Off-topic, but maybe somewhat related to MicroPDP-11's... I've got a
MicroVAX I in a BA23 enclosure. I'm presently a bit thrown by the serial
console port. I'm used to the 9pin MicroVAX II ports. From what I've
been told, the DB25-M connector for the console requires a special serial
cable for connecting the MicroVAX I up to a terminal. A null modem cable
is not adequate.
First, I just wanted to verify that this is correct. So far I haven't
been able to access a console prompt using either a null modem cable, or a
straight through cable. So either the system isn't working correctly, or
I need to get the cable right. Secondly, if it does require a special
cable, then what are the pinouts for that cable?
I'm guessing that aside from the processor itself, the MicroVAX I is
probably a lot closer in design to its contemporary MicroPDP-11 systems.
So I'm hoping that the 25pin console port is simillar to what some of you
have worked with on your Q-bus PDP-11's.
-brian.
---
Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!!
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have got some hardware I have to get rid of by the end of February, and it's
free to any of you guys if you are willing to come and pick it up in Cleveland,
Ohio, USA.
Last November I received a load of equipment from one company here in
Cleveland. It was a complicated network of CPUs and peripherals of all makes
and models put together by Xerox and intended to be used as a dedicated
document processing system. The CPUs included one VAX, three unidentifiable
towers, and a bunch of PCs. I'm using the VAX and all disk and tape drives
myself for my own purposes, and I'm selling the PCs, but still I've got those
three unidentifiable towers and three very funky monitors that were attached to
them. There is also a very funky laser printer attached to one of them. Given
that the VAX and all disk and tape drives have been taken out of the equation,
it's unlikely that the rest of the stuff can still be used for that dedicated
document processing whatever thing, but the towers have some apparently generic
controller boards in them (VME or something like that) and other parts that can
be raided for. Who knows, maybe even the CPUs are standard (probably some 68K),
in which case someone who knows more about this than I do (NULL) may be able to
actually use these machines for something.
The only identification on this equipment are the Xerox model numbers. One of
the towers was called NS8090 File Server. It had an external SCSI hard disk and
an Exabyte tape drive, but I've reused these for my own purposes. The other two
towers were called 6085 workstations, and they were diskless from the beginning
(as far as I can tell they don't have any mass storage controllers). All three
have monitors with very funny connectors. Aside from the Xerox model numbers
which tell me absolutely nothing, there are no hints whatsoever as to what the
CPU architecture is and all that. All towers have AUI Ethernet ports.
The laser printer is called NS8000 Laser CP, and it was attached to the tower
that was called the NS8090 File Server. The connectors are 25-pin like the
serial and parallel ones, but they have slide locks like on AUI. These slide
locks and the fact that the printer was apparently never intended to be
connected to anything except an "NS8090 File Server" suggest that the printer's
interface is not parallel or serial, but something very funny.
It has been suggested to me that I take the boxes apart, ID as many boards as
possible, and try to sell/donate them to whoever finds them useful (and the
cabinets and such would probably have to be scrapped). However, the thing is,
I don't really have time for all this, and it's naive to think that any of this
stuff has any significant cash value.
Right now I'm in the process of moving to another (cheaper) apartment in
another part of Cleveland, and really don't feel like hauling that junk around
with me. I have got these three CPU towers, three monitors, and one laser
printer, all absolutely unidentifiable, that I have to get rid of. Given what a
great job I've done at identifying and describing this stuff, it would be naive
for me to expect to sell it. Therefore, I'm giving it away for free to anyone
who is willing to come and pick it up. I have to vacate this apartment by the
end of February, and if no one picks this stuff up, I will have no choice but
to throw it in the big dumpster, which would be a great pity if this stuff is
actually useful for something.
Once again, I'm in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/
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>From Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca> Wed Feb 3 00:52:35 1999
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From: Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Message-Id: <199902021452.JAA29320(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: Old UNIX file system formats
To: erin(a)coffee.corliss.net (Erin W. Corliss)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 09:52:35 -0500 (EST)
Cc: norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990201095832.20104A-100000(a)coffee.corliss.net> from "Erin W. Corliss" at Feb 1, 99 10:01:14 am
Organization: University of Waterloo, Math Faculty Computing Facility (Alumni)
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I shouldn't have posted without doing the proper research. I took a
gander at PUPS/Tools/Filesys/traverse.c.gz which I'm quite sure is one
of the tools I wrote when I was finally able to figure out the contents
of that V6 tape I had (also with no docs - it was such irony to look
at the setup document on the tape *after* figuring the format out that
clearly describes the block layout 8-). I notice traverse.c.gz does
indeed use the LARG flag, not HUGE. Since few care, I'll not bother
extracting enough of Venix 1.x to see whether that is where I met the
HUGE flag or it is just my faulty memory... -- Ken
| From owner-pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au Mon Feb 1 13:06:04 1999
|
| Hmm... I wrote a disk image editor in Visual Basic without knowing the
| specs for the filesystem -- I set it up so that if the 9th pointer is zero
| and the filesize is greater than one block, then it assumed the block
| pointed to by the 8th pointer was a list of blocks in the file.
