Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[devin davison via cctalk]

Much appriciated, thank you!

Time flies, that post was made quite a while ago. This software looks
interesting, thank you. I am working to set up an 11/34 at a museum, it
would be intetesting to get this bbs software running hooked up to some
dumb terminals.

--Devin D.

On Mon, Jun 20, 2022, 8:39 PM Ryan Collins  wrote:

> Necrobump! (I was searching for an email and came across this thread)
>
> In college, we ran CoSy under VMS. CoSy (Computer Conferencing System)
> started out under Unix on a PDP-11 and it looks like the source is
> available:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoSy_(computer_conferencing_system)
>
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:45 PM devin davison via cctalk <
> cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
>> I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
>> to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
>> the whole machine.
>>
>> Any suggestions? i have not had much luck finding anything.
>>
>> --Devin
>>
>
>
> --
>
> --
> Ryan Collins
> https://about.ryancollins.org/ 
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ryan Collins via cctalk]

Necrobump! (I was searching for an email and came across this thread)

In college, we ran CoSy under VMS. CoSy (Computer Conferencing System)
started out under Unix on a PDP-11 and it looks like the source is
available:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoSy_(computer_conferencing_system)

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:45 PM devin davison via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
> to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
> the whole machine.
>
> Any suggestions? i have not had much luck finding anything.
>
> --Devin
>


-- 

-- 
Ryan Collins
https://about.ryancollins.org/ 

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/23/2017 11:55 PM, Cameron Kaiser via cctalk wrote:

The Wikipedia article on Dr. Wetterhahn seems to indicate
this went a lot slower than we were told in the seminar.
Not sure who to trust, there.

The NEJM article seems to say it was also not a precipitous decline.

OK, then I guess the people who gave our seminar either 
misremembered the situation or embellished it.
Still, pretty horrific situation when a highly skilled 
person thinks they are doing everything right, and a couple 
drops of something kills them.


Jon

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> Metallic mercury isn't anything you want to ingest, but it won't go thru 
> your skin unless it has some other compound to drag it,

This isn't quite true. Elemental liquid mercury will pass through skin but
at a much slower rate. Vapourized elemental mercury via inhalation is, uh,
more "efficient."

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- MOVIE IDEA: The Never-Ending E-mail Signature --

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/23/2017 5:56 PM, William Sudbrink via cctalk wrote:

  Mercury
"bouncing around" in her body for almost a year before she finally passed.
It also "went through" the back of her hand without making some awful
lesion.  1.3 grams?!  I've always gone with the mental crutch that a paper
clip weighs about 1/2 gram.  So almost three paper clips "slipped" into her
body.  Wow.
Useful to note this is not metallic mercury.  It was dimethyl mercury, 
which meant that the methyl radical tagged on the mercury was very 
friendly with the material on the gloves she wore, and with her skin and 
dragged the heavy metal rapidly to her blood stream. And eventually to 
lots of places and killed her.


Metallic mercury isn't anything you want to ingest, but it won't go thru 
your skin unless it has some other compound to drag it, or unless you 
are very unlucky and jam it into an open wound.


Thanks
Jim

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> The Wikipedia article on Dr. Wetterhahn seems to indicate 
> this went a lot slower than we were told in the seminar.
> Not sure who to trust, there.

The NEJM article seems to say it was also not a precipitous decline.

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- The cost of living has not adversely affected its popularity. --

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/23/2017 01:57 PM, William Sudbrink via cctalk wrote:

I have a hard time getting my head around Dr. Wetterhahn's poisoning.  How
many molecules of the toxin could have possibly entered her body?
How many molecules does it take to kill or fatally disable a cell?  After it
does its damage, does the molecule become available again to do
more damage?  How many cells in her body were actually killed?  Do the
molecules somehow target the cells required to kill an individual?
If you killed just the "right" cells, how many cells does it take to kill a
person?

Yeah, this was sure a wake up call!  I work in a chemistry 
department, so we all have to go through a 1 hour
lab safety seminar every year.  This case has been pretty 
strongly pushed in those.  She did everything everybody 
thought was sufficient to protect her.  Apparently, nobody 
knew that methyl mercury could just soak through whatever 
gloves she was wearing so quickly.  As I understand it, she 
immediately saw the drop of stuff drip on the glove, and she 
completed what she was doing and removed the glove in much 
less than one MINUTE!


Ummm, just a couple cells might be enough to kill you, if 
they stopped your breathing or made you blood pressure go 
haywire (high or low).  But, she felt sick within minutes of 
the exposure and went steadily downhill after that.  So, she 
apparently absorbed a lot of the methyl mercury, which WAS 
known to be super-toxic and readily absorbed.


The Wikipedia article on Dr. Wetterhahn seems to indicate 
this went a lot slower than we were told in the seminar.

Not sure who to trust, there.

Jon

RE: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[William Sudbrink via cctalk]

Thanks for the reply.  I would never dream of "messing with it."  Even
reading the NEJM article, it still amazes me to think of the Mercury
"bouncing around" in her body for almost a year before she finally passed.
It also "went through" the back of her hand without making some awful
lesion.  1.3 grams?!  I've always gone with the mental crutch that a paper
clip weighs about 1/2 gram.  So almost three paper clips "slipped" into her
body.  Wow.


---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Cameron Kaiser via cctalk]

> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
> > http://i.imgur.com/0dXdc.jpg
> >
> > Karen Wetterhahn spilled a drop of a Mercury compound on her latex
> > glove, and died of it 10 months later. 
>
> I have a hard time getting my head around Dr. Wetterhahn's poisoning.  How
> many molecules of the toxin could have possibly entered her body?
> How many molecules does it take to kill or fatally disable a cell?  After it
> does its damage, does the molecule become available again to do
> more damage?  How many cells in her body were actually killed?  Do the
> molecules somehow target the cells required to kill an individual?
> If you killed just the "right" cells, how many cells does it take to kill a
> person?

I can't answer the cell count, but I can give a general answer on the rest.

Mercury interferes with multiple enzymatic processes -- some of them
permanently -- and it can be slow to metabolize (half life of approximately
two months), meaning even a small dose can destroy a lot of cells. The central
nervous system is at greatest risk because these enzymes frequently repair
oxidative damage from metabolic processes, and nerve cells have high rates of
metabolism for processing.

As mentioned, mercury compounds are often far more toxic than the pure form.
Dimethylmercury is especially effective because the extra methyl groups enable
it to very easily enter the body and pass through cell membranes but
only very slowly be eliminated from it; some metabolites can actually bind
to tissues and remain. In this case, as little as 0.1mL is enough to cause
severe or fatal poisoning according to the OSHA bulletins I have here because
it will enter cells and accumulate there. Once it reaches the central
nervous system, that's it. The NEJM article on the Wetterhahn case (read:

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199806043382305

) estimates a lethal dose of the compound would be about 5mg/kg body weight.

(As an aside, though, mercury-containing antiseptics such as thiomersal
"Merthiolate" and merbromin can be safe and effective sterilizers in very
low concentrations. They work through the oligodynamic effect. I grew up
with my mother wielding the Mercurochrome whenever I'd get a cut, and I think
it was unfairly removed from the market -- not due to toxicity, but because
it was a generic product with no profit potential, so the pharmas wouldn't
do the studies and the FDA classified it as "non-GRAS" along with a number 
of other orphaned compounds in 1998. It is still very common outside the US.)

In the Wetterhahn case, latex and PVC gloves are also easily penetrated by
the compound (including those she was wearing), affording her no protection
at all when it spilled on her and was able to pass through her skin into the
bloodstream. It is also possible part of her toxic dose came from vapour,
although the fume hood should have reduced this. By the time her symptoms
indicated that she had indeed received a toxic dose, chelation therapy would
have been ineffective, as it indeed was. The estimated total dose per the
NEJM article was about 1.3g of mercury, over three times the lethal amount.

Don't mess with it.

(MD, MPH)

-- 
 personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckai...@floodgap.com
-- You are not ready! -

RE: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[William Sudbrink via cctalk]

I have a hard time getting my head around Dr. Wetterhahn's poisoning.  How
many molecules of the toxin could have possibly entered her body?
How many molecules does it take to kill or fatally disable a cell?  After it
does its damage, does the molecule become available again to do
more damage?  How many cells in her body were actually killed?  Do the
molecules somehow target the cells required to kill an individual?
If you killed just the "right" cells, how many cells does it take to kill a
person?

-Original Message-
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tapley,
Mark via cctalk
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 12:30 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

On May 22, 2017, at 9:38 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> ...I'm not sure if "mercury" batteries contain metallic mercury or mercury
salts.  Metallic mercury is actually pretty much harmless, even though
bringing a thermometer into a US school can cause a major panic.  Mercury
salts are a different matter.  Mercury vapor should also be avoided, at
least in significant quantities and long term exposure, as my father found
out as a university student in chemistry.

To emphasize what Paul says, Mercury considered only as an element
has a *very* wide range of toxicity. It depends entirely on the compounds it
is bound into. (Similar to, say, Carbon and Nitrogen..). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
http://i.imgur.com/0dXdc.jpg

Karen Wetterhahn spilled a drop of a Mercury compound on her latex
glove, and died of it 10 months later. 
I don't know what happened to the guy who is pictured sitting in (on) a pool
of Mercury, but at least it's clear that at the time, he considered
elemental mercury not to be lethally dangerous. I remember seeing the photo
in National Geographic, and the caption did say he was very careful to shake
out his cuffs, etc after the photo was shot. 

