Re: Gallery online: A collection of Soviet control rooms pictures

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

nice find

On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 11:34 PM, Tomasz Rola via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> What the subject says. For control & analog aficionados.
>
> http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/27986-2
>
> source: https://lobste.rs/s/ziu1uu/collection_soviet_control_rooms
>
> --
> Regards,
> Tomasz Rola
>
> --
> ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
> ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
> ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
> ** **
> ** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
>

Gallery online: A collection of Soviet control rooms pictures

[Tomasz Rola via cctalk]

What the subject says. For control & analog aficionados.

http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/27986-2

source: https://lobste.rs/s/ziu1uu/collection_soviet_control_rooms

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.  **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home**
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...  **
** **
** Tomasz Rola  mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Fritz Mueller via cctalk]

On Jan 13, 2018, at 1:09 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
wrote:
> Ah; the dual-wide plug-in connector soldered onto the back kind of threw me a
> bit!

Yeah it’s a bit weird, but mine has that too.  It’s a pass-through, and It 
turns out, handily, that that you can plug in a KM11 right there for 
troubleshooting.  

> ...I wonder if the RK05 is on the same controller as the Diablo, or if the 
> PDP-8 has an RK controller, too.

Oh right, duh — it’s an 8!  I guess the RK11 is just there with the diablo for 
the GT40?

Re: Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT 3B1 Unix Workstation

[AJ Palmgren via cctalk]

Bill, you're talking about the seller, yes?

That's fantastic!  I totally missed the MiniFrame auction altogether.  A
completed listings lookup found it:  http://ebay.to/2DwNamo

I'm VERY glad that you have that!

Previous to you mentioning this, I've only been aware of one MiniFrame
(I've confirmed) in existence, and it looks like you have yet another, even
nicer one!

My page for my (now previous) MiniFrame archive:
http://mightyframe.blogspot.com/2017/08/convergent-technologies-miniframe-found.html

I'll contact you directly for more details on this.  Fantastic!




On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 7:28 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk  wrote:

>
>
> On 1/13/18 7:06 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
>
> > I'm just wondering if anybody here did (or knows who) bought this one.
>
> no, but I bought his miniframe, which is very clean.
>
> I used my mfm emulator to image the disks, I haven't had time yet to see
> what condition
> the cartridge tapes are in or to compare the eproms with what has already
> been dumped
>
> he is local, and worked at convergent.
>
>
>
>


-- 

Thanks,
AJ Palmgren
http://fb.me/SelmaTrainWreck
http://SelmaTrainWreck.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010931314283
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-palmgren-4a085516/

Re: Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT 3B1 Unix Workstation

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/13/18 7:06 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

> I'm just wondering if anybody here did (or knows who) bought this one.

no, but I bought his miniframe, which is very clean.

I used my mfm emulator to image the disks, I haven't had time yet to see what 
condition
the cartridge tapes are in or to compare the eproms with what has already been 
dumped

he is local, and worked at convergent.

Re: Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT 3B1 Unix Workstation

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

Notice it has an AT mouse!!

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of AJ Palmgren via 
cctalk 
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2018 10:02 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT 3B1 
Unix Workstation

I'm just wondering if anybody here did (or knows who) bought this one.

http://ebay.to/2DaRr13

Even though these were all manufactured by Convergent Technologies, this
one is actually BRANDED by Convergent, as their model S/50.

And there's software included here. I tried to buy myself, but just missed
it.

I'd really like to connect with the buyer here, to see if we can do a more
expansive documentation project on this machine, as well as an archival of
the software that was included.

As far as I know, this is the only Convergent S/50 I've ever seen that has
survived, especially with all the CONVERGENT software and manuals (vs the
AT ones)!

Thanks!

-AJ
http://MightyFrame.com

Sold on eBay: Convergent Technologies S/50 a.k.a. Unix PC, AT 3B1 Unix Workstation

[AJ Palmgren via cctalk]

I'm just wondering if anybody here did (or knows who) bought this one.

http://ebay.to/2DaRr13

Even though these were all manufactured by Convergent Technologies, this
one is actually BRANDED by Convergent, as their model S/50.

