Discussion:
[rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak
2001-06-20 20:01:19 UTC
Permalink
OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.

It appears to have a Ross CYM6002K addin board of some kind (6 hat
chips on it plus two surface mount chips), and is full of 501-1739
ram sticks. No cabling was present. One drive is left, and a slow
single-speed cdrom (full height) is present (will this work on my
older 3/xxx machines?).

1. What speed/rating is this cpu?

2. What is the Ross thingie, and is it good for much?

3. What cable is needed to hook back up into the internal box
drive cabling system (I am assuming a small HD50 cable of
some sort.

4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
up NetBSD if possible.

Anything else strange I need to know about this thing before
attempting to smoke check its innards?

Thanks

Bob
Dan Debertin
2001-06-20 20:14:40 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:

> OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
> today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.

They do seem to be popping up more and more, don't they? I have one
myself.

>
> It appears to have a Ross CYM6002K addin board of some kind

Blech. SM100's.

> (6 hat
> chips on it plus two surface mount chips), and is full of 501-1739
> ram sticks.

Those are 4MB sticks. If you've got two banks full (i.e., 32 sticks), you
have 128MB RAM.~

> 1. What speed/rating is this cpu?

40MHz, no cache. Slow as hell. You can upgrade that, though.

>
> 2. What is the Ross thingie, and is it good for much?

The "Ross thingie"'s are the CPUs. They make good coasters.

>
> 3. What cable is needed to hook back up into the internal box
> drive cabling system (I am assuming a small HD50 cable of
> some sort.

yeah. It's just standard internal SCSI, although I'm surprised your
internal cabling has been removed. Odd, that.
>
> 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> up NetBSD if possible.

Up to Solaris 2.5.1. NetBSD runs, but there's no support for SMP, or for
the VME bus. I am waiting impatiently for them to support those two
things. Wish I knew more about SMP, or I would step forward and do it
myself.

>
> Anything else strange I need to know about this thing before
> attempting to smoke check its innards?

Well, they weigh a ton and cost roughly $10/mo to power. They also throw
off a lot of heat and noise. If those aren't problems for you, enjoy!

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
***@nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org
Kevin Loch
2001-06-20 20:40:46 UTC
Permalink
I thought netbsd had VME support for ages (sun3 VME support).
Do they really not support VME on sun4?

KL

Dan Debertin wrote:
>=>
> Up to Solaris 2.5.1. NetBSD runs, but there's no support for SMP, or for
> the VME bus. I am waiting impatiently for them to support those two
> things. Wish I knew more about SMP, or I would step forward and do it
> myself.
>
> >
> > Anything else strange I need to know about this thing before
> > attempting to smoke check its innards?
>
> Well, they weigh a ton and cost roughly $10/mo to power. They also throw
> off a lot of heat and noise. If those aren't problems for you, enjoy!
>
> Dan
> --
> Dan Debertin
> ***@nodewarrior.org
> www.nodewarrior.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-20 22:26:23 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 15:14:40 (-0500), Dan Debertin wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> Up to Solaris 2.5.1. NetBSD runs, but there's no support for SMP, or for
> the VME bus. I am waiting impatiently for them to support those two
> things. Wish I knew more about SMP, or I would step forward and do it
> myself.

SMP for NetBSD/sparc is comming very soon. I suspect they'll finish the
i386 support, and then sparc will be next. It works already on alpha,
and the CVS branch with the i386 support is in test by a number of people.

IIRC somone reported a "make release" running in 30-something minutes,
starting with a clean tree. That includes building about 5 kernel
variants, as well as the toolchain and everything else right down to the
installation tar files.

VME support shouldn't be too hard to add given that you can find
documentation for whatever bridge/interface chips are used.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 02:02:45 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> Well, they weigh a ton and cost roughly $10/mo to power. They also throw
> off a lot of heat and noise. If those aren't problems for you, enjoy!

I become more and more amused at statements like this as time goes on.

Hasn't anyone here ever seen a BIG computer, one whose processor
measures in the dozens of 6' racks and has a building built around it?
There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.

-Dave McGuire
Björn Ramqvist
2001-06-21 08:19:35 UTC
Permalink
Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> I become more and more amused at statements like this as time goes on.
>
> Hasn't anyone here ever seen a BIG computer, one whose processor
> measures in the dozens of 6' racks and has a building built around it?
> There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.

I've seen a DEC-10 and a DEC-20 once, does that count? :-)

/Bjorn
Dave McGuire
2001-06-20 20:42:50 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:
> OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
> today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.

Have no trepidation, my friend. The 4/600 is, in my opinion, the
finest piece of hardware Sun has ever produced. Run it with pride.

> It appears to have a Ross CYM6002K addin board of some kind (6 hat
> chips on it plus two surface mount chips), and is full of 501-1739
> ram sticks. No cabling was present. One drive is left, and a slow
> single-speed cdrom (full height) is present (will this work on my
> older 3/xxx machines?).
>
> 1. What speed/rating is this cpu?

It's probably an SM100...an utter piece of trash. Sell it on eBay
and pick up an SM41 for a few bucks. It will perform much, much
better. An SM100 is an early dual 40MHz cacheless processor. An SM41
(also at 40MHz) will kick its ass up and down the street.

> 2. What is the Ross thingie, and is it good for much?

The Ross thingie is the processor module.

> 3. What cable is needed to hook back up into the internal box
> drive cabling system (I am assuming a small HD50 cable of
> some sort.

A regular HD50 cable should do the trick...the other end will need
to be an HD50 or a DB50 depending on the version of the box you've got.

> 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> up NetBSD if possible.

It's a sun4m machine...I don't recall when support for them was
introduced, but I've run SunOS4.1.4 on lots of them. They should also
run recent Solaris (up to what release I'm not sure)...but
NetBSD/sparc runs REALLY well on them, and is an absolute pleasure to
use on that hardware.

Picture this. Take that 4/600 board out of the '70 box and put it
into a 3-slot (4/110-style) box. Put two CG6 framebuffers in it,
running to two big 20" tubes. Pick up an SM61 and slap it on the
board. Load up NetBSD. That makes for one really nice workstation!

-Dave McGuire
Rob
2001-06-20 20:52:30 UTC
Permalink
In message <***@weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>, BSD Bob the old g
reybeard BSD freak writes:
>OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
>today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.

Cool, I just bought one too.. a nifty thing to do with 'em is to disabled use
of the vme bus, and you can stick multiple main boards in the chassis for up
to 6 independent computers. The only thing is I'm having trouble finding
parts to do so... I've mailed about 6 different places on the web trying to
find boards and get quotes, and *not one* of them has gotten back to me.

Where did you get you 670?

- Rob
.
Robert Novak
2001-06-20 21:08:09 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dan Debertin wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:
>
> > 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> > up NetBSD if possible.
>
> Up to Solaris 2.5.1. NetBSD runs, but there's no support for SMP, or for
> the VME bus.

Allegedly Solaris 2.6 and 7 (and even 8?) can be hacked to run, but not
with SM100 modules (see
http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/rescue/2000-April/005324.html and James's
comments). Can also patch up SunOS 4.1.4 from what I'm told. If you want
SMP and non-Solaris, Linux is going to be your best bet. Don't know how
much any of the freebies support VME.

--Rob

Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * ***@indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
"And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows
Devin L. Ganger
2001-06-20 22:27:08 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 02:08:09PM -0700, Robert Novak wrote:

> Allegedly Solaris 2.6 and 7 (and even 8?) can be hacked to run

I can confirm that 2.6 and 7 run on these things just fine; I'm posting
off of just such a beast.

--
Devin L. Ganger <***@thecabal.org>
find / -name *base* -exec chown us:us {} \;
su -c someone 'export UP_US=thebomb'
for f in great justice ; do sed -e 's/zig//g' < $f ; done
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-20 21:12:45 UTC
Permalink
I didn't know that NetBSD did multi head stuff.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On June 20, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:
> > OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
> > today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.
>
> Have no trepidation, my friend. The 4/600 is, in my opinion, the
> finest piece of hardware Sun has ever produced. Run it with pride.
>
> > It appears to have a Ross CYM6002K addin board of some kind (6 hat
> > chips on it plus two surface mount chips), and is full of 501-1739
> > ram sticks. No cabling was present. One drive is left, and a slow
> > single-speed cdrom (full height) is present (will this work on my
> > older 3/xxx machines?).
> >
> > 1. What speed/rating is this cpu?
>
> It's probably an SM100...an utter piece of trash. Sell it on eBay
> and pick up an SM41 for a few bucks. It will perform much, much
> better. An SM100 is an early dual 40MHz cacheless processor. An SM41
> (also at 40MHz) will kick its ass up and down the street.
>
> > 2. What is the Ross thingie, and is it good for much?
>
> The Ross thingie is the processor module.
>
> > 3. What cable is needed to hook back up into the internal box
> > drive cabling system (I am assuming a small HD50 cable of
> > some sort.
>
> A regular HD50 cable should do the trick...the other end will need
> to be an HD50 or a DB50 depending on the version of the box you've got.
>
> > 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> > up NetBSD if possible.
>
> It's a sun4m machine...I don't recall when support for them was
> introduced, but I've run SunOS4.1.4 on lots of them. They should also
> run recent Solaris (up to what release I'm not sure)...but
> NetBSD/sparc runs REALLY well on them, and is an absolute pleasure to
> use on that hardware.
>
> Picture this. Take that 4/600 board out of the '70 box and put it
> into a 3-slot (4/110-style) box. Put two CG6 framebuffers in it,
> running to two big 20" tubes. Pick up an SM61 and slap it on the
> board. Load up NetBSD. That makes for one really nice workstation!
>
> -Dave McGuire
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-20 22:40:37 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 17:12:45 (-0400), Joshua D. Boyd wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> I didn't know that NetBSD did multi head stuff.