NatGeo itself also is now clearly aware there is some risk:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160524-indonesia-toxic-toll/

One problem is that it's hard to ensure that *all* of the Mercury
will stay in the non-toxic forms when handling it.
- Mark



---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Tapley, Mark via cctalk]

On May 22, 2017, at 9:38 AM, Paul Koning via cctalk  
wrote:

> ...I'm not sure if "mercury" batteries contain metallic mercury or mercury 
> salts.  Metallic mercury is actually pretty much harmless, even though 
> bringing a thermometer into a US school can cause a major panic.  Mercury 
> salts are a different matter.  Mercury vapor should also be avoided, at least 
> in significant quantities and long term exposure, as my father found out as a 
> university student in chemistry.

To emphasize what Paul says, Mercury considered only as an element has 
a *very* wide range of toxicity. It depends entirely on the compounds it is 
bound into. (Similar to, say, Carbon and Nitrogen….). 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Wetterhahn
http://i.imgur.com/0dXdc.jpg

Karen Wetterhahn spilled a drop of a Mercury compound on her latex 
glove, and died of it 10 months later. 
I don’t know what happened to the guy who is pictured sitting in (on) a pool of 
Mercury, but at least it’s clear that at the time, he considered elemental 
mercury not to be lethally dangerous. I remember seeing the photo in National 
Geographic, and the caption did say he was very careful to shake out his cuffs, 
etc after the photo was shot. 

NatGeo itself also is now clearly aware there is some risk:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/160524-indonesia-toxic-toll/

One problem is that it’s hard to ensure that *all* of the Mercury will 
stay in the non-toxic forms when handling it.
- Mark

Re: PDP Power Usage WAS: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 05/22/2017 10:23 AM, Doug Ingraham via cctalk wrote:
For even less power would be to use an Arduino (probably a 
Due) because then you are talking less than 4 watts. This 
would be about 35 cents per month. I wouldn't want to run 
my Straight 8 24x7.and pay the power bill. 
Or, a Beagle Bone Black, also about 3-5 W depending on CPU 
load, but has a 1 GHz 32-bit RISC processor.
Definitely slower than a top of the line desktop, but 
certainly usable.


Jon

Re: PDP Power Usage WAS: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Doug Ingraham via cctalk]

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 5:18 PM, Ali via cctalk 
wrote:

> > ___
> > The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth
> > what your wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt
> > light bulbs (which your kids leave on all over the house all the
> > time!!) bill
> >
> > I run a similar PDP-11/83 system 24/7 on a BA23 in a Pedestal stand. It
> > has two 2MB memory boards, an Emulex UC07 connected to two SCSI2SD
> > Cards emulating two RD54s and two RA92s, and a DELQA-T running RSX11M+,
> > DECnet and Johnny Billquist;s TCP/IP and it draws 100-105 watts on my
> > UPS.
>
> Doesn't seem that bad, I am sure some of my vintage servers w/ the 10-12 FH
> SCSI drives, "tons of RAM, and four PPro chips are pulling somewhere along
> those numbers. I may have to invest in a Kill-a-Watt type device to see for
> sure though.
>
> -Ali
>

My PDP-8A with 32k core, RX01 Floppy and an extra serial port card pulls
345 watts.
It would be another 100 if I had not replaced the factory fans with modern
lower
airflow units.  If left on 24/7 this would increase the average power bill
in the US by
about 30 dollars a month.

If you want to run a modern version of a BBS and not have it add
significantly to your
power bill then run it on a modern laptop.  These can pull around 50 watts
when awake
and this would add only a little over $4 to the average power bill in the
US.

For even less power would be to use an Arduino (probably a Due) because
then you are
talking less than 4 watts.  This would be about 35 cents per month.

I wouldn't want to run my Straight 8 24x7.and pay the power bill.

-- 
Doug Ingraham
PDP-8 SN 1175

Re: OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 22, 2017, at 10:21 AM, Christian Groessler via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> At least here in the EU, they banned mercury batteries, mostly used by old 
> photo gear, and then supported light bulbs containing mercury.
> 
> How many people will need and by these batteries and how many people need and 
> buy light bulbs?
> 
> Go figure...

I could make all sorts of comments but since that's politics it would be off 
topic.  Mercury batteries seem to be banned in the USA also, or at least they 
aren't available any longer.  Annoying since I have some microphones that use 
them.  I suppose I could make an adapter to fit in some 3v lithium cells and 
get "close enough".

I'm not sure if "mercury" batteries contain metallic mercury or mercury salts.  
Metallic mercury is actually pretty much harmless, even though bringing a 
thermometer into a US school can cause a major panic.  Mercury salts are a 
different matter.  Mercury vapor should also be avoided, at least in 
significant quantities and long term exposure, as my father found out as a 
university student in chemistry.

paul

OT: Mercury (Was: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Christian Groessler via cctalk]

At least here in the EU, they banned mercury batteries, mostly used by 
old photo gear, and then supported light bulbs containing mercury.


How many people will need and by these batteries and how many people 
need and buy light bulbs?


Go figure...

regards,
chris



On 05/22/17 15:20, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:


OK, I retract my statement.  I researched it and apparently the government
no longer cares.  I refused to use them when they first came out because
they were considered environmental nightmares and, at least in PA, there
were strict controls.  I still wouldn't use them, but then I don't have to as
LED lights are avaialble.  I still have flourescent lights, but as they die I 
will
be replacing them with LED as well.

bill


From: Alfred M. Szmidt [a...@gnu.org]
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 8:12 AM
To: Bill Gunshannon; GeneralDiscussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Cc: jwsm...@jwsss.com; cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
remediation by law!!

Uhm... No you don't.  Stop the fearmongering please ...

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

OK, I retract my statement.  I researched it and apparently the government
no longer cares.  I refused to use them when they first came out because
they were considered environmental nightmares and, at least in PA, there
were strict controls.  I still wouldn't use them, but then I don't have to as
LED lights are avaialble.  I still have flourescent lights, but as they die I 
will
be replacing them with LED as well.

bill


From: Alfred M. Szmidt [a...@gnu.org]
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 8:12 AM
To: Bill Gunshannon; GeneralDiscussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Cc: jwsm...@jwsss.com; cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

   And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
   didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
   remediation by law!!

Uhm... No you don't.  Stop the fearmongering please ...

Re: CFL (was: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Alfred M. Szmidt via cctalk]

You don't even need call the law if you break a mercury thermometer,
which is about 3-4 grams of mercury.  A bulb has what, a few
miligrams?

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Alfred M. Szmidt via cctalk]

   And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
   didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
   remediation by law!!

Uhm... No you don't.  Stop the fearmongering please ...

Re: CFL (was: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Diane Bruce via cctalk]

On Mon, May 22, 2017 at 07:20:34AM -0400, Ken Seefried via cctalk wrote:
> > And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
> > didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
> > remediation by law!!
> 
> Please quit spreading this urban legend.  Some care in handling is
> recommended, but no professional help is required, by law! or
> otherwise.
> 
> https://www.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl
> 

Fluorescent bulbs contain more mercurty than CFL's yet no one worries
about them breaking. 

https://www3.epa.gov/region02/waste/spent-lamp.pdf

72 Diane VA3DB
-- 
- d...@freebsd.org d...@db.net http://www.db.net/~db

CFL (was: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11)

[Ken Seefried via cctalk]

> And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
> didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
> remediation by law!!

Please quit spreading this urban legend.  Some care in handling is
recommended, but no professional help is required, by law! or
otherwise.

https://www.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/20/2017 6:42 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On 19 May 2017 at 21:39, jim stephens via cctalk  wrote:

I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone time
cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.

What does "phone time" mean in this context?
Long distance tolls vs. the zone usage mentioned below.  Not a lot of 
variable vs. distance here, pretty much was so many cents / min.

I mean, POTS billing, for me, was always time-based, but the amount
billed per unit time varied according to distance.

AIUI, the UK system -- local calls cheapish, long-distance calls
within the country more but not vast, international calls VERY
expensive -- contrasted with the US system: local calls free,
unlimited time, but long-distance calls within the country very
expensive. Thus the development of various early
telephony-over-the-Internet systems. I never used these at all until I
had an international long-distance relationship. No real point inside
the British Isles.
local calls were flat rate within zones from when i was born in the 
60's.  I do know you used to be able to pay per call, but I am not aware 
of anyone that had that measured billing in my family or associates.  
Just one relative who even had one of the old crank phones, but they 
could just take the mic off hook, and crank and have a call placed.

Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to the

"PUC"?
Public Utility Commissions in every state control the billing 
structures.  In some states, sanity wins over the utilities, but usually 
utilities bribe and engage in any tactic they can to pack them with 
sympathetic folks who allow them to charge all the can, and be totally 
unresponsive to any need to deliver product.


Subject for a huge posting on an entirely different list.

Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling across a
few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you were a phone
nut due to zone usage metering.

I don't know what "zone usage metering" is either.
In local metropolitan areas, the phone companies will make up a grid of 
zones.  They set a matrix of tolls between each.  Calls are way over 
priced, and calling across some zones could cause 500' calls to cost as 
much as long distance calls.


Where I grew up in the Kansas City, Mo area, the PUC (see above) in both 
Ks and Mo had gotten together to force the Bell system to create a 
single "free" zone across the entire 30 mile dia area with no zone 
charges in the early 60's.  The tradeoff was they were given free reign 
in other nonsense in the states.