Alan F R Bain <A.F.R.Bain(a)dpmms.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> I think this is being grossly unfair and irrelevant; the information
> provided was that NetBSD was a viable alternative which is correct.
> All my modern machines run NetBSD and the only non supported hardware
> is a 9 track magtape drive on a sun -- I don't consider that
> unreasonable as it's rather an unusal model.
How is this relevant to NetBSD/vax? Remember, architectures other than VAX do
not exist as far as I am concerned, so when I say "NetBSD", I always always
always mean NetBSD/vax.
> I don't think PUPS
> is the place for OS favouritism arguments, so please desist.
It is necessary, however, to protect the innocent novice users from falling
into the claws of that predator.
> To add a constructive comment, there's been a lot written about the
> history and tree of development of early unix up to the SYSV
> and BSD split occured, but I'm pretty unsure about the rest.
> It seems that BSD2 and BSD4 developed pretty much in parallel,
> the former targetting the PDP and the latter the VAX; Warren's
> graphing data provide an interesting view of what happened,
> but I'm unsure how closely related the two developments were
> (especially in time of releases, introduction of new features
> etc.). I'd be grateful if someone more knowledgable could fill
> in some of the details.
First of all, this is absolutely irrelevant to the question of binary
compatibility between 4.2BSD, 4.3BSD, and Ultrix.
Second, the development didn't "split" into PDP-11 and VAX. Instead, the
MAINSTREAM UNIX system _CONVERTED_ from PDP-11 to VAX, and did so at AT&T,
before the torch was turned over to UC Berkeley. 2BSD was not mainstream UNIX.
In fact, it was not UNIX at all, since it didn't contain a kernel, only a
patchkit of userland enhancements. Now if you are talking about 2.xBSD, as
opposed to the real 2BSD, it is a different story altogether, and it isn't
really Berkeley Software DIstribution, since it wasn't developed at Berkeley.
2.xBSD is an unauthorized, unapproved, and unblessed side branch, and as far as
I'm concerned, it doesn't exist.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/
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>From Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com> Sat Jan 30 10:50:36 1999
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Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 19:50:36 -0500
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com>
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: low-end vaxen and unix
Message-ID: <19990129195036.A7942(a)rek.tjls.com>
Reply-To: tls(a)rek.tjls.com
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On Fri, Jan 29, 1999 at 05:49:42PM -0500, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com> wrote:
>
> > As far as I recall, stock 4.3 won't run on the MV2000, 3100, etc.
>
> 4.3BSD-Quasijarus will eventually. For now if you want to run the
> 4.3BSD-Quasijarus userland, run it atop of an Ultrix kernel. Will work
> beautifully.
>
> > There is a reasonable alternative. NetBSD runs on the 2000, many 3100 models,
> > and even the 4000/60, which Ultrix never ran on.
>
> A warning for naive list readers. NetBSD's definition of "runs on" means that
> you have to part with all of your mass storage devices and use the bare CPU as
> diskless peering-at toy.
That's nonsense. As I stated in the message to which you were purportedly
responding, NetBSD supports both SCSI and MFM (RD-series) disks on the machines
in question. It also supports MSCP disks on most systems to which they
can be attached, and TMSCP tapes; and, for the truly masochistic, last
time I tried the RL02 on my '750 worked, too.
Let me ask you once again: why do you become so combative when others simply
express technical opinions (or, in this case, state facts) with which you
happen to disagree?
Are you actively _trying_ to disrupt this list just so that nobody can
mention the word "NetBSD" on it for fear of being flamed?