NetBSD can do anything the X11 server can do. If you've got support in
your X11 server for multi-headed operation, then it'll work.
Multi-headed operation is rarely something of any concern to the O/S
itself directly (provided that the display device driver(s) will handle
multiple frame buffer cards or whatever).

NetBSD's Xsun (from the NetBSD xsrc tree) seems to have multi-headed
support.

>
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 00:35:53 UTC
Permalink
It's not so much a matter of the operating system, but the windowing
system. If a bus and a device driver are intelligently designed,
multiple instances of any device can be installed in a system, right?
Well, /dev/cgsix0, /dev/cgsix1, etc. Now, it's just up to the
windowing system to deal with them, and X has dealt with multiple
heads since the dawn of time.

Until I switched to an SGI Indigo2 about 1.5yrs ago, my desktop
machine has been a Sun dating back about eleven years. The first Sbus
machine I ran on my desk was an Opus SS1+ clone back in 1992, which
had two CG3s in it. Since then I've ALWAYS run dual heads.

-Dave McGuire

On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> I didn't know that NetBSD did multi head stuff.
>
> --
> Joshua Boyd
>
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> > On June 20, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:
> > > OK, with some trepidation, I lugs meself away a sort of 670MP box,
> > > today, from the surplus feeding frenzy diving pit.
> >
> > Have no trepidation, my friend. The 4/600 is, in my opinion, the
> > finest piece of hardware Sun has ever produced. Run it with pride.
> >
> > > It appears to have a Ross CYM6002K addin board of some kind (6 hat
> > > chips on it plus two surface mount chips), and is full of 501-1739
> > > ram sticks. No cabling was present. One drive is left, and a slow
> > > single-speed cdrom (full height) is present (will this work on my
> > > older 3/xxx machines?).
> > >
> > > 1. What speed/rating is this cpu?
> >
> > It's probably an SM100...an utter piece of trash. Sell it on eBay
> > and pick up an SM41 for a few bucks. It will perform much, much
> > better. An SM100 is an early dual 40MHz cacheless processor. An SM41
> > (also at 40MHz) will kick its ass up and down the street.
> >
> > > 2. What is the Ross thingie, and is it good for much?
> >
> > The Ross thingie is the processor module.
> >
> > > 3. What cable is needed to hook back up into the internal box
> > > drive cabling system (I am assuming a small HD50 cable of
> > > some sort.
> >
> > A regular HD50 cable should do the trick...the other end will need
> > to be an HD50 or a DB50 depending on the version of the box you've got.
> >
> > > 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> > > up NetBSD if possible.
> >
> > It's a sun4m machine...I don't recall when support for them was
> > introduced, but I've run SunOS4.1.4 on lots of them. They should also
> > run recent Solaris (up to what release I'm not sure)...but
> > NetBSD/sparc runs REALLY well on them, and is an absolute pleasure to
> > use on that hardware.
> >
> > Picture this. Take that 4/600 board out of the '70 box and put it
> > into a 3-slot (4/110-style) box. Put two CG6 framebuffers in it,
> > running to two big 20" tubes. Pick up an SM61 and slap it on the
> > board. Load up NetBSD. That makes for one really nice workstation!
> >
> > -Dave McGuire
> > _______________________________________________
> > rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> > http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Dan Debertin
2001-06-20 21:26:08 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Kevin Loch wrote:

> I thought netbsd had VME support for ages (sun3 VME support).
> Do they really not support VME on sun4?

Wait ... I'm wrong, but I don't know to what extent NetBSD supports VME.
There's definitely VME support there, though. It's the patched Solaris 2.6
and Linux that don't do VME.

But I still wonder about how complete the NetBSD VME support is. Can any
of you comment?

For example, would NetBSD support memory on the VME bus? I have two
expansion boards; I'd like to know that it can address that memory as well
as the sticks on the mainboard. What about SBus expansion boards?

I have users, so I can't exactly wipe my machine and install NetBSD "just
to find out".

There is still the holy grail of SMP support to worry about, too. Sparc
seems to be last on the list; we even got VAX SMP before Sparc. I don't
get it.

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
***@nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org
Dave McGuire
2001-06-20 21:57:30 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> There is still the holy grail of SMP support to worry about, too. Sparc
> seems to be last on the list; we even got VAX SMP before Sparc. I don't
> get it.

For one, there are lots more models of multiprocessor VAXen than
their are SPARCs, and I suspect (though I haven't verified this) that
SMP is easier to do on a VAX than a SPARC.

SPARC SMP will be along soon.

-Dave McGuire
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-20 22:47:54 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 16:26:08 (-0500), Dan Debertin wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> But I still wonder about how complete the NetBSD VME support is. Can any
> of you comment?

Hmm... yes, NetBSD does support VME on Sun4m.

Any device for which there's a machine-independent VME driver for should work.

Specifically noted on the web page are:

* SCSI interfaces

* 5 MB/s NCR 5380 SCSI controller, VME card (Interrupt driven and
polled DMA) (si)

* VME disk interfaces
* Xylogics 7053 VME/SMD disk controller (xd)
* Xylogics 450/451 VME disk controller (xy)

Note: VME/IPI disks are not supported


> For example, would NetBSD support memory on the VME bus? I have two
> expansion boards; I'd like to know that it can address that memory as well
> as the sticks on the mainboard.

Does Sun memory for the 670MP actually use the VME bus? It sure doens't
on a sun-3.

> What about SBus expansion boards?

I doubt it, though the 'xbox' is supported.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-20 21:41:57 UTC
Permalink
On the other hand, NetBSD does have some SMP support, and they desperately
need volunteers to help with it...

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Robert Novak wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dan Debertin wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak wrote:
> >
> > > 4. What SunOS levels will run on it, although I will probably load
> > > up NetBSD if possible.
> >
> > Up to Solaris 2.5.1. NetBSD runs, but there's no support for SMP, or for
> > the VME bus.
>
> Allegedly Solaris 2.6 and 7 (and even 8?) can be hacked to run, but not
> with SM100 modules (see
> http://www.sunhelp.org/pipermail/rescue/2000-April/005324.html and James's
> comments). Can also patch up SunOS 4.1.4 from what I'm told. If you want
> SMP and non-Solaris, Linux is going to be your best bet. Don't know how
> much any of the freebies support VME.
>
> --Rob
>
> Robert Novak, Indyramp Consulting * ***@indyramp.com * indyramp.com/~rnovak
> "And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
> Maybe this year will be better than the last...." -- counting crows
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-20 22:50:27 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 17:41:57 (-0400), Joshua D. Boyd wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] Re: 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> On the other hand, NetBSD does have some SMP support, and they desperately
> need volunteers to help with it...

Actually the other day on <port-***@netbsd.org> it was said by matthew
green <***@eterna.com.au>:

the work for sparc SMP is still in-progress. currently non-primary
cpus cause mbus module errors when they attempt to run processes,
but there are still a few low level things to be cleaned up before
this could be expected to begin to work.


so, no expected dates for completion -- just "when we get there" :-)

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-20 21:54:23 UTC
Permalink
RSN, I'll be attempting to install NetBSD on my 4/470. As you may
remeber, that only gets memory via VME memory cards. Then I'll find out.

But, that comes after installing SunOS on a SS2 (the CD-Rom drive is in
shipping), and linux on a javastation, and maybe Nextstep on an HP
(depends on if the nextstep CDs arrive before I finish the other two
installs listed.).

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dan Debertin wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Kevin Loch wrote:
>
> > I thought netbsd had VME support for ages (sun3 VME support).
> > Do they really not support VME on sun4?
>
> Wait ... I'm wrong, but I don't know to what extent NetBSD supports VME.
> There's definitely VME support there, though. It's the patched Solaris 2.6
> and Linux that don't do VME.
>
> But I still wonder about how complete the NetBSD VME support is. Can any
> of you comment?
>
> For example, would NetBSD support memory on the VME bus? I have two
> expansion boards; I'd like to know that it can address that memory as well
> as the sticks on the mainboard. What about SBus expansion boards?
>
> I have users, so I can't exactly wipe my machine and install NetBSD "just
> to find out".
>
> There is still the holy grail of SMP support to worry about, too. Sparc
> seems to be last on the list; we even got VAX SMP before Sparc. I don't
> get it.
>
> Dan
> --
> Dan Debertin
> ***@nodewarrior.org
> www.nodewarrior.org
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-20 22:09:32 UTC
Permalink
For VME-chassis Suns, the memory isn't actually on the VME bus per se,
it's on a private bus on the P2 connectors. That doesn't necessarily
mean that support of additional memory is completely transparent -- for
the types that have ECC memory, for example, each memory board has to
be initialized. I know that on the Sun-3 line, all memory expansion
boards are supported by NetBSD, but I can't find anything that says one
way or another for SPARCs. I sure hope NetBSD or OpenBSD supports them,
otherwise my plans are hurting.

Speaking of multiprocessor machines, does anybody know whether any of
the BSDs or Linux support multiprocessor 486es? I have an old dual-486/33
Compaq that I'd like to get going. They've got a HAL for NT4, but something
Unixy would be more useful to me.

Also speaking of multiprocessor machines, I once heard that Sequent made
a multiprocessor 286. Has anybody else ever heard of this beast?

