Hello!
I'm been playing with Tru64 and I managed to get DECnet
installed...some common library files referred to DECNET-OSI-END and
DECNET-OSI-EXT, are these the correct licenses, or need I load others?
NCL continues to complain despite having those licenses loaded.
Any help appreciated...
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 15:48
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Cc: lee.gleason at comcast.net
Subject: Re: [HECnet] NT 4 on AlphaServer es40
On 2013-02-12 17:18, lee.gleason at comcast.net wrote:
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...
I managed an IAS system on an 11/70 back in the day. I
don't have
any formal benchmarks, but it didn't "feel" any slower than
equivalent
RSX11M and M+ systems I have been on.
Cool. The reason I mentioned it because of just such things
as you mention below - device drivers being full blown tasks
do imply quite a lot more overhead.
IAS was a real treat. If you wanted them, you could
SYSGEN in real
timesharing features for supporting users who didn't
require realtime
response to their needs. It included lots of concepts that
later made
their way into VMS, (although, considering this crowd, I
don't know if
that will be considered a plus here...).
Well, I for one don't mind VMS, even if I think RSX is way
cooler most of the time.
The most interesting feature for me was the way device drivers
worked. Called "handlers", they were complete tasks, instead of the
APR and a couple registers' worth of context provided by
RSX11M/M+ drivers.
You could do a lot more work in them, a lot easier than on
the other
RSX variants. The down side is that any driver action involved
scheduling a task rather than the lightweight context
switch required by a driver.
But, having said that, the system I managed supported lots
and lots of
terminals at 9600 baud, and wasn't bogged down by servicing
interrupts, so scheduling a task to do IO didn't turn out as bad as
you'd think it would.
Yeah. After having done a lot of device drivers and stuff in
-11M+, I sometimes long for the freedom of a task context.
That's when you go diving into ACPs, but it would be nicer if
the driver was a task in itself.
I managed RSTS sytstems as well and I vastly preferred
the richer
environment provide by IAS. I recall being at the DECUS Symposium
where the future of IAS was announced (that is, no
future...). There
was much lamentation, gnashing of teeth and rending of
garments over that.
Support did actually continue for quite a few years after
that though
- turns out that the US Air Force was a big IAS user, and
DEC didn't
want to upset the government.
BTW, I'm always looking for IAS related "stuff" - copies of the
DeVIAS newsletter, IAS software (espcially DECnet-IAS) and the like.
I believe IAS never went to Mentec, but actually stayed with
DEC, for the very same reason (although I also heard that
supposedly it was IRS, but urban legends are probably abundant).
IAS-11 never went to Mentec. Too many government accounts (both US and
others).
-Steve
Never seen TRAX in real life either, btw. What was so
good about it?
Me neither, though I did use some of the VT61 and VT62 terminals
that were developed for it - like VT-52s, but with IBM style block
mode. Not a lot of software outside of TRAX used their block mode
features, so they were pretty rare.
The VT61... The VT62 was a different beast, and I had one for
many years... It's basically a VT52 with inverse video attribute.
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
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Paul_Koning at Dell.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 12:45
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] NT 4 on AlphaServer es40
On Feb 12, 2013, at 12:38 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 11:47 AM,
<Paul_Koning at dell.com<mailto:Paul_Koning at dell.com>> wrote:
Nothing. It was one of the most spectacular failures in DEC
history. A whole new OS (well, based on RSX I believe) and
new hardware designed specifically for it (VT62), canceled a
week after it was first announced.
Interesting, I always though the 11/60 held that honor.
Hm... All I know about the 11/60 is that there were a few of
them around the building I worked. One of them was used by
WPS-8 development (running RSTS) -- because the 11/60 was the
fastest PDP-8 ever built thanks to custom microcode that
implemented PDP-8 emulation.
paul
The PDP-11 FORTRAN development group used the 11/60 to run RSTS on.
-Steve
On 2013-02-13 00:51, Clem Cole wrote:
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se
<mailto:bqt at softjar.se>> wrote:
Nope. The 11/60 wasn't a big flop. It wasn't a success, admittedly,
but it did sell in some numbers. (I at one time, had four 11/60
machines to play with in a computer club, and I still have a
complete CPU board set for an 11/60 - no WCS though.)