Thor
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Sat Jan 30 11:09:36 1999
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Message-Id: <199901300109.MAA09808(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: low-end vaxen and unix
In-Reply-To: <19990129195036.A7942(a)rek.tjls.com> from Thor Lancelot Simon at "Jan 29, 1999 7:50:36 pm"
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 12:09:36 +1100 (EST)
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In article by Thor Lancelot Simon:
> On Fri, Jan 29, 1999 at 05:49:42PM -0500, Michael Sokolov wrote:
>> A warning for naive list readers. NetBSD's definition of "runs on" means that
>>you have to part with all of your mass storage devices and use the bare CPU as
> > diskless peering-at toy.
>
> That's nonsense. As I stated in the message to which you were purportedly
> responding, NetBSD supports both SCSI and MFM (RD-series) disks on the machines
> in question. It also supports MSCP disks on most systems to which they
> can be attached, and TMSCP tapes; and, for the truly masochistic, last
> time I tried the RL02 on my '750 worked, too.
>
> Let me ask you once again: why do you become so combative when others simply
> express technical opinions (or, in this case, state facts) with which you
> happen to disagree?
>
> Are you actively _trying_ to disrupt this list just so that nobody can
> mention the word "NetBSD" on it for fear of being flamed?
> Thor
Ok, this is a warning to anybody who posts a reply to the thread above
in the mailing list. If you say something which is religious, zealous
or inflammatory, then I will issue a warning to you in the list. 2nd
time I issue a warning, I will start to moderate your postings.
This whole issue is like Linux vs. FreeBSD. The BEST answer to the
question: which is the best? is to get the user to try both out, and
they can make their own choice. As several people have explained, the
choice is a combination of technical issues AND aesthetics. And we all
have different tastes.
So respect each others tastes, and don't hassle them.
Warren
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Sat Jan 30 11:21:28 1999
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Message-Id: <199901300121.MAA09827(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Is 2.xBSD `approved'?
In-Reply-To: <199901300010.TAA04883(a)skybridge.scl.cwru.edu> from Michael Sokolov at "Jan 29, 1999 7:10:23 pm"
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au (Unix Heritage Society)
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 12:21:28 +1100 (EST)
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In article by Michael Sokolov:
> Now if you are talking about 2.xBSD, as
> opposed to the real 2BSD, it is a different story altogether, and it isn't
> really Berkeley Software DIstribution, since it wasn't developed at Berkeley.
>2.xBSD is an unauthorized, unapproved, and unblessed side branch, and as far as
> I'm concerned, it doesn't exist.
I hate to say this, but 2.xBSD, where x was 8, 9 and 10, was developed with
the involvement of several people at the CSRG, e.g Keith Bostic, Mike Karels,
Kirk McKusick. I'm sure Steven Schultz could give me some more names.
Although 2.xBSD is definitely not the branch which got the most attention,
I wouldn't say it was unauthorised, unapproved nor unblessed.
Actually, given that the CSRG is now disbanded, it is fair to say that
both 2.11BSD and 4.3-Quasijarus are in exactly the same boat: side branches
of the main BSD development, maintained by individuals who were not members
of the original CSRG.
Now, let us return to the more important issue of helping each other out,
rather than getting at each other. All UNIXes are worthy topics, and do
not deserve ridicule.
Warren
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Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
> On a KA410 (VAXstation 2000 etc.) the MFM controller and the NCR 5380
> both do DMA to a shared 16Kb private memory buffer. You then have to
> pull your data out into the regular VAXen memory. I believe the Lance
> chip (ethernet) is the only DMA to main memory capable device.
Correct.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
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>From Alan F R Bain <A.F.R.Bain(a)dpmms.cam.ac.uk> Sat Jan 30 08:54:33 1999
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To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: low-end vaxen and unix
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:49:42 EST."
<199901292249.RAA04815(a)skybridge.scl.cwru.edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 22:54:33 +0000
From: Alan F R Bain <A.F.R.Bain(a)dpmms.cam.ac.uk>
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Michael Sokolov wrote:
>A warning for naive list readers. NetBSD's definition of "runs on" means that
>you have to part with all of your mass storage devices and use the bare CPU as
>diskless peering-at toy.
I think this is being grossly unfair and irrelevant; the information
provided was that NetBSD was a viable alternative which is correct.
All my modern machines run NetBSD and the only non supported hardware
is a 9 track magtape drive on a sun -- I don't consider that
unreasonable as it's rather an unusal model. I don't think PUPS
is the place for OS favouritism arguments, so please desist.
>4.3BSD-Quasijarus will eventually run on nearly every VAX ever made? When will
>this happen? To speed it up, subscribe to the Quasijarus mailing list and join
>our team.
