On 2013-02-12 01:26, Gregg Levine wrote:
Hello!
What happened to Mentec and the PDP-11 support after DEC made the
silly decision to spin the division off? And yes you should. The
PDP-10 was an interesting system and one lived for a long time in the
basement of an MIT building during the middle 90s.
Mentec continued on for about 10 years, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke. However, during those 10 years (take or give a few), first DEC, then Compaq then HP continued to support and sell PDP-11 software, even though Mentec was the guys owning and developing.
When Mentec Inc. did disappear, the software bits were bought out by another company. And that is where it sits today. If we could get HP to actually release the IP for this software, then maybe something hobbyist-like could happen, but as it sits right now, HP control bits and pieces, making it a very complex situation. I'm not sure if you can still contact HP and get a new license for RSX, but it might be. But getting anyone to legally release the stuff seems difficult. :-(
The PDP-10 wasn't just an "interesting system". It was the foundation of parts of the Internet, and was very prolific in the 70s, into the 80s. However, DEC totally failed to come up with a replacement to the KL-10, and eventually they instead decided that it was VAX only (even to the unhappy PDP-11 people, as Paul referred to).
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On 02/11/2013 07:26 PM, Gregg Levine wrote:
The PDP-10 was an interesting system and one lived for a long time in
the basement of an MIT building during the middle 90s.
I could also say that everything that's going on is Dave's fault,
but that would be too easy. I'm blaming it on Sampsa ignoring the
tribble near him.
That is most certainly NOT my fault; in fact there are two PDP-10s
here that will be up and running (and on HECnet!) if someone can hook me
up with some MASSBUS drives.
What kind of PDP10?
-P
On 11 Feb 2013, at 19:34, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 02/11/2013 07:29 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Now i've been reminded of that episode of Space Mall errr Deep Space
9 where they green screened the characters in to that TOS episode...
They did a tremendously good job on that.
Yes. Yes they did.
Does anyone happen to have a Tru64 license kit? I could use it for
my ES40. ;)
The last time this came up, I was told on very good authority that
Tru64 uses the same sort of license PAKs (for which I have a generator)
that VMS uses.
I'd need OSF-BASE and UNIX-SERVER I think. Try and generate them and i'll see if they work.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 02/11/2013 07:29 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
Now i've been reminded of that episode of Space Mall errr Deep Space
9 where they green screened the characters in to that TOS episode...
They did a tremendously good job on that.
Does anyone happen to have a Tru64 license kit? I could use it for
my ES40. ;)
The last time this came up, I was told on very good authority that
Tru64 uses the same sort of license PAKs (for which I have a generator)
that VMS uses.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 02/11/2013 07:26 PM, Gregg Levine wrote:
The PDP-10 was an interesting system and one lived for a long time in
the basement of an MIT building during the middle 90s.
I could also say that everything that's going on is Dave's fault,
but that would be too easy. I'm blaming it on Sampsa ignoring the
tribble near him.
That is most certainly NOT my fault; in fact there are two PDP-10s
here that will be up and running (and on HECnet!) if someone can hook me
up with some MASSBUS drives.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
On 11 Feb 2013, at 19:26, Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2013-02-11 22:43, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
On Feb 11, 2013, at 4:38 PM, Mark Benson wrote:
On 11 Feb 2013, at 21:02, Dave McGuire wrote:
You know DEC, they loved supporting legacy products almost into
oblivion.
Yes, for GOOD products
As much as I'd like to agree, it didn't necessarily work that way round.
It was more a case of 'is someone important still using this? Then we best
not ditch them or it'll look awfully bad... and they'll go and buy an
IBM/DataGeneral/etc.' :)
Not even that. For example, shortly after the 11/780 was announced, there
was a definite (and, as I recall, explicitly stated) push to drop all PDP-11
support ASAP.
For that matter, when IAS was announced, RSTS customers were told that IAS
was the future and they should move there right away. Not long after that,
IAS was recognized for the boat anchor it was, and it remained an obscure
niche product.
So DEC definitely had a history of angering customers by attempting to
drop support for products that were very much alive and in some cases
superior to the alleged replacement.
Of course, they sometimes did get it right, as in the example of TRAX...
:-)
Is this the time I should mention the PDP-10? Talk about making customers
angry... :-)
Speaking of IAS, it really looks cool when reading specs, but I've never
touched it, and another aspect of those specs is that it looks like it would
be rather slow...
Never seen TRAX in real life either, btw. What was so good about it?
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Hello!
What happened to Mentec and the PDP-11 support after DEC made the
silly decision to spin the division off? And yes you should. The
PDP-10 was an interesting system and one lived for a long time in the
basement of an MIT building during the middle 90s.
You've just reminded me that I want a TOAD-1. ;)
I could also say that everything that's going on is Dave's fault, but
that would be too easy. I'm blaming it on Sampsa ignoring the tribble
near him.
