Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Austin Pass]

> On 15 Jul 2016, at 21:54, Swift Griggs  wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 15 Jul 2016, Austin Pass wrote:
>> I'm toying with putting the "ultimate" classic Mac together, although 
>> I'm having a little difficulty pinning down the definition of what the 
>> ultimate representation of the type is, so was looking for a little 
>> input from Classic CMP'ers.
> 
> I've recently been through that exercise with M68k Macs. I settled on the 
> Quadra 700 and the Quadra/Centris 660AV. However, I think you'll hear a 
> lot of people also recommend the Quadra 950 and Apple Workgroup Server 95. 
> However, I realize you aren't interested and are looking at the PPC 
> systems.
> 
>> I'm aware that there's a clear divide between Motorola and PowerPC CPU'd 
>> variants, so I'm going to plump for a PowerPC based version so that I 
>> can get access to newer hardware and use it as a kind of bridge system 
>> between my current computers and the more historic versions.
> 
> I've contemplated doing a PPC rig, too. For me, I don't care much about 
> hyper-expandibilty. I like the more blingy hardware. So, for me, at the 
> top of the pyramid stand two systems: the G4 Cube and the 20th Anniversary 
> Mac. The Cube is now cheap on fleabay. It's prime time to grab those. If 
> one comes up on cheap Craigslist here in Denver, I'll probably snag it and 
> warehouse it for a while. I am just not motivated enough to pay shipping 
> or Ebay prices, yet.
> 
> IMHO, most of the tower systems were too "plasticy" and the desktop 
> Performa-styled boxes were uglier than homemade sin.
> 
>> I have the original media that shipped with this, so I can get 9.2.1 on 
>> it relatively easily.
> 
> You'll want to Google MacOS PPC. Let's simply say "it's out there" and 
> easy to get. Unless you just want the manuals an screen-printed discs, 
> which I understand, too.
> 
>> Was a gigabit ethernet card ever released with Mac OS 9 drivers?
> 
> O, yeah. Lots of them. Check out lowendmac or the like. They have 
> lists of them.
> 
>> I have a couple of 600GB PATA disks that I can use with it, but has 
>> there ever been a SATA implementation that worked with classic Mac OS?
> 
> Not sure about that, but I can tell you that there are ton of SCSI 
> controllers and you can use an expensive SATA-to-SCSI bridge like the one 
> sold by ACARD. I use several of those on various machines and they rock. 
> 
>> In terms of the software - any top-line utilities or System Extensions I 
>> should look to get my hands on?
> 
> Yes. Get the disk utilities that allow you to use non-Apple disks. The one 
> that comes to mind the fastest is Lacie Silverlining and LIDO. 
> 
>> What's the state of the art in classic Mac OS browsing nowadays, Mr 
>> Kaiser - is Clasilla still maintained?
> 
> He will know better than me, but your best bet IMO, is either iCab or 
> Clasilla, for sure. 
> 
> -Swift

I have a G4 Cube, complete with ADC Apple Cinema Display but it (subjectively) 
feels slower in normal use than the MDD, with a single 400Mhz G4 and PC100 
SDRAM vs dual 1.25Ghz and PC2700 DDR RAM.

I have lots of 68k Macs and love them dearly, but was looking for the biggest, 
best, fastest that could be used with Mac OS 9.

-Austin.

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Austin Pass]

On 16 Jul 2016, at 07:39, Cameron Kaiser  wrote:

>> I'm toying with putting the "ultimate" classic Mac together, although I'm
>> having a little difficulty pinning down the definition of what the ultimate
>> representation of the type is, so was looking for a little input from
>> Classic CMP'ers.
> 
> My "heavy duty" OS 9 rig is an dual 1.25GHz MDD that I upgraded to a dual
> Sonnet 1.8GHz, with 1.5GB RAM and OS 9.2.2. Everything flies on it. I haven't
> had any obvious compatibility problems.
> 
> Al makes a good point though: have a spare power supply. My MDD blew
> through two.
> 
> You didn't ask, but my preferred heavy duty 68K is the Q800. You can
> overclock them easily with chipclips and they are the beefiest 68K Mac
> that will still run A/UX. A/UX at 40MHz is a delight.
> 
>> In terms of hardware I have a lovely mirror-door G4 PowerMac I'm intending
>> to use.  I have the original media that shipped with this, so I can get
>> 9.2.1 on it relatively easily.  Are there any add-in cards (PCI) I should
>> be considering?  It has a built in Airport Card (possibly Airport Extreme?)
>> although my home Wi-Fi is 802.11n or better with WPA2 so I'll just use
>> Ethernet to connect it to my LAN.  Was a gigabit ethernet card ever
>> released with Mac OS 9 drivers?  I have a couple of 600GB PATA disks that I
>> can use with it, but has there ever been a SATA implementation that worked
>> with classic Mac OS?
> 
> I've never seen a GigE card for OS 9. There is of course 100Mbit support.
> I would love to be proven wrong.
> 
> The Sonnet SATA cards work well with OS 9 and are completely bootable. I
> used such a card in a 7300.
> 
>> In terms of the software - any top-line utilities or System Extensions I
>> should look to get my hands on?  What's the state of the art in classic Mac
>> OS browsing nowadays, Mr Kaiser - is Clasilla still maintained?
> 
> Sort of, as I have time. I'd like to do more with it but TenFourFox consumes
> much of my free hacking cycles currently. That should let up relatively soon
> since I've made the executive decision to fork TenFourFox at Firefox 45ESR
> (due to the looming spectre of Rust becoming a build-requirement, and
> known and expected issues with Electrolysis multi-process with the 10.4 SDK).
> Still, the biggest need for Classilla currently is moar crypto and that's
> rather hard to get right.
> 
> -- 
>  personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ 
> --
>  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
> -- Know what I hate most?  Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp 
> -

I think that has me decided then - I'll go with the MDD.

I'll hit eBay too for some PSU replacements.

I'd love one of the Sonnet upgrades but sadly Mac upgrades seem very thin on 
the ground this side of the pond, unless I'm looking in the wrong places.

What graphics card do you use, out of interest?

-Austin.

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[couryhouse]

I am following this closely  as we were recently given A g4 ... not the mirror 
frontA g4  mirror frontA g5 1st model drive missing nice internalsA g5 w 
Intel but not 3. So Cann not update to free latest  os..is there a workaround 
..internal design us not as cool as first g5
We have just what is on disc drive in them.. need to collect up a few things.
Then we already had blue iMac already in boxPlus early little screen mac wife 
used
This mac stuff is all new to me so learning curve...
Ed#  www.smecc.org

Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

 Original message 
From: Cameron Kaiser  
Date: 7/15/16  23:39  (GMT-07:00) 
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org 
Subject: Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac. 

> I'm toying with putting the "ultimate" classic Mac together, although I'm
> having a little difficulty pinning down the definition of what the ultimate
> representation of the type is, so was looking for a little input from
> Classic CMP'ers.

My "heavy duty" OS 9 rig is an dual 1.25GHz MDD that I upgraded to a dual
Sonnet 1.8GHz, with 1.5GB RAM and OS 9.2.2. Everything flies on it. I haven't
had any obvious compatibility problems.

Al makes a good point though: have a spare power supply. My MDD blew
through two.

You didn't ask, but my preferred heavy duty 68K is the Q800. You can
overclock them easily with chipclips and they are the beefiest 68K Mac
that will still run A/UX. A/UX at 40MHz is a delight.

> In terms of hardware I have a lovely mirror-door G4 PowerMac I'm intending
> to use.  I have the original media that shipped with this, so I can get
> 9.2.1 on it relatively easily.  Are there any add-in cards (PCI) I should
> be considering?  It has a built in Airport Card (possibly Airport Extreme?)
> although my home Wi-Fi is 802.11n or better with WPA2 so I'll just use
> Ethernet to connect it to my LAN.  Was a gigabit ethernet card ever
> released with Mac OS 9 drivers?  I have a couple of 600GB PATA disks that I
> can use with it, but has there ever been a SATA implementation that worked
> with classic Mac OS?

I've never seen a GigE card for OS 9. There is of course 100Mbit support.
I would love to be proven wrong.

The Sonnet SATA cards work well with OS 9 and are completely bootable. I
used such a card in a 7300.

> In terms of the software - any top-line utilities or System Extensions I
> should look to get my hands on?  What's the state of the art in classic Mac
> OS browsing nowadays, Mr Kaiser - is Clasilla still maintained?