>
>> It will also run 4.3BSD
>> binaries -- in fact, in my experience, more of them than Ultrix will. I
>> ran Ultrix on a 3100 on my desk when I worked at DEC, and it was even odds
>> whether binaries I'd built on 4.3 would work correctly -- remember, Ultrix
>> branched from 4.2, not 4.3.
>
>The fact that Ultrix originally started from 4.2 is absolutely irrelevant,
>since when 4.3BSD came out, Ultrix fully caught up with it. As the principal
>maintainer and software architect of 4.3BSD-*, I know this better than anyone
>else, and I state authoritatively that the complete 4.3BSD-Quasijarus userland
I don't feel that there is any need to be silly and pretentious
here; techinical arguments may be of interest, but `I'm right and
I know I am' arguments are just childish.
To add a constructive comment, there's been a lot written about the
history and tree of development of early unix up to the SYSV
and BSD split occured, but I'm pretty unsure about the rest.
It seems that BSD2 and BSD4 developed pretty much in parallel,
the former targetting the PDP and the latter the VAX; Warren's
graphing data provide an interesting view of what happened,
but I'm unsure how closely related the two developments were
(especially in time of releases, introduction of new features
etc.). I'd be grateful if someone more knowledgable could fill
in some of the details.
Alan Bain
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Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com> wrote:
> As far as I recall, stock 4.3 won't run on the MV2000, 3100, etc.
4.3BSD-Quasijarus will eventually. For now if you want to run the
4.3BSD-Quasijarus userland, run it atop of an Ultrix kernel. Will work
beautifully.
> There is a reasonable alternative. NetBSD runs on the 2000, many 3100 models,
> and even the 4000/60, which Ultrix never ran on.
A warning for naive list readers. NetBSD's definition of "runs on" means that
you have to part with all of your mass storage devices and use the bare CPU as
diskless peering-at toy.
4.3BSD-Quasijarus will eventually run on nearly every VAX ever made? When will
this happen? To speed it up, subscribe to the Quasijarus mailing list and join
our team.
> It will also run 4.3BSD
> binaries -- in fact, in my experience, more of them than Ultrix will. I
> ran Ultrix on a 3100 on my desk when I worked at DEC, and it was even odds
> whether binaries I'd built on 4.3 would work correctly -- remember, Ultrix
> branched from 4.2, not 4.3.
The fact that Ultrix originally started from 4.2 is absolutely irrelevant,
since when 4.3BSD came out, Ultrix fully caught up with it. As the principal
maintainer and software architect of 4.3BSD-*, I know this better than anyone
else, and I state authoritatively that the complete 4.3BSD-Quasijarus userland
will run perfectly atop of an Ultrix kernel.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/
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Pat Barron <pat(a)transarc.com> wrote:
> As I recall, you can attach an external SCSI hard disk to a MicroVAX 2000,
> and Ultrix will be able to use it, but you can't boot from it. The
> Centronics expansion port really is a SCSI port, even though it was never
> billed as such (and the TZK50 tape drive really is a SCSI drive, and you
> can use it on other systems that have SCSI - not sure why you'd want to,
> though....).
Correct, except that since Ultrix is binary-only chainware, you would have to
disassemble and patch some of its kernel .o files in order to force is to
recognize SCSI disks. It uses the CPU code (a byte-sized number constructed
from the SID and SID extension longwords) to index into a table of pointers to
routines for different CPUs, and the routines that get called when the CPU is
KA410 (VS/MV 2000) don't bother to probe for SCSI disks. This means that any
SCSI disks you may have attached will be silently ignored, even though the
drivers are present and they would work if they weren't artificially blocked.
> 4.3BSD (and its variants) for the VAX has no SCSI support at all, so
> you're out of luck if you want to use SCSI disks on a MicroVAX under 4.3.
Adding BabyVAX support (with MFM, SCSI, LANCE, and everything) to
4.3BSD-Quasijarus is in my plans. For more information, subscribe to the
Quasijarus mailing list.
