6 Nov
2007
6 Nov
'07
1:41 a.m.
Jay, other HP fans,
I finally got a chance to re-examine the article on the wall down here.
Someone hung up excerpts from "The Antarctic Journal", December 1976,
page 286 (and parts of some presumably nearby pages). The article describes
the "first" computer system at the Pole, which might possibly be true. During
the 1974/1975 Austral Summer, UC Davis sent down a pair of HP 2100S machines
to Pole. They were both equipped with 32K of memory, and sported paper tape,
at least one line printer, and a pair of 45 ips, 800 bpi magtapes. Other
I/O equipment mentioned in the article include an HP 12930A "universal
interface", at least one HP 2570A "coupler controller", and at least one
HP 12770A serial interface.
If I run across the original journal, I can see about making scans. Right
now, there is a hodgepodge of xeroxed page fragments taped to the wall.
Before anyone starts drooling, this gear was all long-gone 20 years after
it was installed. Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was packed
up and removed years ago. Closest thing I've seen to a "classic" computer
I've seen in use here lately was a Dell 386SX/16 as the head-end for the PBX
we tore out in 2004, and the Compaq 386N we used for RTTY (last fired up in
2004 as well).
It's all modern, boring stuff here now. :-(
(except for the classic goodies I pack in my luggage ;-)
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Nov-2007 at 09:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -24.5 F (-31.4 C) Windchill -53.8 F (-47.6 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 16.8 kts Grid 10 Barometer 684.4 mb (10463 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
6 Nov
6 Nov
12:13 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was
packed
up and removed years ago.
I hate to sound like someone who is against the environment, but why
bother packing it up and removing it at all? I mean, come on, it's the
North Pole. Wouldn't it be easier, faster, and cheaper to just dump it
half a mile from the site? It's the North Pole -- what could happen?
(Or would that affect the experiment?)
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
1:09 p.m.
Jim Leonard wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Ethan is on the South Pole, and people there tend to be rather serious
w.r.t. to environmental issues. Which, in the past, was not always the
case...
Jos
Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was
packed
up and removed years ago.
I hate to sound like someone who is against the environment, but why
bother packing it up and removing it at all? I mean, come on, it's the
North Pole. Wouldn't it be easier, faster, and cheaper to just dump it
half a mile from the site? It's the North Pole -- what could happen?
1:48 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 06, 2007 at 02:13:14PM -0600, Jim Leonard wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
South Pole.
Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was
packed
up and removed years ago.
I hate to sound like someone who is against the environment, but why
bother packing it up and removing it at all? I mean, come on, it's the
North Pole. Wouldn't it be easier, faster, and cheaper to
just dump it
half a mile from the site? It's the North Pole -- what could happen?
There's an international treaty that regulates activities in the
Antarctic - in compliance with that treaty, in 1978, the U.S.
passed the Antarctic Conservation Act, which, among other things
requires that we "pack out our trash".
Before the ACA, the Navy used to dump vehicles in the ocean, have
an open dump at McMurdo (on the coast) with annual trash burns to
reduce the volume, and at Pole, just abandon vehicles and let them
drift over. Now, we have to remove building debris, scrap material,
trash and waste. About the only exception is that we don't remove
our waste-water and sewage - it's pumped into an ice cavern hundreds
of feet below the surface (which will end up in the sea thousands of
years from now).
As for just leaving it outside, if it's equipment we intend to use
again, it's bad to leave electronics where the ambient temperature
gets well below -60F for months at a time. Bad for electrolytic
caps, bad for bonding wires inside ICs, bad for LCDs...
So... for all the PDP-11s and HPs and VAXen, etc., that were ever
here, they are here no longer.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Nov-2007 at 21:40 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -41.4 F (-40.8 C) Windchill -63.6 F (-53.1 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 6.4 kts Grid 99 Barometer 682.5 mb (10534 ft)
Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
3:23 p.m.
> Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was
packed
> up and removed years ago.
On Tue, 6 Nov 2007, Jim Leonard wrote:
I hate to sound like someone who is against the
environment, but why
bother packing it up and removing it at all? I mean, come on, it's the
North Pole. Wouldn't it be easier, faster, and cheaper to just dump it
half a mile from the site? It's the North Pole -- what could happen?
(Or would that affect the experiment?)
It depends.
Just how evil WAS that machine?
It would cost a LOT to ship it from the south pole to the north pole!
How many people here would want to try to go rescue it? (before VCF90S)?
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participants (4)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
ethan.dicks＠usap.gov -
jos.mar＠bluewin.ch -
trixter＠oldskool.org