But many areas had or still have this if you don't have a flat rate plan 
of some sort.

Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall, and
now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for most such
long distance gone away for small users.

Well, yes, for everyone.

Now, in Europe, the problem is international mobile phone roaming. The
EU is slowly forcing this out, but in return, now, the cost of
roaming to non-EU countries is extortionate.
I have not made calls on any cell there, the few times I have traveled 
recently, but am aware.  The place I see it is with my worldwide Vonage 
plan, with some coverage in some countries of all phones, and in some no 
cell, others no POTS.  But for the same rate as I used to pay for US / 
Canada / Mexico, I now get global coverage with same cost / month, $27 
or so.  Send your Phone# I can call.

I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as recently
as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier phone numbers
carry a huge toll.

Wow...

Businesses still look like the bad old days for tolls.

Also had several fights with the "hamsters" who would tack on "fees' for 
such as WWW advertising.  The phone companies claim that you can sign up 
as a vendor and send arbitrary charges to be added to phone bills and it 
isn't their responsibility.


Frontier, a carrier here as well as one of the third party service 
parasites here are total aholes about it.


I had to file a complaint with the PUC here several times to force Pac 
Bell to take off charges to the company I'm referring to.  Prior to me 
getting the billing to manage, they were paying about 800 / month for 
service.  After revision, i got it cut in half by dumping crap like the 
above and other services that were useless.


Companies who send their bills to accounting departments usually get 
screwed over badly because they don't know how or what to question.


But on individual bills one usually notices crap so the third party 
folks have largely quit annoying them.


BTW, the long distance here isn't "free" it is just flat rate for 
individuals.  Most carriers have flat rate plans for businesses, but are 
quite a bit higher than for individuals.


thanks
jim

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 05/20/2017 11:12 AM, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:

> In the bay area in california, and likely elsewhere too, there was a local
> calling zone that was set based on the population patterns of the 1950's
> and 1960's. This meant that calls to some numbers were free, while others
> had a toll associated with them. There were zones around the central zone.
> So it would cost money to call out of your zone, even if things were only a
> few miles away. It was a total crock, but something that the PUCs allowed
> because it has always been allowed before the suburbs grew up into one
> contiguous population area. So fast forward to the 1980's or 1990's and you
> found it impossible to know how much a call would cost. In Colorado, I
> lived in an area just outside the metro calling area. I could call 20 miles
> away to the far side of Longmont for free. But calling 2 miles to the pizza
> joint was a long distance call because it was over the line in gunbarrel
> which was in the metro calling area. Totally insane and bat  crazy.

Yes--and in addition, if you were willing to pay a monthly subscription
fee, you could add a city in the calling area that exempted you from
metered service for that city.  I remember doing this for Menlo Park.

Not only that, but sometimes the tariffs were set up such that A's calls
to B were free, but B's calls to A were toll.  And things were even
weirder when the destination was a non-AT carrier.  GTE, for example,
serviced Boulder Creek and Los Gatos.

In the early days of BBS, one of the ways for a sysop to save money was
to specify that a line was "answer only"--you couldn't dial out from it.
 I know of at least one case where Pacific Bell insisted that a modem on
such a line constituted a "data line", for which there was a much higher
charge.   It was a wacky world.

Even by 1990s, a lot of the RBOCs hadn't completely shed their habits.
I learned from an installer that a service call to "check the line" was
free, but one to "check equalization" was a substantial charge, even
though the former usually included the latter.

--Chuck




--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Warner Losh via cctalk]

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 7:42 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

> On 19 May 2017 at 21:39, jim stephens via cctalk 
> wrote:
> > I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone
> time
> > cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.
>
> What does "phone time" mean in this context?
>
> I mean, POTS billing, for me, was always time-based, but the amount
> billed per unit time varied according to distance.
>
> AIUI, the UK system -- local calls cheapish, long-distance calls
> within the country more but not vast, international calls VERY
> expensive -- contrasted with the US system: local calls free,
> unlimited time, but long-distance calls within the country very
> expensive. Thus the development of various early
> telephony-over-the-Internet systems. I never used these at all until I
> had an international long-distance relationship. No real point inside
> the British Isles.


Until the late 1990's or early 2000's, you paid per minute on long
distance, but typically not for local calls. Now it's all flat rate, or
almost flat rate no matter how much you use.

> Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to
> the
>
> "PUC"?


Public Utilities Commission. That's the folks that in most states set the
tariffs under which phone companies operated. The tariffs set the rates for
long distance, what constitutes long distance, etc.


>
> > Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling
> across a
> > few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you were a
> phone
> > nut due to zone usage metering.
>
> I don't know what "zone usage metering" is either.


In the bay area in california, and likely elsewhere too, there was a local
calling zone that was set based on the population patterns of the 1950's
and 1960's. This meant that calls to some numbers were free, while others
had a toll associated with them. There were zones around the central zone.
So it would cost money to call out of your zone, even if things were only a
few miles away. It was a total crock, but something that the PUCs allowed
because it has always been allowed before the suburbs grew up into one
contiguous population area. So fast forward to the 1980's or 1990's and you
found it impossible to know how much a call would cost. In Colorado, I
lived in an area just outside the metro calling area. I could call 20 miles
away to the far side of Longmont for free. But calling 2 miles to the pizza
joint was a long distance call because it was over the line in gunbarrel
which was in the metro calling area. Totally insane and bat  crazy.


>
> > Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall,
> and
> > now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for most
> such
> > long distance gone away for small users.
>
> Well, yes, for everyone.
>

For everyone in major cities where there's competition. The picture is
still F'd up in rural areas where there's only one phone company.


> Now, in Europe, the problem is international mobile phone roaming. The
> EU is slowly forcing this out, but in return, now, the cost of
> roaming to non-EU countries is extortionate.
>
> > I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as
> recently
> > as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier phone
> numbers
> > carry a huge toll.
>
> Wow


Yea. It was a regulated monopoly here, and all kinds of crazy pricing
things were in play to prop up a failing business model unable to compete
with new technology Of course, there's still forces here in the US that
are trying to leverage their failing telco business into a toll-gate on the
internet, so time will tell...

Warner

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 19 May 2017 at 21:39, jim stephens via cctalk  wrote:
> I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone time
> cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.

What does "phone time" mean in this context?

I mean, POTS billing, for me, was always time-based, but the amount
billed per unit time varied according to distance.

AIUI, the UK system -- local calls cheapish, long-distance calls
within the country more but not vast, international calls VERY
expensive -- contrasted with the US system: local calls free,
unlimited time, but long-distance calls within the country very
expensive. Thus the development of various early
telephony-over-the-Internet systems. I never used these at all until I
had an international long-distance relationship. No real point inside
the British Isles.

> Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to the

"PUC"?

> Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling across a
> few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you were a phone
> nut due to zone usage metering.

I don't know what "zone usage metering" is either.

> Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall, and
> now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for most such
> long distance gone away for small users.

Well, yes, for everyone.

Now, in Europe, the problem is international mobile phone roaming. The
EU is slowly forcing this out, but in return, now, the cost of
roaming to non-EU countries is extortionate.

> I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as recently
> as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier phone numbers
> carry a huge toll.

Wow...

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Sat, May 20, 2017 at 02:01:12AM +, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> And if you break one you have to call HAZMAT. You did realize that, didn't
> you? They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional remediation
> by law!!

That's an "alternative fact". The EPA gives some clean-up guidelines for CFLs:

https://www.epa.gov/cfl/cleaning-broken-cfl

The TL;DR is that you allow the (trivial amount of) mercury vapour to escape to
the atmosphere, clean up the broken glass, and recycle the electronics as
necessary. So just the same as any other domestic breakage, then.

It'd be hilarious if it wasn't so tragic that the USA worries about less than
5mg of mercury in a CFL bulb, yet burns vast quantities of mercury-laced coal
to power them.

Also, none of this applies to LED lighting, which doesn't contain glass and can
be dropped into the e-waste stream as-is when it fails.

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Mark Matlock via cctalk]

As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)
> 
> bill

Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume?
___
The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
your
wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs (which 
your
kids leave on all over the house all the time!!)
bill

I run a similar PDP-11/83 system 24/7 on a BA23 in a Pedestal stand. It has two 
2MB memory boards, an Emulex UC07 connected to two SCSI2SD Cards emulating two 
RD54s and two RA92s, and a DELQA-T running RSX11M+, DECnet and Johnny 
Billquist;s TCP/IP and it draws 100-105 watts on my UPS. 

I also run a Simh PDP-11 on a Raspberry Pi 3 as an adjacent node and it is much 
faster, much quieter, but not quite as much fun.

Mark Matlock

PDP Power Usage WAS: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ali via cctalk]

> ___
> The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth
> what your wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt
> light bulbs (which your kids leave on all over the house all the
> time!!) bill
> 
> I run a similar PDP-11/83 system 24/7 on a BA23 in a Pedestal stand. It
> has two 2MB memory boards, an Emulex UC07 connected to two SCSI2SD
> Cards emulating two RD54s and two RA92s, and a DELQA-T running RSX11M+,
> DECnet and Johnny Billquist;s TCP/IP and it draws 100-105 watts on my
> UPS.

Doesn't seem that bad, I am sure some of my vintage servers w/ the 10-12 FH
SCSI drives, "tons of RAM, and four PPro chips are pulling somewhere along
those numbers. I may have to invest in a Kill-a-Watt type device to see for
sure though.