If you want to have something running now, you can either run Ultrix and learn
to live in binary-only chains, or you can construct a system consisting of the
Ultrix kernel and the 4.3BSD-Quasijarus userland. There is enough syscall
compatibility between 4.3BSD and Ultrix to make this possible.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/
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>From Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com> Sat Jan 30 07:41:53 1999
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Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 16:41:53 -0500
From: Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com>
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: low-end vaxen and unix
Message-ID: <19990129164152.A3563(a)rek.tjls.com>
Reply-To: tls(a)rek.tjls.com
References: <Pine.SGI.3.95.990129133718.11015C-100000(a)world.std.com> <Pine.GSO.3.96.990129150954.25336E-100000(a)smithfield.transarc.com>
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On Fri, Jan 29, 1999 at 03:28:52PM -0500, Pat Barron wrote:
> As I recall, you can attach an external SCSI hard disk to a MicroVAX 2000,
> and Ultrix will be able to use it, but you can't boot from it. The
> Centronics expansion port really is a SCSI port, even though it was never
> billed as such (and the TZK50 tape drive really is a SCSI drive, and you
> can use it on other systems that have SCSI - not sure why you'd want to,
> though....).
>
> 4.3BSD (and its variants) for the VAX has no SCSI support at all, so
> you're out of luck if you want to use SCSI disks on a MicroVAX under 4.3.
As far as I recall, stock 4.3 won't run on the MV2000, 3100, etc. The
people who made it do so used the relevant source bits from Ultrix, I
think, so even with a 32V source license you're out of luck.
There is a reasonable alternative. NetBSD runs on the 2000, many 3100 models,
and even the 4000/60, which Ultrix never ran on. It will also run 4.3BSD
binaries -- in fact, in my experience, more of them than Ultrix will. I
ran Ultrix on a 3100 on my desk when I worked at DEC, and it was even odds
whether binaries I'd built on 4.3 would work correctly -- remember, Ultrix
branched from 4.2, not 4.3.
SCSI on the 2000 is supposed to work pretty well, SCSI on some 3100 models
less so; the LANCE ethernet on the older boxes and the SGEC on the 4000/60
work; a few models support graphical console on a QDSS or equivalent. For
the boxes where you're stuck with small RD series disks, shared libraries
may help a bit.
Hope this helps.
THor
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>From Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca> Sat Jan 30 08:07:36 1999
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From: Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Message-Id: <199901292207.RAA18899(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: low-end vaxen and unix
To: allisonp(a)world.std.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 17:07:36 -0500 (EST)
Cc: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.95.990129160049.19225A-100000(a)world.std.com> from "allisonp(a)world.std.com" at Jan 29, 99 04:06:28 pm
Organization: University of Waterloo, Math Faculty Computing Facility (Alumni)
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On a KA410 (VAXstation 2000 etc.) the MFM controller and the NCR 5380
both do DMA to a shared 16Kb private memory buffer. You then have to
pull your data out into the regular VAXen memory. I believe the Lance
chip (ethernet) is the only DMA to main memory capable device.
-- Ken
> [...] There are however issues in that the hard disk
> interface and the SCSI chip use the same DMA channel and it would cause
> some performance degrdation. [...]
>
> Allison
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How well can the so-called "desktop vaxen" run 4.3 BSD? I'm thinking
about systems like the MicroVAX 2000, etc. I'd like to set up a
system to run some sort of 4.3 system (maybe Michael Sokolov's
Quasijarus distribution) and I've noticed the occasional desktop vax
show up in places like eBay. Is it possible to avoid the hernia and
use one of these "2nd floor apartment-friendly" computers?
--Mirian
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Mirian Crzig Lennox <mirian(a)xensei.com> wrote:
> How well can the so-called "desktop vaxen" run 4.3 BSD? I'm thinking
> about systems like the MicroVAX 2000, etc. I'd like to set up a
> system to run some sort of 4.3 system (maybe Michael Sokolov's
> Quasijarus distribution) and I've noticed the occasional desktop vax
> show up in places like eBay. Is it possible to avoid the hernia and
> use one of these "2nd floor apartment-friendly" computers?
Subscribe to the Quasijarus mailing list using standard Majordomo commands and
post your question there. I'll answer it.
Michael Sokolov
TUHS 4BSD Coordinator
4.3BSD-* Maintainer
Quasijarus Project Principal Architect & Developer
Phone: 440-449-0299 or 216-217-2579
ARPA Internet SMTP mail: mxs46(a)k2.scl.cwru.edu
TUHS WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/TUHS/
Quasijarus WWW page: http://minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au/Quasijarus/
On Tue, 26 Jan 1999 "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> wrote:
> I maintain the opposite. VMS _was_ (past tense) the driver of
> VAXEN but that was due to Ken "UNIX is Snake Oil" Olsen. Since DEC
I got a whole different perspective on that Snake Oil thing after reading
"A Quarter Century of UNIX" by Peter Salus. According to Armando Stettner
(DEC Ultrix Architect) Ken Olsen meant, "Much the way people were peddling
snake oil a century ago, now every vendor is hyping Unix as a cure for
everything". He was only making a analogy but the statement was "taken
out of context". Anyway, the book has been enjoyable.
