
to be bought, the sys admins have to do all sorts of black magic to get the new
machines to "play nice" with the old ones on the network, and a whole new set of
OS idiosyncracies has to be mastered. I have never observed anything similar in
Unix development shops (well, OK, the more organised ones, anyway). Oh, and
even *less* upheaval takes place in VMS shops BTW, but VMS has other problems.
So:
1. it is perfectly possible to write highly portable software, and once the
initial portability setup is done the rest is not particularly hard.
2. there is a great deal of very useful "free" software for Unix out there in
net land, much of which you would have to pay big $ for on Windows
3. there is NOT very much "business" software (word processors, spreadsheets,
contact management etc.) for Unix because the kind of people who write free
software aren't generally very interested in "business" stuff, and the
kind
of people who write commercial software don't think there is much of a Unix
market for it (since they priced themselves out of it a while back).
4. if I were developing software for "back end" applications (servers,
networking, etc.) I would certainly do it on Unix in preference to Windows,
and in this respect the market mostly agrees with me.
By all means use Windows for your office work. That's about all it's good for,
and on the whole it does it fairly well.
Bob Bramwell Snail: 60 Baker Cr. NW | If I die in war you remember me;
ProntoLogical Calgary, AB | If I live in peace you don't.
+1 403/861-8827 T2L 1R4, Canada | - Spike Milligan (1919 - 2002)
23 Apr
23 Apr
1:22 a.m.
On Tuesday 23 April 2002 01:22, you wrote:
Hardware OS Notes
======== == =====
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 9.x
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 10.01 + 10.10? dual boot
DEC Alpha 2000 (?) OSF 1
Motorola Mxxx Motorola Unix v.X forgotten machine
Motorola Myyy Motorola Unix v.Y & OS version names
SUN Sparc 5 Solaris 2.5.1
SUN SLC Solaris 2.5.1
SUN 3/60 SunOS 4.1.1
IBM RS6000 AIX v.X & v.Y forgotten versions,
dual boot
Intel SCO Unix
Intel Dynix
Intel ?nix more memory loss
Pretty impressive, now all of that old hardware is showing up on e-bay
Drool at one time over a SS10 ? SGI Indy ? now you can have one cheap !
My most treasured old unix box however is my Sony News 3250
http://www.nop.org/misc/unix/news-3250.jpg
http://www.nop.org/misc/unix/sony
It runs a 20 mhz mips 3000r and was the original target platform
for sysVr4 on Mips
http://www.nop.org/misc/text/sony.unix.announcement.html
The machine still works, and more pointedly is still usefull
despite its age.. to wit
sony:/# uname -a
sony sony 4.0 5.0.1 NEWS3200 mips.r3000
sony:/# bash -version
GNU bash, version 1.14.7(1)
sony:/# gcc --version
2.7.2.3
sony:/# w
4:55am up 200 days, 8:18, 1 user, load average: 0.03, 0.00, 0.00
sony:/# rdate rx
Tue Apr 23 04:55:27 2002
sony:/# ls -l /stand
total 4064
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root 12880 May 10 1991 boot
drwxr-xr-x 2 root 512 Jan 6 1991 mdec
-r-xr-xr-x 1 bin 6432 May 10 1991 tftpboot.single
-rw-r--r-- 1 bin 4135440 May 10 1991 unix
This is an old ecoff bin format system that dont have shared libs
so some modern stuff can compile a bit too fat, but i ported
gcc to the thing. and a more modern compiler running on it
was a big victory, since it paved the way to import all the nice gnu
replacements for things, its still the original 1991 kernel however.
There are scanned docs and the OS tree in the links above if you
want to look the thing over.
If it was any other type of machine of the same age, it certainly
would not still be usefull as this one is, and would not be capable
of running modern software like this one is ( within reason ).
This machine is quite happy as a coffee table Xterminal for the
bigger boxes and runs the same stuff locally ( again, within reason)
that my modern machines do.
Perhaps the only other arch i can think of that can claim this,
is the IBM line of mainframes s360/370/390 Zseries
that now, ( http://linux390.nop.org ) is running the same
stuff.
these are probably the only two systems that have preserved
and built upon all their years of programmer sweat.
Unix has much that it can claim today on this preservation
of investment, we stand today on the shoulders of giants,
and the view aint too shabby.
Now, I've watched people trying to do software
development on Windows
systems over the years, and I've done a little myself here and there.
Every time there is a new service pack or OS release there are wailings and
rendings of clothes on all sides.
When i went looking for software for my 1991 mips based Sony,
i dug tarballs out of the current slackware source tree, and
presto ... modern userspace stuff.
there are plenty office apps of X11 now in source form btw
gnumeric is a nice sheet and there is plenty others
even siag office is actually all anyone really needs and the only
stuff you will find missing is the stuff you never use.