Sort of, as I have time. I'd like to do more with it but TenFourFox consumes
much of my free hacking cycles currently. That should let up relatively soon
since I've made the executive decision to fork TenFourFox at Firefox 45ESR
(due to the looming spectre of Rust becoming a build-requirement, and
known and expected issues with Electrolysis multi-process with the 10.4 SDK).
Still, the biggest need for Classilla currently is moar crypto and that's
rather hard to get right.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- Know what I hate most?  Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp -

Re: Reproduction micros

[Peter Corlett]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 01:03:31PM -0600, ben wrote:
[...]
> I had hopes on the Amiga until they came out with the 2000*.
> * Lets add a brain dead cpu and run DOS.

The A2088 was an add-in option. Back in the day, only one of my A2000-owning
friends had a bridgecard. I was given a demo, and it was rather clunky. The
main compelling feature of the A2000 was the built-in hard disk.

Commodore UK also released the A1500 which was an A2000 without hard disk but
with an extra floppy drive, i.e. the same spec as a typical A500 gaming rig. It
apparently flew off the shelves, although I'm not sure why given it cost
somewhat more than the A500 equivalent.

Re: DOS code in CP/M? Revisited...

[Peter Corlett]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 08:10:24PM +0200, Liam Proven wrote:
[...]
> http://chrisacorns.computinghistory.org.uk/docs/Mags/PCW/PCW_Aug87_Archimedes.pdf
> I vividly remember reading it as a 19YO student...

> "The hard disk in the A500 is most noticeable for its ferociously rapid
> access speed. It loads huge programs with a faint burping noise, in the time
> it takes to blink an eye. The reason for this speed is that the disk is run
> with no interleaving of sectors. On an IBM XT, for example, the disk rotates
> about six times between each read to give the puny CPU time to digest;
> Archimedes eliminates this dead time as the ARM processor can suck stuff off
> the disk as fast as it can rotate."

Isn't that mostly down to the difference between polled- and DMA-driven I/O?
Not that IBM should be given any slack, given what a complete dog's breakfast
ISA DMA is.

Back in 1987, the Amiga had crap hard disk performance because while the
controllers generally supported DMA, the disks still had to be formatted with
that awful filesystem it inherited from Tripos. (This wasn't fixed until 1988.)

I wonder how the Atari ST fared back then. Probably reasonably well given its
filesystem is a FAT derivative.

Re: Multiflow Trace 14/300 close to being scrapped in Texas

[aswood]

Would be quite interesting. A micro super- multiprocessor system. 

I do have an incomplete system, sold in Germany a GEI Trace. Mine has two 
Fujtsu SMD Drives.

Would take the system, but wrong side of the pond.

Very rare, should be saved.

-- 

> Am 16.07.2016 um 04:55 schrieb Evan Linwood :
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> I noticed that the Multiflow race 14/300 system listed on eBay didn't sell
> recently. I don't have any personal background with these machines but it
> seems they could be both significant and rare? It's been sitting on eBay but
> I wasn't sure if it had slipped between the cracks somehow? I've been in
> contact with the seller and he's said that he's still hoping to sell it, but
> that it has to be cleared soon (and would be scrapped). I don't live in the
> US, so it's not an easy one for me to work with. Is this of interest to
> anyone? Cheers Evan
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/112050410557
> 
> 
> 

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[jonas]

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Sean Conner wrote:
What I've read about VMS makes me think the networking was 
incredible.



To be fair, I think you have to think about what was around when VMS 
was developed, and what DEC was competing with. VMS is an 
enterprise-grade operating system, designed for serious production work. 
At the time VMS was conceived, Unix was a university product, used for 
teaching and research, not for heavy production work. In fact those 
early versions of Unix were completely useless for that kind of 
application - too limited, unstable, and no useful security features. No 
accounting at all, no useful batch functionality, nothing but the most 
basic kind of security and protection functionality etc.


VMS was designed to compete with IBM mainframes and System/32-34-36 and 
the likes.


In the early 80s I used both VMS version 4 and 5 and Unix version 7. 
The Unix system was used for program development, the VMS system for 
program development and running accounting software. The Unix system was 
fine for program development in a lab but far too unstable and insecure 
for running accounting systems in a corporate production environment.