The limited success of the 11/60 was due to the totally
incomprehensible decision to go for 11/34 feature parity at a time
when the 11/70 had already set the future standard.
But apart from that stupidity, it was a rather nice machine, in a
very nice package.
I still occasionally still see product manager for it, socially. He
was the one that told me that it was the fastest from release to EOL.
I once asked him about why the 40/34 not the 45/55/70 [i.e. at least add
the 17th bit - I/D] space, and he told me that the 60 was marketed to be
a small business machine -i.e. going up against the Burroughs B1700 and
IBMs System 34 and 38. WCS was so they could have special uCode for
different languages such as RSTS Cobol something both IBM and Burroughs
were making a big deal about (the B1700 switched it ucode on the fly -
actually very cool machine). Anyway, he once told me that marketing was
afraid that people that we buying 11/70s would go for the 60 if it I/D
space (what they would later do with the 11/44).
Well, the 11/70 easily outlived the 11/44, in that 11/70 machines were still sold after the 11/44 was terminated, as far as I know.
Speed was probably the biggest reason for that. Although the RH70 probably played a small part as well.
I even seem to remember that at one point DEC believed they had to stop the 11/70 because of emission regulations. But the 11/70 came back in the corporate cabinet for that.
As for speed from release to EOL, can anything beat the 11/74? It came as far as field test before withdrawn, although a few machines survived for many, many years inside DEC. In essence, the machine existed, but was EOLed before hitting market.
By the way, Paul claimed TRAX was the fastest from release to EOL. But as far as I know, TRAX never had a dedicated machine, so it's a little like comparing apples to oranges. TRAX was software. Intended to run on the 11/70 as far as I know. But with special terminals (the VT61). Those terminals gotta have been EOLed pretty fast after launch, though.
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
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
[mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] On Behalf Of Johnny Billquist
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2013 19:21
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Cc: Paul_Koning at Dell.com
Subject: Re: [HECnet] NT 4 on AlphaServer es40
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...
I used to support IAS-11. It ran just fine. Most installations were on
PDP-11/70's with full memory. BTW - the NSA and the EPA really liked
it! They were the two largest customers in the US. I was the primary
support person for both agencies. Other groups outside the US were
mostly government based.
-Steve
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
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at softjar.se> wrote:
Nope. The 11/60 wasn't a big flop. It wasn't a success, admittedly, but it did sell in some numbers. (I at one time, had four 11/60 machines to play with in a computer club, and I still have a complete CPU board set for an 11/60 - no WCS though.)
The limited success of the 11/60 was due to the totally incomprehensible decision to go for 11/34 feature parity at a time when the 11/70 had already set the future standard.
But apart from that stupidity, it was a rather nice machine, in a very nice package.
I still occasionally still see product manager for it, socially. He was the one that told me that it was the fastest from release to EOL. I once asked him about why the 40/34 not the 45/55/70 [i.e. at least add the 17th bit - I/D] space, and he told me that the 60 was marketed to be a small business machine -i.e. going up against the Burroughs B1700 and IBMs System 34 and 38. WCS was so they could have special uCode for different languages such as RSTS Cobol something both IBM and Burroughs were making a big deal about (the B1700 switched it ucode on the fly - actually very cool machine). Anyway, he once told me that marketing was afraid that people that we buying 11/70s would go for the 60 if it I/D space (what they would later do with the 11/44).
Clem
Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> writes:
On 02/12/2013 12:36 AM, Cory Smelosky wrote: >>>> "They're using
sophisticated technology to degrade service, which >>>> probably costs
them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use >>>> that money
to improve service" >>> >>> So why is anyone (Dave) buying their
service? >> > > Eeeek. Sprint! The horror...
Yeah, it was pretty bad. High pricing, no inverse DNS (they said it
was "a business decision"...FUCKING SUITS!), not-so-great speed, etc.
But there are no alternatives in SW FL.
Florida used to be GTE. You probably fell victim to the poor infrastructure
that Sprint acquired when consuming what was GTE.
Annoyingly enough, if I had been in Sarasota County, I could've
gotten FIOS. I lived in Charlotte County...ON THE VERY STREET that
separates the two counties! If only I could've just run a damn wire
across the street.