And there's software included here. I tried to buy myself, but just missed
it.

I'd really like to connect with the buyer here, to see if we can do a more
expansive documentation project on this machine, as well as an archival of
the software that was included.

As far as I know, this is the only Convergent S/50 I've ever seen that has
survived, especially with all the CONVERGENT software and manuals (vs the
AT ones)!

Thanks!

-AJ
http://MightyFrame.com

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 01/13/2018 05:40 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

> All of this reminds me of a trick that I witnessed on a Model 40 running
> DOS/360.   Some guy wrote a chained CCW set with a TIC back to the
> beginning of the list of CCBs that rang the bell on the 1052 operator's
> console and locked the keyboard.   The din panicked at least one
> operator who pulled the "Emergency Stop" big red button.
> 

Typo--not "CCB" but "CCW".

--Chuck

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 1/13/2018 3:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
> (I'm unaware of any punch-card attacks, but trojans were possible when
> people used prior subroutines).
Depends on what you mean "attack".  CDC 6000 SCOPE had two PP programs
(which could be invoked via user control card).

One was "RPV"--reprieve job.   The purpose was to recover control after
a program error so that appropriate cleanup by the user could be
performed.   It was effective for *any* error, including operator
killing the job.

The other was "RSJ", reschedule job.  Usually, this was used when a
device or resource wasn't available--basically, it would put a job back
into the input queue and terminate the caller.

Unless, of course, the caller had included an RPV call also, in which
case it was something like the sorcerer's apprentice--you'd get *two*
copies of the job, which would then spawn 4 more copies, etc.  Operator
drop just exacerbated the situation, and eventually, the input queue
would be full of the malicious job and all available PPUs would be
allocated to doing nothing but RSJs and RPVs.

The only way out of the situation was to deadstart the system without
recovering the input queue.

After a couple of incidents of this, a memo came down from on high
saying that anyone attempting this gambit would be subject to discipline
and/or termination.   I think someone also did an EDITLIB and renamed
both RPV and RSJ and kept the new names on a "need to know" basis.

--

Another gambit I recall made use of a new I/O call in SCOPE 3.4, called
"Read List String".  Basically, the point of it was to streamline loader
(linkage editor) operation by presenting CIO and, by extension, the disk
stack processor overlay, 1SP with a list of disk addresses and lengths
to be read.   1SP would dutifully go through the list, advancing its
list pointer (so that the caller could keep track of progress).  It was
very effective and bypassed a lot of ancillary PP code.

Some enterprising fellow wondered what might happen, if his CP program
kept track of the READLS progress and kept backing the pointer up every
time it advanced.   Since 1SP attempted to complete an entire I/O
request before terminating, it never terminated and kept the disk busy
basically forever.

That one was fixed by checking the user's control point area for the
"DROP" flag--something that should have been done from the outset.

---

All of this reminds me of a trick that I witnessed on a Model 40 running
DOS/360.   Some guy wrote a chained CCW set with a TIC back to the
beginning of the list of CCBs that rang the bell on the 1052 operator's
console and locked the keyboard.   The din panicked at least one
operator who pulled the "Emergency Stop" big red button.

But then DOS/360 was easy to fool--it wasn't even much of a challenge.

Good times...

--Chuck

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

Although reduction in sneaker-net has virtually eliminated boot-sector 
spread.

On Sun, 14 Jan 2018, Tapley, Mark wrote:


I never made that connection before! Glad you toed me.


There had already been some reduction.  The first PCs with a hard disk 
would always attempt to boot from floppy first.  Once it was possible to 
rearrange the boot sequence to try the hard disk first, we had a 
substantial reduction in boot sector virus incidents.


MOST boot sector virus infections on hard disks could be trivially solved 
by the [undocumented at that time] /MBR option of FDISK.COM



The "Alameda" Virus was first discovered [and thoroughly analyzed] in our 
("Merritt College") lab. 
(We had a good idea of who might have been the author)
One of the student workers at our sister college, "College Of Alameda", 
who was brother of a guy who wrote a book on the subject, asked nicely for 
naming rights.


