Orphan HP Alphaservers looking for a new home

[Jim Manley]

Hi again Andrew,

Sorry for the techno-toys reference, and it wasn’t meant to be offensive,
which I’m sure you understand as I couldn’t know it would be to you.   I
try to keep things light because I spent a very serious career in the
military, including membership on teams with nuclear weapons release
authority, as well as operation of nuclear power plan.  I don’t presume
much, but I do reserve the right to have a bit of fun now and then, and I
find computing so darn much fun and fascinating that I would work in this
field for free ... well, maybe for food and shelter, but don’t tell my
employers.

For other reasons in addition to humor, I refer to The Land of Silicon in
Northern California as SillyCon Valley, in part because of the sheer folly
of developing things like (anti)social media.  That’s not to mention the
complete abrogation of any sense of morality in such misuse of technology,
e.g., intentional violation of the right to privacy, for starters.

> I think that learning foundational principles on real AlphaServers, with
a good teacher, /actually sets up students in greater stead compared to
computers based in the x86_84 universe, for example/.
> I mean this on many levels and across varying dimensions.

I think it's a travesty that all that virtually all students ever touch is
x86/x64 hardware at a level where they can actually twiddle bits.  The
significance of the Raspberry Pi is that it broke open the ARM/RISC
technology, that mobile devices use, down to the microprocessor pin level,
as well as making Linux accessible to neophytes in an approachable way,
with educator-developed curricula.  The AlphaServers will provide
yet-another avenue of exploration, and I will probably provide remote
access to any students in rural areas anywhere who express the interest and
desire to learn, with the appropriate security countermeasures in place, of
course.  There are only half-a-dozen teachers in the entire state who teach
any level of real computer science (not mere "technology" courses that are
glorified Office apps training offerings), and they're all in the "cities"
(populations of 30,000 to 100,000 people, with only one over about 50,000).

> I don't know much about the socioeconomic profile of Montana.  I spent
much of my in many parts of the US, mostly for personal reasons, and I
loved the country in general.
> Unfortunately I never had a chance to go to Montana.

My first impression of Montana was formed about 12 years ago when I first
drove through on I-94, I-90, and I-15 from East to Southwest.  It seemed
grimy and hard-scrabble, which does sum up its original primary
industrial-scale economic history of minerals extraction.  That continues
today, but mainly for higher-value resources such as platinum and
palladium, in addition to the traditional, but declining, gold, silver,
coal, copper, nickel, petroleum, etc.  Tourism has become another large
source of revenue, but, like minerals extraction, it benefits relatively
few at significantly more than minimum wage.

One nice thing about living here is that we can drive to the amazing Rocky
Mountain and Great Northern Plains National Parks/Forests/Monuments,
rivers, and lakes in minutes to hours that Flatlanders have to spend
thousands of dollars to get to and much more to live among, even briefly.
The wildlife here kept working right through the government shutdown
without a roar, growl, chirp, or especially an annoying tweet.

Beyond the mineral extractors and tourism businesses are ranchers and
farmers who numerically occupy a relatively small area in the case of
family operations, The vast majority of the area is operated by very large
corporations owned by the likes of the descendants of the Walmart and
Hewlett-Packard founders.  The rest of the jobs in the state are in
infrastructure, service, support, and other collateral sectors.

In the smaller towns (the median municipality population in Montana is
about 600), educators often make slightly above, to significantly above,
the average family income.  Given the infamously small amount that teachers
make, and that we rural teachers make about half of the national average,
buying things at the national and international levels is generally not in
our budgets.  Besides, "two-day" Amazon Prime means more like a week, for
us, as we're nowhere near The Beaten Path.  Ground shipments from the
coasts take a minimum of about 10 days, so, not much in the way of "instant
gratification" here.  We're not holding our breath for Amazon Prime Air
30-minute delivery, ever.

So, not only are we the primary source of information in our communities,
we’re also a large means of economic resources.  Virtually all of what I
have in my classroom beyond 12-year-old textbooks and wall charts published
in 1984 (my Periodic Table is missing a dozen elements!), has been bought
by me or donated (or provided at large discounts) by people here on this
and other computing e-mail lists.

> Are you referring writing networked computer programs to solve problems?

My background is centered on network-distributed computing and I was
awarded, and successfully defended and licensed to The Usual Suspects, a
patent in a fundamental Internet capability that became known as a form of
push technology.  I also participated in the development of a
DARPA-sponsored automated network-distribution of computing processes based
on network node computing resource capabilities and parsed descriptions of
process computing requirements.  In the latter, processes could be farmed
out over an internetwork to a higher-performance computing resources than
were available locally (either physically non-existent, or because they
were currently busy with other processes).

There was a means for the resources to dynamically make known their
availability and capabilities over internetworks (possibly the Internet,
but also classified networks at multiple levels such as General Service
(GENSER), Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence (SCI), etc.).  It's much
like how network nodes can propagate their queue backlog sizes to allow
auto-rerouting of packets via alternate routes when particular nodes are
becoming saturated with traffic.  We will be able to model that sort of
capability with the AlphaServers, along with other heterogeneous computing
resources of varying degrees of capability, from Raspberry Pi systems up
through educational institution accessible high-performance computing
resources (formerly known as supercomputers).

> This trifecta of "computing, data structures, and networking" intrgues
me.  Is it part of some curriculum?  Or is it a grouping of computing
concepts that you have identified as being meaningful?
> In the second sense I think I get it if I think hard enough.