--James B.
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-20 22:50:11 UTC
Permalink
As of NetBSD 1.4, Xsun works multiheaded just fine. I'm posting from
a 3/60 with X using a bwtwo and a cgfour. Unless they've broken it
since then, there shouldn't be a problem.

--James B.
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-20 22:59:25 UTC
Permalink
About NetBSD supporting VAX SMP, but not Sparc SMP. I believe that Vax
SMP support was ripped from one of the old BSD distributions, something
like BSD 4.2.

Looking over some history stuff, I see that Dec was still selling Vaxen as
last as Sept 2k. Cool.

--
Joshua Boyd
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 00:25:09 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> About NetBSD supporting VAX SMP, but not Sparc SMP. I believe that Vax
> SMP support was ripped from one of the old BSD distributions, something
> like BSD 4.2.

Uhhhh...we should ask Ragge about that. I don't recall any BSD
distribution doing SMP on VAXen. Especially the mostly
-processor-independent SMP of NetBSD in particular.

> Looking over some history stuff, I see that Dec was still selling Vaxen as
> last as Sept 2k. Cool.

Yup. And the world is full of morons who, when they hear the word
"VAX", they think some huge, old, slow, obsolete thing that's only
capable of running VMS. That is SUCH a huge pet peeve of mine. It's
right on up there with the "company XYZ was bought, therefore they
no longer exist" way of thinking.

If the first way of thinking were reasonable, everything called a
"car" would be a rickety old Model A Ford complete with wooden-spoke
wheels. If the second made any sense, there'd be no new Alpha or Cray
machines, and the United States Presidency would have vanished into
thin air.

(please note that I'm not accusing you, Joshua, of either one...just
felt like ranting a little bit)

-Dave McGuire
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-21 01:49:13 UTC
Permalink
***@neurotica.com writes:

> Yup. And the world is full of morons who, when they hear the word
>"VAX", they think some huge, old, slow, obsolete thing that's only
>capable of running VMS. That is SUCH a huge pet peeve of mine. It's
>right on up there with the "company XYZ was bought, therefore they
>no longer exist" way of thinking.

When I hear "VAX" I think either VAX-11/780 (because that's The One
To Have if you're a collector) or vaxstation-3100s, cuz that's what
I've got piles of, at home and at work.

Seriously though - when I hear about current VAXen, I immediately
think "chip fab line".

On the other hand, when I hear "PDP-11", I think "nuclear reactor".

-- david fischer -- ***@cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 02:28:06 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, ***@cca.org wrote:
> On the other hand, when I hear "PDP-11", I think "nuclear reactor".

I LIKE IT!! :-)

-Dave McGuire
Chad Fernandez
2001-06-21 06:25:29 UTC
Permalink
Nuclear reactors are run with PDP11's?

Chad Fernandez
Michigan, USA

Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> On June 20, ***@cca.org wrote:
> > On the other hand, when I hear "PDP-11", I think "nuclear reactor".
>
> I LIKE IT!! :-)
>
> -Dave McGuire
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 12:49:08 UTC
Permalink
I sure hope so. I can't think of anything else that would be more
reliable.

-Dave McGuire

On June 21, Chad Fernandez wrote:
> Nuclear reactors are run with PDP11's?
>
> Chad Fernandez
> Michigan, USA
>
> Dave McGuire wrote:
> >
> > On June 20, ***@cca.org wrote:
> > > On the other hand, when I hear "PDP-11", I think "nuclear reactor".
> >
> > I LIKE IT!! :-)
> >
> > -Dave McGuire
> > _______________________________________________
> > rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> > http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Sebastian Marius Kirsch
2001-06-21 05:57:02 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, Jun 20, 2001 at 08:25:09PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> Uhhhh...we should ask Ragge about that. I don't recall any BSD
> distribution doing SMP on VAXen. Especially the mostly
> -processor-independent SMP of NetBSD in particular.

Ragge got it to work on a 6xxx (6340?) a couple of weeks ago. Should be
in the port-vax archives, but I'm too lazy to dig it up right
now. (Barely awake yet.)

--
Yours, Sebastian Kirsch <***@moebius.inka.de>

That's not the point! All right, maybe it is the point. I don't care,
I'm not going to think about it now.
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-20 23:06:03 UTC
Permalink
Now does this work in the traditional way where programs are confined to
one display or the other, or is it the more modern Mac, Windows, Xinerama
way?

--
Joshua Boyd

On 20 Jun 2001 ***@picarefy.picarefy.com wrote:

> As of NetBSD 1.4, Xsun works multiheaded just fine. I'm posting from
> a 3/60 with X using a bwtwo and a cgfour. Unless they've broken it
> since then, there shouldn't be a problem.
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 00:43:10 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> Now does this work in the traditional way where programs are confined to
> one display or the other, or is it the more modern Mac, Windows, Xinerama
> way?

The former...and I doubt that will change anytime soon, at least not
without an X protocol extension.

The heads in X are called "hostname:display.screen"...if you have a
SPARC machine with two CG6s running X, they'll be called
"hostname:0.0" (or simply ":0.0") and "hostname:0.1", in which the
last digit is the "screen" number. X clients connect to TCP port
6000+screen_number to come up on either screen. That means that, to
move an X client's window(s) from one screen to the other would
require moving an active TCP connection from one port to another...not
something that's easy or practical to do.

It seems theoretically possible to write an X protocol extension to
support this, though. There'd have to be a message sent from the
server to the client requesting a "screen" change, after which the
client would drop the connection and reestablish it on the other
screen's port. Some provision would have to be made for maintaining
the client's current state, perhaps through maintaining the X client
id across the two connections.

-Dave McGuire
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-21 01:23:02 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 20:43:10 (-0400), Dave McGuire wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> It seems theoretically possible to write an X protocol extension to
> support this, though. There'd have to be a message sent from the
> server to the client requesting a "screen" change, after which the
> client would drop the connection and reestablish it on the other
> screen's port. Some provision would have to be made for maintaining
> the client's current state, perhaps through maintaining the X client
> id across the two connections.

I suspect Xinerama is the better solution. (Originally DEC called it
XPanoramiX, but it was first shipped as Xinerama in X11R6.4 and is also
now in XFree86-4.x.) Several people have claimed they've had it working
with Solaris (including up to Solaris-8), so it might just work with
NetBSD too. The only major constraint is that all screens have to be
set at the same colour depth.

Unfortunately NetBSD's xsrc isn't X11R6.4 or newer (it's still just
X11R6.3, mostly because The NetBSD Foundation didn't want to deal with
new issues in the R4 licensing, though IIRC th X Consortium have "fixed"
those issues in the mean time).

But that doesn't mean you can't get the original X11R6.6 distribution
and build an X11 server from it -- that's what I always used to do under
SunOS-4 and even in the early NetBSD/sun3 days, though of course that
was with X11R4 and X11R5. :-) ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.6/ (it's big!)

Eventually NetBSD might use Xfree86 on sparc, but currently it does not.

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 01:26:36 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> > It seems theoretically possible to write an X protocol extension to
> > support this, though. There'd have to be a message sent from the
> > server to the client requesting a "screen" change, after which the
> > client would drop the connection and reestablish it on the other
> > screen's port. Some provision would have to be made for maintaining
> > the client's current state, perhaps through maintaining the X client
> > id across the two connections.
>
> I suspect Xinerama is the better solution. (Originally DEC called it
> XPanoramiX, but it was first shipped as Xinerama in X11R6.4 and is also
> now in XFree86-4.x.) Several people have claimed they've had it working
> with Solaris (including up to Solaris-8), so it might just work with
> NetBSD too. The only major constraint is that all screens have to be
> set at the same colour depth.

I haven't looked at Xinerama (not running R6.6 here)...either
they've implemented what I've described or they've managed to merge
multiple screens into one virtual screen on a single TCP port.
Either way that would be great functionality!

-Dave McGuire
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-21 00:06:18 UTC
Permalink
Definitely the traditional way. The bwtwo is :0.0 and the cgfour is
:0.1.

--James B.
Dan Debertin
2001-06-21 02:07:10 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> > Well, they weigh a ton and cost roughly $10/mo to power. They also throw
> > off a lot of heat and noise. If those aren't problems for you, enjoy!
>
> I become more and more amused at statements like this as time goes on.
>
> Hasn't anyone here ever seen a BIG computer, one whose processor
> measures in the dozens of 6' racks and has a building built around it?

Sure I have; I'm just not interested in telling fish stories. We've all
seen biiig computers. Biiiiig deal.

> There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.

Context, Dave. If you're at a swapmeet, like the original poster claimed
to be, and you're going to be taking it home, as I also assume the
original poster was, then "big" is:

a) anything you can't get into your car yourself, or

b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.

The difference between that kind of "big", which is really quite small,
and the "big" that you describe, is a matter of perspective.

It doesn't matter.

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
***@nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-21 02:47:42 UTC
Permalink
***@nodewarrior.org writes:

>Context, Dave. If you're at a swapmeet, like the original poster claimed
>to be, and you're going to be taking it home, as I also assume the
>original poster was, then "big" is:

>a) anything you can't get into your car yourself, or

>b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.

My ex-wife was sooooo easy about that sort of thing.

Actual conversation:

Dave: "Honey, where's the hammer? I have to remove a wall to get
this computer into the basement."

Christina: "Under the kitchen sink. Hold on... Here you go."

Dave: "Thanks."

-- david fischer -- ***@cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 03:20:46 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, ***@cca.org wrote:
> >b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.
>
> My ex-wife was sooooo easy about that sort of thing.
>
> Actual conversation:
>
> Dave: "Honey, where's the hammer? I have to remove a wall to get
> this computer into the basement."
>
> Christina: "Under the kitchen sink. Hold on... Here you go."
>
> Dave: "Thanks."