-Ali

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

My dad had some bills of 5 grand he told me but he was dialing out from a
remote location in northern Manitoba that had only microwave said made huge
difference when he went from 500 baud to 5000

On May 19, 2017 2:40 PM, "jim stephens via cctalk" 
wrote:

>
>
> On 5/19/2017 3:23 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
>
>> On 18 May 2017 at 17:16, allison via cctalk 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> All a DOS BBS was  was a user interface that provided security by
>>> requiring
>>> user/password
>>> and limiting the commands usable.  The easy was to do that was a version
>>> of
>>> the CMD module
>>> rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL.
>>>
>>
>> I was never into the BBS scene, because outside North America, local
>> phone calls cost money. So you paid for every minute you were online
>> -- quite a lot.
>>
> I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone
> time cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.
>
> Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to
> the Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling
> across a few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you
> were a phone nut due to zone usage metering.
>
> Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall,
> and now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for most
> such long distance gone away for small users.
>
> I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as recently
> as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier phone numbers
> carry a huge toll.
> thanks
> Jim
>
>> I used (and still use) CIX (www.cix.co.uk) which was a sort of UK
>> version of BIX, and used offline readers -- you dial up, it sends your
>> comments, zips & grabs all your messages, and disconnects, as fast as
>> possible to keep the phone bill down.
>>
>> But AIUI later-era DOS BBSes often used DESQview to allow multiple
>> multitasking user sessions, and the BBS sysops were often early
>> adopters of OS/2 2.
>>
>> So DOS <> no multitasking...
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/19/2017 7:01 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
remediation by law!!

I bag and take to the disposal all fluorescent discard, including CFL.

https://www.epa.gov/cfl/what-are-connections-between-mercury-and-cfls

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of jim stephens via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 3:46 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On 5/19/2017 5:13 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
> Anyway, for those of us in Amsterdam who can actually be bothered to find and
> hold down a job, go out and do the shopping, etc, we're replacing blown
> incandescents with LED bulbs because that's what they sell in the shops.
> Incandescent bulbs are exotic specialist items.
The CFL lighting was subsidized by the local California Utilities,
because the state has an incentive for Utilities to either build
efficient plants and expand capacity, or incentivize people to reduce
consumption by some amounts to offset that requirement.

They are doing  the same for some LED lighting now, though not as much
as they did for CFL at this point.

At one point I could buy a flat of 60W CFL's for $2.00, which had maybe
20 bulbs in it.  Still have it with bulbs.

__

And if you break one you  have to call HAZMAT.  You did realize that,
didn't you?  They contain mercury and any breakage requires professional
remediation by law!!

bill

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[ben via cctalk]

On 5/19/2017 10:07 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:


Remember a BBS with 1 modem is ruing at less (back then) than
1200 baud (120CPS!).  Name one CPU that can't grab one byte and
act on  it in 8.333mS?  The rest is enough storage to do a useful library
(download and upload programs, and some form of mail and forum/board).



Well I can think of one, but it can't be named on this list.
Ben.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/19/2017 5:13 AM, Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:

Anyway, for those of us in Amsterdam who can actually be bothered to find and
hold down a job, go out and do the shopping, etc, we're replacing blown
incandescents with LED bulbs because that's what they sell in the shops.
Incandescent bulbs are exotic specialist items.
The CFL lighting was subsidized by the local California Utilities, 
because the state has an incentive for Utilities to either build 
efficient plants and expand capacity, or incentivize people to reduce 
consumption by some amounts to offset that requirement.


They are doing  the same for some LED lighting now, though not as much 
as they did for CFL at this point.


At one point I could buy a flat of 60W CFL's for $2.00, which had maybe 
20 bulbs in it.  Still have it with bulbs.


I am however buying for every location I use lighting for any period  of 
time LED lighting.  I think most of my spots have 8 to 10w bulbs which 
are as bright as most the lighting which it replaced.


The main incandescent lighting I want to keep are lights which can be 
used in either traffic lights or have connections to work in home 
lighting.  They are specially made to have much extended lifetimes for 
such, and are handy where you do want to put in and leave an 
incandescent light rather than either CFL or LED.


thanks
Jim

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

So, if it's authenticity you want, you'll have to incorporate some sort
of noise generator on the lines.   Telco quality is much better today
than 40 years ago (although you may not think so).  I recall that
calling Sunnyvale from Los Gatos (or vice-versa) was a real adventure in
connectivity.   Los Gatos was GTE; Sunnyvale was AT  I think that
someone once told me that the network interconnect was acoustic (I don't
know if that was true).   But you might as well have been calling
Boston, for the line quality.

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/19/2017 3:23 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:

On 18 May 2017 at 17:16, allison via cctalk  wrote:

All a DOS BBS was  was a user interface that provided security by requiring
user/password
and limiting the commands usable.  The easy was to do that was a version of
the CMD module
rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL.


I was never into the BBS scene, because outside North America, local
phone calls cost money. So you paid for every minute you were online
-- quite a lot.
I have news for you. (maybe) From 1976 until it petered out, the phone 
time cost a lot too.  $200 or more a month at times.


Also a stupid charge for local calls where the PUC's didn't stand up to 
the Bell system or successors and call bullshit to the charges. Calling 
across a few blocks could cost a lot and you wouldn't know it unless you 
were a phone nut due to zone usage metering.


Only with competition in the mid 80s did US long distance start to fall, 
and now with the internet and voice over IP have the need to pay for 
most such long distance gone away for small users.


I put in a couple of T1 based systems for large offices though as 
recently as 7 years ago, and commercially the POTS or digital carrier 
phone numbers carry a huge toll.

thanks
Jim

I used (and still use) CIX (www.cix.co.uk) which was a sort of UK
version of BIX, and used offline readers -- you dial up, it sends your
comments, zips & grabs all your messages, and disconnects, as fast as
possible to keep the phone bill down.

But AIUI later-era DOS BBSes often used DESQview to allow multiple
multitasking user sessions, and the BBS sysops were often early
adopters of OS/2 2.

So DOS <> no multitasking...

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 05/19/2017 07:49 AM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> On 19 May 2017 at 13:36, Bill Gunshannon  wrote:
>> Nope. Take a trip to Amazon and look at just how much power this stuff
>> actually consumes.  And, if you go back to the days when we started
>> running this stuff in our homes, compare the draw of a QBUS PDP-11 to
>> a TV with a picture tube, standard incandescent lights, a refridgerator,
>> window air conditioners, etc.  Our toys draw much less power than most
>> people think.  Heck, I have seen modern PC's (you  know, the kind gamers
>> use) that draw more power and are frequently run 24/7.
Running a BBS I can think of several machines that re power frugal in the
DEC realm alone. 

Vt180 it a Vt100 power needs plus maybe 80W for the VT180 board and
four Floppies.   The total is under 120W based on an old measurement.

A PDP-11 Qbus machine with a 11/23 cpu and a RL02 or a RQDX/Hard disk 
was enough for running TSX and a few people timeshare in an office then
a BBS with one modem would be under utilized.  

A microVAX3100/20 with two 420MB disks would do that easy at under
150W.

Remember a BBS with 1 modem is ruing at less (back then) than
1200 baud (120CPS!).  Name one CPU that can't grab one byte and
act on  it in 8.333mS?  The rest is enough storage to do a useful library
(download and upload programs, and some form of mail and forum/board).

> I wonder if this is one of those USA-vs-Rest-of-world differences.

Likely and also time frame.  PDP-11s had their peak life just like PDP-8s
and VAXen. 

>
> I think I have seen a running PDP-11 twice in my life, and it was the
> same one -- a machine I had to get exchanging files with Mac clients
> acting as terminal emulators, in about 1989 in my first job. It was
> already very old kit by then. I've no idea how much power they draw.
The power draw from from the micro level to the monster level.
For example a PDP11/150 was desktop and it plus the VT100 was maybe
150W, the 11/70 with a few RK07s and RM disks likely reuired a 230V 30A
line or more.

Most of the Qbus 11s (LSI-11 though 11/73) in single BA11 or BA23 box
were in the sub 300 W range as that was the limit of the power supply.
The disks for them could be PC class (early 80s) 5.25"  or RL02 and RX02.

My rack system with RX02, rl02, RD52x2 and 4mb ram and 11/73 cpu is
under 420W(460 with VT330) at 120V.My former towerbox Xeon4/3ghz
with 4g of ram and a 160gb disk ran at 220W (24/7) the LCD added another
55W as a comparison.

I fired up the MicroPDP11 with a 11/23+ and 4mb ram, RD52 and floppy
and a VT320 and the KillaWatt was under 215W for the pair.

For comparison, my current desktop is a Mintbox and its maybe under
full load 12W (with usb keyboard and mouse).  The display dwarfs it.

> Window air conditioners are another thing I've never seen,
> incandescent lights are now a rarity in Europe, hoarded by some
> old-timers -- i.e. older than me, at a hair under 50. I've never
> bought a new TV set with a CRT, either. In fact most of my CRT
> monitors over my whole home computing time period -- nearly 40y --
> were cast-offs, hand-me-downs, or bought 2nd hand.
Led lights, an early adopter as I'm cheap(frugal) so between replacement
cost, heat load in the summer, and power consumption LEDs are cheap. 
I use incandescent for the times when color temperature is important
and LEDs can't cut it.

Then again I power my ham station off grid with 400W of solar and
150Ah of NiCd (industrial) battery.

