3 Nov
1999
3 Nov
'99
1:42 p.m.
Hello all,
I've just been fortunate enough to obtain a pair or Xerox D-series
machines. One is a 53D (Daybreak? Dove? 6085? 1186?) and the other an
8010.
I understand the 53D has its microcode control store in RAM; is there any
available information on the microinstruction encoding, and how I might
in principle be able to write my own? (I work for a company that did
microcode compilers, ten years ago when people still built microcoded
machines, so yes, I *do* know what I'm suggesting.) For that matter, is
there any available information on the macroinstruction set(s)? So far
I've been able to find very little about these boxes.
The 53D boots happily into Lisp. Err... could someone please tell me, as
soon as possible, how to safely shut this machine off?
Two boxes of Lisp manuals, dated June 1997, and still shrink-wrapped. If
there is a 'collector' out there who would like to trade for 'working'
copies of the same, contact me before I open them....
A carton of Lisp floppies; although these were sold with the 8010, they
clearly belong to the 53D, since they're 5.25" not 8". They're marked
DS/DD 48tpi; is there anything unusual about these, or could they in
principle be read and archived from a current pc?
The 8010 doesn't boot. The power supply is fine; the drive spins up and
is loud but sounds smooth. The LEDs rest at 0000, and nothing happens.
Any obvious things I should try, or will I have to wait until I can do
Serious Work on this?
--
Kevin Schoedel
schoedel(a)kw.igs.net
3 Nov
3 Nov
6:46 p.m.
Kevin Schoedel <schoedel(a)kw.igs.net> wrote:
I've just been fortunate enough to obtain a pair
or Xerox D-series
machines. One is a 53D (Daybreak? Dove? 6085? 1186?) and the other an
8010. [...] The 53D boots happily into Lisp.
Must be an 1186. Mostly the same as a 6085, but with a floating point
board. I'd guess that probably 6085 can be run on it, but I don't really
know.
4 Nov
4 Nov
5:40 a.m.
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10:17 a.m.
At 7:40pm +0000 1999/11/04, Tony Duell wrote:
Is this the white tower case, a little larger than the
Daybreak? If so,
there's a pile of fuses inside, some of them on the 'frontpanel' board,
others in the PSU, etc. Check them. IIRC one of the fuses seems to blow
for no good reason and causes exactly this problem.
Thank you! There is a row of five fuses behind the right panel, between
the floppy and hard drives. I had initially just looked at them, and they
looked fine, but on testing, the frontmost of them (1/4A) was indeed
open. Once I replaced it, on powering up, the LEDs cycled rapidly for a
few seconds and then returned to 0000 -- and the fuse was open. I tried
twice more, and in both cases the fuse blew instantly upon plugging in
the machine (with the power switch still off). The I (probably foolishly)
put in a 1A fuse and watched it glow orange for a quarter second before I
disconnected.
I'll most likely have to set this machine aside until I have the time and
knowledge to attack it properly.
Did you lock the disk heads before moving the machine
and unlock them
afterwards? Worth checking...
It had been moved before I got it, so there is still the possibility of
disk damage, but I'm not that far yet.
--
Kevin Schoedel
schoedel(a)kw.igs.net
10:36 a.m.
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1:13 p.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
I have a simple question (and --eek-- on-topic! ;-)
I know the superuser ID for Unix/Linux/OS-9 is 0, what I was wondering is
what is the superuser ID for VMS, M/PM or any other classic multiuser
systems... it's for a trivia question I do on my weekly radio program.
Thanks for any help,
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.
1:32 p.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
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1:51 p.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
Rumor has it that Zane H. Healy may have mentioned these words:
Are you talking UID, or login name? Not even sure some
of them have
anything other than a login name.
Login Name, UID, that's fine. Just kind-of wondering how different systems
dealt with superuser ID's/Login Names, and I made a trivia question out of
Unix's superuser UID for it. I was on the topic, so I thought I'd try to
find a few trivia facts about other classic OS's.
Yes, it was an open-ended question, and while I might have worded it a bit
confusing (sorry about that,) I did want it somewhat broad and vague.
OpenVMS:
Username: SYSTEM Owner: SYSTEM MANAGER
Account: SYSTEM UIC: [1,4] ([SYSTEM])
However, under OpenVMS it's possible to set up another account so it's
effectivally the SYSTEM account.
At least some Harris Mini's used 'SuperVulcan', I always thought that cool.
Thanks, and that is really cool!
The key word is that a lot of OS's aren't as
stupid about security as UNIX
tends to be.
Having just installed FrontPage 2000 on WinNT, *nix is looking a *lot*
better about security right about now... ;-) [[ Of course, with OS-9 you
don't log in if you're at the console. It's assumed that since you knew how
to boot the box, you were automatically the superuser. I once tried (and
moderatly succeeded) to write a program to change the userID of the console
login on the fly (thru Basic-09), mainly so Rogue wouldn't overwrite the
saved files. *Yes*, I did know how to attr the file for read-only, but this
was one of those "just how crazy can I get about this and still have it
work" exercises. :-) Learned a lot about OS-9 system calls, which was the
main point. ]]
Thanks,
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.