A few years later, the administration informed me that they had waived the 
computer literacy requirement for a student transferring to Yale.  A few 
months later, Yale "discovered" it, and named it "Yale Virus".

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 1/13/2018 3:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
(I'm unaware of any punch-card attacks, but trojans were possible when 
people used prior subroutines)
When I was using cards with our campus 360/50 MVT system and you could 
submit probably anything, a friend in EE (we were squatters in the CS 
area) had worked a summer job and had a really nice program they'd ran 
which now days would be called a text based football game.


All one had to do was stick a job card in front of a deck, and we 
submitted our own  jobs via a 2501 which was in the hall outside the 
computer room.  Users loaded and fed their own cards, so there was no 
restriction on when the job ran.


He decided to get a listing and figured if he stuck a job card in front 
if it and a couple of DD statements the job would blow up and he'd get a 
listing.


All of the I/O was with WTO and WTOR.  The operator that afternoon 
quickly discovered that WTOs were not disabled by the sysgen, and worse, 
there was only the single 1050 console, so the only way to get thru the 
job and get other things running was to play a game.


And even worse, if he took too long, a fun feature of MVT and not 
corrected in MVS was if a console channel went unavailable for too long, 
the system would crash.  Luckily the game would print out a line, and a 
blob of console messages would come out then ask for another move.


Took 10 minutes to lose a game.

The system administrators regenerated the system to add privilege and 
authorization to jobs using WTOR which they'd missed.


We found other fun holes like that in MVT.

When we were put over to a VS/1 system via TSO terminals, a console 
message monitor, and a password snarfing program was developed and ran 
quite a lot via remote access (system and terminals were in different 
cities).


That was all OS of course, and some of it was something that could be 
disabled by sysgen options.  The password snarfing was not.


thanks
Jim

Re: DECtape madness

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 01/13/2018 11:28 AM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:


On 1/13/18 9:04 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:


I don't know what you are talking about with Mylar on both sides. They were 
conventional magnetic tape, a clear mylar
film with oxide applied to one side.

the actual spec is here:

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dectape/3M_DECtape_Spec_Nov66.pdf


Ah, looks like a 40 MICRO-Inch protective coating.  
Certainly not a couple mils of Mylar on both sides of the Oxide.


Jon

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Tapley, Mark via cctalk]

On Jan 13, 2018, at 5:24 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk  
wrote:

> Although reduction in sneaker-net has virtually eliminated boot-sector spread.

I never made that connection before! Glad you toed me.

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Fred Cisin via cctalk]

On Sat, 13 Jan 2018, Murray McCullough via cctalk wrote:

I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to inform
the world! Did it inform the world back in earlier days about potential
flaws? Not to blame INTEL only: What about Zilog, etc.? Or did pre-Internet
era protect us computer-classic users? What about running emulation
software as I???ve been doing with ADAM?
Happy computing!


Few emulations are exact enough to duplicate all bugs.
Q: Should an emulator do an exact imitation, or should it work the way 
that it is s'posed to?   (behavior? or specs?)


Pre-internet protected against most web based malware.  But, there are 
instances of virus software ever since people exchanged files and disks.
(I'm unaware of any punch-card attacks, but trojans were possible when 
people used prior subroutines)
Most prevalent were boot-sector virus attacks and executable file virus 
attacks.  As software became too eager to help provide dancing kangaroos 
and yodelling jellyfish, harmful macros in "productivity software" macro 
capabilities also started to surface.


Internet made it much easier to acquire a trojan that would mess you up.
Although reduction in sneaker-net has virtually eliminated boot-sector 
spread.



How fast SHOULD the public response be?
If they become aware of that kind of flaw, and can delay public knowledge 
until they have patches, they significantly reduce the risk of actual 
instances of malware using the exploits.
Note: AFAIK, no examples of actual use of Spectre nor Meltdown have yet 
been encountered.
If Microsoft had been in less of a rush, would they still have shipped 
patches that gave a BSOD with AMD processors?