CRT monitors I still have a few and one TV as its rarely used but
excellent quality.  I use terminals like Vt100, Vt180, Vt320 and even
VT1200 based on need or convenience.

By doing that I have the luxury of powering things like older computers
off of savings.

> I've bought a few 2nd hand LCD monitors now, because I like big ones.
> (Oo er missus, etc.) I'm currently running a 23" + a 24" on a 2011 Mac
> mini with a 1987 Apple Extended keyboard. All bought used. New kit is
> for suckers.
If you can buy it its obsolete, by used or cheap.  Also used is a good deal
by time one buys it the reliability of that model is known.

> So I don't look into power consumption -- used price is more important
> to me, TBH. Probably bad of me, but wotthehell archie wotthehell.
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2017-05-19 9:10 AM, geneb via cctalk wrote:

On Fri, 19 May 2017, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:


On 18 May 2017 at 22:06, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
 wrote:

The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a
fifth what your
wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs



Jesus wept.

Are you certain that this alleged "hair dryer" is not in fact a
hot-air paint stripper? And that the said "wife" is not in fact some
form of robot with a heatproof coating?


I just checked the one my wife uses and it's rated at 1875 watts. :)


Mine's is rated 2000W. And has its own circuit breaker on the plug.

--Toby



g.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Christian Corti

> I have a similar setup with our 11/34. .. It's not the fastest system,
> and the kernel uses overlays like crazy ;-) ... I still have to add the
> cache and FPP boards and see how that improves the performance.

The cache should help some, but the FPP, probably not (unless you are running
some application which actually does a lot of floating point).

Noel

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Peter Corlett via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 8:13 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 11:39:27AM +, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> But, seriously, just how many households do you think have made the move to
> LED lighting? The amount of energy wasted in the average house, especially
> those with wives and children (your wife never forget to turn off her curling
> iron?) makes the power used by a QBUS PDP-11 pale in comparison.

I have certainly noticed that those who contribute the least to the household
finances are also those who consume the most, yes. If anybody would like a
couple of workshy stoner flatmates, don't hesitate to come and collect them.
Please. I'd appreciate the 80% slump in electricity consumption. (800 watt base
load! What are they doing in there!?)

Anyway, for those of us in Amsterdam who can actually be bothered to find and
hold down a job, go out and do the shopping, etc, we're replacing blown
incandescents with LED bulbs because that's what they sell in the shops.
Incandescent bulbs are exotic specialist items.

___

Incandescent are becoming rarer here, but we went thru a CDF phase
between them and LED's.  Now there was an environmental nightmare!!

bill

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Fri, 19 May 2017, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:


On 18 May 2017 at 22:06, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
 wrote:

The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
your
wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs



Jesus wept.

Are you certain that this alleged "hair dryer" is not in fact a
hot-air paint stripper? And that the said "wife" is not in fact some
form of robot with a heatproof coating?


I just checked the one my wife uses and it's rated at 1875 watts. :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:



8250 is a VAX, not a PDP-11.  I doubt it even ran off of 120v single phase.

Um, yeah.  It did.  I bought the machine for $500 from Mannesmann Tally in 
Kent, WA.  A friend and I removed the 8250 from their machine room and 
transported it to my home.  I had two 30A services installed in the 
upstairs of my house and that's where I set the machine up.


They'd wiped the drives before I got them, but they did give me the Ultrix 
install media.  I got it home on a Friday night and had it running Ultrix 
by Sunday afternoon.


Some months later I traded it to a friend that an 8350 in his garage.

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 11:39:27AM +, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
[...]
> But, seriously, just how many households do you think have made the move to
> LED lighting? The amount of energy wasted in the average house, especially
> those with wives and children (your wife never forget to turn off her curling
> iron?) makes the power used by a QBUS PDP-11 pale in comparison.

I have certainly noticed that those who contribute the least to the household
finances are also those who consume the most, yes. If anybody would like a
couple of workshy stoner flatmates, don't hesitate to come and collect them.
Please. I'd appreciate the 80% slump in electricity consumption. (800 watt base
load! What are they doing in there!?)

Anyway, for those of us in Amsterdam who can actually be bothered to find and
hold down a job, go out and do the shopping, etc, we're replacing blown
incandescents with LED bulbs because that's what they sell in the shops.
Incandescent bulbs are exotic specialist items.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 19 May 2017 at 13:36, Bill Gunshannon  wrote:
> Nope. Take a trip to Amazon and look at just how much power this stuff
> actually consumes.  And, if you go back to the days when we started
> running this stuff in our homes, compare the draw of a QBUS PDP-11 to
> a TV with a picture tube, standard incandescent lights, a refridgerator,
> window air conditioners, etc.  Our toys draw much less power than most
> people think.  Heck, I have seen modern PC's (you  know, the kind gamers
> use) that draw more power and are frequently run 24/7.

I wonder if this is one of those USA-vs-Rest-of-world differences.

I think I have seen a running PDP-11 twice in my life, and it was the
same one -- a machine I had to get exchanging files with Mac clients
acting as terminal emulators, in about 1989 in my first job. It was
already very old kit by then. I've no idea how much power they draw.

Window air conditioners are another thing I've never seen,
incandescent lights are now a rarity in Europe, hoarded by some
old-timers -- i.e. older than me, at a hair under 50. I've never
bought a new TV set with a CRT, either. In fact most of my CRT
monitors over my whole home computing time period -- nearly 40y --
were cast-offs, hand-me-downs, or bought 2nd hand.

I've bought a few 2nd hand LCD monitors now, because I like big ones.
(Oo er missus, etc.) I'm currently running a 23" + a 24" on a 2011 Mac
mini with a 1987 Apple Extended keyboard. All bought used. New kit is
for suckers.

So I don't look into power consumption -- used price is more important
to me, TBH. Probably bad of me, but wotthehell archie wotthehell.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Peter Corlett via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Friday, May 19, 2017 6:45 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 12:25:44PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>> The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
>> your
>> wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs
> Jesus wept.

> Are you certain that this alleged "hair dryer" is not in fact a hot-air paint
> stripper? And that the said "wife" is not in fact some form of robot with a
> heatproof coating?

I was more thinking of the several tens of kilolumens that you'd get from 345W
of modern high-efficiency LED lighting. It'd give you a decent tan, for a
start.

__

But, seriously, just how many households do you think have made the move
to LED lighting?  The amount of energy wasted in the average house, especially
those with wives and children (your wife never forget to turn off her curling 
iron?)
makes the power used by a QBUS PDP-11 pale in comparison.

bill

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Peter Corlett via cctalk]

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 12:25:44PM +0200, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon via cctalk  wrote:

>> The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
>> your
>> wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs
> Jesus wept.

> Are you certain that this alleged "hair dryer" is not in fact a hot-air paint
> stripper? And that the said "wife" is not in fact some form of robot with a
> heatproof coating?

I was more thinking of the several tens of kilolumens that you'd get from 345W
of modern high-efficiency LED lighting. It'd give you a decent tan, for a
start.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 19 May 2017 at 00:22, Ed via cctalk  wrote:
> we ran ours first on a hp-2000 then migrated to a hp-3000
>
> final version had  100 boards on it  email  ,  multi  user  chat, poll and
> voting and much more.
> yep it kicked ass!


You'd think if you'd been online that long, you'd have worked out how
to quote by now.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 18 May 2017 at 22:06, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
 wrote:
> The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
> your
> wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs


Jesus wept.

Are you certain that this alleged "hair dryer" is not in fact a
hot-air paint stripper? And that the said "wife" is not in fact some
form of robot with a heatproof coating?

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Liam Proven via cctalk]

On 18 May 2017 at 17:16, allison via cctalk  wrote:
> All a DOS BBS was  was a user interface that provided security by requiring
> user/password
> and limiting the commands usable.  The easy was to do that was a version of
> the CMD module
> rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL.


I was never into the BBS scene, because outside North America, local
phone calls cost money. So you paid for every minute you were online
-- quite a lot.

I used (and still use) CIX (www.cix.co.uk) which was a sort of UK
version of BIX, and used offline readers -- you dial up, it sends your
comments, zips & grabs all your messages, and disconnects, as fast as
possible to keep the phone bill down.

But AIUI later-era DOS BBSes often used DESQview to allow multiple
multitasking user sessions, and the BBS sysops were often early
adopters of OS/2 2.

So DOS <> no multitasking...



-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • Google Mail/Talk/Plus: lpro...@gmail.com
Twitter/Facebook/Flickr: lproven • Skype/LinkedIn/AIM/Yahoo: liamproven
UK: +44 7939-087884 • ČR/WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +420 702 829 053

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Lyle Bickley wrote:

I run BSD 2.9 on my 11/34C (w/max. mem.) & DZ using (2) RL02s with up to
three TTY sessions. It's a bit "sluggish" (by today's standards). TSX


I have a similar setup with our 11/34. 2.9BSD on one RL01 as root/swap, 
the rest (/usr etc.) on a RA80 (with the backported MSCP driver); also a 
couple of TTY lines. It's not the fastest system, and the kernel uses 
overlays like crazy ;-) But hey, it runs...
I still have to add the cache and FPP boards and see how that improves the 
performance.


Christian

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 05/18/2017 03:50 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
> COSMAC Elf?  :-)
Why not, or a PdP-8.  It really is not a high load operation.  It was
more about storage.