Bob Bramwell Snail: 60 Baker Cr. NW | If I die in
war you remember me;
ProntoLogical Calgary, AB | If I live in peace you don't.
+1 403/861-8827 T2L 1R4, Canada | - Spike Milligan (1919 - 2002)
How about this one:
Kinsman die and cattle die and so also for oneself.
But there is one thing that never dies.
That is the fame of a dead mans deeds.
Cheers!
Raymond
6:57 a.m.
Your comment that one should use Windows for office work is well taken. It
does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it realy don't compare.
That's probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
The fact that *NIX has focused on other things is why it's not popular with
folks engaged in other pursuits.
However, because of Windows' amazing popularity (despite its sometimes glaring
weaknesses) other application types are finding their way into the Windows
environment. Because of the ghastly results produced under UNIX for the EDA
community, not to mention the 2-orders-of magnitude-higher prices, this is
welcomed by those of us who rely on EDA tools to make our living. The tools
we had under UNIX used to break down just as often as under Windows, but they
cost WAY more, and one couldn't blame the OS.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the decline of *NIX popularity in
general, and the MS-hating doesn't do a thing to help the *NIX community.
All the MS-haters' rants do is shore up the belief that it's just sour grapes.
If one could take one of today's high school grad's and plunk him/her down in
front of a *NIX box and be able to get a little useful work from him/her THAT
SAME DAY, which one certainly can do with Windows, then *NIX would be much
more widely used.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Bramwell" <bob(a)copenhagen.cuug.ab.ca>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
I didn't catch the posting that seems to have
started all this, but
ignorance
never seems to stop anyone *else* from stating an
opinion, so here's mine
:-)
A few years back I spent a little time working for a small company whose
primary
focus was Unix system software. They did some Windows
work, and this was
their
eventual downfall because they were bought out by
McAfee who didn't have a
clue
what to do with the Unix stuff and weren't
interested in finding out.
I was the last remaining employee of the original company. For most of the
last
year of its operation I did pretty much all the system
administration,
lightweight hardware maintenance, bug fixing, and many of the enhancements
to
the two Unix products that had been the mainstay of
the company. I forget
exactly how many machines we had and exactly what they ran, but it was
something
like:
Hardware OS Notes
======== == =====
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 9.x
HP/Apollo 700 HP/UX 10.01 + 10.10? dual boot
DEC Alpha 2000 (?) OSF 1
Motorola Mxxx Motorola Unix v.X forgotten machine
Motorola Myyy Motorola Unix v.Y & OS version names
SUN Sparc 5 Solaris 2.5.1
SUN SLC Solaris 2.5.1
SUN 3/60 SunOS 4.1.1
IBM RS6000 AIX v.X & v.Y forgotten versions,
dual boot
Intel SCO Unix
Intel Dynix
Intel ?nix more memory loss
I am missing a couple of machines and maybe one more OS. Before I started
with
the company I had never even heard of some of these
variants. The point of
all
this is that the same code base built on ALL these
things. Sure, we had a
"portability" library of our own to make it easier, there was a fair amount
of
#ifdef stuff, and we had to tinker with GNU autoconf
to get the builds
smooth,
but I could manage ALL of it. We used Emacs and
gcc/gdb on all the
machines,
and a freeware distributed backup package (Amanda) to
run complete backups
of
everything automatically (well, OK, I had to change
the tapes manually). Of
course, with the network applications that typically come with Unix (telnet,
ftp, NFS, X Windows, etc.) I could sit at my own desk and get at every
machine
conveniently and run a parallel build on all the
machines. That would have
been
completely impossible with the Microsoft (bundled)
products available at
that
time.
Now, I've watched people trying to do software development on Windows
systems
over the years, and I've done a little myself here
and there. Every time
there
is a new service pack or OS release there are wailings
and rendings of
clothes
on all sides. New licenses have to be bought for
compilers, new versions of
the
network backup client have to be purchased, very often
a whole new machine
has
to be bought, the sys admins have to do all sorts of
black magic to get the
new
machines to "play nice" with the old ones on
the network, and a whole new
set of
OS idiosyncracies has to be mastered. I have never
observed anything
similar in
Unix development shops (well, OK, the more organised
ones, anyway). Oh, and
even *less* upheaval takes place in VMS shops BTW, but VMS has other
problems.
So:
1. it is perfectly possible to write highly portable software, and once the
initial portability setup is done the rest is not particularly hard.