4:46 p.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
better about security right about now... ;-) [[ Of
course, with OS-9 you
don't log in if you're at the console. It's assumed that since you knew how
to boot the box, you were automatically the superuser. I once tried (and
OK, here is a bit of off-topic superuser trivia that most people won't
know. The first three releases of Linux automatically booted into root.
There was no login, although it was possible, at least under 0.12 to add
one.
Also these first three releases were 0.10, 0.11, and 0.12. The fourth was
0.95 which resulted in some VERY wierd version numbers after it became
apparent that kernel wasn't as close to 1.0 as Linus thought.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
5 Nov
5 Nov
3:03 a.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
As memory (dimly) serves me, under VMS, any userid with "SETPRV" capabilities
would do it. There were some other priviledges, that, if carelessly granted,
could enable
a user to gain control of a system. IIRC, SYSNAM was one of them.
Will
"Zane H. Healy" wrote:
I have a
simple question (and --eek-- on-topic! ;-)
I know the superuser ID for Unix/Linux/OS-9 is 0, what I was wondering is
what is the superuser ID for VMS, M/PM or any other classic multiuser
systems... it's for a trivia question I do on my weekly radio program.
Thanks for any help,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
Are you talking UID, or login name? Not even sure some of them have
anything other than a login name.
OpenVMS:
Username: SYSTEM Owner: SYSTEM MANAGER
Account: SYSTEM UIC: [1,4] ([SYSTEM])
However, under OpenVMS it's possible to set up another account so it's
effectivally the SYSTEM account.
At least some Harris Mini's used 'SuperVulcan', I always thought that cool.
Isn't RSX-11M [1,54] for SYSTEM?
IIRC there wasn't a "superuser" under GCOS-8 (on a Honeywell DPS-8, etc.),
you just had superuser permissions. I assume the same was true under
GCOS-6, but I barely had a chance to use the DPS-6's.
The key word is that a lot of OS's aren't as stupid about security as UNIX
tends to be.
Zane 
3:24 a.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
On Fri, 5 Nov 1999 wpe101(a)banet.net wrote:
As memory (dimly) serves me, under VMS, any userid
with "SETPRV" capabilities
would do it. There were some other priviledges, that, if carelessly granted,
could enable
a user to gain control of a system. IIRC, SYSNAM was one of them.
This is very true. VMS is not lax on granting prives but system managers
can be. I found it handy to enable a limited set of prives for a SYSMAINT
user that was nearly SYSTEM but not quite. FIELD was another default
account that often had high privs. In any case it is a very flexible
scheme.
Allison
3:42 a.m.
New subject: SuperUser ID's
<snip>
allisonp(a)world.std.com wrote:
This is very true. VMS is not lax on granting prives but system managers
can be. I found it handy to enable a limited set of prives for a SYSMAINT
user that was nearly SYSTEM but not quite. FIELD was another default
account that often had high privs. In any case it is a very flexible
scheme.
Allison
Ah yes, default accounts.. Some system administrators used to fall victim to
failing to change the default passwords that VMS shipped with, ie.
Username: FIELD
Password: SERVICE
IIRC, wasn't there an incident a few years back (NASA?) where access to a
TOPS-20 machine was gained by undesireables, using SYSTEM as the account,
and MANAGER for a password?
Will
7 Nov
7 Nov
11:19 a.m.
Hello Kevin,
Somewhere you mentioned the company you work for made ucode compilers,
assemblers. Anything left of these products laying around?
Congrats on finding the Xerox machines, I've given up all hope of
getting
one.
Regards, Mitch Wright
Kevin Schoedel wrote:
Hello all,
I've just been fortunate enough to obtain a pair or Xerox D-series
machines. One is a 53D (Daybreak? Dove? 6085? 1186?) and the other an
8010.
I understand the 53D has its microcode control store in RAM; is there any
available information on the microinstruction encoding, and how I might
in principle be able to write my own? (I work for a company that did
microcode compilers, ten years ago when people still built microcoded
machines, so yes, I *do* know what I'm suggesting.) For that matter, is
there any available information on the macroinstruction set(s)? So far
I've been able to find very little about these boxes.
The 53D boots happily into Lisp. Err... could someone please tell me, as
soon as possible, how to safely shut this machine off?
Two boxes of Lisp manuals, dated June 1997, and still shrink-wrapped. If
there is a 'collector' out there who would like to trade for 'working'
copies of the same, contact me before I open them....
A carton of Lisp floppies; although these were sold with the 8010, they
clearly belong to the 53D, since they're 5.25" not 8". They're marked
DS/DD 48tpi; is there anything unusual about these, or could they in
principle be read and archived from a current pc?
The 8010 doesn't boot. The power supply is fine; the drive spins up and
is loud but sounds smooth. The LEDs rest at 0000, and nothing happens.
Any obvious things I should try, or will I have to wait until I can do
Serious Work on this?
--
Kevin Schoedel
schoedel(a)kw.igs.net
9129
days inactive
9133
days old
12 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
allisonp＠world.std.com -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
mew_jac＠swbell.net -
schoedel＠kw.igs.net -
wpe101＠banet.net -
zmerch＠30below.com