Allison

> bill
> 
> From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of geneb via cctalk 
> [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
> Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 1:45 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11
>
> On Thu, 18 May 2017, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:
>
>> So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
>> Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
>> unfamiliar with the hearhkits
> The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You
> can't get much slower than that. :)
>
> g.
>
> --
> Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
> http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
> http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
> Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.
>
> ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
> A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
> http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Richard Cini via cctalk]

When I had my 11/34 (11/34, expansion chassis, RX01 and two RK05 drives) think 
I ran a 30a, 240v circuit for the power distribution box in the rack but it 
used way less when running. Maybe 10a max. 

Rich

Sent from Verizon/AOL Mobile Mail

On Thursday, May 18, 2017, Adrian Stoness via cctalk  
wrote:

Allot of then can be run on a single 15 amp circuit with a some.other stuff
on it as well

On May 18, 2017 2:58 PM, "Ali via cctalk"  wrote:

> > As for power, if you have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> > consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> > (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)
> >
> > bill
>
> Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume?
>
> -Ali
>
>

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

Allot of then can be run on a single 15 amp circuit with a some.other stuff
on it as well

On May 18, 2017 2:58 PM, "Ali via cctalk"  wrote:

> > As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> > consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> > (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)
> >
> > bill
>
> Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume?
>
> -Ali
>
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[devin davison via cctalk]

I did not expect so much feedback, thanks to everyone who responded. I am
still reading over all the replies.

I am indeed looking to run the hardware for a extended duration or non stop
if I can manage to get a good bbs up and running.

Power consumption and heat output is not an issue. The machine is set up in
its own climate controlled area where it can be left to run for long
periods of time.

I am not much of a programmer. I thought about writing my own little dinky
bbs in assembly or something, but worried i would not understand how to get
information stored in a sane manner on the disks or backup to a common
format to tape. If i were to run something under 2.11bsd, i could just dump
something to tape with tar, which seems alot easier that writing everything
from scratch. It would be interesting to write it all from scratch, but i
lack the knowledge to do so at them moment.

I would like to be able to possible run other tasks on the machine while it
is running, i have a couple of terminals attached, so unix looks like it
may be the way for me to go. I have a heavy investment in RSX too though, i
have all the documentation for it here in large binders, it certainly would
be interesting to run it on an os ive not seen much of.


Still looking over my options, i will post back after i read over all the
replys better.

--Devin



On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 6:45 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:

>
> 
> From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of geneb via
> cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
> Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 4:23 PM
> To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11
>
> On Thu, 18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:
>
> > Never forget, BBS were about storage and cheap which at that time were
> mostly
> > opposed (disks weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less
> > important
> > considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and hard disk were as
> > costly
> > as the basic system and we didn't exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.
> Most
> > anything
> > could keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.
> >
> Here's what amounts to a canonnical(sp?) list of BBS programs for a number
> of different platforms:
>
> http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/
>
> _
>
> UNAXCESS
>
> That's the one I ran on SYSTEM III based XENIX on a Tandy Model 16.
>
> bill
>

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of geneb via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 4:23 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On Thu, 18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:

> Never forget, BBS were about storage and cheap which at that time were mostly
> opposed (disks weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less
> important
> considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and hard disk were as
> costly
> as the basic system and we didn't exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.  Most
> anything
> could keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.
>
Here's what amounts to a canonnical(sp?) list of BBS programs for a number
of different platforms:

http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/

_

UNAXCESS 

That's the one I ran on SYSTEM III based XENIX on a Tandy Model 16.

bill

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of geneb via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 4:19 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

> As for power, if you have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)

I used to have an 8250 with four RA-81s and a TU-81+.  The power bills
wereimpressive. :)

__

8250 is a VAX, not a PDP-11.  I doubt it even ran off of 120v single phase.
Mine at the University certainly didn't.  I mentioned that RA's were tougher,
but I haven't used one (or owned one) for at least 10 years.  TU-81+?  I
don't remember them being real power hogs, but then I didn't power them
up unless I needed to use them.

bill

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ed via cctalk]

we ran ours first on a hp-2000 then migrated to a hp-3000
 
final version had  100 boards on it  email  ,  multi  user  chat, poll and 
voting and much more.
yep it kicked ass!
 
The machines were  used also as  board test machines   etc  when needed
and   also some  were used as   sale   of  computer time to people tthat  
had  developed an application  and did not want to rewrite it  for a pc.
 
... and I found they were better to  just  run rather than turn  on and 
off..
but  they drew power!  and they generated heat.
 
... nothing like having a  10 platter 500 lb  drive as a leg  warmer next t
o your desk.
 
Ed#  _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)  
 
In a message dated 5/18/2017 1:23:13 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
cctalk@classiccmp.org writes:

On Thu,  18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:

> Never forget, BBS were  about storage and cheap which at that time were 
mostly
> opposed (disks  weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less 
>  important
> considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and  hard disk were as 
> costly
> as the basic system and we didn't  exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.  
Most 
> anything
> could  keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.
>
Here's what amounts to a  canonnical(sp?) list of BBS programs for a number 
of different  platforms:

http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/

g.

--  
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of  its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go  Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect  hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A  Multi-Value database for the masses, not the  classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it  _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/18/2017 1:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

Anyone remember Boardwatch magazine?

--Chuck
I had a subscription to Rickard's rag pretty much for the duration till 
I got my first paid Shell account @ world.std.com and left dialup behind 
for continuous connectivity (initially on a 56K ppp connection).


Mentioned that already in a separate thread.  Someone answered that 
someone may have scanned them as well in reply.

thanks
Jim

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/18/2017 1:06 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:


From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Ali via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 3:58 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: BBS software for the PDP 11


As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
(Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)

bill

Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume?

___

The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
your
wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs (which 
your
kids leave on all over the house all the time!!)

bill
The light bulbs maybe, but you also run things much higher than 350 
watts from time to time.  The hair drier is meaningless.


Most of the lights I leave on now are LED pulling 10 or less watts. The 
entire population of light bulbs in my house left on now doesn't get to 
100w anymore.


I have 2 dell 2950's that pull a large power bill.  That is near your 
345 watts each, and I am plotting to take them out and their 
replacements are Intel NUC's @ 40w each, pretty much the same go power.


the 11/93 probably isn't running as much compute power as one core of 
the 2950.  Nor possibly a Raspberry Pi.Whatever you want to do to 
convert $$ to radiant heat, I guess no one is stopping you. Running the 
old stuff for fun even for extended periods is one thing, but a BBS has 
possibly the mission to stay up.  Depending on what the OP has in mind.

thanks
Jim

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 05/18/2017 12:27 PM, allison via cctalk wrote:

> BBSs are really the thing from about 1978 to pre-internet (varied
> where you lived). Examples of the big BBS are Source, Delphi, Well,
> STD(software tool and die), and the big one Compuserve.  Small ones
> like Sage and those mentioned by inference on the Walnutcreek CD are
> the more common small guys.

I know--I ran one myself initially with an MS-DOS base and eventually
with an NT 4.0 one.  USR Couriers.

My point is that if you're talking about making something that resembles
something that was done on a PC (286/386/486), why not use a PC?

8-bit x80 BBS were generally along the lines of BYE510 affairs and were
pretty clunky.

Anyone remember Boardwatch magazine?

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:


Never forget, BBS were about storage and cheap which at that time were mostly
opposed (disks weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less 
important
considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and hard disk were as 
costly
as the basic system and we didn't exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.  Most 
anything

could keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.

Here's what amounts to a canonnical(sp?) list of BBS programs for a number 
of different platforms:


http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:

As for power, if you have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power 
consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill. 
(Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)


I used to have an 8250 with four RA-81s and a TU-81+.  The power bills 
wereimpressive. :)


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Ali via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 3:58 PM
To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts'
Subject: RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

> As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)
>
> bill

Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume?

___

The plate on the back of my 11/93 says 345 Watts.  That's about a fifth what 
your
wifes hair dryer draws.  Or slightly more than 3 100 watt light bulbs (which 
your
kids leave on all over the house all the time!!)

bill

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 5/18/17 3:14 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:

On 05/18/2017 10:44 AM, geneb wrote:


Because.  That's why. :)

Well, okay--but then let's be period-correct.  The PDP-11 dates from
1970, when, AFAIK, BBSes, if they existed, were far from what people
think they were.

I'm thinking of,say, Call Computer in Mountain View, frequented by the
HCC people.   300 baud, usually acoustic coupler-type (in 1970, the
implications of the Carterfone decision had just begun to set in.)

Mostly a real bulletin board in the sense of posting group messages.

That ran on what, an HP 3000?  And whatever happened to Alex?

--Chuck
BBSs are really the thing from about 1978 to pre-internet (varied where 
you lived).
Examples of the big BBS are Source, Delphi, Well, STD(software tool and 
die), and
the big one Compuserve.  Small ones like Sage and those mentioned by 
inference

on the Walnutcreek CD are the more common small guys.

BBSs sorta were the big deal around 1980 to 19?? and the early ones were 
mostly '
Either Z80 or 6502 based with a few others of the era.  PCs were later 
and kept it
going.  They didn't offer speed but they were the platform of the day 
and during

the clone wars (Tandy, and others) offered cheaper hardware it moved there.

Never forget, BBS were about storage and cheap which at that time were 
mostly
opposed (disks weren't cheap!).  The amount of Ram and CPU were less 
important
considering what had to be done.  Often the modem and hard disk were as 
costly
as the basic system and we didn't exceed 2400 baud till '85or later.  
Most anything

could keep up with IO at under 4800 baud.