I love it!! :-) :-) :-)

-Dave McGuire
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 02:49:01 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> Sure I have; I'm just not interested in telling fish stories. We've all
> seen biiig computers. Biiiiig deal.

Relax, Dan. It wasn't a personal attack. Sheesh. Tranquilizers,
anyone?

Since the current computer industry is rapidly becoming incapable of
supplying the processing power that users (and I'm not really talking
about home users here) are demanding for newer applications, BIIIIIG
computers are going to become a way of life ("again", in some cases)
for many/most of us here. Take a look at Sun's machines for an
example of that trend. An E450 is a pretty heavy box.

Just trying to give folks something to think about.

> > There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.
>
> Context, Dave. If you're at a swapmeet, like the original poster claimed
> to be, and you're going to be taking it home, as I also assume the
> original poster was, then "big" is:
>
> a) anything you can't get into your car yourself, or

Surely I'm not the only one here to leave a hamfest, go to the
nearest truck rental outfit, and return with a big truck with a
liftgate? ;)

> b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.

Time for a new (read: reasonable enough to take the zebra WITH his
stripes) spouse. ;)

> The difference between that kind of "big", which is really quite small,
> and the "big" that you describe, is a matter of perspective.
>
> It doesn't matter.

Peace, man..

-Dave McGuire
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-21 03:38:03 UTC
Permalink
***@neurotica.com writes:

> Since the current computer industry is rapidly becoming incapable of
>supplying the processing power that users (and I'm not really talking
>about home users here) are demanding for newer applications, BIIIIIG
>computers are going to become a way of life ("again", in some cases)
>for many/most of us here. Take a look at Sun's machines for an
>example of that trend. An E450 is a pretty heavy box.

That reminds me of my current insane idea about chip design.

Basicly, I think the complexity of current superscalar chips is
out of hand and simply not worth the effort.

(Yeah yeah yeah, some situations require it, there's no other way,
la la la. For a big chunk of the industry, I do't think it's worth
it.)

Any application where there is a major multi-tasking load, and
system throughput is more important than single-process performance,
a single chip of [n] million transistors would be much more usefull
if it were a bunch of little simple CPUs than one big complex one.

Put another way: given, say, eight instruction units on a chip,
you will *not* be able to keep them occupied trying to dynamicaly
schedule a single instruction stream. The OS on a heavily-loaded
server *will* be able to keep them fully occupied if they appear
to be eight seperate CPUs.

If you want to get really insane, you share resources between
the CPUs, which gets you back to the Barrell Processor design.
(The only example of that that I can remember offhand was the IO
processors in the CDC-6600. Anyone know of any others?) But then
you're getting excessively complex again.

Cache design becomes significant (both how best to split up the
real estate, and how to deal with coherency), but that's solvable.

And of course, you can take [n] of these chips and make a really
big SMP system...

I'm sure other people have thought of this, and are probably already
working on it.

-- david fischer -- ***@cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --
r***@sunhelp.org
2001-06-21 02:17:47 UTC
Permalink
***@weird.com writes:

>I suspect Xinerama is the better solution. (Originally DEC called it
>XPanoramiX, but it was first shipped as Xinerama in X11R6.4 and is also
>now in XFree86-4.x.) Several people have claimed they've had it working

Sounds like an 80s DC hardcore band....

-- david fischer -- ***@cca.org -- www.cca.org -- Cthulhu told me to. --
Dan Debertin
2001-06-21 03:32:11 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> > Sure I have; I'm just not interested in telling fish stories. We've all
> > seen biiig computers. Biiiiig deal.
>
> Relax, Dan. It wasn't a personal attack. Sheesh. Tranquilizers,
> anyone?

I didn't interpret it as one....

> Surely I'm not the only one here to leave a hamfest, go to the
> nearest truck rental outfit, and return with a big truck with a
> liftgate? ;)

Heh...

>
> > b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.
>
> Time for a new (read: reasonable enough to take the zebra WITH his
> stripes) spouse. ;)

Depends on how important computers are to you. Most of us (myself
included) were smart enough to pair off with someone tolerant of our
stuff. Those people are a rare find, though.

> Peace, man..

I was unaware there was a war...that wasn't intended as a flame of any
kind. Perhaps I should have added a few :)'s or something.

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
***@nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 03:47:17 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> > Relax, Dan. It wasn't a personal attack. Sheesh. Tranquilizers,
> > anyone?
>
> I didn't interpret it as one....

Ok good...

> > Time for a new (read: reasonable enough to take the zebra WITH his
> > stripes) spouse. ;)
>
> Depends on how important computers are to you. Most of us (myself
> included) were smart enough to pair off with someone tolerant of our
> stuff. Those people are a rare find, though.

This is a very good thing! I was lucky enough also, but she left me
not too long ago, just days before I was going to ask her to marry
me. Them's the breaks, or something like that.

> > Peace, man..
>
> I was unaware there was a war...that wasn't intended as a flame of any
> kind. Perhaps I should have added a few :)'s or something.

I meant it in the more generic sense...no worries...

-Dave McGuire
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 03:47:54 UTC
Permalink
I'd like to point out that XFree can do it the classic way, ans also the
windows way. You use xinerama for the new way. I'm told that xinerama
also works with the Sun X server (the one with modern solaris, not
whatever one the old NetBSD machines use).

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > Now does this work in the traditional way where programs are confined to
> > one display or the other, or is it the more modern Mac, Windows, Xinerama
> > way?
>
> The former...and I doubt that will change anytime soon, at least not
> without an X protocol extension.
>
> The heads in X are called "hostname:display.screen"...if you have a
> SPARC machine with two CG6s running X, they'll be called
> "hostname:0.0" (or simply ":0.0") and "hostname:0.1", in which the
> last digit is the "screen" number. X clients connect to TCP port
> 6000+screen_number to come up on either screen. That means that, to
> move an X client's window(s) from one screen to the other would
> require moving an active TCP connection from one port to another...not
> something that's easy or practical to do.
>
> It seems theoretically possible to write an X protocol extension to
> support this, though. There'd have to be a message sent from the
> server to the client requesting a "screen" change, after which the
> client would drop the connection and reestablish it on the other
> screen's port. Some provision would have to be made for maintaining
> the client's current state, perhaps through maintaining the X client
> id across the two connections.
>
> -Dave McGuire
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 03:50:26 UTC
Permalink
On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> I'd like to point out that XFree can do it the classic way, ans also the
> windows way. You use xinerama for the new way. I'm told that xinerama
> also works with the Sun X server (the one with modern solaris, not
> whatever one the old NetBSD machines use).

Excellent!! Now THAT is some nice functionality.

Though hearing "modern solaris" and "old netbsd" does give me a
chuckle. But their insistence on sticking with X11R3 for
political/licensing/other-nontechnical-bullshit reasons is truly
absurd. I remember upgrading to X11R4 for the HUGE performance
benefits when my main desktop (deskside?) machine was a MicroVAX-II
more than TEN YEARS AGO. Sheesh!

Xinerama seems like really nice stuff. Is it stable?

-Dave McGuire
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-21 04:41:35 UTC
Permalink
[ On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 at 23:50:26 (-0400), Dave McGuire wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> Though hearing "modern solaris" and "old netbsd" does give me a
> chuckle. But their insistence on sticking with X11R3 for
> political/licensing/other-nontechnical-bullshit reasons is truly
> absurd. I remember upgrading to X11R4 for the HUGE performance
> benefits when my main desktop (deskside?) machine was a MicroVAX-II
> more than TEN YEARS AGO. Sheesh!

If you're refering to what I said about NetBSD's xsrc, remember that it
is X11R_6_.3 that we're running, not X11R3. I don't think I've used
X11R3 for over a decade now. I was running R5 before I switched to
NetBSD even.

Also note that NetBSD was not alone in baulking at The Open Group's
first foray into stupid licensing for X11. XFree86.org and IIRC a few
other vendors had much the same objection. That's why the license was
"fixed" (reverted) and why you'll find that X11R6.5 and newer have
essentially the same wide open copyright license X11R6.3 had. A quick
web search will bring up lots of old flame wars about the issue.

NetBSD took on XFree86 3.2 back in 1997. That was X11R6.1. The current
tree contains XFree86 3.3.2 for production (X11R6.3) and XFree86 4.1.0
(X11R6.5.1) for beta testing (because it does not yet work on all the
graphics capable platforms of the 43-odd total platforms NetBSD works on).

> Xinerama seems like really nice stuff. Is it stable?

Works great on PCs with XFree86-4.1 and the KDE-2.1 desktop....

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 12:30:04 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> If you're refering to what I said about NetBSD's xsrc, remember that it
> is X11R_6_.3 that we're running, not X11R3. I don't think I've used
> X11R3 for over a decade now. I was running R5 before I switched to
> NetBSD even.

I should have noticed that before I replied. I apologize and stand
corrected...thanks for pointing that out.

"NetBSD running X11R4" should have tripped all sorts of sanity check
alarms in my brain; I guess my thoughts were elsewhere. Sorry all.

-Dave McGuire
Kevin Loch
2001-06-21 04:02:55 UTC
Permalink
The "windows" way would be way cool if you loaded up four framebuffers
in
a quad size display. Or how about 5 in an ss20SX? Or 6 with a 4/6xx,
4 SBus and 2 VME display boards? How many vme cgtwo's can you put on a
4/670?
I think I have 3 plus a cgnine.