Mike
P.S. Where is Armando now? Is he still doing Unix stuff?
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>From Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com> Thu Jan 28 09:10:55 1999
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Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 09:40:55 +1030
From: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com>
To: "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com>
Cc: PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: UNIX robustness
Message-ID: <19990128094055.E66239(a)freebie.lemis.com>
References: <199901270512.VAA15671(a)moe.2bsd.com> <36AF136E.8FB4C233(a)halcyon.com>
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On Wednesday, 27 January 1999 at 5:23:58 -0800, David C. Jenner wrote:
> "Steven M. Schultz" wrote:
>>
>> At least it's a different thread... ;-)
>>
>> I had a UNIX system in my house that ran (and was working hard
>> the whole time) for over 2 years before pity was taken on it
>> and a beefier replacement system installed. The original system
>> was a 386/33 serving as a rather busy secondary nameserver and was
>> never touched/rebooted/powercycled for 2+ years. As time went on the
>> load increased and it became apparent the system was overloaded (and
>> paging excessively) so a P5/90 with more memory was installed. A
>> couple months after that the disk died ;-)
>
> I had (still have) a PDP-11/23+ that ran (still runs) 2.9BSD (with an
> honest-to-goodness AT&T binary license) that was my UUCP link to the
> net from 1989-1993. At one stretch, it ran almost two years before a
> power failure finally got it.
>
> It was unusual to go that long without a power failure, so the limiting
> factor was clearly the power and not the hardware or software. The
> system has a watchdog timer, so when there was a problem the system would
> usually automatically reboot, unless there was a serious hardware problem.
> Reboots were fairly rare and usually a power problem, so it would be hard
> for me to pinpoint the cause of non-power-instigated reboots.
I think you'd have to consider a reboot to be a failure. Steveen
could say better than I, but I'd expect 2.9BSD to have told you why it
died. 2.11BSD certainly does.
Greg
--
See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers
finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key
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>From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Thu Jan 28 10:07:22 1999
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Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 16:07:22 -0800 (PST)
From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com>
Message-Id: <199901280007.QAA27431(a)moe.2bsd.com>
To: djenner(a)halcyon.com, grog(a)lemis.com
Subject: Re: UNIX robustness
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Hi -
> From: Greg Lehey <grog(a)lemis.com>
>
> I think you'd have to consider a reboot to be a failure. Steveen
> could say better than I, but I'd expect 2.9BSD to have told you why it
> died. 2.11BSD certainly does.
Well, it tries its darndest to do so. If the system gets its
knickers sufficiently twisted I've seen it hang part way thru
printing the panic message. 'course then there are the self
inflicted crashes where an errant driver scribbles all over memory,
in which case you may not get a meaningful indication of what
went wrong ;)
Steven
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>From Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)Update.UU.SE> Thu Jan 28 10:11:56 1999
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Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 01:11:56 +0100 (MET)
From: Johnny Billquist <bqt(a)Update.UU.SE>
To: emanuel stiebler <emu(a)ecubics.com>
cc: Jorgen Pehrson <jp(a)spektr.eu.org>,
PDP11 UNIX Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
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> > What's that? When I want to edit text I want an editor, not an vi-itor
> > or an emacsitor, those aren't even words! ED is the standard editor. :)
>
> SURE !!!
> I think most people simply forget, that emacs doesn't work so well on a
> line printer console ;-))
I have only one things to say to you guys; TECO.
(And besides, EMACS is just a bunch of macros for TECO, GNU-EMACS don't
even count... ;-)
Johnny
Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus
|| on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt(a)update.uu.se || Reading murder books
pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol
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>From "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com> Thu Jan 28 13:24:31 1999
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From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com>
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To: PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: UNIX robustness
References: <199901270512.VAA15671(a)moe.2bsd.com> <36AF136E.8FB4C233(a)halcyon.com> <19990128094055.E66239(a)freebie.lemis.com>
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Yes, and it was almost 2 years between reboots. Otherwise, they were
rather rare, and I can't remember why. I have all the console logs
around somewhere under a pile, and if/when I uncover them, I'll look
through them to see what happened. Maybe I'll suddenly report it here
in 6 months--after my next reboot, err, cleanup.
Dave
Greg Lehey wrote:
>
>
> I think you'd have to consider a reboot to be a failure. Steveen
> could say better than I, but I'd expect 2.9BSD to have told you why it
> died. 2.11BSD certainly does.