Re: 11/44 Console cable

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Kirk Davis

> Does anyone know off hand if a 11/83 cab kit will work as a 11/44
> console? Both are 20 bin ribbon cable connectors

Say what? The 20-pin connector on the M8190 (KDJ11-B) is configuration
management, etc - the console connector is the 10-pin one (which uses the
standard DEC later serial pinout, documented here:

  http://gunkies.org/wiki/DEC_asynchronous_serial_line_pinout

if anyone needs it). The 11/44 console (and TU58) seem (from a quick glance at
the prints) to use some odd pinout that is sui generis.

Time to break out the soldering iron...

Noel

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Noel Chiappa]

> From: Jonas

> At the time VMS was conceived, Unix was a university product, used for
> teaching and research, not for heavy production work. 

Err, not quite. In the mid-70's, the PWB system at Bell:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX

was being used by a community of about 1K programmers doing development of
software for various Bell commercial projects.

Yes, not accounting systems, but not "teaching and research", either. And it
was definitely production: see the uptime statistics, etc, in the BSTJ
article that describes it.

Noel

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Cameron Kaiser]

> I'll hit eBay too for some PSU replacements.

There are a few modified aftermarket supplies for the MDD which are also
infinitely more reliable. I have an Antec one around here somewhere. The
lower-watt AcBel units seem more reliable.

> What graphics card do you use, out of interest?

I use an ATI Radeon 9000 Pro, but the GeForce 4Ti is probably the ultimate
OS 9 card (it benches a bit quicker). That said, the 9000 is a very good
card. I have it connected to a 1080p display which the ATI handles with
absolutely no problem.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- boom boom boom Nothing outlasts the Energizer. It keeps going and going ...

Re: Multiflow Trace 14/300 close to being scrapped in Texas

[Jon Elson]

On 07/15/2016 09:55 PM, Evan Linwood wrote:

Hi All,

I noticed that the Multiflow race 14/300 system listed on eBay didn't sell
recently. I don't have any personal background with these machines but it
seems they could be both significant and rare?
They are VERY rare, and significant, as there were very few physical 
VLIW machines ever built.  My guess is Trace built maybe 50 machines?


Jon

Re: Building the Ultimate Classic Mac.

[Al Kossow]

On 7/15/16 11:39 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:

> You didn't ask, but my preferred heavy duty 68K is the Q800.

Yup, I'd take it over the baroque 840AV any day.

Re: Reproduction micros

[Adam Sampson]

Peter Corlett  writes:

> Commodore UK also released the A1500 which was an A2000 without hard
> disk but with an extra floppy drive, i.e. the same spec as a typical
> A500 gaming rig. It apparently flew off the shelves, although I'm not
> sure why given it cost somewhat more than the A500 equivalent.

Looking at the prices in Amiga Shopper issue 1 (May 1991), the A1500 was
a reasonable deal *if* you wanted a machine with expansion
slots. Evesham Micros were selling the A1500 bundle with a 1084 monitor
for £949, when the A500 "Screen Gems" bundle with 1MB and an extra drive
-- but no monitor -- was £419. Add the £239 for a Philips monitor and
£199 for a Checkmate A1500 expansion box (or £350 for a Bodega Bay), and
you were in nearly the same ballpark with a much less tidy system.

It was definitely worth a look if what you really wanted was an A2000
with a hard disk, since you could buy a non-Commodore hard disk
controller, many of which were faster and/or cheaper than the A2090.

That said, though, the A1500 definitely wasn't flying off the shelves
anything like as fast as the A500. I saw lots of A500s in the early 90s
in Kent, but only one A1500 (with an accelerator, KCS PC emulator, and
various other expansions, which eventually meant it remained in use long
after the rest of us had upgraded to A1200s).

Cheers,

-- 
Adam Sampson  

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Jerry Weiss]

On Jul 16, 2016, at 7:55 AM, Noel Chiappa  wrote:
> 
>> From: Jonas
> 
>> At the time VMS was conceived, Unix was a university product, used for
>> teaching and research, not for heavy production work. 
> 
> Err, not quite. In the mid-70's, the PWB system at Bell:
> 
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX
> 
> was being used by a community of about 1K programmers doing development of
> software for various Bell commercial projects.
> 
> Yes, not accounting systems, but not "teaching and research", either. And it
> was definitely production: see the uptime statistics, etc, in the BSTJ
> article that describes it.