After public announcement, there ARE people actively working on developing 
malware using it.


Similarly, after the Michelangelo Virus media panic, one of the variants 
later encountered was a fairly obvious "wannabe" consisting of "Stoned" 
patched to behave like the publicized Michelangelo behavior.  The 
"thousands or millions of computers will be destroyed" was bogus.
(BTW, the name "Michelangelo" was based on looking at a calendar to see 
what was special about March 6.  If McAfee had had a Texas calendar, 
instead of a KQED (PBS) one, then it would have been named "Alamo")



Intel made some mistakes in handling the FDIV bug. First, they made the 
assumption that the bug would be amazingly rarely encountered due to their 
calculations of probability of randomly hitting "winning" combinations of 
numerator and denominator, but failed to allow for any of the "winning" 
numbers happening to be more commonly used.


THEN, they offered replacements to anybody who could PROVE that it 
actually affected their use of the machine.  A more appropriate response 
would have been, "We WILL replace all affected processors!  BUT, there 
aren't enough in stock right now to handle all immediately, so we will 
START by replacing those for all who can prove that they are affected, and 
then get to all others as we can manufacture more suitable replacements."
(Perhaps the majority of people would have already replaced their machine 
before their turn came around!  What is it? "a new machine every 18 
months"?)


Many of the general public had been led to believe that it would produce 
completely WRONG results, rather than the LOW ORDER bits of the mantissa 
being incorrect.  No, it was not capable of "causing the wrong amount of 
sales tax to be charged!"

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Curious Marc via cctalk]

That one is going to go for an insane amount of money:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-APPLE-LISA-1-TWIGGY-COMPUTER-COMPLETE-AND-WORKING-with-Video/182999855120?_trkparms=aid%3D888007%26algo%3DDISC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131227121020%26meid%3D90df29e646c747feb30e0166b15876a4%26pid%3D19%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D232628720694&_trksid=p2047675.c19.m1982

Marc

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 1:09 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 

> From: Fritz Mueller

> Definitely an RK11-C

Ah; the dual-wide plug-in connector soldered onto the back kind of threw me a
bit!

> And it would make sense with the diablo and the RK05 in there.

Right, but I wonder if the RK05 is on the same controller as the Diablo, or if
the PDP-8 has an RK controller, too.

   Noel

WTB: 1/2" 6250 CPI tape

[shadoooo via cctalk]

Hello,
I'm searching a source of good tape for a TU80 and a TU81 I have.
I acquired some media from eBay, but all of that suffers of sticky problem
and is unusable.
Anybody has some to sell, or for give an advice of a seller of proven good
tape?
I wish prefer a seller in EU or UK, but even overseas could be considered,
if I don't find a nearer solution.

Thanks
Andrea

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Fritz Mueller

> Definitely an RK11-C

Ah; the dual-wide plug-in connector soldered onto the back kind of threw me a
bit!

> And it would make sense with the diablo and the RK05 in there.

Right, but I wonder if the RK05 is on the same controller as the Diablo, or if
the PDP-8 has an RK controller, too.

Noel

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Jan 13, 2018 11:36 AM, "Paul Koning via cctalk" 
wrote:



> On Jan 13, 2018, at 1:22 PM, Dave Wade via cctalk 
wrote:
>
> ...
> It delayed telling the world to allow time for OS providers to apply
fixes. This is now standard and the delays are defined...
>
> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/intel-
fixing-security-vulnerability-chips-52122993
>
> but it looks like in this case it leaked early. Similar bugs affect ARM,
AMD and PowerPC but nothing from them either. IBM won't tell the world (it
will tell customers, but I am not a customer) if and how it affects Z.

There are two bugs that are largely unrelated other than the fact they both
start from speculative execution.  One is "Meltdown" which is specific to
Intel as far as is known.  The other is "Spectre" which is a pretty much
unavoidable side effect of the existence of speculative execution and
appears to apply to multiple architectures.  There may be variations; I
assume some designs have much shorter speculation pipelines than others and
if so would be less affected.

