Hello all,
This is my first time emailing the list, so please let me know if this
doesn't belong here of if I'm breaking any rules.
A few months ago, I rescued a PDP 11/34a with 2 RL01 drives from the scrap
heap. The unit appears to work fine based on my limited front-panel
testing. I haven't gotten the drives running yet since someone cut the
power cords when the cabinet was being removed.
There is a DL11-W serial line unit/realtime clock (M7856) installed in the
11/34 that I want to use for serial input/output. I have configured the
card for 9600 baud, 8N1. Using some jumper wires, I carefully connected the
card to a serial cable and a computer running a terminal and I was able to
send some characters back and forth successfully.
For a more permanent solution, I designed a simple adapter board that
connects to the BERG 40 connector on the DL11-W and converts it to a DB9
serial port (In restrospect, this product was already available at
https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/uTMf3v08 but I didn't know about that
at the time). I also ordered a 40-pin (non-IDE) ribbon cable to connect the
DL11-W to my adapter.
When I connected everything, the 11/34 would start but no lights would
appear on the front panel. I tried disconnecting the adapter but leaving
the ribbon cable plugged into the BERG connector, but the problem
persisted. When I removed the ribbon cable entirely, the unit powered on
with no problems.
Since this is a straight-through ribbon cable, I don't see what could be
causing this problem. I have checked the continuity of each wire in the
cable, and there doesn't appear to be a problem. I'd appreciate any advice
that anyone has to offer.
Yours,
Mark D. Hare
markhare(a)buffalo.edu
University at Buffalo
B. S. Civil Engineering '16
M. S. Structural/Earthquake Engineering Student
> From: Clem Cole
> don't expect a lot of wild and crazy names
Yeah, those arrived when places started to get lots of identical machines,
and needed a theme to name them. So I remember MIT-LCS had VAX 750's called
Tide, Borax, etc (cleaners); MIT-AI had Suns called Grape-Nuts, Wheaties, etc
(cereals).
I know other places had similar name sets, but I can't recall the themes of
any of them - although looking at an old HOSTS.TXT, I see CMU had systems
called Faraday, Gauss, etc, while Purdue had Fermat, Newton, etc; U-Texas had
Disney characters, BBN had fish, U-Washington had South Pacific islands - the
list just goes on and on.
Google for a old Host file, that's a good source if you want to know more.
Noel
Co-inventor of Unix, he was born on this day in 1943. Just think: without
those two, we'd all be running M$ Windoze and thinking that it's
wonderful.
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
As a tourist in Christchurch NZ in 1982, I saw a notice of a student piano
recital at the university. Free, why not? The fellow who sat next to me turned
out to be a phyicist. On learning that I was a computer scientist, he proudly
described his wonderful new computer and operating system--the first of its
kind in the university, if I remember correctly. I let on that I was familiar
with it, so we both left the recital with a small-world story to tell.
Doug
Slartibartfast brings back fond memories of THHGTTG.
Of course those in IT simply know that with a Guide and a towel
there's no need to panic :-)
Cheers,
rudi
The presence of some sort of shared memory facility in the
BBN V6 Unix kernel got me thinking about the origins of
shared memory on Unix.
I had a vague recollection that primordial versions were present
in either PWB or CB3, but a quick glance at the source indicates
that this is not correct.
What are the origins of shared memory on Unix, i.e. what came
before mmap() and SysV IPC? Was the BBN kernel the first to
implement such a facility on Unix?
Paul
Not so long ago I joked about putting a Cray-1 in a watch. Now that we are
essentially living in the future, what audacious (but realistic)
architectures can we imagine under our desks in 25 years? Perhaps a mesh
of ten-million of today's highest end CPU/GPU pairs bathing in a vast sea
of non-volatile memory? What new abstractions are needed in the OS to
handle that? Obviously many of the current command line tools would need
rethinking (ps -ef for instance.)
Or does the idea of a single OS disintegrate into a fractal cloud of
zero-cost VM's? What would a meta-OS need to manage that? Would we still
recognize it as a Unix?
You might find this interesting reading:
http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_netexplodes.htm <http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_netexplodes.htm>
In particular inhp4. I used to have a UUCP map that linked me into this network back in the mid 80s. I was based in the UK doing some work for Henry Spencer at Microport Systems if any of you recall their iX286 System V port, which was pretty cool.
Anyway, there are some interesting machine names mentioned.
From: smb(a)ulysses.att.com
Subject: Re: IHNP4
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 20:48:42 EDT
> Thus, ihnp4 was Indian Hill Network Processor #4
> mh was Murray Hill. ak was the Atlanta Wire Works, sb was Southern
> Bell, cb was Columbus (Mark Horton was mark@cbosgd for a long time)
> plus others.
Yup, Columbus Operating Systems Group D, as I recall.
> Then there were the machines in the lab that had (and have) names like
> bonnie, clyde, ulysses, research, allegra, lento, harpo, chico, etc.
> From: Clem Cole
> my printers have often been named after chainsaws
Yeah, MIT (or was it Proteon, I forget - a long time ago :-) had that theme
going for a while for printers...
> @ DEC we were pretty free to use what we wanted and some were themed,
> most were boring.
Hah! I do have a cosmically great computer naming story from DEC, though.
So DECNet host names were limited to N characters (where N=8, or some
such). So one day they get this complaint from some DEC user in the UK:
"Grumble, grumble, grumble, N-character limit in DECNet host names, we want to
name our host 'Slartibartfast'."
So, this being before a certain radio play had hit the US from the UK, the
people at DEC were like:
"What's a 'Slartibartfast'???"
Instantly, the reply shot back (and perhaps some of you saw this coming):
"Boy, you guys are so unhip it's a wonder your pants down fall down!" :-) :-)
Noel