Now i've been reminded of that episode of Space Mall errr Deep Space 9 where they green screened the characters in to that TOS episode...
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
Does anyone happen to have a Tru64 license kit? I could use it for my ES40. ;)
On Mon, Feb 11, 2013 at 7:21 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
On 2013-02-11 22:43, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
On Feb 11, 2013, at 4:38 PM, Mark Benson wrote:
On 11 Feb 2013, at 21:02, Dave McGuire wrote:
You know DEC, they loved supporting legacy products almost into
oblivion.
Yes, for GOOD products
As much as I'd like to agree, it didn't necessarily work that way round.
It was more a case of 'is someone important still using this? Then we best
not ditch them or it'll look awfully bad... and they'll go and buy an
IBM/DataGeneral/etc.' :)
Not even that. For example, shortly after the 11/780 was announced, there
was a definite (and, as I recall, explicitly stated) push to drop all PDP-11
support ASAP.
For that matter, when IAS was announced, RSTS customers were told that IAS
was the future and they should move there right away. Not long after that,
IAS was recognized for the boat anchor it was, and it remained an obscure
niche product.
So DEC definitely had a history of angering customers by attempting to
drop support for products that were very much alive and in some cases
superior to the alleged replacement.
Of course, they sometimes did get it right, as in the example of TRAX...
:-)
Is this the time I should mention the PDP-10? Talk about making customers
angry... :-)
Speaking of IAS, it really looks cool when reading specs, but I've never
touched it, and another aspect of those specs is that it looks like it would
be rather slow...
Never seen TRAX in real life either, btw. What was so good about it?
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
Hello!
What happened to Mentec and the PDP-11 support after DEC made the
silly decision to spin the division off? And yes you should. The
PDP-10 was an interesting system and one lived for a long time in the
basement of an MIT building during the middle 90s.
I could also say that everything that's going on is Dave's fault, but
that would be too easy. I'm blaming it on Sampsa ignoring the tribble
near him.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
On 2013-02-11 23:33, Mark Benson wrote:
On 11 Feb 2013, at 21:41, Dave McGuire wrote:
That I won't argue with. That reminds me, I need to get my PDP-11
emulation back up and running. I'm actually missing using RSX-11 M+
(there's something wrong with me, I swear. It's Johnny's fault! :P
).
EVERYTHING is Johnny's fault. ;) Bring up that PDP-11! (even if it's
not real iron!)
Eh, Ma ana. It takes me over an hour to do a fresh SYSGEN and NETGEN and I haven't done it in ages so I'll be out of practice.
On an emulator? I takes me a little over an hour to do a SYSGEN on a real 11/93.
I do want to get it running again though and delve a little deeper into RSX-11 :)
If you ever do, feel free to ask questions. I think I'm getting close to figuring out all the weird stuff of the internals at this point...
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On 2013-02-11 22:44, Ian McLaughlin wrote:
On 2013-02-11, at 1:41 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
EVERYTHING is Johnny's fault. ;) Bring up that PDP-11! (even if it's
not real iron!)
*That* explains the shipping delay on my newly acquired ES40. It was meant to be here on Friday, but looks like it's now going to be tomorrow.
Too modern for me. :-)
You can blame me for one still running VAX-8650, but anything newer than that, and I think I'm innocent.
PDP-11s on the other hand... If anyone have a 11 with a VSV21 and running RSX, I wrote a little cute hack a couple of weeks ago to have a nice large clock on the display.
(Maybe I should make a short film of that...)
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
On 2013-02-11 22:43, Paul_Koning at Dell.com wrote:
On Feb 11, 2013, at 4:38 PM, Mark Benson wrote:
On 11 Feb 2013, at 21:02, Dave McGuire wrote:
You know DEC, they loved supporting legacy products almost into oblivion.
Yes, for GOOD products
As much as I'd like to agree, it didn't necessarily work that way round. It was more a case of 'is someone important still using this? Then we best not ditch them or it'll look awfully bad... and they'll go and buy an IBM/DataGeneral/etc.' :)
Not even that. For example, shortly after the 11/780 was announced, there was a definite (and, as I recall, explicitly stated) push to drop all PDP-11 support ASAP.
For that matter, when IAS was announced, RSTS customers were told that IAS was the future and they should move there right away. Not long after that, IAS was recognized for the boat anchor it was, and it remained an obscure niche product.
So DEC definitely had a history of angering customers by attempting to drop support for products that were very much alive and in some cases superior to the alleged replacement.
Of course, they sometimes did get it right, as in the example of TRAX... :-)
Is this the time I should mention the PDP-10? Talk about making customers angry... :-)
Speaking of IAS, it really looks cool when reading specs, but I've never touched it, and another aspect of those specs is that it looks like it would be rather slow...
Never seen TRAX in real life either, btw. What was so good about it?
Johnny
--
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