Meltdown has a software workaround (it could also be fixed in future chips
by changing how speculative loads work, to match what other companies
did).


Sorta. A 10% performance hit and tthe workaround is extensive. So it's
forcing everyone to eat a shit sandwich to work around it.

Spectre needs software fixes, possibly along with microcode changes (for
machines that have such a thing).  You're likely to hear more when the
fixes are available; it would not make sense to have much discussion before
then for the reason you mentioned at the top.


Spectre for Intel requires microcode changes and OS level changes to cope,
and changes to the compiler for retpoline support. The os guys need to talk
about their piece a lot, so it needs disclosure as well... it's a smaller
shit sandwich in terms of performance hit...

Warner

RE: Spectre & Meltdown

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Jan 13, 2018 11:22 AM, "Dave Wade via cctalk" 
wrote:

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Murray
> McCullough via cctalk
> Sent: 13 January 2018 18:09
> To: cctalk 
> Subject: Spectre & Meltdown
>
> I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to inform
> the world! Did it inform the world back in earlier days about potential
flaws?
> Not to blame INTEL only: What about Zilog, etc.? Or did pre-Internet era
> protect us computer-classic users? What about running emulation software
> as I’ve been doing with ADAM?

It delayed telling the world to allow time for OS providers to apply fixes.
This is now standard and the delays are defined...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/intel-
fixing-security-vulnerability-chips-52122993


Linux, Windows and Mac got notified early November. FreeBSD just before
Christmas with no time to cope. All other BSDs and OpenSolaris found out on
release :(.

But this embargo was super long. Intel found out in June...

Warner


but it looks like in this case it leaked early. Similar bugs affect ARM,
AMD and PowerPC but nothing from them either. IBM won't tell the world (it
will tell customers, but I am not a customer) if and how it affects Z.


>
>
>
> Happy computing!
>
>
>
> Murray  J

Dave

Re: DECtape madness

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 1/13/2018 6:20 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:

So why are reels of DECtape selling for unbelievable prices on eBait?
The ones in the post are from Bill Donzelli.  I'd imagine he's happy.  I 
looked at acquiring another one, but they went way high as you pointed 
out.  My friend with some of the TU-55 and TU-56's has several boxes and 
said not to bother, but I figured what the heck.


Bill didn't sell the 4 piece one.  I bought a single item last year for 
$5 bucks or so plus shipping.  I'm not sure why these have gone so high.


We are talking to a local fellow here in Los Angeles who is in the 
business of renting out a studio with ancient tape drives for production 
as needed and he has contact with a couple of guys who may be able to 
fab up heads.  We are interested in exploring that if it is feasible to 
have replacements made.  They currently make heads for the audio units 
there and could possibly make heads to any spec that is available.


I'm mainly asking around because it seems there are a lot of options for 
moving tape now days.  Media is scarce, but not unavailable. And unless 
you have NOS replacement heads that is one stopper for using original 
media with system.  I probably won't pursue it, but will at least know 
how hard the head problem is.


Thanks
Jim

Re: GT-40 etc.

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 1/13/2018 10:15 AM, Ali via cctalk wrote:

I'm going to disagree with Al, though - I don't think it's going to go
for that much, it's 'local pickup only'. That's going to severely limit
the bidder pool.

For us non DEC aficionados why is there potential for the system to go for
insane amounts of money? Does it have some rare piece of HW? Is it the
providence?

-Ali
There was a current or former list member (I think) with a functional 
GT-40 listed for $50,000 or so last year.  I don't know if it was sold, 
or withdrawn.  One lit up as this one was would be pretty valuable.


It has the potential to go for that.  The components at current states 
of scarcity and the condition of this system make it look like it should 
go for a lot.