Allison

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 5/18/17 3:19 PM, geneb via cctalk wrote:

On Thu, 18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:




On 5/18/17 12:51 PM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those 
that are

unfamiliar with the hearhkits

No,  BBSs were run with 4mhz Z80s...  compared to LSI-11 (H11 or 
PDP11/03)
The -11 is a bit faster.  The H11 was not slower, the ram used didn't 
inject

bus waits.

...and 2Mhz Z-80s.  The first Citadel appeared on a bone stock H-89 
with a pair of hard-sectored floppy drives.  I think Ward's original 
S-100 box was that clock or maybe slower, using an 8080.


Wards S100 crate started with a 2mhz 8080 and not a full rack of ram 
(64K for then was full rack.).

Most moved to Z80 at 4MHZ by 1979 as they were common by then.

The speed needed to handle one line at speeds below 2400 was not a 
stress, there were 6800

based boards.

Allison


g.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 5/18/17 1:53 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:



On 5/18/2017 9:51 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that 
are

unfamiliar with the hearhkits

My take and extension on Chuck's and Allison's question is that you 
can take a USB R232 dongle, and a 56k modem (if your pots line still 
supports it, 33k if not (hopefully), and run a BBS on a Raspberry Pi 
if nothing else for nothing in power and infrastructure cost.


An 11 is novel, but hard to see why running it on simh wouldn't be a 
better deal if you want something on the pdp11 architecture.


Keeping any PDP11 up 24 / 7 so it is a useful BBS isn't an undertaking 
for the faint hearted, nor is it something easy on the pocketbook in 
the way of power.  (not to mention space possibly).


Actually a 11/23 with RQDX (or scsi) hard disks can be one paltry BA23 
and fairly

low total power needs.  I have such a beast, MicroPDP-11, 11/23+, 4MB ram,
RQDX3 with RD52(31mb), RX33(5.25 two side floppy).  Its small and has 
the pedestal
case to it is in the corner of a bedroom with a VT320 ( and I think 
still I have a DF03).
 Sucks down about the same power as an old 486 loaded tower with about 
the same
disks (around 160-300W).   Qbus machine help with that.  One with an 
11/73 board

would be fast.

A larger machine with Rk, RL or RM drives will be power hungry.

IF VAX based, a 3100 or related series would do that with minimal pain.

Older boxen like 11/34 or 11/40 are going to suck down watts and need AC.

Allison
Unless you are a couple of well known museums and others very few do 
the real hardware.

thanks
Jim


On May 18, 2017 11:45 AM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" 


wrote:


On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:


The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?

You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.

--Chuck

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ali via cctalk]

> As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power
> consumption is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill.
> (Unless your trying to do it with RA disks!!)
> 
> bill

Out of curiosity how much power do these wee beasties consume? 

-Ali

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of jim stephens via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 1:53 PM
To: cctalk@classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On 5/18/2017 9:51 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:
> So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
> Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
> unfamiliar with the hearhkits
>
My take and extension on Chuck's and Allison's question is that you can
take a USB R232 dongle, and a 56k modem (if your pots line still
supports it, 33k if not (hopefully), and run a BBS on a Raspberry Pi if
nothing else for nothing in power and infrastructure cost.

An 11 is novel, but hard to see why running it on simh wouldn't be a
better deal if you want something on the pdp11 architecture.

Keeping any PDP11 up 24 / 7 so it is a useful BBS isn't an undertaking
for the faint hearted, nor is it something easy on the pocketbook in the
way of power.  (not to mention space possibly).

Unless you are a couple of well known museums and others very few do the
real hardware.
_

I still do.  I have an 11/93 in a pedestal standing right next to me now.

As for power, if you  have a wife and/or kids, a PDP-11's power consumption
is not even above the noise floor in your electric bill. (Unless your trying to 
do
it with RA disks!!)

bill

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

COSMAC Elf?  :-)

bill

From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of geneb via cctalk 
[cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 1:45 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

> So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
> Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
> unfamiliar with the hearhkits

The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You
can't get much slower than that. :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Bill Gunshannon via cctalk]

Do you have any idea how many PDP-11's were used by NASA for things
like controlling deep space probes and putting men on the moon?  A BBS
is a vewry low demand task and could easily be handled by the smallest
of the LSI-11 family.

bill


From: cctalk [cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] on behalf of Adrian Stoness via 
cctalk [cctalk@classiccmp.org]
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2017 12:51 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits



On May 18, 2017 11:45 AM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" <cctalk@classiccmp.org>
wrote:

> On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:
>
> > The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?
>
> You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.
>
> --Chuck
>
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Chuck Guzis

> Well, okay--but then let's be period-correct. The PDP-11 dates from
> 1970, when, AFAIK, BBSes, if they existed, were far from what people
> think they were.

You're thinking of the -11/20, released in 1970. But that was only the first
PDP-11 model; the -11/23 dates from 1979, and the last -11 model, the
/93-/94, was released in 1990.

Noel

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:45 PM, geneb via cctalk  wrote:
> On Thu, 18 May 2017, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:
>
>> So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things?
>
> The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You can't
> get much slower than that. :)

The VIC-20 is just a 1MHz 6502.  Lots of machines at that performance
point, including the Apple II and Atari 400/800, used for BBSing.

-ethan

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, allison via cctalk wrote:




On 5/18/17 12:51 PM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits


No,  BBSs were run with 4mhz Z80s...  compared to LSI-11 (H11 or PDP11/03)
The -11 is a bit faster.  The H11 was not slower, the ram used didn't inject
bus waits.

...and 2Mhz Z-80s.  The first Citadel appeared on a bone stock H-89 with a 
pair of hard-sectored floppy drives.  I think Ward's original S-100 box 
was that clock or maybe slower, using an 8080.


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 05/18/2017 10:44 AM, geneb wrote:

> Because.  That's why. :)

Well, okay--but then let's be period-correct.  The PDP-11 dates from
1970, when, AFAIK, BBSes, if they existed, were far from what people
think they were.

I'm thinking of,say, Call Computer in Mountain View, frequented by the
HCC people.   300 baud, usually acoustic coupler-type (in 1970, the
implications of the Carterfone decision had just begun to set in.)

Mostly a real bulletin board in the sense of posting group messages.

That ran on what, an HP 3000?  And whatever happened to Alex?

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 5/18/17 12:51 PM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits


No,  BBSs were run with 4mhz Z80s...  compared to LSI-11 (H11 or PDP11/03)
The -11 is a bit faster.  The H11 was not slower, the ram used didn't inject
bus waits.

Actually the limiting item back then as disk performance.  The later 
hard disks

(rd50 to 54, RD31, RD32, RZxxx) really can help.

Allison



On May 18, 2017 11:45 AM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" 
wrote:


On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:


The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?

You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Mike Whalen wrote:


The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You
can't get much slower than that. :)


In New Orleans, there was a rumor someone ran a VIC-20 BBS with no
persistent storage.

Maybe true but you also might not be able to tell!


I seem to recall hearing the same thing.

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/18/2017 10:52 AM, Mike Whalen via cctalk wrote:

The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You
can't get much slower than that. :)


In New Orleans, there was a rumor someone ran a VIC-20 BBS with no
persistent storage.

Maybe true but you also might not be able to tell!
I don't recall the storage or the location, but I do recall some screen 
shots or publicity claiming that.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[jim stephens via cctalk]

On 5/18/2017 9:51 AM, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits

My take and extension on Chuck's and Allison's question is that you can 
take a USB R232 dongle, and a 56k modem (if your pots line still 
supports it, 33k if not (hopefully), and run a BBS on a Raspberry Pi if 
nothing else for nothing in power and infrastructure cost.


An 11 is novel, but hard to see why running it on simh wouldn't be a 
better deal if you want something on the pdp11 architecture.


Keeping any PDP11 up 24 / 7 so it is a useful BBS isn't an undertaking 
for the faint hearted, nor is it something easy on the pocketbook in the 
way of power.  (not to mention space possibly).


Unless you are a couple of well known museums and others very few do the 
real hardware.

thanks
Jim


On May 18, 2017 11:45 AM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" 
wrote:


On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:


The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?

You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Mike Whalen via cctalk]

> The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You
> can't get much slower than that. :)
>
In New Orleans, there was a rumor someone ran a VIC-20 BBS with no
persistent storage.

Maybe true but you also might not be able to tell!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Shoppa, Tim via cctalk]

I know of several very different PDP-11 BBS's using very disparate 
architectures. Some were run on RT-11 or RSTS-11 entirely inside a BASIC 
program that managed every element of call answering, logging in, and 
disconnection. And others took advantage of TSX-11, RSX-11 and RSTS-11 login 
security and "captive accounts" that were either entirely menu-driven or had 
restricted command sets, with the menu options or command sets oriented 
strongly towards typical BBS functions.

I know Billy Youdelman's TSX-11 BBS in LA was operating in the 1980's and 
1990's and may have gone on longer than that.

Tim N3QE

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:


So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits


The machine is plenty fast.  There's been BBSes run on a VIC-20.  You 
can't get much slower than that. :)


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:


On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:


The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?


You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.