KL

"Joshua D. Boyd" wrote:
>
> I'd like to point out that XFree can do it the classic way, ans also the
> windows way. You use xinerama for the new way. I'm told that xinerama
> also works with the Sun X server (the one with modern solaris, not
> whatever one the old NetBSD machines use).
>
> --
> Joshua Boyd
>
> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> > On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > > Now does this work in the traditional way where programs are confined to
> > > one display or the other, or is it the more modern Mac, Windows, Xinerama
> > > way?
> >
> > The former...and I doubt that will change anytime soon, at least not
> > without an X protocol extension.
> >
> > The heads in X are called "hostname:display.screen"...if you have a
> > SPARC machine with two CG6s running X, they'll be called
> > "hostname:0.0" (or simply ":0.0") and "hostname:0.1", in which the
> > last digit is the "screen" number. X clients connect to TCP port
> > 6000+screen_number to come up on either screen. That means that, to
> > move an X client's window(s) from one screen to the other would
> > require moving an active TCP connection from one port to another...not
> > something that's easy or practical to do.
> >
> > It seems theoretically possible to write an X protocol extension to
> > support this, though. There'd have to be a message sent from the
> > server to the client requesting a "screen" change, after which the
> > client would drop the connection and reestablish it on the other
> > screen's port. Some provision would have to be made for maintaining
> > the client's current state, perhaps through maintaining the X client
> > id across the two connections.
> >
> > -Dave McGuire
> > _______________________________________________
> > rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> > http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 03:55:51 UTC
Permalink
I just loved the reaction when I went to get a new computer and walked in
the door carrying a Sun 511 drive case. "Whoah, that is a huge computer."
"Uhm, this is just the external harddrive". Then I wheeled in the 3/160
case.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dan Debertin wrote:

> On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> > On June 20, Dan Debertin wrote:
> > > Well, they weigh a ton and cost roughly $10/mo to power. They also throw
> > > off a lot of heat and noise. If those aren't problems for you, enjoy!
> >
> > I become more and more amused at statements like this as time goes on.
> >
> > Hasn't anyone here ever seen a BIG computer, one whose processor
> > measures in the dozens of 6' racks and has a building built around it?
>
> Sure I have; I'm just not interested in telling fish stories. We've all
> seen biiig computers. Biiiiig deal.
>
> > There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.
>
> Context, Dave. If you're at a swapmeet, like the original poster claimed
> to be, and you're going to be taking it home, as I also assume the
> original poster was, then "big" is:
>
> a) anything you can't get into your car yourself, or
>
> b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.
>
> The difference between that kind of "big", which is really quite small,
> and the "big" that you describe, is a matter of perspective.
>
> It doesn't matter.
>
> Dan
> --
> Dan Debertin
> ***@nodewarrior.org
> www.nodewarrior.org
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Dan Debertin
2001-06-21 04:15:32 UTC
Permalink
On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:

> I just loved the reaction when I went to get a new computer and walked in
> the door carrying a Sun 511 drive case. "Whoah, that is a huge computer."
> "Uhm, this is just the external harddrive". Then I wheeled in the 3/160
> case.

Yep, same here ;). I think she's just glad I have a cheap hobby. Most of
my stuff I got for free or piteously small amounts of money; I don't think
I've ever paid more than $100 for a piece of hardware in my life, and I've
never bought software, ever.

So I have a feeling that, every time she walks past the humming computer
room, she just says "Hey, at least he's not into cars or Harley's...".

Dan
--
Dan Debertin
***@nodewarrior.org
www.nodewarrior.org
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 04:16:26 UTC
Permalink
I only know one person who uses it. He's never complained. He uses it
with Matrox and ATI hardware. I don't remeber he he mixes and matches
brands when he does it.

I'd use it, but I don't have any slots for a second video card. Sound,
video capture, ethernet, and scsi fill my PCI slots, and I have a cheap
AGP voodoo3 (that really needs to be replaced. I bought it because I
thought it would be the best supported for linux 3D acceleration, but I've
never gotten it to work in accelerated mode under either Xfree 3 or 4).
Maybe, if I'm lucky, the replacement will be a G450 Max(I don't know if
the Geforce MX dual head cards are supported under linux).

--
Joshua Boyd

On Wed, 20 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> On June 20, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > I'd like to point out that XFree can do it the classic way, ans also the
> > windows way. You use xinerama for the new way. I'm told that xinerama
> > also works with the Sun X server (the one with modern solaris, not
> > whatever one the old NetBSD machines use).
>
> Excellent!! Now THAT is some nice functionality.
>
> Though hearing "modern solaris" and "old netbsd" does give me a
> chuckle. But their insistence on sticking with X11R3 for
> political/licensing/other-nontechnical-bullshit reasons is truly
> absurd. I remember upgrading to X11R4 for the HUGE performance
> benefits when my main desktop (deskside?) machine was a MicroVAX-II
> more than TEN YEARS AGO. Sheesh!
>
> Xinerama seems like really nice stuff. Is it stable?
>
> -Dave McGuire
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 13:55:21 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:16:26AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> I'd use it, but I don't have any slots for a second video card. Sound,
> video capture, ethernet, and scsi fill my PCI slots, and I have a cheap
> AGP voodoo3 (that really needs to be replaced. I bought it because I
> thought it would be the best supported for linux 3D acceleration, but I've
> never gotten it to work in accelerated mode under either Xfree 3 or 4).
> Maybe, if I'm lucky, the replacement will be a G450 Max(I don't know if
> the Geforce MX dual head cards are supported under linux).

The NVidia stuff is better supported; I got rid of a G450 and replaced it
with a dualhead GF2MX.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Robert Rose
2001-06-21 08:39:51 UTC
Permalink
>> > b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.
>>
>> Time for a new (read: reasonable enough to take the zebra WITH his
>> stripes) spouse. ;)
>Depends on how important computers are to you. Most of us (myself
>included) were smart enough to pair off with someone tolerant of our
>stuff. Those people are a rare find, though.
My wife actually help me load my first 2 Suns (4/370's) that I'd stripped
to pieces the night before into our small 2-door car. Also, she didn't
mind sitting in the back seat supporting most of the weight of an empty x70
chassis and other large bits for the 3 trips it took to get them home.

She's never laughed at any of the stuff I've brought home. A rare find
indeed!!!

Rob.
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 12:59:13 UTC
Permalink
Speaking of big iron, the local Honeywell plant is giving tours all next
week if I understood the news broadcast correctly. Do they still make bir
iron machines? What would they be likely to make at their York PA plant
(I am not going to take off work to go see).

--
Joshua Boyd
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 14:04:48 UTC
Permalink
OK Bill. Here is the $64k question (OK, its more like a $100 question).
Have you ever tried a drawing tablet under XFree 4 with the Geforce, and
do you use the Xfree provided driver, or the nvidea provided driver?

Under XFree 3, binary only drivers and drawing tablets had a habit of not
getting along. I have been unable to establish if the Xfree driver's
performance is adequate, and if not if I'll be able to use my tablet with
the Nvidea driver under xfree 4. That is why I don't have a Nvidea card
yet.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Bill Bradford wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:16:26AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > I'd use it, but I don't have any slots for a second video card. Sound,
> > video capture, ethernet, and scsi fill my PCI slots, and I have a cheap
> > AGP voodoo3 (that really needs to be replaced. I bought it because I
> > thought it would be the best supported for linux 3D acceleration, but I've
> > never gotten it to work in accelerated mode under either Xfree 3 or 4).
> > Maybe, if I'm lucky, the replacement will be a G450 Max(I don't know if
> > the Geforce MX dual head cards are supported under linux).
>
> The NVidia stuff is better supported; I got rid of a G450 and replaced it
> with a dualhead GF2MX.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Bill Bradford
> ***@mrbill.net
> Austin, TX
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 14:38:23 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:04:48AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> OK Bill. Here is the $64k question (OK, its more like a $100 question).
> Have you ever tried a drawing tablet under XFree 4 with the Geforce, and
> do you use the Xfree provided driver, or the nvidea provided driver?

NVidia driver, and I've never owned a drawing tablet.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Brian Harrington
2001-06-21 14:41:34 UTC
Permalink
--On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 23:15:32 -0500 Dan Debertin
<***@nodewarrior.org> wrote:

> So I have a feeling that, every time she walks past the humming computer
> room, she just says "Hey, at least he's not into cars or Harley's...".

My wife actually told me that she had an epiphany one day, when she
saw/read something about classic car collectors, and she decided that maybe
what I do isn't so bad after all. Of course the little VAXcluster in the
dining room is still a source of some contention. :-)

-- Brian


--
Brian Harrington
Milton S. Eisenhower Library
The Johns Hopkins University
***@sigh.mse.jhu.edu
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 14:58:18 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:41:34AM -0400, Brian Harrington wrote:
> My wife actually told me that she had an epiphany one day, when she
> saw/read something about classic car collectors, and she decided that maybe
> what I do isn't so bad after all. Of course the little VAXcluster in the
> dining room is still a source of some contention. :-)

I think the best moment at our household was when I had the 4/690MP
(full datacenter chassis/rack) delivered via freight.

Amy calls me at work. "I think you better come home for lunch."

I get home.

She's out in the garage, staring at it like the monolith from 2001.

"You told me it was the size of a fridge.. I thought you meant DORM FRIDGE."