Depending on the circumstances of this system I'd have hired an auction 
house to sell this off.  Not sure if the museums have been approached 
and passed on it.  CHM I don't think can take anything, not sure about 
LCM.  Maybe Dave Mcguires operation in Pittsburg can collect it.   
Listing it at a $1000 no reserve auction on ebay will take it a catch as 
catch can as you say as far as maximum buyer.


It may have to move or face destruction, limiting the seller's options.

I'd hate to see it not be fully exploited.   Breaking it up will be a shame.

It has already made a journey from the west coast, not sure how much it 
was assembled by the current owner.  It might only be a freight problem.


And breaking it up into an 8 system and the GT40 hopefully will be done 
correctly if it is done.


thanks
Jim

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Fritz Mueller via cctalk]

On Jan 13, 2018, at 10:30 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk  
wrote:
> that exposed backplane above it _might_ be an RK11-C...

Definitely an RK11-C — having recently restored one in my 11/45, I can see the 
flying components on the backplane here are in just the right places.  And it 
would make sense with the diablo and the RK05 in there.

Re: DECtape madness

[Mark J. Blair via cctalk]

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 08:52, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> So, where were all these people when I was trying to clean out
> my old house a couple years ago?  I threw out piles of tapes of
> various formats because I couldn't find anyone to take them for
> postage.

I'm sorry that I missed that event, Bill! I'd be happy to add a DECtape drive 
and a handful of usable DECtapes to my PDP-8/M project, but I don't want that 
dearly enough to pay the going eBay prices for that kind of gear at this time. 
Not that I can really complain, as I'm fortunate to have lots of other cool 
stuff running the range from free gifts to expensive purchases; I just haven't 
been at the right node of place + time + checking account balance to have 
acquired DECtape family gear yet, and I was born just a bit too late to have 
experienced it in college or the workplace.

I sure wish that I would have anticipated that I'd become interested in 
retrocomputing in the 201x decade, so I wouldn't have gotten rid of a few 
specific items over the years that I now wish I still had, and I could have 
kept my eyes open for other items that I might have acquired cheap or free at 
the moment that interest in them was at a minimum.

Naturally, there's plenty of stuff in recent years that I have considered to be 
uninteresting junk to be discarded. I wonder if I'll regret having junked it in 
another decade or three, or if my sense of nostalgia will remain rooted to my 
younger years and earlier?

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 1:22 PM, Dave Wade via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> ...
> It delayed telling the world to allow time for OS providers to apply fixes. 
> This is now standard and the delays are defined...
> 
> http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/intel-fixing-security-vulnerability-chips-52122993
> 
> but it looks like in this case it leaked early. Similar bugs affect ARM, AMD 
> and PowerPC but nothing from them either. IBM won't tell the world (it will 
> tell customers, but I am not a customer) if and how it affects Z.

There are two bugs that are largely unrelated other than the fact they both 
start from speculative execution.  One is "Meltdown" which is specific to Intel 
as far as is known.  The other is "Spectre" which is a pretty much unavoidable 
side effect of the existence of speculative execution and appears to apply to 
multiple architectures.  There may be variations; I assume some designs have 
much shorter speculation pipelines than others and if so would be less affected.

Meltdown has a software workaround (it could also be fixed in future chips by 
changing how speculative loads work, to match what other companies did).  
Spectre needs software fixes, possibly along with microcode changes (for 
machines that have such a thing).  You're likely to hear more when the fixes 
are available; it would not make sense to have much discussion before then for 
the reason you mentioned at the top.

paul

Re: Spectre & Meltdown

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 1:08 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to inform
> the world! 

Of course, and for good reason.  The current practice has been carefully 
crafted by the consensus of security vulnerability workers.  That is: when a 
vulnerability is discovered, the responsible party is notified confidentially 
and given a reasonable amount of time to produce a fix before the issue is 
announced publicly.  There's a big incentive for that response to happen and 
typically it does.  If the issue is ignored, the announcement happens anyway 
along with public shaming of the part who didn't bother to respond.

With this approach, a fix can often be released concurrently with the 
disclosure of the issue, which dramatically reduces the oppportunity for 
criminals to take advantage of the problem.  This isn't a case of being nice to 
Intel; it's an attempt to benefit Intel's customers.