2. there is a great deal of very useful "free" software for Unix out there
in
net land, much of which you would have to pay big $
for on Windows
3. there is NOT very much "business" software (word processors,
spreadsheets,
contact management etc.) for Unix because the kind
of people who write
free
software aren't generally very interested in
"business" stuff, and the
kind
of people who write commercial software don't
think there is much of a
Unix
market for it (since they priced themselves out of
it a while back).
4. if I were developing software for "back end" applications (servers,
networking, etc.) I would certainly do it on Unix in preference to
Windows,
and in this respect the market mostly agrees with
me.
By all means use Windows for your office work. That's about all it's good
for,
and on the whole it does it fairly well.
Bob Bramwell Snail: 60 Baker Cr. NW | If I die in war you remember me;
ProntoLogical Calgary, AB | If I live in peace you don't.
+1 403/861-8827 T2L 1R4, Canada | - Spike Milligan (1919 - 2002)
7:59 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once stated:
Your comment that one should use Windows for office work is well taken. It
does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it realy don't compare.
That's probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
My GOD Richard! Can't you spell? Do you not have a spell checker? Does
your email client not support one? Here, let me help you ... R-E-A-L-L-Y.
That's ``really'' with two (2) Ls.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the decline
of *NIX popularity in
general, and the MS-hating doesn't do a thing to help the *NIX community.
``Unix is dead.''
-- Byte Magazine, 1990.
[rest of quoted message deleted ]
-spc (Must not respond to Richard ... must not respond ... )
8:52 a.m.
Duhh! ... rented fingers ... now, where was that, anyway?
BTW, I seldom use my spell checker, because I don't often wonder how
something's spelled. Some words ALWAYS get the wrong spelling from me, since
I don't know the correct spelling. There just aren't many of them. I went
over two decades spelling propagate, in its various forms, with an 'o' where
the first 'a' goes. It took that long for someone to call me on it. It was
quite embarassing, since I'd gotten rather used to it.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner" <spc(a)conman.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
It was thus said that the Great Richard Erlacher once
stated:
>
> Your comment that one should use Windows for office work is well taken.
It
> does that quite well, and other OS' feeble
attempts at it realy don't
compare.
That's
probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
My GOD Richard! Can't you spell? Do you not have a spell checker? Does
your email client not support one? Here, let me help you ... R-E-A-L-L-Y.
That's ``really'' with two (2) Ls.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the
decline of *NIX popularity in
general, and the MS-hating doesn't do a thing to help the *NIX community.
``Unix is dead.''
-- Byte Magazine, 1990.
[rest of quoted message deleted ]
-spc (Must not respond to Richard ... must not respond ... )
8:53 a.m.
Quothe Richard Erlacher, from writings of Tue, Apr 23, 2002 at 09:57:51AM -0600:
Your comment that one should use Windows for office
work is well
taken. It does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it
realy don't compare. That's probably the primary reason for
Windows' success.
The reason for MS Windows success is that biz'droids are so brain
damaged that they can't comprehend the usefulness of truly useful
computer systems and useful software. As a result, they prefer, for
example, Micro$oft Word to something more useful such as a combination
of Emacs and LaTeX. Biz'droids found in large corporations are
typically either learning-averse or unable to learn anything that's at
least slightly complicated; they need computers that are simple for
them to use, no matter how inefficient and broken-by-design the
systems are. The big problem is that there aren't enough asylums to
hold all of the biz'droids, so they end up in large corporations in
large numbers.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the decline
of *NIX popularity in
This is due to living in a population which discourages intellectual
activity and prefers such meaningless foolishness as "professional
team sporting events" (e.g. baseball, football, etc), where the
average person can watch them and make use of their vocaublary by
utter such wise words as "duh, footbawl!"
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
9:06 a.m.
You may be onto something, but the use of bombastic descriptors such as
"brain-damaged" suggest you really don't know what goes on in big
companies,
and have lost sight of the fact that not all people are the brightest bulbs
... just look at our Chief Executive ... even his Papa, who was considerably
more articluate than he is, though not a dimwit, was not terribly clever.
more below ...
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "R. D. Davis" <rdd(a)rddavis.org>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 11:53 AM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
Keep in mind that they're the majority of the user base.
Quothe Richard Erlacher, from writings of Tue, Apr 23,
2002 at
09:57:51AM -0600:
Your comment that one should use Windows for
office work is well
taken. It does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it
realy don't compare. That's probably the primary reason for
Windows' success.
The reason for MS Windows success is that biz'droids are so brain
damaged that they can't comprehend the usefulness of truly useful
computer systems and useful software. As a result, they prefer, for
example, Micro$oft Word to something more useful such as a combination
of Emacs and LaTeX. Biz'droids found in large corporations are
typically either learning-averse or unable to learn anything that's at
least slightly complicated; they need computers that are simple for
them to use, no matter how inefficient and broken-by-design the
systems are. The big problem is that there aren't enough asylums to
hold all of the biz'droids, so they end up in large corporations in
large numbers.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the
decline of *NIX popularity in
This is due to living in a population which discourages intellectual
activity and prefers such meaningless foolishness as "professional
team sporting events" (e.g. baseball, football, etc), where the
average person can watch them and make use of their vocaublary by
utter such wise words as "duh, footbawl!"