The best part about that box (which sadly, came with no CPU boards, etc)
was actually DISMANTLING it - taking everything out of the rack, getting
a replacement caster wheel, etc. I wish I hadnt sold the chassis/rack.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Gil Young
2001-06-21 16:30:12 UTC
Permalink
I have it pre-arranged that the next house will be a 5 bedroom, one for
me&spouse, one for kiddie #1, one for kiddie #2, and one for machines, with
its own electrical sub-panel and big UPS with a transfer switch and maybe a
generator out back too :p. Also, a clause for at least a 50 foot antenna
mast in the back yard somewhere.

Now, how to convince her that the master bedroom needs to be the one with
the computer stuff in it, well ....
:).

Gil

At 09:58 AM 6/21/01 -0500, you wrote:
>On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:41:34AM -0400, Brian Harrington wrote:
> > My wife actually told me that she had an epiphany one day, when she
> > saw/read something about classic car collectors, and she decided that
> maybe
> > what I do isn't so bad after all. Of course the little VAXcluster in the
> > dining room is still a source of some contention. :-)
>
>I think the best moment at our household was when I had the 4/690MP
>(full datacenter chassis/rack) delivered via freight.
>
>Amy calls me at work. "I think you better come home for lunch."
>
>I get home.
>
>She's out in the garage, staring at it like the monolith from 2001.
>
>"You told me it was the size of a fridge.. I thought you meant DORM FRIDGE."
>
>The best part about that box (which sadly, came with no CPU boards, etc)
>was actually DISMANTLING it - taking everything out of the rack, getting
>a replacement caster wheel, etc. I wish I hadnt sold the chassis/rack.
>
>Bill
>
>--
>Bill Bradford
>***@mrbill.net
>Austin, TX
>_______________________________________________
>rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
>http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

Gil Young
Call Sign: KG4KVX
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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PS PE+ Y+ PGP t+ 5 X+ R tv b+ DI+ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 14:50:26 UTC
Permalink
Heck if it was my house, a vacluster in the dining room would definately
be a source of contention, and of the people I know, I'm the most likely
one to own such a beast.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Brian Harrington wrote:

> --On Wednesday, June 20, 2001 23:15:32 -0500 Dan Debertin
> <***@nodewarrior.org> wrote:
>
> > So I have a feeling that, every time she walks past the humming computer
> > room, she just says "Hey, at least he's not into cars or Harley's...".
>
> My wife actually told me that she had an epiphany one day, when she
> saw/read something about classic car collectors, and she decided that maybe
> what I do isn't so bad after all. Of course the little VAXcluster in the
> dining room is still a source of some contention. :-)
>
> -- Brian
>
>
> --
> Brian Harrington
> Milton S. Eisenhower Library
> The Johns Hopkins University
> ***@sigh.mse.jhu.edu
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Brian Hechinger
2001-06-21 17:19:17 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:50:26AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> Heck if it was my house, a vacluster in the dining room would definately
> be a source of contention, and of the people I know, I'm the most likely
> one to own such a beast.

i think the PDP-11/03 is going to go in the dining room when i pick it up
this weekend. i'll be damned if i'm dragging that up the stairs to the
computer room that lacks the space for it anyway. (well, not really, but it
would be a tight fit.)

-brian

ps: it's got a hard disk and tons of cards in a 42" cabinet
Brian Hechinger
2001-06-21 17:49:13 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 02:15:19PM -0400, linc wrote:
>
> And I'll be damned it I am helping you drag that thing up those stairs
> either :-)

see, that settles it, i seriously doubt i could drag that thing up the stairs
by myself. :)

-brian
BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak
2001-06-21 15:00:49 UTC
Permalink
> > There's nothing big or heavy about a Sun '70 chassis. Good grief.
>
> Context, Dave. If you're at a swapmeet, like the original poster claimed
> to be, and you're going to be taking it home, as I also assume the
> original poster was, then "big" is:

Since I'm the surplus diving pit joe that hauled it home.....

> a) anything you can't get into your car yourself, or

Well, I managed two 6 foot DEC racks one time, and an AS400 rack
another, and a couple 900 lb Korean War era Navy Radio Transmitting
Sets (AN/SRT-14), and....

My van gets to earn its wheaties, the old fashioned way, and I have
a penchant for biggie iron (computer/radio stuff)....(:+}}...

But, I tend to the orphan stuff that the PeeCee folks seem to avoid.
It's cheaper to play with, more fun, and usually runs a good UNIX.

> b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the door.

Luckily, I have a most gracious spouse (35 years worth) that full well
knows I may drag home a VAX 9000, someday.....(:+}}... Then I will need
a diesel 20kw generator to drive it, too....

> The difference between that kind of "big", which is really quite small,
> and the "big" that you describe, is a matter of perspective.

Perspective is a big part of it.

> It doesn't matter.

To me, it has some klunkersmanship, if it is the ``right'' iron...(:+}}...

And, its all in fun, for me. I don't have to make a living at it.

Bob
Dan Sikorski
2001-06-21 15:07:39 UTC
Permalink
> >> > b) anything your spouse would laugh at if you brought in the
door.
> >>
> >> Time for a new (read: reasonable enough to take the zebra WITH his
> >> stripes) spouse. ;)
> >Depends on how important computers are to you. Most of us (myself
> >included) were smart enough to pair off with someone tolerant of our
> >stuff. Those people are a rare find, though.
> My wife actually help me load my first 2 Suns (4/370's) that I'd
stripped
> to pieces the night before into our small 2-door car. Also, she
didn't
> mind sitting in the back seat supporting most of the weight of an
empty
> x70
> chassis and other large bits for the 3 trips it took to get them home.
>
> She's never laughed at any of the stuff I've brought home. A rare
find
> indeed!!!
>
> Rob.

After this thread started, I had to test my girlfriend. So, I asked
her... IF we were to get married and have a house, and I brought home
some old monstrosity of a computer, would you get upset about it or call
me crazy? To which she replied that she wouldn't, and would understand
that computers are my hobby and profession. So, I asked her if she was
sure, and pointed her to a picture of a Cyber 205
(http://histoire.info.online.fr/images/cyber205.jpeg as shown to me by
Dave McGuire) and explained that the computer was the thing on the
right, not just the little things on the table. She still said she'd
have no problems, but then asked the REAL question... She asked that if
she accidently tripped over a cable or something, and fried the whole
thing if I'd be upset. Of course I said that I would be upset that the
computer was toast, but not that she accidently tripped over it. I
think I've found the perfect woman.

-Dan Sikorski
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 15:24:01 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:07:39AM -0500, Dan Sikorski wrote:
> After this thread started, I had to test my girlfriend. So, I asked
> her... IF we were to get married and have a house, and I brought home
> some old monstrosity of a computer, would you get upset about it or call
> me crazy? To which she replied that she wouldn't, and would understand
> that computers are my hobby and profession.

I'm still waiting to see if I can put a raised floor in the garage. 8-)

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 15:38:55 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > After this thread started, I had to test my girlfriend. So, I asked
> > her... IF we were to get married and have a house, and I brought home
> > some old monstrosity of a computer, would you get upset about it or call
> > me crazy? To which she replied that she wouldn't, and would understand
> > that computers are my hobby and profession.
>
> I'm still waiting to see if I can put a raised floor in the garage. 8-)

Are you kidding? The raised floor will get installed, and you'll be
lucky if Amy gives you any space on it. ;)

-Dave McGuire
Kevin Loch
2001-06-21 15:42:14 UTC
Permalink
Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> On June 21, Bill Bradford wrote:
> > > After this thread started, I had to test my girlfriend. So, I asked
> > > her... IF we were to get married and have a house, and I brought home
> > > some old monstrosity of a computer, would you get upset about it or call
> > > me crazy? To which she replied that she wouldn't, and would understand
> > > that computers are my hobby and profession.
> >
> > I'm still waiting to see if I can put a raised floor in the garage. 8-)
>
> Are you kidding? The raised floor will get installed, and you'll be
> lucky if Amy gives you any space on it. ;)
>
> -Dave McGuire

Heh, our garage is already scoped out for a LEGO room. I do have
a 10x10' space reserved in the basement for the raised floor computer
room.
It's just a matter of building it out. We have 10' clearance in our
basement.
Does anyone know if they make raised floor stands that are less than the
typical
12-18" ? I would think that 8" would be enough.

KL
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 15:58:30 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Kevin Loch wrote:
> Does anyone know if they make raised floor stands that are less than the
> typical
> 12-18" ? I would think that 8" would be enough.

Yes...I've worked on raised floor that was about 4" high. Various
heights are manufactured. Talk to Kent <***@usit.net>...he
frequently has surplus raised floor.

-Dave McGuire
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 16:03:33 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:42:14AM -0400, Kevin Loch wrote:
> Does anyone know if they make raised floor stands that are less than the
> typical
> 12-18" ? I would think that 8" would be enough.

We had 6" when we turned an office in a strip mall into a raised-floor
computer room (got the supports and tiles from a local newspaper that
had gotten rid of their mainframes, so the tech support guys got to
learn how to put in a raised floor over the next 2 weeks)...

BIll

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Greg A. Woods
2001-06-21 16:45:44 UTC
Permalink
[ On Thursday, June 21, 2001 at 11:42:14 (-0400), Kevin Loch wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [rescue] 670MP windfall in the surplus diving frenzy today.....
>
> It's just a matter of building it out. We have 10' clearance in our
> basement.

You have 10 _feet_ of clearance? In your BASEMENT? Wow! I though I
was doing well to find an affordable house here with a 6.5' basement (in
an area of the city well above the lake and where the clay is well over
100' deep given the 40-foot pit and deeper pilings holes they just dug
at the end of the street for a new 30-story condo). I did manage to get
a 6-foot 30"-deep cabinet in, though it just barely had room to tip back
up with the corner up between the floor joists (83" diagonal), and I had
to tip it back down again to get it under the centre beam of course.
It'll involve removing the ceiling tiles again (if I ever get them
re-installed first, which I should just for sound-proofing) to move it
out again....

