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Re: [COFF] Fwd: Old and Tradition was [TUHS] V9 shell

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Clem Cole > Noel's email has much wisdom. New is not necessarily better and old > fashioned is not always a bad thing. For those confused by the reference, it's to an email that didn't go to the whole list (I was not sure if people would be interested): >> One of my favourite sayings (original source unknown; I saw it in >> "Shockwave Rider"): "There are two kinds of fool. One says 'This is >> old, and therefore good'; the other says 'This is new, and therefore >> better'." Noel

5 years, 4 months

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Old and Tradition was [TUHS] V9 shell

by Clem Cole

moving to COFF On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote: > My general mood about the current standard way of nerd working is how > unimaginative and old-fashioned it feels. > ... > > But I'm a grumpy old man and getting far off topic. Warren should cry, > "enough!". > > -rob > @Rob - I hear you and I'm sure there is a solid amount of wisdom in your words. But I caution that just, because something is old-fashioned, does not necessarily make it wrong (much less bad). I ask you to take a look at the Archer statistics of code running in production (Archer large HPC site in Europe): http://archer.ac.uk/status/codes/ I think there are similar stats available for places like CERN, LRZ, and of the US labs, but I know of these so I point to them. Please note that Fortran is #1 (about 80%) followed by C @ about 10%, C++ @ 8%, Python @ 1% and all the others at 1%. Why is that? The math has not changed ... and open up any of those codes and what do you see: solving systems of differential equations with linear algebra. It's the same math my did by hand as a 'computer' in the 1950s. There is not 'tensor flows' or ML searches running SPARK in there. Sorry, Google/AWS et al. Nothing 'modern' and fresh -- just solid simple science being done by scientists who don't care about the computer or sexy new computer languages. IIRC, you trained as a physicist, I think you understand their thinking. *They care about getting their science done.* By the way, a related thought comes from a good friend of mine from college who used to be the Chief Metallurgist for the US Gov (NIST in Colorado). He's back in the private sector now (because he could not stomach current American politics), but he made an important observation/comment to me a couple of years ago. They have 60+ years of metallurgical data that has and his peeps have been using with known Fortran codes. If we gave him new versions of those analytical programs now in your favorite new HLL - pick one - your Go (which I love), C++ (which I loath), DPC++, Rust, Python - whatever, the scientists would have to reconfirm previous results. They are not going to do that. It's not economical. They 'know' how the data works, the types of errors they have, how the programs behave* etc*. So to me, the bottom line is just because it's old fashioned does not make it bad. I don't want to write an OS in Fortran-2018, but I can wrote a system that supports code compiled with my sexy new Fortran-2018 compiler. That is to say, the challenge for >>me<< is to build him a new supercomputer that can run those codes for him and not change what they are doing and have them scale to 1M nodes *etc*..

5 years, 4 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] UNIBUS issues (Was: Spacewar at Bell Labs)

by William Pechter

Took this to coff since it's really hardware and non-Unix... On 2/8/20 1:59 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Dave Horsfall<dave(a)horsfall.org> > > > [ Getting into COFF territory, I think ] > > > > > In all fairness, the entire field didn't really appreciate the metastability > issue until the LINC guys at WUSTL did a big investigation of it, and then > started a big campaign to educate everyone about it - it wasn't DEC being > particularly clueless. > > > > Hey, if the DEC marketoids didn't want 3rd-party UNIBUS implementations > > then why was it published? > > Well, exactly - but it's useful to remember the differening situation for DEC > from 1970 (first PDP-11's) and later. > > In 1970 DEC was mostly selling to scientists/engineers, who wanted to hook up > to some lab equipment they'd built, and OEM's, who often wanted to use a mini > to control some value-added gear of their own devising. An open bus was really > necessary for those markets. Which is why the 1970 PDP-11/20 manual goes into > a lot of detail on how to interface to the PDP-11's UNIBUS. > > Later, of course, they were in a different business model. > > Noel My old Field Service memory is DEC never really went after Unibus interfaces and the spec was open. It was connections to the big old Massbus for things like tapes and disks that they kept closed and used patent protection on along with the SBI and the later Vax BI bus. DEC was the only maker of the BIIC chip from the VAXBI and the wouldn't sell it to competitors... Braegan (may be a spelling error) made interfaces to connect Calcomp hard disks to the PDP11's on a Massbus. IIRC they were shut down hard with legal action. I had a customer with a Unisys (formerly RCA) Spectra 70 system that had Braegan Calcomp drives with an Eatontown, NJ based Diva Disk controller. My tech school instructor pre-DEC career worked for Diva Disk as an engineer. Systems Industries, later (EMC), cloned the Massbus Adapter on the SBI Bus and didn't directly share the bus or controller with DEC sold disk drives so the SI-9400 showed up on DEC 11/780's (and I think they had an 11/70 controller as well. DEC, IIRC went after them about them using the SBI backplane interconnect. A Google search showed up this note about EMC Memory boards in Vaxes but also mentions DEC patent suits against people who used the Massbus. I don't remember that on Unibus devices like the controllers from Emulex and others. (Until they tried to deal with the Vax BI bus -- a DEC chip only or the MSCP disk subsystems.) Like you say, different time, different business model. Many inside DEC wanted them to OEM Sell Vax chips like they did PDP11 LSI/F11/J11 chips. There are a number of DECcies who feel that attitude came over with the influx of IBM'ers and others who came to DEC in the Vax period to sell into the Data Centers. They were really protecting the "family-er-crown jewels" back then to the company's detriment. Old Computerworld and Datamation adverts along with PR releases are what I find when searching, unfortunately. Here's a suit against EMC -- which cloned DEC memory products and interfaced to the SBI 11/78x bus. https://books.google.com/books?id=0sNDKMzgG8gC&pg=RA1-PA70&dq=DEC%2BMassbus… Along with the DIVA Computroller V there's another picture at the left of the page with a different emulating controller. Here's a Legal CDC9766 (I think) on a Plessey controller that plugged into an RH70 but didn't use the actual DEC Massbus (probably the CDC A and B SMD cables... (Storage Module Device? IIRC) https://books.google.com/books?id=-Nentjp6qSMC&pg=RA1-PA66&dq=eatontown,+nj… DEC even took the Emulex controllers on service contract in the late 80's. Bill