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other
animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief
that we're above Nature &
rdd(a)rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify
such
http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify
much human cruelty.
9:16 a.m.
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
You may be onto something, but the use of bombastic
descriptors such
as "brain-damaged" suggest you really don't know what goes on in big
such as when Bill Gates said, "The 80286 is brain-dead." ?
companies, and have lost sight of the fact that not
all people are the
brightest bulbs ...
just look at our Chief Executive ... even his
Papa, who was considerably more articluate than he is, though not a
dimwit, was not terribly clever.
Are you trying to say that he was NOT a dimwit?
9:46 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <cisin(a)xenosoft.com To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
I'm trying to be nice ... he was not as dumb, nor as blatantly corrupt as
George II. His consummately crooked sons, Neil (of S&L scandal fame), Jeb,
who helped rig the y2k election, and George Dubya, who benefitted from it, all
can attest to that, though they may not be smart enough to realize it.
Dick
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Did he really say that? I can't imagine what he'd have meant. Perhaps he
was
mad at the Intel folks.
You may be onto something, but the use of
bombastic descriptors such
as "brain-damaged" suggest you really don't know what goes on in big
such as when Bill Gates said, "The 80286 is brain-dead." ?
companies, and have lost sight of the fact that
not all people are the
brightest bulbs ...
just look at our Chief Executive ... even his
Papa, who was considerably more articluate than he is, though not a
dimwit, was not terribly clever.
Are you trying to say that he was NOT a dimwit?
3:37 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Yes, he did.
Also, Gordon Letwin (author of OS/2 at Microsoft) compared mode switching
of the 286 to having to shut off your engine to change gears on the
freeway.
such as when
Bill Gates said, "The 80286 is brain-dead." ?
Did he really say that? I
can't imagine what he'd have meant. Perhaps he was
mad at the Intel folks. 
5:54 p.m.
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Richard Erlacher wrote:
Yes, he did.
Also, Gordon Letwin (author of OS/2 at Microsoft) compared mode
switching of the 286 to having to shut off your engine to change gears
on the freeway.
Interesting you bring up Gordon Letwin...I picked up a copy of his book
_Inside OS/2_ last Friday at the annual library book sale. I haven't
started to read it yet, so I hope it was worth the $1 it cost me.
-Toth
such as when Bill Gates said, "The 80286 is
brain-dead." ?
Did he really say that? I can't imagine what he'd have meant. Perhaps he was
mad at the Intel folks. 
11:02 a.m.
Richard Erlacher wrote:
Your comment that one should use Windows for office
work is well taken. It
does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it realy don't compare.
That's probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
That wasn't really Windows, though, that was the Borg assimilating its
hangers-on. The source of countless lawsuits. One of many reasons
there's been a tech slump.
The fact that *NIX has focused on other things is why
it's not popular with
folks engaged in other pursuits.
However, because of Windows' amazing popularity (despite its sometimes glaring
weaknesses) other application types are finding their way into the Windows
environment. Because of the ghastly results produced under UNIX for the EDA
community, not to mention the 2-orders-of magnitude-higher prices, this is
welcomed by those of us who rely on EDA tools to make our living. The tools
we had under UNIX used to break down just as often as under Windows, but they
cost WAY more, and one couldn't blame the OS.
All proprietary EDA tools cost way too much. OSS tools have difficulty
here because of artificial IP barriers, not any inherent deficiency in
the OS'es. Another reason there's been a tech slump. The OS itself has
little direct bearing here, which I don't think is actually inconsistent
with what you're saying. I won't contest your comparison of traditional
Unix pricing vs. MS, just say that it's irrelevant if you're considering
OSS tools. If you look at total cost over time, though, MS is not quite
the bargain it might seem at first glance.
All the *NIX sophistry is what has cause the decline of *NIX popularity in
general, and the MS-hating doesn't do a thing to help the *NIX community.
All the MS-haters' rants do is shore up the belief that it's just sour grapes.
If one could take one of today's high school grad's and plunk him/her down in
front of a *NIX box and be able to get a little useful work from him/her THAT
SAME DAY, which one certainly can do with Windows, then *NIX would be much
more widely used.
I know more people who won't read a book than will, if it comes to that.
It's always been possible to set up *nix apps for non-technical users
who have no clue about a command-line shell. And there've been powerful,
networked GUI's for *nix for a long, long time.