--
Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <***@acm.org> <***@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <***@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <***@weird.com>
linc
2001-06-21 15:38:26 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Brian Harrington wrote:

> My wife actually told me that she had an epiphany one day, when she
> saw/read something about classic car collectors, and she decided that maybe
> what I do isn't so bad after all. Of course the little VAXcluster in the
> dining room is still a source of some contention. :-)
>
> -- Brian

Must be a popular place - that's where mine is as well, and it's also the
source of some contention :-)

-Linc.

--
11:37am up 63 days, 23:35, 4 users, load average: 1.00, 1.02, 1.07
Amy
2001-06-21 15:52:03 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> Are you kidding? The raised floor will get installed, and you'll be
> lucky if Amy gives you any space on it. ;)

pfft! when we moved in here we made a deal. no computer collection
anywhere but the garage. so the mad scientists' workshop is his and the
rest of the house is mine, especially the dining room table when/if we get
one. (don't ask, its a female thing) in return for that 500sq feet, i
would do laundry.

of course, neither of us lived up to this as there's stuff everywhere and
no clean clothes. :)

its an equitable arrangemnt, i think.

--a
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 16:09:49 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:52:03AM -0500, Amy wrote:
> of course, neither of us lived up to this as there's stuff everywhere and
> no clean clothes. :)

Actually we *do* have clean clothes... I just do my own laundry a lot. 8-)

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
linc
2001-06-21 16:06:18 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Bill Bradford wrote:

> I think the best moment at our household was when I had the 4/690MP
> (full datacenter chassis/rack) delivered via freight.
>
> Amy calls me at work. "I think you better come home for lunch."
>
> I get home.
>
> She's out in the garage, staring at it like the monolith from 2001.
>
> "You told me it was the size of a fridge.. I thought you meant DORM FRIDGE."
>
> The best part about that box (which sadly, came with no CPU boards, etc)
> was actually DISMANTLING it - taking everything out of the rack, getting
> a replacement caster wheel, etc. I wish I hadnt sold the chassis/rack.
>
> Bill

At least you can get them delivered out west. On the east side of the US,
people just tell you that you have to stop by Dave McGuire's house
and get them.. That is of course because all the good hardware stops
there first. Dave seems to run the "cool computer distribution center" in
the eastern US (weather he wants to admit it or not) :-)

-Linc Fessenden

--
12:03pm up 64 days, 1 min, 4 users, load average: 1.17, 1.05, 1.01
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 16:15:54 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, linc wrote:
> At least you can get them delivered out west. On the east side of the US,
> people just tell you that you have to stop by Dave McGuire's house
> and get them.. That is of course because all the good hardware stops
> there first. Dave seems to run the "cool computer distribution center" in
> the eastern US (weather he wants to admit it or not) :-)

Uh-huh. Hardly. ;)

-Dave McGuire
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 16:43:37 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, linc wrote:
> > Uh-huh. Hardly. ;)
>
> This coming from the only guy I have ever met with a Cray and a fully
> functioning electron microscope in his living room :-)

Yes, but they're not for sale. :)

-Dave McGuire
Gil Young
2001-06-21 16:52:13 UTC
Permalink
Dave, man, that so busts you wide open, a SEM in the living room! Man! I
feel like butting heads together with you or something right now.

Gil
At 01:15 PM 6/21/01 -0400, you wrote:
>On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
> > Uh-huh. Hardly. ;)
> >
> > -Dave McGuire
>
>This coming from the only guy I have ever met with a Cray and a fully
>functioning electron microscope in his living room :-)
>
>-Linc.
>
>--
> 1:14pm up 64 days, 1:12, 5 users, load average: 1.03, 1.08, 1.04
>
>_______________________________________________
>rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
>http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

Gil Young
Call Sign: KG4KVX
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Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 17:00:04 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Gil Young wrote:
> Dave, man, that so busts you wide open, a SEM in the living room! Man! I
> feel like butting heads together with you or something right now.

It's not THAT weird, man...

-Dave McGuire
Gil Young
2001-06-21 17:42:32 UTC
Permalink
At 01:00 PM 6/21/01 -0400, you wrote:
>On June 21, Gil Young wrote:
> > Dave, man, that so busts you wide open, a SEM in the living room! Man! I
> > feel like butting heads together with you or something right now.
>
> It's not THAT weird, man...

Even more proof that it is :).


> -Dave McGuire
>_______________________________________________
>rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
>http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue

Gil Young
Call Sign: KG4KVX
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 16:09:06 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Amy wrote:

> pfft! when we moved in here we made a deal. no computer collection
> anywhere but the garage. so the mad scientists' workshop is his and the
> rest of the house is mine, especially the dining room table when/if we get
> one. (don't ask, its a female thing) in return for that 500sq feet, i
> would do laundry.

What's female about dining room tables? Guys can have dinner parties too,
you know, and a nice dining room table is kinda essential for that.

--
Joshua Boyd
Gil Young
2001-06-21 16:47:19 UTC
Permalink
At 11:19 AM 6/21/01 -0500, you wrote:

>most women dont mind computers all over the house so much as on the dining
>room table--the married couples out there can confirm this.

My dream is to have a computer that _IS_ a dining room table. I think some
1/3 height Vaxen cases down the center with a big glass top would do...

I had a opportunity to get two matching 4 CPU 486 rolling mini-tower type
units once, they would have been perfect end tables in the living room. If
i gutted them we would have a little fromt opening cabinet thingy going on,
BUT NOOOOOO, wifey had to veto it .... I am thinking next I should pitch
them as "cool pool/patio furniture" and see how that goes...

Gil Young
Call Sign: KG4KVX
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PS PE+ Y+ PGP t+ 5 X+ R tv b+ DI+ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
Amy
2001-06-21 16:19:31 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> What's female about dining room tables?

most women dont mind computers all over the house so much as on the dining
room table--the married couples out there can confirm this.

as for the reasons why...number one, when you inherit or buy a good one,
you dont want it getting scratched. a good table and chair set will run
anywhere from 3000 on up. number two, even though its only used once in a
great while, it just has to look perfect all the time. i cant really
explain it beyond that.

> Guys can have dinner parties too,

sure. but i have yet to find one of em that didnt quantify a dinner party
as being a box of pizza and a six-pack set up on a card table.

--a
Brian Hechinger
2001-06-21 18:10:05 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 11:19:31AM -0500, Amy wrote:
>
> > Guys can have dinner parties too,
>
> sure. but i have yet to find one of em that didnt quantify a dinner party
> as being a box of pizza and a six-pack set up on a card table.

<rant>

excuse me? talk about hugely sexist comment here. that's a 'get together'
not a dinner party. men can cook. men know how to have proper dinner parties
and god dammit REAL MEN EAT QUICHE.

</rant>

ok, that wasn't a proper rant, but i'm tired. :)

-brian
BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak
2001-06-21 16:42:51 UTC
Permalink
> > of course, neither of us lived up to this as there's stuff everywhere and
> > no clean clothes. :)
>
> Actually we *do* have clean clothes... I just do my own laundry a lot. 8-)
>
> Bill

My, how topics wander.... but.....(:+}}...

In my situation I traded similarly, and do the laundry... but, the
laundry room is 12x16, air conditioned, panelled, and generally a pretty
nice place to play in, and I had it specially plumbed with lots of
extra electricalwidigets including 220V, and the washer/drier takes
up a tiny portion of the ``hamshack/computercenter'' getting lost
among the VAXentoyz, WWII radiostuff, etc. In the end, it was a
worthwhile trade, for the space, and the place to go. At one time,
I had it spilled over into the rest of the basement, with 30 servers
and workstations all netted up (only ran about a dozen at a time, tho).
Alas, when the kids moved back in (for school economy), everything
folded back into the laundry room ``center''. Now it looks a bit
like a submarine sardine tin. But, in winter, all I have to do is
fire up a sever or two or light off some tube filaments and it is
never chilly. And, I know at least my laundry gets done....(:+}}...

Bob
Brian Dunbar
2001-06-21 16:44:49 UTC
Permalink
>>This coming from the only guy I have ever met with a Cray and a fully
functioning electron microscope in his living room :-)<<

Is that hyperbole? About the 'scope, I mean. I was *fascinated* by the
scopes the chip fab I used to work at had in the basement . . .

brian. Morose Outlook User Since 1998
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 16:52:09 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> Is that hyperbole? About the 'scope, I mean. I was *fascinated* by the
> scopes the chip fab I used to work at had in the basement . . .

Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.

-Dave McGuire
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 17:16:10 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:52:09PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.
> -Dave McGuire

Please tell me you've never stuck body parts or fluids
in that... 8-)

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 17:20:28 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, Bill Bradford wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 12:52:09PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> > Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.
> > -Dave McGuire
>
> Please tell me you've never stuck body parts or fluids
> in that... 8-)

You're a weirdo, Bill. ;)

-Dave McGuire
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 17:28:36 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 01:20:28PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> > Please tell me you've never stuck body parts or fluids
> > in that... 8-)
> You're a weirdo, Bill. ;)

Damn straight. However, looking at your own blood cells would
be kinda nifty.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
BSD Bob the old greybeard BSD freak
2001-06-21 16:47:51 UTC
Permalink
> > What's female about dining room tables?
>
> most women dont mind computers all over the house so much as on the dining
> room table--the married couples out there can confirm this.