5 years, 4 months

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Idea: a regular video chat

by Warren Toomey

[x-posting to COFF] Idea: anybody interested in a regular video chat? I was thinking of one that progresses(*) through three different timezones (Asia/Aus/NZ, then the Americas, then Europe/Africa) so that everybody should be able to get to two of the three timezones. (* like a progressive dinner) 30-60 minutes each one, general old computing. Perhaps a guest speaker now and then with a short presentation. Perhaps a theme now and then. Perhaps just chew the fat, shoot the breeze as well. Platform: Zoom or I'd be happy to set up a private Jitsi instance. Something else? How often: perhaps weekly or fortnightly through the three timezones, so it would cycle back every three or six weeks. Comments, suggestions?! Cheers, Warren

5 years, 4 months

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BDS C (was: Screen editors)

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

Moving to COFF to avoid the wrath of wkt. On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 18:54:33 -0500, Richard Salz wrote: > BDS C stood for Brain-Damaged Software, it was the work of one guy (Leor > Zolman). I think it was used to build the Mark of the Unicorn stuff > (MINCE, Mince is not complete emacs, and Scribble, a scribe clone). Correct. That's how I came in contact with it (and Emacs, for that matter). Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA

5 years, 4 months

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Confused managers (was finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)))

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

On Saturday, 8 February 2020 at 9:37:22 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > >> But over the years I've been surprised how many people have been fooled. > > I'm sure that we've all pulled pranks like that. My favourite was piping > the output of "man" (a shell script on that system) through "Valley Girl" > (where each "!" was followed e.g. by "Gag me with a spoon!" etc). > > Well, $BOSS came into the office after a "heavy" night, and did something > like "man uucp", not quite figuring out what was wrong; I was summoned > shortly afterwards, as I was the only possible culprit... That brings back another recollection, not Unix-related. In about 1978 I was getting fed up with the lack of clear text error messages from Tandem's Guardian operating system. A typical message might be FILE SYSTEM ERROR 011 Yes, Tandem didn't use leading 0 to indicate octal. This basically meant ENOENT, but it was all that the end user saw. By chance I had been hacking in the binaries and found ways to catch such messages and put them through a function which converted them into clear text messages. For reasons that no longer make sense to me, I stored the texts in an external file, which required a program to update it. Early one morning I was playing around with this, and for the fun of it I changed the text for error 11 from "File not found" to "Please enter FUP PURGE ! *" (effectively rm -f *). I was still giggling about this when the project manager came to me and said "Mr. Lehey, I think I've done something silly". Thank God for backups! We were in a big IBM shop, and the operators religiously ran a backup every night. Nothing lost. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA

5 years, 4 months

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Re: [COFF] How much Fortran?

by Dave Horsfall

On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Rudi Blom wrote: >>> Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me >>> they might >>have had MODCOMPs >> >> Dunno about Tidbinbilla, but Parkes ("The Dish") has a roomful of Linux >> boxen; I didn't >have time to enquire further. > > The questions was > > "Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station > during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the details." > > Maybe MODCOMP, but at THAT time for sure no Linux. I didn't say there was.... Where did you get that idea? -- Dave

5 years, 5 months

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(no subject)

by Rudi Blom

>From: Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> >To: Computer Old Farts Followers <coff(a)tuhs.org> >Cc: >Bcc: >Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2020 07:04:43 +1100 (EST) >Subject: Re: [COFF] How much Fortran? >On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Rudi Blom wrote: > >>Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me they might >>have had MODCOMPs > >Dunno about Tidbinbilla, but Parkes ("The Dish") has a roomful of Linux boxen; I didn't >have time to enquire further. >-- Dave The questions was "Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the details." Maybe MODCOMP, but at THAT time for sure no Linux. Cheers

5 years, 5 months

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Re: [COFF] How much Fortran?

by Rudi Blom

Regarding Nasa's Tidbinbilla Tracking station, someone suggested to me they might have had MODCOMPs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODCOMP Cheers, uncle rubl =========== From: Wesley Parish <wobblygong(a)gmail.com> To: Computer Old Farts Followers <coff(a)tuhs.org> Cc: Bcc: Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2020 14:25:25 +1300 Subject: Re: [COFF] How much Fortran? My thoughts exactly. I was once lucky enough to visit the NASA's Tidbinbilla Tracking Station in the ACT just a few miles out of Canberra c. 1976 or 77, and they had some sizeable minicomputers in their computer room. (How many I don't know.) I imagine they would've been used to record the transmissions on tape and do some preliminary processing, before sending the tapes to NASA HQ in the States for storage and further analysis. I think what NASA did with their early probes would've made Real Programmers (TM) sit up and gasp. :) Does anyone on this list know anyone who worked at a tracking station during the 60s and 70s? They might be able to help fill in the details. Wesley Parish

5 years, 5 months

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How much Fortran?

by Arthur Krewat

So, given the membership here, I wonder, does anyone have the inside scoop? How much Fortran was used ? https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/01/31/1837209/nasa-is-trying-to-save-…

5 years, 5 months

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