FiOS is available in few areas here. Verizon have no intention of expanding
beyond what is now in place because the cable companies are eating Verizon's
lunch. And, VERIZON sucks! I had T1 from Verizon for years. Awful support
and, when it went out, I was without service for days. Once, after Ernesto,
I was out for 40 days!!! Cable company fiber finally came to my rescue.
FYI, I provided Verizon software support for a time. Contract terminated in
the summer of last year. Not bad money but dealing with people dumber than
a box of rocks -- no disparagement meant to any boxed rocks in the audience
-- was not worth 10 times what I charged to them. Live and learn.
--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG
Well I speak to machines with the voice of humanity.
On 02/12/2013 12:36 AM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
"They're using sophisticated technology to degrade service, which
probably costs them a lot of money. It would be better to see them use
that money to improve service"
So why is anyone (Dave) buying their service?
I'm buying their service because it's the best service I can get here. (and it's significantly better than the best I could get in either Florida or DC, at least when I lived there) And it's cheaper by about 30% than what I had in Florida, though that was not a consideration, as my connectivity is my livelihood. As a bonus, for that 30% discount, I have more than twice the bandwidth and far, far better reliability. (I was on Sprint business class in Florida)
Eeeek. Sprint! The horror...
Yeah, it was pretty bad. High pricing, no inverse DNS (they said it was "a business decision"...FUCKING SUITS!), not-so-great speed, etc. But there are no alternatives in SW FL.
Annoyingly enough, if I had been in Sarasota County, I could've gotten FIOS. I lived in Charlotte County...ON THE VERY STREET that separates the two counties! If only I could've just run a damn wire across the street.
I would've considered having it installed at a neighbor's house and doing a point-to-point wireless link, but housing was very sparse in that neighborhood (one of my favorite things about it!) and there was nobody across the street within a reasonable distance.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
And yes, the floppy is 1.44 and is a citizen w1d, now the question
would be if a w1d of a powerbook is a compatible drive with the w1da
of the multia, since the powerbook came at least with w1da and w1de if
not more models
I'm guessing that if it sais on the label just w1d should be an 'a' ?
help from anybody who may know is appreciated, I have the feeling that
the original is toasted, FLOPPY produces an output like "can not
access dva0.0.0.0.1"
On 2/12/13, Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com> wrote:
found it, thanks
www.brouhaha.com/~eric/computers/udb-man.pdf
On 2/12/13, hvlems at zonnet.nl <hvlems at zonnet.nl> wrote:
Right,I don't Kari :-)
-----Original Message-----
From: Kari Uusim ki <uusimaki at exdecfinland.org>
Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:44:26
To: <hecnet at Update.UU.SE>
Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
I guess you guys don't have the Multia Service Guide, right?
Kari
On 12.2.2013 20:11, H Vlems wrote:
Dan, for my Multia I use a 543 MB Toshiba disk.
On its label it says:
disk drive MK1924FBV
HDD2524 L ZE91
Hans
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE [mailto:owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE] Namens
Dan
B
Verzonden: dinsdag, februari 2013 9:50
Aan: hecnet at update.uu.se
Onderwerp: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
great, good to know info
On 2/12/13, hvlems at zonnet.nl <hvlems at zonnet.nl> wrote:
Dan, when I'm back home I'll mail you the Toshiba part number(s).
Hans
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com>
Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:13:52
To: <hecnet at update.uu.se>
Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
no, the server one is the same of the miata and the noname, (and
probably the rs6000 ibm as well)
the multia ises a funny ribbon cable like the laptops and the macs,
hopefully a laptop drive may work ?
the toshiba are ide or scsi ? i found out those multia can use both
(bummer,) but i doubt the ide may work for vms, on the miata (that
"came from the factory" with an ide cd,) i had to use an external scsi
for vms, would not see the original one, but would work just fine with
true64 and win2000, ... maybe because it was born as an "au" for unix,
mistery ;-)
On 2/12/13, hvlems at zonnet.nl <hvlems at zonnet.nl> wrote:
What kind of floppy drive does the Multia have? Is it similar to what
is
used in, say, an AlphaServer 1200?