If you read the Meltdown and Spectre papers (by the researchers who discovered 
the problem, not the news rags reporting on it) you'll see this policy 
mentioned in passing.  

paul

RE: GT-40 etc.

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Ali

> why is there potential for the system to go for insane amounts of money?

I'm going to guess that Al had the GT40 in mind. (I wonder if that was named
after the car, BTW?) I don't see anything else there that's _that_ desirable -
the Diablo (aka RK02/RK03) is pretty rare, and that exposed backplane above it
_might_ be an RK11-C, but I don't think either of them is _that_ desirable.

Although maybe he was just thinking of the whole package... Those plus the RK05,
the PDP-8, two complete H960's - it adds up...

   Noel

Re: DECtape madness

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On Jan 13, 2018, at 12:28 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 1/13/18 9:04 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
> 
>> I don't know what you are talking about with Mylar on both sides. They were 
>> conventional magnetic tape, a clear mylar
>> film with oxide applied to one side.
> 
> the actual spec is here:
> 
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dectape/3M_DECtape_Spec_Nov66.pdf

And that spec is quite clear, "protective overlay".  This is the reason for the 
legendary robustness of DECtape media.  It was possible to wear it out, but 
only if you used it -- as done at Lawrence University for example -- as 
permanently mounted public file storage so it was read/written many times per 
hour for months on end.  When used as private removable storage it was pretty 
much invulnerable.  Stories of DECtapes being laundered by accident and still 
working fine afterwards have been around for a long time.

paul

RE: Spectre & Meltdown

[Dave Wade via cctalk]

> -Original Message-
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Murray
> McCullough via cctalk
> Sent: 13 January 2018 18:09
> To: cctalk 
> Subject: Spectre & Meltdown
> 
> I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to inform
> the world! Did it inform the world back in earlier days about potential flaws?
> Not to blame INTEL only: What about Zilog, etc.? Or did pre-Internet era
> protect us computer-classic users? What about running emulation software
> as I’ve been doing with ADAM?

It delayed telling the world to allow time for OS providers to apply fixes. 
This is now standard and the delays are defined...

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/intel-fixing-security-vulnerability-chips-52122993

but it looks like in this case it leaked early. Similar bugs affect ARM, AMD 
and PowerPC but nothing from them either. IBM won't tell the world (it will 
tell customers, but I am not a customer) if and how it affects Z.


> 
> 
> 
> Happy computing!
> 
> 
> 
> Murray  J

Dave

RE: GT-40 etc.

[Ali via cctalk]

> I'm going to disagree with Al, though - I don't think it's going to go
> for that much, it's 'local pickup only'. That's going to severely limit
> the bidder pool.

For us non DEC aficionados why is there potential for the system to go for
insane amounts of money? Does it have some rare piece of HW? Is it the
providence?

-Ali

RE: Spectre & Meltdown

[Ali via cctalk]

> I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to
> inform the world! Did it inform the world back in earlier days about
> potential flaws? Not to blame INTEL only: What about Zilog, etc.? Or

Yes, of course it did. The famous Pentium FDIV bug comes immediately to mind. 
Of course pre-internet days and everything being online all the time security 
was a whole lot easier. If you could keep someone out of the building your data 
was secure. Now a day all it takes is a bad JS on a site to compromise you...

-Ali

Spectre & Meltdown

[Murray McCullough via cctalk]

I wrote about Spectre and Meltdown recently: INTEL took its time to inform
the world! Did it inform the world back in earlier days about potential
flaws? Not to blame INTEL only: What about Zilog, etc.? Or did pre-Internet
era protect us computer-classic users? What about running emulation
software as I’ve been doing with ADAM?



Happy computing!