If you've ever been around me after struggling to install a freaking
driver in Windows for half a day (any version after 3.1 or so, or WfW)
and have it stay put and play nice with everybody else, you've heard
more than a rant.
Agreed it's counterproductive, though. It's the same thing, in fact. I
don't hate MS. It's just irrelevant to me anymore. People ask me to
install Linux now, in fact. It's getting quite good as a desktop OS.
Office apps and all.
Dick
11:18 a.m.
Richard Erlacher wrote:
> Your comment that one should use Windows for office work is well taken. It
> does that quite well, and other OS' feeble attempts at it realy don't
compare.
> That's probably the primary reason for Windows' success.
That wasn't really Windows, though, that was the
Borg assimilating its
hangers-on. The source of countless lawsuits. One of many reasons
there's been a tech slump.
You know, I just had a problem to describe to a friend why
MS isn't so bad but still not a real coice if you want to do
professional business. Her tech guy was realy in favour for
MS (he's an MS-whatever-certified) and told her that MS put
a lot effort up to make it at least as good as all the other
OSes and of couse surpassed Unix...
Now, a real neat example did come to my mind: Isn't MS like
one of these 500 parts for 49.95 tool boxes at K/Wall-Mart ?
You realy get the oddest bits you ever seen and a good selection
of tools - tools where each single one costs you 20 bucks if
you buy them at a tool store. Now, would a serious craftsman
ever buy and use this 49.95 tool box ? No. He'll rather spend
ten times the money on a tenth of the tools to buy exactly the
quality he needs for his job.
Now windows _is_ exactly the 49.95 tool box - as long as you
don't know where you want to go today, it's probably a good
investment. But if you have serious business to do, you don't
need all the fancy stuff, just the two or three tools you realy
need.
I don't considere Windows a bad product. Just the other way.
But as jack of all trades your're nowhere realy good (List
members exempted of course :).
Gruss
H.
BTW: I own a real big version of the 49.95 tool box ... and a
few realy expensive tools for the most common jobs.
--
VCF Europa 3.0 am 27./28. April 2002 in Muenchen
http://www.vcfe.org/
11:58 a.m.
(I don't usually respond in this way but since there has
been so little on the list to reply to positively lately...)
+AD4- Now, a real neat example did come to my mind: Isn't MS like
+AD4- one of these 500 parts for 49.95 tool boxes at K/Wall-Mart ?
etc+-+-.
Well stated, Hans+ACE-
John A.
5:46 p.m.
New subject: dec Lab Modules
Anyone have information on this product series?
The 'dec Lab Modules' are 45 years old so on
topic. What I'm looking for is the pin assignment
for the backplane (only 5 jacks at this stage)
All I know is that -15v,+10v,+10v and -3v are
supposed to go in (I think) but I don't know where.
John A.
6:20 p.m.
New subject: dec Lab Modules
John,
This is a hell of a coincidence! I JUST posted the message below to a fellow CC Lister.
The book is dated 1971 so it may not cover what you're looking for IF your modules are
really 45 years old. Unfortunately the book is really more of a catalog so there's
little pin out info except for some of the flip chip modules.
"I found a copy of "Digital Logic Handbook 1971" while cleaning around here
today. Digital as in Digital Equipement Corp. Need it? It seems to be a data book of
modules (M series Logic Modules, W series Special Purpose Logic Boards, A series Analog
modules, Lab Series and K Series Control Logic modules, etc."
Joe
At 10:46 PM 4/23/02 -0400, you wrote:
Anyone have information on this product series?
The 'dec Lab Modules' are 45 years old so on
topic. What I'm looking for is the pin assignment
for the backplane (only 5 jacks at this stage)
All I know is that -15v,+10v,+10v and -3v are
supposed to go in (I think) but I don't know where.
John A.
9:16 p.m.
New subject: dec Lab Modules
--- John Allain <allain(a)panix.com> wrote:
Anyone have information on this product series?
The 'dec Lab Modules' are 45 years old so on
topic. What I'm looking for is the pin assignment
for the backplane (only 5 jacks at this stage)
All I know is that -15v,+10v,+10v and -3v are
supposed to go in (I think) but I don't know where.
I do not have docs for anything prior to 1964, but I have a question
that might help shed some light. Are the jacks on your modules color
coded? Some of the very old DEC stuff I have use color to indicate
which voltage goes to which power pin.
According to the legend on the DEC PSU (c. 1966), the color scheme _I_ am
familiar with looks like this...
Red +10VDC fixed
Black Ground
Blue -15VDC fixed
Green -15VDC variable
Orange +10VDC variable
I don't know if yours resembles this, but it's a place to start.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
1:35 p.m.