I was involved in a department that had university research on one side and 
business
on the other as well in the late 70’s and 80’s.   The basic science analysis
ran on PDP-11 with UNIX variants mostly Ultrix-11, Venix and some V7.
Data acquisition was RT-11/TSX+ on LSI-11’s with custom hardware,
handlers and interfaces.  The business was PDP-11’s + RSX-11, then
VAXen and VMS.   Both sides did programing on Fortran and C.

Separate from the license issues in that era, we generally would have
not considered using the UNIX for the business side.  While we had
or could get  the technical skills to do coding for applications, the
overall support depth/response from the vendors and its operational design
was not sufficient for a small operation.  If the application, media or
OS crashed, we needed to recover quickly and not risk permanent
loss of more than a few minutes of transactions.

I recall more than a few crashes on the Unix side where the file system
and data recovery was not straightforward.  Even on then small disk
drives that used 60-250 Mbytes, fsck’ing could take over an hour.
The academics could afford to put a grad student on sorting though
the data loss and trying to recover missing data from multiple tapes.

Software development was slower under VMS, but the overall experience was 
robust.

We generally chose the tool that got the job done without too many
culture wars.  Before I let we had much of the research on NeXTSTEP
or OpenStep.  Steve definitely delivered a tool the academics could exploit
and we did so at every layer of that product.

Jerry

Re: Reproduction micros

[Christian Corti]

On Sat, 16 Jul 2016, Peter Corlett wrote:

main compelling feature of the A2000 was the built-in hard disk.


The A2000 did *not* have a built-in hard disk, that was the A3000. The 
A2000 was just an "updated" A1000 in a large desktop case with Zorro 
slots... completely braindead.


Christian

Re: PLATO and learning models (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Paul Koning]

> On Jul 15, 2016, at 9:08 PM, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
> 
> On 07/15/2016 05:47 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
> 
>> Graphics terminals were quite rare in the early 1970s, at least at a
>> cost allowing them to be installed in the hundreds, and with
>> processing requirements low enough for that.  I remember, around the
>> same time, the Tektronix 4010.  But that was far less flexible; it
>> could only draw, not erase, unlike the PLATO terminals.
> 
> Surely you remember CDC IGS from the 70s.  I loved watching the displays
> being drawn on those big radar CRT displays--one color while drawing and
> persisting in another.
> 
> They were "terminals" of a sort, no?

IGS?  Two colors?  Don't recognize that.  There's the 6000 console (DD60), very 
expensive, requiring a dedicated processor to feed it, and limited to uppercase 
text only plus very small amounts of graphics (a dot at a time, 3 microseconds 
per dot).

paul

Re: Reproduction micros

[TeoZ]

A2000HD had the built in hard drive.

-Original Message- 
From: Christian Corti 
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2016 1:16 PM 
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts 
Subject: Re: Reproduction micros 


On Sat, 16 Jul 2016, Peter Corlett wrote:

main compelling feature of the A2000 was the built-in hard disk.


The A2000 did *not* have a built-in hard disk, that was the A3000. The 
A2000 was just an "updated" A1000 in a large desktop case with Zorro 
slots... completely braindead.


Christian

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: PLATO and learning models (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 07/16/2016 10:34 AM, Paul Koning wrote:

> IGS?  Two colors?  Don't recognize that.  There's the 6000 console
> (DD60), very expensive, requiring a dedicated processor to feed it,
> and limited to uppercase text only plus very small amounts of
> graphics (a dot at a time, 3 microseconds per dot).

IGS (Interactive Graphics System) was the generic term for the
Digigraphic 200-series stuff.  The consoles came in various flavors, but
the best ones were the big, flat-surface jobs.

The display processor with these things was pretty large; someone once
told me that it resembled a 1700 more than anything.

A lot of fun to fool with.

--Chuck

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Grif]

Whats this "BackInTheDay" stuff ? ;-)  granted we upgraded to openvms at y2k, 
but the system  is still in production.   Ive been involved in this app since 
93, and it was mature then.  Just will not die :-(

 Original message 
From: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu 
Date: 07/16/2016  05:55  (GMT-08:00) 
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org 
Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu 
Subject: Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes) 

    > From: Jonas

    > At the time VMS was conceived, Unix was a university product, used for
    > teaching and research, not for heavy production work. 