True.... but....

> as for the reasons why...number one, when you inherit or buy a good one,
> you dont want it getting scratched. a good table and chair set will run
> anywhere from 3000 on up. number two, even though its only used once in a
> great while, it just has to look perfect all the time. i cant really
> explain it beyond that.

Then you have kids.... and it's all downhill, from there...... lots of
scratches, spills, dings, dents, etc..... Someday, even you and Bill
will perhaps have that experience.....(:+}}... (as long as it is not
a milk or formula bottle down into the keyboard... that is pure goo).

> > Guys can have dinner parties too,
>
> sure. but i have yet to find one of em that didnt quantify a dinner party
> as being a box of pizza and a six-pack set up on a card table.

Hey, that is the most convenient kind of party... then the rest of the
time you bull over the game, or the fishing, or the girls, or the cpus,
or the...... (whatever)..... Less muss, less fuss, quicker to do,
(but not EmilyPostCertified).

Bob
James Sharp
2001-06-21 17:06:44 UTC
Permalink
> On June 21, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> > Is that hyperbole? About the 'scope, I mean. I was *fascinated* by the
> > scopes the chip fab I used to work at had in the basement . . .
>
> Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.


but...but...are you supposed to have stuff like that? What would the
police have to say about it? I'm sure there's gotta be a law against it.
And look at all those wiiiiires stretched around. Are you supposed to be
messing with those? Shouldn't you have an electrician look at them?
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 17:17:18 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 01:06:44PM -0400, James Sharp wrote:
> but...but...are you supposed to have stuff like that? What would the
> police have to say about it? I'm sure there's gotta be a law against it.
> And look at all those wiiiiires stretched around. Are you supposed to be
> messing with those? Shouldn't you have an electrician look at them?

But.. but.. look at the WIIIRES... you CANT DO THAT! You . . just . .
cant do that! ANd what about the power company? You've GOT to be
stealing power! I'm going to have to think about this.

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
Dave McGuire
2001-06-21 17:17:44 UTC
Permalink
On June 21, James Sharp wrote:
> > On June 21, Brian Dunbar wrote:
> > > Is that hyperbole? About the 'scope, I mean. I was *fascinated* by the
> > > scopes the chip fab I used to work at had in the basement . . .
> >
> > Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.
>
>
> but...but...are you supposed to have stuff like that? What would the
> police have to say about it? I'm sure there's gotta be a law against it.
> And look at all those wiiiiires stretched around. Are you supposed to be
> messing with those? Shouldn't you have an electrician look at them?

James, I'm going to go eat a big can of beans before we go out this
afternoon.

James is, of course, referring to the shitfit my idiot technophobic
landlord had when she came in to "inspect" the house that I'm in a
lease-purchase agreement for. Problem is, she received an offer on
the house that is a solid $20K higher than the amount that she's
contractually obligated to sell it to me for, so she's trying
everything in her power to get me thrown out.

Can we say "lynch mob"?

-Dave McGuire
Bill Bradford
2001-06-21 17:27:08 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 01:17:44PM -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
> James is, of course, referring to the shitfit my idiot technophobic
> landlord had when she came in to "inspect" the house that I'm in a
> lease-purchase agreement for. Problem is, she received an offer on
> the house that is a solid $20K higher than the amount that she's
> contractually obligated to sell it to me for, so she's trying
> everything in her power to get me thrown out.
> Can we say "lynch mob"?

Just dont get any 802.11b equpment, or let her see the ham stuff -
she'll start talking about RAYDIATION!!! OH MY GOD!

Bill

--
Bill Bradford
***@mrbill.net
Austin, TX
linc
2001-06-21 17:15:49 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> Uh-huh. Hardly. ;)
>
> -Dave McGuire

This coming from the only guy I have ever met with a Cray and a fully
functioning electron microscope in his living room :-)

-Linc.

--
1:14pm up 64 days, 1:12, 5 users, load average: 1.03, 1.08, 1.04
John Honniball
2001-06-21 17:41:05 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001 13:19:17 -0400 Brian Hechinger
<***@arkham.ws> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:50:26AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > Heck if it was my house, a vacluster in the dining room would definately
> > be a source of contention, and of the people I know, I'm the most likely
> > one to own such a beast.
>
> i think the PDP-11/03 is going to go in the dining room when i pick it up
> this weekend.

OK, if it's going to get down to specific rooms/gadgets:

Living Room: Sun 2/120, Cifer 1/2" magtape, LaserVision,
Betamax, Video 2000, 8-tracks
Dining Room: Sun 3/260, PERQ I, PDP-11, HP 9825A, Vectrex
Bedroom 1: Sun IPX, Amstrad PCW8256
Bedroom 2: PERQ I (another one), Sun SparcStation 20,
Gould K100D Logic Analyser, Vectrex
Bedroom 3: Apple Lisa, Whitechapel MG-1, DECmate II, ICL
One-Per-Desk, Acorn A310
Loft (attic): Apple ][, BBC Micro, Dragon 32, Sage II
Bathroom: Tektronix 575
Garage: DEC TU-77 1/2" magtape, Printronix P300,
Advantek spectrum analyser

Nothing (as yet) in the garden, because this is England.
We wouldn't want a PDP-11 to fill up with rainwater :-)

--
John Honniball
Email: ***@uwe.ac.uk
University of the West of England
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 17:42:05 UTC
Permalink
So, what do you with digital imaging and GIS?

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Dave McGuire wrote:

> Umm, nope. See http://www.neurotica.com/sem/.
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 17:46:01 UTC
Permalink
Actually, fluids could make for some interesting pictures.

Remind me, is this the time of microscope where everything you scan has
to be metal (or coated with metal), or is it the kind where you can scan
anything down to the micron? I saw both kinds in action at a nearby (but
not my) university, and I know that one was an electron microscope, but I
forget which one.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Bill Bradford wrote:

> Please tell me you've never stuck body parts or fluids
> in that... 8-)
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 17:50:56 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Amy wrote:
> > What's female about dining room tables?

<snip>

> as for the reasons why...number one, when you inherit or buy a good one,
> you dont want it getting scratched. a good table and chair set will run
> anywhere from 3000 on up. number two, even though its only used once in a
> great while, it just has to look perfect all the time. i cant really
> explain it beyond that.

Yeah, I get that. I just fail to see why that makes the dining room table
a female thing. Or does this relate to your thinking that guys only
consider pizza and beer dinner party material?

> > Guys can have dinner parties too,
>
> sure. but i have yet to find one of em that didnt quantify a dinner party
> as being a box of pizza and a six-pack set up on a card table.

Then you married the wrong guy (at least as far as dinner parties go).
Out here on the east coast, some of us are more civilised. And actually
know how to do things like cook, set tables, etc (not to mention clean).

Is it just an American thing that guys are expected to be unrefined
idiots?

--
Joshua Boyd
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 17:54:05 UTC
Permalink
See, I really need to get my family to lurk on this list. Then, they will
think my computers are positively tame.

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, John Honniball wrote:

>
> On Thu, 21 Jun 2001 13:19:17 -0400 Brian Hechinger
> <***@arkham.ws> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 10:50:26AM -0400, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> > > Heck if it was my house, a vacluster in the dining room would definately
> > > be a source of contention, and of the people I know, I'm the most likely
> > > one to own such a beast.
> >
> > i think the PDP-11/03 is going to go in the dining room when i pick it up
> > this weekend.
>
> OK, if it's going to get down to specific rooms/gadgets:
>
> Living Room: Sun 2/120, Cifer 1/2" magtape, LaserVision,
> Betamax, Video 2000, 8-tracks
> Dining Room: Sun 3/260, PERQ I, PDP-11, HP 9825A, Vectrex
> Bedroom 1: Sun IPX, Amstrad PCW8256
> Bedroom 2: PERQ I (another one), Sun SparcStation 20,
> Gould K100D Logic Analyser, Vectrex
> Bedroom 3: Apple Lisa, Whitechapel MG-1, DECmate II, ICL
> One-Per-Desk, Acorn A310
> Loft (attic): Apple ][, BBC Micro, Dragon 32, Sage II
> Bathroom: Tektronix 575
> Garage: DEC TU-77 1/2" magtape, Printronix P300,
> Advantek spectrum analyser
>
> Nothing (as yet) in the garden, because this is England.
> We wouldn't want a PDP-11 to fill up with rainwater :-)
>
> --
> John Honniball
> Email: ***@uwe.ac.uk
> University of the West of England
>
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
Joshua D. Boyd
2001-06-21 18:01:18 UTC
Permalink
That is why you push it up. Then, in addition to it being easier, you
also have extra incentive (ie, it you stop pushing, but get squashed). :)

--
Joshua Boyd

On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, Brian Hechinger wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 21, 2001 at 02:15:19PM -0400, linc wrote:
> >
> > And I'll be damned it I am helping you drag that thing up those stairs
> > either :-)
>
> see, that settles it, i seriously doubt i could drag that thing up the stairs
> by myself. :)
>
> -brian
> _______________________________________________
> rescue maillist - ***@sunhelp.org
> http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
>
linc
2001-06-21 18:09:33 UTC
Permalink
On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, James Sharp wrote:

> but...but...are you supposed to have stuff like that? What would the
> police have to say about it? I'm sure there's gotta be a law against it.
> And look at all those wiiiiires stretched around. Are you supposed to be
> messing with those? Shouldn't you have an electrician look at them?

HAHAHA, Hey Dave, tell them about the Laser!

--
2:09pm up 64 days, 2:07, 4 users, load average: 1.00, 1.08, 1.31
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