>
> Greg
> --
> See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers
> finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key
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>From Brian D Chase <bdc(a)world.std.com> Thu Jan 28 18:05:26 1999
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Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 00:05:26 -0800 (PDT)
From: Brian D Chase <bdc(a)world.std.com>
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
In-Reply-To: <199901260840.DAA03265(a)skybridge.scl.cwru.edu>
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On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> Thor Lancelot Simon <tls(a)rek.tjls.com> wrote:
> > I frankly consider this to be silly, somewhat presumptious, and, for myself,
> > at least, a waste of time. But if it's something _you_ want to do, I
> > encourage you to do it, I suppose.
>
> You may believe whatever you want, but I will only remark that several very
> prominent VAX hardware gurus (some of them on this list) support my work very
> eagerly. Whatever you or the NetBSD gang may believe,
"Death to the murderous NetBSD grandparents and the atrocities they've
commited against the true Unix." -- Bee S. D'argic
-brian.
---
Brian "JARAI" Chase | http://world.std.com/~bdc/ | VAXZilla LIVES!!!
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>From "Erin W. Corliss" <erin(a)coffee.corliss.net> Fri Jan 29 03:54:42 1999
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From: "Erin W. Corliss" <erin(a)coffee.corliss.net>
To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
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On Thu, 28 Jan 1999, Brian D Chase wrote:
> "Death to the murderous NetBSD grandparents and the atrocities they've
> commited against the true Unix." -- Bee S. D'argic
Yeah, what kind of sadistic, malicious bastards would create a *free*
version of unix, then port it to nearly every platform imaginable!!?!?
What could have been going through their twisted minds?
----------------------------------------------------------
"...and an eternity, my friend, is a long f*cking time..."
Allison Parent is probably correct that Ultrix doesn't have as impressive
a record of robustness as VMS, but there are certainly application-specific
cases where the system did pretty well. The collection of MicroVAX II parts
I have at home mostly used to be the University of Toronto's backbone IP
routers, which ran an early Ultrix (I forget if it was 2.0 or 3.0).
Evidently most of these systems just ran and ran and ran, stopping only
for hardware failures. (Probably mostly broken RD53 disks--most of the
disks that came in the parts collection were broken in one way or another.)
Although I am not a first-hand witness, the claim is that some of these
systems had uptimes as long as five years when they were finally decommissioned
in 1990 or 1991.
Anyone else got any my-UNIX-ran-longer-than-yours stories?
Norman Wilson
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>From Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> Wed Jan 27 14:38:23 1999
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From: Warren Toomey <wkt(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au>
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Subject: Re: UNIX robustness
In-Reply-To: <199901270434.PAA00279(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au> from "norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca" at "Jan 26, 1999 11:32:49 pm"
To: norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 15:38:23 +1100 (EST)
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In article by norman(a)nose.cita.utoronto.ca:
> Anyone else got any my-UNIX-ran-longer-than-yours stories?
> Norman Wilson
Only <200 days here for a PC-based system, usually brought down by
power failure.
Warren
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>From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Wed Jan 27 15:12:57 1999
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From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com>
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Subject: UNIX robustness
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At least it's a different thread... ;-)
I had a UNIX system in my house that ran (and was working hard
the whole time) for over 2 years before pity was taken on it
and a beefier replacement system installed. The original system
was a 386/33 serving as a rather busy secondary nameserver and was
never touched/rebooted/powercycled for 2+ years. As time went on the
load increased and it became apparent the system was overloaded (and
paging excessively) so a P5/90 with more memory was installed. A
couple months after that the disk died ;-)
Steven
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>From "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com> Wed Jan 27 15:15:08 1999
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From: "Steven M. Schultz" <sms(a)moe.2bsd.com>
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To: pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Addendum to Unix robustness
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Hi -
I've personally seen/run a PDP-11/44 under 2.11BSD for 1 year without
reboooting. Then the power went out and spoiled the streak. Started
over and was a couple months into the new uptime and the RA81 died.
Sigh.
Steven
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>From "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com> Wed Jan 27 23:23:58 1999
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From: "David C. Jenner" <djenner(a)halcyon.com>
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To: PDP-11 Unix Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au>
Subject: Re: UNIX robustness
References: <199901270512.VAA15671(a)moe.2bsd.com>
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I had (still have) a PDP-11/23+ that ran (still runs) 2.9BSD (with an
honest-to-goodness AT&T binary license) that was my UUCP link to the
net from 1989-1993. At one stretch, it ran almost two years before a
power failure finally got it.