Murray  J

Re: DECtape madness

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 1/13/18 9:04 AM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:

> I don't know what you are talking about with Mylar on both sides. They were 
> conventional magnetic tape, a clear mylar
> film with oxide applied to one side.

the actual spec is here:

http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/dectape/3M_DECtape_Spec_Nov66.pdf

Re: DECtape madness

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 01/13/2018 08:34 AM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote:

So why are reels of DECtape selling for unbelievable prices on eBait? See,
e.g. here:

I had those on my watch-list and just shake my head at the astonishing
prices for the things.

I've wondered if you might not make DECtape tape from 3/4" video tape.
I know that DECtape has mylar on both sides but what if you somehow
glued two strips of video tape together with the mylar backing on the
outside.  Probably want to build a jig of some sort and I'm not sure
what glue to use.


At Washington University, we bought 12" reels of 3/4" 
instrumentation tape and made DECtapes out of them.
The tapes were too thin, and if you left them sit too long, 
they would get print-through and start to have trouble.
As long as you used them every couple weeks, they would get 
rewound and you would not have a problem.


I don't know what you are talking about with Mylar on both 
sides. They were conventional magnetic tape, a clear mylar 
film with oxide applied to one side.  They were definitely 
made with a thicker Mylar layer than many magnetic tapes of 
the day, possibly to solve the print-through issue, but 
maybe also to prevent crimping of the tape on the pack.  I 
think the oxide formula had a more square-loop hysteresis 
curve than analog tapes, which contributed to our problem.


Jon

Re: DECtape madness

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

So, where were all these people when I was trying to clean out
my old house a couple years ago?  I threw out piles of tapes of
various formats because I couldn't find anyone to take them for
postage.  I also threw out piles of other stuff (some of it old DEC
and Sun kit) after offering it on eBay and getting zero bids.  The
only thing I have successfully sold thru eBay was an antique
claw-foot bathtub.  I have stuff now that will likely go in the trash
because I really can't affords the space to be a storage locker
any more.

bill


From: cctalk  on behalf of David Bridgham via 
cctalk 
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2018 9:34 AM
To: Noel Chiappa via cctalk
Subject: Re: DECtape madness


> So why are reels of DECtape selling for unbelievable prices on eBait? See,
> e.g. here:

I had those on my watch-list and just shake my head at the astonishing
prices for the things.

I've wondered if you might not make DECtape tape from 3/4" video tape.
I know that DECtape has mylar on both sides but what if you somehow
glued two strips of video tape together with the mylar backing on the
outside.  Probably want to build a jig of some sort and I'm not sure
what glue to use.

Re: DECtape madness

[David Bridgham via cctalk]

> So why are reels of DECtape selling for unbelievable prices on eBait? See,
> e.g. here:

I had those on my watch-list and just shake my head at the astonishing
prices for the things.

I've wondered if you might not make DECtape tape from 3/4" video tape. 
I know that DECtape has mylar on both sides but what if you somehow
glued two strips of video tape together with the mylar backing on the
outside.  Probably want to build a jig of some sort and I'm not sure
what glue to use.

DECtape madness

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

So why are reels of DECtape selling for unbelievable prices on eBait? See,
e.g. here:

  https://www.ebay.com/itm/372186744906

and here:

  https://www.ebay.com/itm/372186745609

I can't believe there are hordes of TU55/TU56 owners out there who desperately
need media; so what is it? People who think DECtapes were super cool and have
to have a reel, even though they don't have a drive? Or are there actually
TU55/TU56 owners (remember, it takes two bidders to put the price up) who
really need media?

Anyway, it looks like this person:

  https://www.ebay.com/itm/202183912961

who got four for the 'bargain' price of $80 got a 'deal'!

   Noel

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Paul Anderson

> I wonder what happened to the third rack...

And the TU-56...

I'm going to disagree with Al, though - I don't think it's going to go for
that much, it's 'local pickup only'. That's going to severely limit the
bidder pool.

Noel

Re: GT-40 etc.

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

wow

On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 1:42 AM, Paul Anderson via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I wonder what happened to the third rack...
>
> On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 4:24 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org
> > wrote:
>
> > this is going to go for an insane amt of money
> >
> > https://www.ebay.com/itm/232628720694
> >
> >
>