Err, not quite. In the mid-70's, the PWB system at Bell:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWB/UNIX

was being used by a community of about 1K programmers doing development of
software for various Bell commercial projects.

Yes, not accounting systems, but not "teaching and research", either. And it
was definitely production: see the uptime statistics, etc, in the BSTJ
article that describes it.

Noel

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[steven]

jonas said:
> VMS is an
> enterprise-grade operating system, designed for serious production work.
> At the time VMS was conceived, Unix was a university product, used for
> teaching and research, not for heavy production work.

In the mid 80s our Uni teaching 11/780 running VMS would groan and creak
under the strain of 50 students logged on. I was told that over at Sydney
Uni, their 11/780s were running a very modded and tweaked Unix and could
have a hundred or more students logged in on the one machine. Whether it
was crashy or not, they got more bang-for-buck out of their VAXen.

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Antonio Carlini]

On 15/07/16 14:49, Swift Griggs wrote:
All I'm saying is that the presence of multiple IP stacks looks to me 
to be unwieldy, organic, and incremental. 


VMS came with DECnet built-in (although you had to license it). If you 
wanted TCP/IP there was UCX, which you had to install separately.
The other TCP/IP stacks came from 3rd party vendors. That's why there 
were multiple implementations of TCP/IP for VMS.


DECnet might be totally integrated and awesome, but it's also 
proprietary, 


The specs were (and are) freely available. (I'm not 100% sure that they 
were free-as-in-beer back then, but they are now).
There was at least one implementation for Linux and (I think ...) 
another for Solaris. cisco also supported DECnet in some of

their switches.

seldom used, 


Seldom used *now*. All the VMS systems I used commercially back then 
made use of DECnet.


and seems to mean different things to different people since it was 
developed in "phases" which bear only loose resemblance to each other 
in form & function. -Swift 


IPv4 and IPv6 are also only loosely related. At least the DECnet phases 
were sequentially numbered :-)


(I'm assuming that Phase II existed at some point before Phase III, 
which definitely did exist. I also

assume that Phase I only acquired that designation once Phase II appeared!)

Antonio


--
Antonio Carlini
arcarl...@iee.org

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 07/16/2016 03:21 PM, ste...@malikoff.com wrote:

> In the mid 80s our Uni teaching 11/780 running VMS would groan and
> creak under the strain of 50 students logged on. I was told that over
> at Sydney Uni, their 11/780s were running a very modded and tweaked
> Unix and could have a hundred or more students logged in on the one
> machine. Whether it was crashy or not, they got more bang-for-buck
> out of their VAXen.

I recall that BSD was a great match for our 11/750.   Never did succeed
at getting HASP+bisync going on it though.

--Chuck

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Steven M Jones]

On 07/16/2016 15:21, ste...@malikoff.com wrote:
> 
> In the mid 80s our Uni teaching 11/780 running VMS would groan and creak
> under the strain of 50 students logged on. I was told that over at Sydney
> Uni, their 11/780s were running a very modded and tweaked Unix and could
> have a hundred or more students logged in on the one machine. Whether it
> was crashy or not, they got more bang-for-buck out of their VAXen.

That's a tough example to generalize without knowing more about the
workloads involved. I've certainly heard many anecdotes where a given
model running VMS supported many more users than the same hardware
running Ultrix/4BSD, *and* vice versa.

But these examples can easily turn out to be skewed - having a ton of
users running ALL-IN-1, MAIL, or NOTES-11 doesn't compare well to users
compiling code, running SAS or SPSS, or doing database work. Substitute
rn/trn, Mail, cc/f77, ingres, etc as needed. ;)

--S.

Re: Multiflow Trace 14/300 close to being scrapped in Texas

[James Vess]

Does anyone have the capacity to power the unit on in Texas? I
could purchase and move, but without any ability to power it on it would
just sit persistently in storage and I'm not interested in getting another
minicomputer that will just sit.

Let me know?

