[SunRescue] Offerings

[Bjrn Ramqvist]

Tim Hauber wrote:
> 
> How can you say unfortunately, what other piece of computer equipment can
> you think of that is actually in use from the early 70s?  I do know of a
> college environmental control systm that is running on some kind of mini,
> and the 15" hard drive has been spinning since the 70's, I'm just waiting
> for that one to get powered down somehow, to see if it will fly again.
> Just think about it, riding on an air bubble for 20+ years.
> 
> Just for fun, when was everybody born?
> 4/26/69

When you say air bubble and harddrives, I'm thinking of DECs RP06/07
drives.
Gigantic floor-standing monsters (19 inch) which suck atleast 20 Amps @
220 Volts
of power when spinning up and takes about a minute or two just to build
up the
vacuum inside the harddrive. Cool machinery, indeed. Sounds almost like
an
aeroplane when you press the "run"-button...

Well, since you're curious; born 3rd of September '76

I've been dealing with all kinds of "thrown out" computers, lots of
VAXes and
PDP-11. My favourite series of old DEC VAX equipment must be the 8500-
and 8800-
line of computers. Totally awesome console that has a separate operating
system,
harddisk, memory and everything. (Actually a DEC Rainbow but somewhat
modified to
be connected to the VAX EMM (Enviromental Monitoring Module))

When you turn the power on to the VAX, nothing is running. Not even a
single beep.
Everything you hear is when the console is booting and when you have the
familiar
">"-prompt, you just type "power on".

*klick* *wroom*
Everything turns on, every little fan in that giant computer turns on
and lots and
lots of lights starts blinking. (You can even type "show power" to see
all the
aggregate power in different modules, watch every temperature in
different locations
in the machine)
You can't even get anywhere near that lovely feeling when you just press
the tiny
Enter-key and everything just starts roaring! The machines are slow,
compared to Suns
line of computers, but awfully fun to play with. :-)

DEC had some really nice idea of putting cards in a cardcage. They have
the BI- and
XMI-bus, which is based on the "Zero Insertion Force"-idea. Yes, cards
that you simply
turn a little switch and stick the board in. Sits there loosely, but as
you turn the
switch down again, they carefully secure the card with all its
connectors to the board.
Nice idea, but it do fail when you insert/take out bords a couple of
times.
(Gets worse for every swap)
Therefore I do enjoy old-style VME pin-insertion idea better...

Another kid in the mailing-list? :-)

Yes, I've sat on a Cray once (or twice), and yes I've played with all
sorts of nice
(and expensive) SGI's, used all sorts of Sun SPARCs and Sun3s, HP's,
spent endless
weekends/nights trying to find the right screws to fit into particular
holes in VAX-servers...

Yes, I'm somewhat young, but that doesn't trouble me at all.
Heck, today I'm playing with SGI's and Alphas all day long at work! :-)

> Tim

/Bjorn