Rumor has it that James B. DiGriz may have mentioned these words:
Richard Erlacher wrote:
> All the MS-haters' rants do is shore up the
belief that it's just sour
grapes.
*If* they can't quantify their reasoning. [[ Which, is most of the
MS-haters you see/hear about]] Just saying "M$ Sucks. BG is the
devil-incarnate. Linux Roolz!" is totally useless.
Trying to get my Dell laptop [it's for work] to do something similar to a
"Suspend" so I didn't have to wait 6 minutes for the thing to boot Win2K
(Because, of course, XP Sucks! ;-) was quite harrowing. The BIOS-based
tools... Suck! Suspend to RAM didn't work (knackered up the touchpad most
times)... Suspend to Disk didn't work (locked machine completely)...
Finally, I enabled the Hibernate feature in Win2K, and it... well... mostly
works. Sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it munges my Minimize,
Maximize & Close buttons to random patterns of color, but otherwise, it's
just as stable when it comes out of Hibernate as anything. Is it "buggy?"
Sure. Can I at least *live* with the bugs? Yea, I suppose. I can figure out
where to put the pointer to make it do what I want. Is it the best option
available? Definately.
[no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho... it's fully Linux certified as
well...]
> If one could take one of today's high school
grad's and plunk him/her
down in
> front of a *NIX box and be able to get a little
useful work from him/her
THAT
> SAME DAY, which one certainly can do with Windows,
then *NIX would be much
> more widely used.
If one could find more than 1/10 of the high school grads who *actually
wanna work*, they'd be much more widely used...
I know more people who won't read a book than will,
if it comes to that.
It's always been possible to set up *nix apps for non-technical users
who have no clue about a command-line shell. And there've been powerful,
networked GUI's for *nix for a long, long time.
Ask my wife. She found DEC/Compaq Tru64 Unix easier to use than Winders
95.... until I needed office apps on that machine. She still finds Linux
easier to use than Winders, and is quite happy about the fact she can "turn
it on and use it" without needing to learn about the upkeep of Winders, and
knows that she can't fsck it up by doing something foolish; something I
couldn't *completely* prevent using WinNT4. And she's tried, lemme tell ya.
I came home one day to "I tried deleting this file 'cause I didn't think I
need it, and it won't let me." IIRC, it was the /lib directory...
If you've ever been around me after struggling to
install a freaking
driver in Windows for half a day (any version after 3.1 or so, or WfW)
and have it stay put and play nice with everybody else, you've heard
more than a rant.
And *you're* knowledgeable enough to be a true M$-hater, not just a
wannabee... ;-) [[ unlike most of the current fools on /. ]]
Agreed it's counterproductive, though. It's the
same thing, in fact. I
don't hate MS. It's just irrelevant to me anymore. People ask me to
install Linux now, in fact. It's getting quite good as a desktop OS.
Office apps and all.
Yup.
ObClassicCmp: Anyone ever get OS-9/68K running on a Palm yet??? :-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
5:02 p.m.
Yup ... you're preachin' to the choir ... especially about those HS grads ...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Merchberger" <zmerch(a)30below.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2002 4:35 PM
Subject: Re: Micro$oft Biz'droid Lusers (was: OT email response format)
Rumor has it that James B. DiGriz may have mentioned
these words:
much
Richard Erlacher wrote:
> All the MS-haters' rants do is shore up
the belief that it's just sour
grapes.
*If* they can't quantify their reasoning. [[ Which, is most of the
MS-haters you see/hear about]] Just saying "M$ Sucks. BG is the
devil-incarnate. Linux Roolz!" is totally useless.
Trying to get my Dell laptop [it's for work] to do something similar to a
"Suspend" so I didn't have to wait 6 minutes for the thing to boot Win2K
(Because, of course, XP Sucks! ;-) was quite harrowing. The BIOS-based
tools... Suck! Suspend to RAM didn't work (knackered up the touchpad most
times)... Suspend to Disk didn't work (locked machine completely)...
Finally, I enabled the Hibernate feature in Win2K, and it... well... mostly
works. Sometimes it works flawlessly, sometimes it munges my Minimize,
Maximize & Close buttons to random patterns of color, but otherwise, it's
just as stable when it comes out of Hibernate as anything. Is it "buggy?"
Sure. Can I at least *live* with the bugs? Yea, I suppose. I can figure out
where to put the pointer to make it do what I want. Is it the best option
available? Definately.
[no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho... it's fully Linux certified as
well...]
> If one could take one of today's high
school grad's and plunk him/her
down in
> front of a *NIX box and be able to get a
little useful work from him/her
THAT
>> SAME DAY, which one certainly can do with Windows, then *NIX would be
> more
widely used.