On Saturday, July 16, 2016, Jon Elson  wrote:

>
> On 07/15/2016 09:55 PM, Evan Linwood wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I noticed that the Multiflow race 14/300 system listed on eBay didn't sell
>> recently. I don't have any personal background with these machines but it
>> seems they could be both significant and rare?
>>
> They are VERY rare, and significant, as there were very few physical VLIW
> machines ever built.  My guess is Trace built maybe 50 machines?
>
> Jon
>
>

eBay MVII BA123 $99 - Buy It Now - Richboro, Pennsylvania

[Glen Slick]

Don't see too many complete looking BA123 boxes show up on eBay and
this one seems relatively cheap if you happen to be able to pick it up
locally in Richboro, Pennsylvania. Plus a few boxes of VMS
documentation too.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/232013130536
(No personal connection to, or information about, this seller)

I would grab this one myself if it was within easy driving distance.
Someone should grab it.

Re: VMS stability back in the day (was Re: NuTek Mac comes)

[Richard Loken]

On Sun, 17 Jul 2016, ste...@malikoff.com wrote:


In the mid 80s our Uni teaching 11/780 running VMS would groan and creak
under the strain of 50 students logged on. I was told that over at Sydney
Uni, their 11/780s were running a very modded and tweaked Unix and could
have a hundred or more students logged in on the one machine. Whether it
was crashy or not, they got more bang-for-buck out of their VAXen.


You certainly got more bang when your disk crashed.  I ran a VAX cluster 
with 15 years with shadowed DSSI drives and never had a disk corruption, I 
replaced members of shadow sets when they died but again I never had any 
issues of corruption and data loss.  Meanwhile I also lived with an array 
of Ultrix boxes and SunOS boxes where I had to clean up disk corruptions 
or do restores from tape onto new disks - usually in the middle of the 
night.  Your work is always done faster if you skip steps.


"System unstable, save often."

--
  Richard Loken VE6BSV, Systems Programmer - VMS   : "...underneath those
  Athabasca University : tuques we wear, our
  Athabasca, Alberta Canada: heads are naked!"
  ** rllo...@telus.net ** :- Arthur Black

Re: eBay MVII BA123 $99 - Buy It Now - Richboro, Pennsylvania

[Ian S. King]

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 7:24 PM, Glen Slick  wrote:

> Don't see too many complete looking BA123 boxes show up on eBay and
> this one seems relatively cheap if you happen to be able to pick it up
> locally in Richboro, Pennsylvania. Plus a few boxes of VMS
> documentation too.
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/232013130536
> (No personal connection to, or information about, this seller)
>
> I would grab this one myself if it was within easy driving distance.
> Someone should grab it.
>

A nice find for someone looking to 'get into' vintage computing.  The disk
should be easy to replace if necessary and documentation is plentiful.

-- 
Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate
The Information School 
Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical
Narrative Through a Design Lens

Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal 
Value Sensitive Design Research Lab 

University of Washington

There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

Re: Multiflow Trace 14/300 close to being scrapped in Texas

[Mark Linimon]

On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 08:31:59PM -0500, James Vess wrote:
> Does anyone have the capacity to power the unit on in Texas?

Yeah but ... I wouldn't.  The power supplies look too rough for me
to trust the smoke-test.

I can store it but I will lie if I say I can devote any time to it.

mcl

RE: eBay MVII BA123 $99 - Buy It Now - Richboro, Pennsylvania

[Rob Jarratt]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ian S. King
> Sent: 17 July 2016 05:27
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> 
> Subject: Re: eBay MVII BA123 $99 - Buy It Now - Richboro, Pennsylvania
> 
> On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 7:24 PM, Glen Slick  wrote:
> 
> > Don't see too many complete looking BA123 boxes show up on eBay and
> > this one seems relatively cheap if you happen to be able to pick it up
> > locally in Richboro, Pennsylvania. Plus a few boxes of VMS
> > documentation too.
> >
> > http://www.ebay.com/itm/232013130536
> > (No personal connection to, or information about, this seller)
> >
> > I would grab this one myself if it was within easy driving distance.
> > Someone should grab it.
> >
> 
> A nice find for someone looking to 'get into' vintage computing.  The disk
> should be easy to replace if necessary and documentation is plentiful.
> 


Indeed, very nicely looked after, it even has the little door at the bottom 
left of the front panel still intact, mine doesn't have that.

Regards

Rob