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com>
Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:51:11
To: <hecnet at update.uu.se>
Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
I think I'll just take that drive out, whatever it is, it may help
cooling. I'm more worried about a replacement floppy to be honest, I
like to have spare parts for everything, since finding them may be a
nightmare at times.
On 2/11/13, Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com> wrote:
@hvlems at zonnet.nl - Did you write IDE disk for a Multia?
ISTR it used a 2.5" scsi drive.
I thought it was, LOL, is a half size 2", guess I guessed wrong, the
flat cable gave me the impression. I never did anything with that
drive except using the NT 3.51 that was on it originally (upgraded
later to 4.0,) I have better read the documentation before I try to
"fix" it LOL.
I think NT should run on SCSI, I had a WIN2000 beta running on the
miata a very long time ago, but the disk went bad, and don't know
where to find a CD for it. In the mid ni8neties we ran a lot of NT
3.51 and 4 on alpha, but honestly, don't remember the hardware, has
been a long time (for a senile guy like me.)
On 2/11/13, Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com> wrote:
I think I'll take the ide out, after imoaging it (hopefully,) would
you know of a way of using a 2.88 non dec floppy in there ? adapters
from the flat cable to the generic floppy one ? I'm wandering if I
can
use a regular alpha one or an ibm rs6000 one, have a few spares,
just
don't know if vms and the firmware may support it.
On 2/11/13, Kari Uusim ki <uusimaki at exdecfinland.org> wrote:
There were several options; a 2,5" SCSI disk, a 3,5" SCSI disk and
a
2,5" IDE disk.
What I've found out with my Multias is that it is not recommended
to
use
an internal drive at all, because of the additional heat it
produces.
The enclosure is not very well designed for sufficient cooling and
therefore it is best to try to minimize the heat load in every
possible
way.
An external SCSI disk or enclosure with disks (such as a BA353)
works
fine.
Kari
On 11.2.2013 10:20, hvlems at zonnet.nl wrote:
Did you write IDE disk for a Multia?
ISTR it used a 2.5" scsi drive.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com>
Sender: owner-hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 00:03:10
To: <hecnet at update.uu.se>
Reply-To: hecnet at Update.UU.SESubject: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
also, for the drive, let the machine off but plugged into a socket
for
24 hours, maybe needs to energize, I notice today with the multia,
and
before with the vax, that they need enough charge on the batteries
to
function
anyhow, that's how the isa corrupted message went off after a
while,
so that issue is solved, not so for the ide hard disk, that one i
think is fried, still keeps appearing and disappearing
On 2/10/13, Dan B <dibi58 at gmail.com> wrote:
I have been using barracuda plain scsi-1, external, they are
small
but
run decent for everything (probably except windoze, never tried
to
run
it on scsi on alpha.) All three were barracuda, I lost one
machine
(the miata, without counting a number of VAX, those have been
dying
faster, I'm down to "one" now,) but not the drives.
The noise points to a bad drive, (hopefully not controller,) on
linux
boxes, pc and pc server hardware, I have had a lot of disk
failures,
sparc, sgi, hp9000 and ibm 6000 are built way better, hardly
never
fail, consider that those alpha (and the small drives they came
with,)
are now going to be 20 year old in a few months, the VAX is
heading
for thirty, in so I expect those old drives to fail sooner or
later,
I
used to buy them by the lot, and still have boxes of small ones.
I'm more worried when the machines fail, those are hard to
replace,
and parts may be really hard to find (like a multia floppy or
internal
ide.) Probably is time to image all those drives, and if worse
comes
to worse, run on stromasys or simh for the vax.
cheers,
daniel
;-)
On 2/10/13, Michael Holmes <mholmes10 at hotmail.com> wrote:
Found the hidden culprit.... The hard drive started making
noises
that
I
normally hear from a blender.
The multia booted fine when I set it to mop boot without any
local
disk
(slow but worked).
So next weekend I'll remove (or replace )the drive and do the
fan
upgrade
everyone recommends.
Anyone know of any possible replacement scsi drives for
multia's???
Mike
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 10, 2013, at 8:39 PM, "Dan B" <dibi58 at gmail.com> wrote:
keep it in a cold place, the number one cause of death for
multia
is
processor overheating, it does not suffer cold, but fries
processors
in the heat
On 2/10/13, Michael Holmes <mholmes10 at hotmail.com> wrote:
Oh gee what a picky machine....