If one could find more than 1/10 of the high school grads who *actually
wanna work*, they'd be much more widely used...
I know more people who won't read a book than
will, if it comes to that.
It's always been possible to set up *nix apps for non-technical users
who have no clue about a command-line shell. And there've been powerful,
networked GUI's for *nix for a long, long time.
Ask my wife. She found DEC/Compaq Tru64 Unix easier to use than Winders
95.... until I needed office apps on that machine. She still finds Linux
easier to use than Winders, and is quite happy about the fact she can "turn
it on and use it" without needing to learn about the upkeep of Winders, and
knows that she can't fsck it up by doing something foolish; something I
couldn't *completely* prevent using WinNT4. And she's tried, lemme tell ya.
I came home one day to "I tried deleting this file 'cause I didn't think I
need it, and it won't let me." IIRC, it was the /lib directory...
If you've ever been around me after struggling
to install a freaking
driver in Windows for half a day (any version after 3.1 or so, or WfW)
and have it stay put and play nice with everybody else, you've heard
more than a rant.
And *you're* knowledgeable enough to be a true M$-hater, not just a
wannabee... ;-) [[ unlike most of the current fools on /. ]]
Agreed it's counterproductive, though.
It's the same thing, in fact. I
don't hate MS. It's just irrelevant to me anymore. People ask me to
install Linux now, in fact. It's getting quite good as a desktop OS.
Office apps and all.
Yup.
ObClassicCmp: Anyone ever get OS-9/68K running on a Palm yet??? :-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
24 Apr
24 Apr
7:52 a.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
> Rumor has it that James B. DiGriz may have
mentioned these words:
> >Richard Erlacher wrote:
> [no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho...
it's fully Linux certified as
> well...]
6G... I get OS/2, Win3.1, Lotus SmartSuite, PC Dos7, and Linux or FreeBSD and
X and OpenOffice in 4gb without disk compression on an IBM 760XL laptop.
Linux is all in how you install it. Default's a pig. (Especially Mandrake
and Redhat...)
Free/OpenBSD are much better at packaging the OS seperate from the apps...
and add-ons.
Linux is getting to look like Windows2k... overloaded with stuff you
never use and without the stuff you need.
Bill
8:16 a.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Bill Pechter wrote:
Gee, Dick, then I have no idea on how I got Linux installed on this 200M
HDD in my 486 here. Especially considering that 16M of that is swap
space. Amazingly enough I still have about 60M free space...
For a more suitable install, I can easily install everything I really use
(between X windows and a few apps, gaim for IM, kernel source so I can
recompile my kernel, gcc and related stuff) in 1G or less of space.
If you're tight on space, just don't use anything with a nifty graphical
installer... those distros tend to bloat out more than things like Debian
or Slackware (or *BSD).
-- Pat
> Rumor has
it that James B. DiGriz may have mentioned these words:
> >Richard Erlacher wrote:
> [no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho...
it's fully Linux certified as
> well...]
6G... I get OS/2, Win3.1, Lotus SmartSuite, PC Dos7, and Linux or FreeBSD and
X and OpenOffice in 4gb without disk compression on an IBM 760XL laptop.
Linux is all in how you install it. Default's a pig. (Especially Mandrake
and Redhat...)
9:38 a.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
--- Pat Finnegan <pat(a)purdueriots.com> wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Bill Pechter wrote:
Mandrake and
Redhat...)
No kidding. Solaris, too. Pretty much any UNIX can expand to overflow
an ordinary boot disk if you throw on all the bells and whistles.
>
Rumor has it that James B. DiGriz may have mentioned these words:
> >Richard Erlacher wrote:
> [no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho...
Linux is all in how you install it. Default's a pig. (Especially Gee, Dick, then I have no idea on how I got Linux
installed on this 200M
HDD in my 486 here. Especially considering that 16M of that is swap
space. Amazingly enough I still have about 60M free space...
My tightest Linux install recently was RedHat 5.2 on a 120M disk in a
PS/2-E. No X. No compiler.
I've got a functional kernel and a webcam app with ftp client (to export
the pictures) on a floppy disk. I also have Linux with a GUI, browser,
messenger client and MP3 player in the 16M flash disk of my iOpener.
It's all about what your target is. I certainly do not need everything
that comes with RedHat and never install 100% of it, even when I have
a multi-gig disk. OTOH, I've been installing UNIX since the days of
4.1BSD and Ultrix 1.1 on 120MB disks and smaller, so I'm accustomed to
being selective and not taking the default install. Kids today don't
bother. Disk is too cheap.
For a more suitable install, I can easily install
everything I really use
(between X windows and a few apps, gaim for IM, kernel source so I can
recompile my kernel, gcc and related stuff) in 1G or less of space.