It's a variation on the title of Pascal and Modula inventor Niklaus Wirth's
1975 book  "Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs", expanded to include
wide-area network distribution, ala Sun Microsystems' marketing slogan,
"The Network Is The Computer".  I'm very disappointed that networking is
often considered a second-class citizen in computing education that's
expected to just be picked up as a skill set the way that systems and
database administration also unfortunately are.  Then, everyone is so
surprised when some script kiddie is able to access hundreds of millions of
credit card numbers with PINs, and other personally-identifying information
because some numb-nuts stored user passwords in plaintext, or admin
passwords were on the list of the ten most common worst passwords used.

> I wish you all the very best in this work, Jim, and I believe that
motivated students will appreciate the value of something clearly amazing
like an AlphaServer.
> As I mentioned above, I've got a genuine interest in education and would
love to hear how it goes.
> Do you mind if I ping you again in 6-12 months?

You won't have to wait that long, as I'll be posting my students' progress,
and they may even wind up posting here with some queries about Ye Olde
Teche that experts on various systems and technologies can potentially
provide help.  Feel free to continue this conversation if you'd like, too.
Sometimes the kids come up with just the greatest questions, because I've
trained them that there are no stupid questions, only impatient, boorish
people who call questions stupid.  That's usually because they're jealous
that they didn't have the guts to ask what it turns out most others were
also wondering, but were afraid to admit.

Thanks very much for the interest and support, and All the Best,
Jim


On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 6:41 PM Andrew Luke Nesbit <
ullbeking at andrewnesbit.org> wrote:

> Dear Jim,
>
> Please see my response inline...
>
> On 25/01/2019 23:04, Jim Manley wrote:
> > Hi Andrew,
>
> Hi Jim,
>
> > If it’s any consolation
>
> I needed no consolation because I already knew that these machines are
> going to a good home.  But your message is great to read.  This sounds like
> an amazing project.
>
> > the users of these components will be high
> > school students in an extremely rural area at the lowest level of
> > poverty in the U.S.  The students are eager to learn  computing and
> > networking principles, and these will provide opportunities for that in
> > spades.
>
> I think that learning foundational principles on real AlphaServers, with a
> good teacher, /actually sets up students in greater stead compared to
> computers based in the x86_84 universe, for example/.  I mean this on many
> levels and across varying dimensions.
>
> Kind of like how I learned computer architecture from Hennessey &
> Patterson using MIPS and a RISC ISA.  The concepts translated easily and
> well.  All you need is genuine interest.
>
> I don't know much about the socioeconomic profile of Montana.  I spent
> much of my in many parts of the US, mostly for personal reasons, and I
> loved the country in general.  Unfortunately I never had a chance to go to
> Montana.
>
> > The performance level of these, compared with current technology, is
> > unimportant, as getting the right answers is more significant than how
> > fast they were computed.
>
> Are you referring writing networked computer programs to solve problems?
>
> I was discussing with my partner earlier this week that knowing about
> computing skills, like how networking _really_ works, is critical future
> knowledge for people who want to stay street smart in the universe of
> electrons whizzing by.  It's going to be seriously important.
>
> > These components were used for data services,
> > so that fulfills the trifecta of computing, data structures, and
> > networking (and at fiber channel speeds, AIUI).
>
> This trifecta of "computing, data structures, and networking" intrgues
> me.  Is it part of some curriculum?  Or is it a grouping of computing
> concepts that you have identified as being meaningful?  In the second sense
> I think I get it if I think hard enough.
>
> > We’ll make some videos eventually as they puzzle their way through
> > getting software licenses acquired and installed, things are configured
> > to work together, and we get proof-of-life command line prompts.
>
> I have a huge and active interest in education.  I would be very
> interested to hear about how you get on with this.
>
> > I hope you are able to acquire your own Alphaservers and whatever other
> > techno-toys you covet in the near future.
>
> I don't like phrases like "techno-toys", regardless of how they are
> intended to come across.  Similarly, words like "gizmos" and "gadgets".
> They rub me the wrong way but it is not a conversation I want to have right
> now.
>
> I'm not looking for AlphaServers to fulfil some sort of fetish.  Rather, I
> have a specific project use case for them, and I would like to include them
> in this project I'm working on.
>
> I wish you all the very best in this work, Jim, and I believe that
> motivated students will appreciate the value of something clearly amazing
> like an AlphaServer.  As I mentioned above, I've got a genuine interest in
> education and would love to hear how it goes.  Do you mind if I ping you
> again in 6-12 months?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Andrew
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 2:58 PM Andrew Luke Nesbit <
> ullbeking at andrewnesbit.org> wrote:
>
>> Dear Richard,
>>
>> Thank you for replying in such a considered way.  Please see below for
>> comments.
>>
>> On 25/01/2019 00:07, Richard Loken via cctalk wrote:
>>
>> > All of you have at one time expressed interest in all or part of this
>> > rack full of Alphaservers and one of you even talked about driving a
>> truck
>> > up from Montana and taking it all home.
>>
>> All I can think of at this moment is how beautiful it must be to go on a
>> road trip in Montana.
>>
>> > Are any of you still interested?
>>
>> I remain tremendously interested in learning about AlphaServers and
>> acuiring another one or two.
>>
>> But I live in London, UK.  I was considering paying for the cheapest
>> slow seamail.  Other people have less crazy ideas.  I doubt that my idea
>> is appealing to Richard either.
>>
>> > First priority goes to anybody willing to come up here and pick up all
>> > or part of the collection.  I will consider shipping if that is what it
>> > comes down to but the packing and transprotation will be expensive for
>> > the DS15 and extremely expensive for the other units.
>>
>> From reading the rest of this thread, it looks as though you've already
>> found your collector/s and arranged a date.
>>
>> I'm very happy that these are going to a good home.  It's fabulous that
>> the flame is carrying on.
>>
>> For future reference, if anybody sees AlphaServers or similarly
>> interesting hardware closer to home (UK or EU), then please do let me
>> know!  Thank you!!
>>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Andrew
>
>
>
>>
> --
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>
>