It wasn't lighting up the flat panel monitor from SRM console.
Switched it to the same old CRT monitor I use with the DEC
3000
(only
monitor with RGB inputs)
and its displaying...
Damn thing is ACTUALLY booting off its little disk that I
installed
vms
on
directly via the DEC 3000.
Now just have to convo boot the damn thing to fix its HOME
server
for
system
disks (node name and addresses changed when I connected to
HECnet).
wish me luck...
Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2013 21:42:08 +0200
From: uusimaki at exdecfinland.org
To: hecnet at Update.UU.SE
Subject: Re: [HECnet] Mulita issue
Are you sure that nothing has changed on your setup since you
booted
the
Multia successfully?
Any parameter? Anything of the HW?
On 10.2.2013 21:01, Michael Holmes wrote:
Yes I hooked up the vms install CDROM to the multia to boot
and
used
the
boot procedure with floppy and it pretty much stalls after
the
"starting
bootstrap ..."message.
took the HD from the dec3000 with the image of the vms
install
disk
and
tried to boot from it with same results.
Bought a new (and expensive) floppy for it and same results.
Can flip to ARC and SRM consoles ok (not tried to boot under
arc
as
I
don't have win nt.)
---------
Just booted back up and it was at ARC console so I switched
it
over
to
SRM and power cycled it and now it's not powering the
monitor.
Will have to find my serial cable and try to switch it.
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 10, 2013, at 4:06 AM, "Kari Uusim ki"
<uusimaki at exdecfinland.org>
wrote:
Do you have any chance to test booting from a directly
connected
SCSI
CD-ROM or a disk?
Kari
On 10.2.2013 0:58, Michael Holmes wrote:
Forgive me if this is off topic, but I was reading about
the
fixes
to
the VAXStation 4000 regarding chips.
I bought a multia several years back and I think it
sucommed
to
being
moved to and from Germany and the States too many times.
I had it booting as a satelite off a DEC 3000 just fine,
until
this
last
move.
I thought the battery had died and replaced it. (dead
battery
prevents
the bios from coming up)
I get the SRM console and i'd get MOP load message on the
DEC
3000
but
the MULTIA just hangs after message about bootstrapping.
I heard something about an I/O chip that can go bad on the
MB
and
was
wondering if anyone had any ideas that could be used to
fix
the
MULTIA.
thanks
Mike
.
On Tue, 12 Feb 2013, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 02/12/2013 03:50 PM, Brett Bump wrote:
I'm not sure what the routing issue are with *Comcast*, however Johnny is
right about them not having "some" access to the rest of the internet. We
have been blocking email access FROM *Comast* for years because of all the
spam that comes off their network. My last access edit for CMCS was:
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 6958 Apr 20 2008 CMCS
# CMCS Comcast Cable Communications, Inc.
#------------^------------------v--------------------------------------#
24.126 550 Spam not wanted (CMCS)
<snip>
I block 115 class B subnets from them (that's 7536640 IP addresses).
Are you differentiating AT ALL between their consumer connections and
their business connections? If not, that's a really bad idea.
No, actually, I am not. And I would agree, "IF" there were any business
connections between the users and Comcast, however these are students. The
"acceptable use" agreement with the students is that they use their email
accounts and the internet connections for college classes. Every once in
a while, there ARE certain networks that I need to open back up, but this
is rare (recently a user wanted access to Bank of America on APNIC).
That said, my mail server handles about 100 users and 24 domains, most
of which are businesses. It moves, on average, about 6500 messages per
day. Not being able to email Peter directly is the first issue I've had
in a year and a half of having this connection.
So, I am forced to ask: WTF?
-Dave
Our school email server handles on average 15k email per day for 3774 user
accounts. We've blocked 1288 email from CMCS in the last month and of all
of the domains we block, 288896 since Jan 13th (and still we get spam).
As for wtf, I would venture to say that some of these networks do not know
how much spam their customers are generating. I would love to block Yahoo
however we do have some students that communicate with their instructors
via that network from their homes.
But the school is a different entity than the other domains that I manage
and is the only one that I know of (knock on wood) that is blocking Dave.
And dont' feel bad Dave, as there are many networks that block our School.
Brett