Exactly.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
11:45 a.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
Ethan Dicks said:
I've got a functional kernel and a webcam app with ftp client (to export
the pictures) on a floppy disk. I also have Linux with a GUI, browser,
messenger client and MP3 player in the 16M flash disk of my iOpener.
Did you install linux on the flash disk? If so, what did you do? I just put
a 4GB HDD in my iOpener :) If not, it comes with QNX, not linux...
- Dan Wright
(dtwright(a)uiuc.edu)
(http://www.uiuc.edu/~dtwright)
-] ------------------------------ [-] -------------------------------- [-
``Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honeydew hath fed, / and drunk the milk of Paradise.''
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan
25 Apr
25 Apr
9:07 a.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
--- Dan Wright <dtwright(a)uiuc.edu> wrote:
Ethan Dicks said:
Yes. http://sourceforge.net/projects/jailbait/
I've got a functional kernel and a webcam app with ftp client (to
export
the pictures) on a floppy disk. I also have
Linux with a GUI, browser,
messenger client and MP3 player in the 16M flash disk of my iOpener.
Did you install linux on the flash disk? I put a 4GB HDD in my iOpener :)
I have a 6GB drive that never made it into my iOpener - I diverted it
into my old Dell laptop, replacing a 2.1GB disk. Due to another toy,
the TuxScreen ("Shannon" telephone), I learned of some 32MB EDO SODIMMs
for $15 that happen to fit the TuxScreen _and_ my laptop, bringing it
up to 80MB total and helping me to work more smoothly on an Open Source
project with heavy hardware DIY - http://lcdproc.omnipotent.net/
If not, it comes with QNX, not linux...
Yes, as does the Audrey. I've played with QNX in an on-topic sense - the
environmental controls of the Crary Science and Engineering Center (CSEC)
at McMurdo Station are QNX based. I had to debug a network problem
that was forcing the Facilities guys to tweak stuff by hand because their
workstation was knocked off-line and they didn't have spare parts for
the "computer" part of their system, only the "environmental" part
(the
problem was a dead NIC, but of a vintage and brand that we had to
seriously scrounge for a spare - all of our desktops had 3C509s or
one of a couple of varieties of NE2000 clone)
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Games - play chess, backgammon, pool and more
http://games.yahoo.com/
24 Apr
24 Apr
12:20 p.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
Ethan Dicks wrote:
It's all about what your target is. I certainly
do not need everything
that comes with RedHat and never install 100% of it, even when I have
a multi-gig disk. OTOH, I've been installing UNIX since the days of
4.1BSD and Ultrix 1.1 on 120MB disks and smaller, so I'm accustomed to
being selective and not taking the default install. Kids today don't
bother. Disk is too cheap.
You can get some tiny linux's like 'loaf'
linux on a floppy but they are
all lib #5 of gnu.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
6:12 p.m.
New subject: linux in 6gb
I have no idea who wrote the remark attributed to me in this quoted message,
but I surely didn't.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Pat Finnegan" <pat(a)purdueriots.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 11:16 AM
Subject: Re:linux in 6gb
On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Bill Pechter wrote:
> > > Rumor has it that James B. DiGriz may have mentioned these words:
> > > >Richard Erlacher wrote:
>
> > > [no room on the puny 6G HD for Linux, tho... it's fully Linux
certified as
> > > well...]
>
> 6G... I get OS/2, Win3.1, Lotus SmartSuite, PC Dos7, and Linux or FreeBSD
and
X and
OpenOffice in 4gb without disk compression on an IBM 760XL laptop.
Linux is all in how you install it. Default's a pig. (Especially Mandrake
and Redhat...)
Gee, Dick, then I have no idea on how I got Linux installed on this 200M
HDD in my 486 here. Especially considering that 16M of that is swap
space. Amazingly enough I still have about 60M free space...
For a more suitable install, I can easily install everything I really use
(between X windows and a few apps, gaim for IM, kernel source so I can
recompile my kernel, gcc and related stuff) in 1G or less of space.
If you're tight on space, just don't use anything with a nifty graphical
installer... those distros tend to bloat out more than things like Debian
or Slackware (or *BSD).
-- Pat
8119
days inactive
8121
days old
25 comments
17 participants
participants (17)
-
allain＠panix.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
bob＠copenhagen.cuug.ab.ca -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dtwright＠uiuc.edu -
edick＠idcomm.com -
erd_6502＠yahoo.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
jbdigriz＠dragonsweb.org -
pat＠purdueriots.com -
pechter＠pechter.dyndns.org -
rdd＠rddavis.org -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
rmoyers＠nop.org -
spc＠conman.org -
tothwolf＠concentric.net -
zmerch＠30below.com