It was unusual to go that long without a power failure, so the limiting
factor was clearly the power and not the hardware or software. The
system has a watchdog timer, so when there was a problem the system would
usually automatically reboot, unless there was a serious hardware problem.
Reboots were fairly rare and usually a power problem, so it would be hard
for me to pinpoint the cause of non-power-instigated reboots.
Dave
"Steven M. Schultz" wrote:
>
> At least it's a different thread... ;-)
>
> I had a UNIX system in my house that ran (and was working hard
> the whole time) for over 2 years before pity was taken on it
> and a beefier replacement system installed. The original system
> was a 386/33 serving as a rather busy secondary nameserver and was
> never touched/rebooted/powercycled for 2+ years. As time went on the
> load increased and it became apparent the system was overloaded (and
> paging excessively) so a P5/90 with more memory was installed. A
> couple months after that the disk died ;-)
>
> Steven
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>From Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca> Thu Jan 28 01:14:30 1999
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From: Ken Wellsch <kcwellsc(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Message-Id: <199901271514.KAA30920(a)math.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Re: UNIX V6 Enhancements/Games
To: wkt(a)cs.adfa.oz.au
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:14:30 -0500 (EST)
Cc: agonza24(a)cs.fiu.edu, pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au
In-Reply-To: <199901262238.JAA05749(a)henry.cs.adfa.edu.au> from "Warren Toomey" at Jan 27, 99 09:38:32 am
Organization: University of Waterloo, Math Faculty Computing Facility (Alumni)
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Alas I don't know the precise details, but I do remember that the
University of Waterloo had an explicit license (seperate from the UNIX
one) just for the *real* troff code. When I say "real" I mean the code
that drove a real typesetting device etc. (in PDP-11 assembler I think).
We had a highly modified copy in use for more than a decade I think,
driving successive generations of new typeset quality engines. I can
check with the fellow that really knows all this history and details
if someone is interested. -- Ken
| In article by alejandro gonzalez:
| >
| > Reading the Unix Summary, I have noticed that some packages are
| > distributed as Enhancements: Like TROFF, or some of the Games, and not in
| > the orginial distribution
| >
| > The Unix System the comes with the tapes does not come with Man, Troff,
| > etc.. Is any of this extra stuff in the Pups Archive? If so, Where?
| >
| > Alex
|
| All we have are the tapes as donated to us by Dennis Ritchie and Ken
| Wellsch. I don't know if a copy of the enhancements still exist. However,
| they may have been part of PWB UNIX, which was around at the same time as
| Research UNIX. Have a look in the Distributions/usdl section for PWB UNIX.
|
| Warren
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>From Jorgen Pehrson <jp(a)spektr.eu.org> Thu Jan 28 03:21:11 1999
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From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp(a)spektr.eu.org>
To: PDP11 UNIX Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
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Thor Lancelot Simon < tls(a)rek.tjls.com> wrote:
>...or vi versus Emacs.
What's that? When I want to edit text I want an editor, not an vi-itor
or an emacsitor, those aren't even words! ED is the standard editor. :)
--
Jorgen Pehrson (HP 9000/380, VAX2000, DECstation 5000/200 (NetBSD 1.3))
jp(a)spektr.eu.org (PDP11/73, PDP11/83, PDP11/83 (2.11BSD)), Intergraph 200
spektr.eu.org/~jp/ MicroVAX 3100 (NetBSD 1.3), VAXstation 4000/90 (VAX/VMS)
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>From "emanuel stiebler" <emu(a)ecubics.com> Thu Jan 28 03:41:15 1999
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From: "emanuel stiebler" <emu(a)ecubics.com>
To: "Jorgen Pehrson" <jp(a)spektr.eu.org>,
"PDP11 UNIX Preservation Society" <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:41:15 -0700
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Hi Jorgen,
----------
> From: Jorgen Pehrson <jp(a)spektr.eu.org>
> To: PDP11 UNIX Preservation Society <pups(a)minnie.cs.adfa.oz.au>
> Subject: Re: 4.4BSD
> Date: Wednesday, January 27, 1999 10:21 AM
> What's that? When I want to edit text I want an editor, not an vi-itor
> or an emacsitor, those aren't even words! ED is the standard editor. :)
SURE !!!
I think most people simply forget, that emacs doesn't work so well on a
line printer console ;-))
cheers,
emanuel