Because.  That's why. :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Adrian Stoness via cctalk]

So a 11/03 aka a lsi11 would be to slow for such things? Such as those
Heathkit h11 lsi11 macheans? Witch was a hobyist pdp11 for those that are
unfamiliar with the hearhkits



On May 18, 2017 11:45 AM, "Chuck Guzis via cctalk" 
wrote:

> On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:
>
> > The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?
>
> You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.
>
> --Chuck
>
>

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Chuck Guzis via cctalk]

On 05/18/2017 08:16 AM, allison via cctalk wrote:

> The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?

You put the words into my mouth.  Thank you.

--Chuck

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[allison via cctalk]

On 5/18/17 9:45 AM, william degnan via cctalk wrote:



There may have been Rainbow BBS programs, but I doubt anything for the

11/34.  You may have to write this.


That reminds me of a bit of obscure trivia...

Back in the early days of FidoNet, one or more of the Fido BBS sysops had
DEC Rainbows.  The machines could run Fido just fine, but the serial port
address/port didn't follow the convention laid down by the IBM PC.  At the
time, there were other MS-DOS compatibles that also had a similar issue
with the serial port and some of those folks wanted to run Fido.

Tom Jennings, Wynn Waggoner III(sp?) and Thom Henderson(sp?) got together
to create the FOSSIL standard.

FOSSIL is Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer and provided a mechanism
via INT 14 for any MS-DOS compatible computer to run any BBS or mailer
software that had FOSSIL support and a FOSSIL driver available for it.

FOSSIL continued to be a thing long after the issue of serial port
incompatibility was a thing of the past.  In fact there's modern software
out there now such as NetFossil that telnet-enables software that can talk
to a FOSSIL driver.

The two popular FOSSIL drivers that I recall from back in the day were BNU
and Ray Gwinn's X00.

As an aside, if anyone has or knows where I can find the source code for
Opus BBS, I'd be interested in hearing from you!




That's what I was thinking.  I have some FidoNET files and mail from the
Rainbow.  My guess the BBS would have been written in Pascal or C if for
the Rainbow (guess only) so if you wanted to attempt to port, after you
find a Rainbow BBS?  I'd start with a Rainbow BBS disassembly/decompile and
see if you can convert to the PDP 11 running the same language/compile it.
Strongest comment on this is that a Rainbow ran DOS (like most PCs of 
the day)
and there was no security context and barely a foreground background as 
part

of DOS.

All a DOS BBS was  was a user interface that provided security by 
requiring user/password
and limiting the commands usable.  The easy was to do that was a version 
of the CMD module

rewritten to not have things like RMDIR and DEL.

FYI BBSs were running on CP/M z80 boxes before that using BYE.

The closest OS to DOS is RT11, no security and the FB monitor can do 
background.
IF the UI for RT11 was rewritten to disallow some utilities and what not 
it could then
stand as a limited BBS.Myself I'd consider RSX or RSTS as a better 
platform as you can
easily control user prives and issue accounts based on privs with 
libraries for global

access to software.

The real question is why BBS?  What is it trying to fix or enable?

Allison

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 18, 2017, at 11:37 AM, John Wilson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>> As an RTS?  Wow, that's doing it the hard way.  In either RT or RSX
>> emulation it would be easier, you have a friendlier development
>> environment that way.  I've done an application as an RTS in the long-ago
>> past (an implementation of QUBIC, 3D 4x4x4x tic-tac-toe for a classmate)
>> but that was on V5B, where an RTS was the only way to do assembly
>> programming on RSTS.
> 
> This was for the command-line interface, which I needed to be absolutely,
> totally, seriously ^C and ^^C proof if I was going to let random outsiders
> dial up my RSTS machine.  It worked nicely ...

Oh yes, that would be a possible reason.  Binary mode I/O will also do that, 
though at a price that may be too high.  Finally, in V9.0 and later, you can 
use a captive account to ensure that it can't escape the login.com file, which 
means that control/c may abort the program but it won't let the user into 
places you don't want to allow.

paul

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Lyle Bickley via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017 09:14:24 -0400
Systems Glitch via cctalk  wrote:

> > BSD 2.11 should run fine on a 34 or 23  
> 
> You need split I for 2.11BSD, that rules out the 11/23 and IIRC the
> 11/34 as well. I want to say 2.9BSD will run though.
> 
> Thanks,
> Jonathan

I run BSD 2.9 on my 11/34C (w/max. mem.) & DZ using (2) RL02s with up to
three TTY sessions. It's a bit "sluggish" (by today's standards). TSX
Plus with three TTY sessions runs much faster on the same hardware.

Cheers,
Lyle

-- 
73  AF6WS
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Rod Smallwood via cctalk]

On 18/05/2017 14:45, william degnan via cctalk wrote:



There may have been Rainbow BBS programs, but I doubt anything for the

11/34.  You may have to write this.


That reminds me of a bit of obscure trivia...

Back in the early days of FidoNet, one or more of the Fido BBS sysops had
DEC Rainbows.  The machines could run Fido just fine, but the serial port
address/port didn't follow the convention laid down by the IBM PC.  At the
time, there were other MS-DOS compatibles that also had a similar issue
with the serial port and some of those folks wanted to run Fido.

Tom Jennings, Wynn Waggoner III(sp?) and Thom Henderson(sp?) got together
to create the FOSSIL standard.

FOSSIL is Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer and provided a mechanism
via INT 14 for any MS-DOS compatible computer to run any BBS or mailer
software that had FOSSIL support and a FOSSIL driver available for it.

FOSSIL continued to be a thing long after the issue of serial port
incompatibility was a thing of the past.  In fact there's modern software
out there now such as NetFossil that telnet-enables software that can talk
to a FOSSIL driver.

The two popular FOSSIL drivers that I recall from back in the day were BNU
and Ray Gwinn's X00.

As an aside, if anyone has or knows where I can find the source code for
Opus BBS, I'd be interested in hearing from you!




That's what I was thinking.  I have some FidoNET files and mail from the
Rainbow.  My guess the BBS would have been written in Pascal or C if for
the Rainbow (guess only) so if you wanted to attempt to port, after you
find a Rainbow BBS?  I'd start with a Rainbow BBS disassembly/decompile and
see if you can convert to the PDP 11 running the same language/compile it.
Tom wrote it in C .Lattice I think. He lost most of the source in a disk 
crash some years back.

I may a copy of the run time version on one of my Rainbows.

Rod

--
There is no wrong or right
Nor black and white.
Just darknessand light

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[John Wilson via cctalk]

Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
>As an RTS?  Wow, that's doing it the hard way.  In either RT or RSX
>emulation it would be easier, you have a friendlier development
>environment that way.  I've done an application as an RTS in the long-ago
>past (an implementation of QUBIC, 3D 4x4x4x tic-tac-toe for a classmate)
>but that was on V5B, where an RTS was the only way to do assembly
>programming on RSTS.

This was for the command-line interface, which I needed to be absolutely,
totally, seriously ^C and ^^C proof if I was going to let random outsiders
dial up my RSTS machine.  It worked nicely ...

John Wilson
D Bit

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Noel Chiappa via cctalk]

> From: Systems Glitch

> You need split I for 2.11BSD

ISTR reading that the network code runs in Supervisor mode, so you need that
to, technically (although all -11s CPUs with Supervisor also have I+D, and
vice versa).

Does the 2.9 include networking code? If so, it must use overlays like
crazy on a 'small' machine (/40-/34/-/23)...

Noel

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:


On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 06:07:03AM -0700, geneb via cctalk wrote:


I'd be surprised if you did.  This is however, an excellent opportunity to
write your own. :)  (At least to me, it would be a fun project.)



FACEBK-11

*ducks*


You can run, but you can't hide. :)

g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk]

On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 06:07:03AM -0700, geneb via cctalk wrote:
> 
> I'd be surprised if you did.  This is however, an excellent opportunity to
> write your own. :)  (At least to me, it would be a fun project.)
> 

FACEBK-11

*ducks*

RE: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Christian Corti via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, Bill Gunshannon wrote:
would preclude this.  I did it on a SYS III Xenix clone).  BSD 2.11 
should run fine on a 34 or 23 and there is always Ultrix-11 which I have


No, it doesn't. 2.9BSD, yes, but not 2.11BSD as it requires split I/D and 
more than 128 kwords of memory.


Christian

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Ethan Dicks via cctalk]

On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 9:14 AM, Systems Glitch via cctalk
 wrote:
>> BSD 2.11 should run fine on a 34 or 23
>
> You need split I for 2.11BSD, that rules out the 11/23 and IIRC the 11/34 
> as well.

Yep.

> I want to say 2.9BSD will run though.

Yep, but you might not be happy running it on the 11/34 since it's
limited to 248K of RAM (back in the day, I ran 2.9BSD on an 11/24
because it was Unibus and I could put a couple of MB in it).  It will
install and boot and run, but be tight.  Same goes for using an RL02
as the install volume.  You can install to it but it's really not
enough space to install everything and recompile the kernel.  RK07 is
fine.

-ethan

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Thu, 18 May 2017, william degnan wrote:





That's what I was thinking.  I have some FidoNET files and mail from the
Rainbow.  My guess the BBS would have been written in Pascal or C if for
the Rainbow (guess only) so if you wanted to attempt to port, after you
find a Rainbow BBS?  I'd start with a Rainbow BBS disassembly/decompile and
see if you can convert to the PDP 11 running the same language/compile it.

Well a Rainbow specific bbs program isn't going to really help him at all 
- technically, any bbs source he can find in a language that's available 
on the 11/34 could be used for the purposes of porting.


g.


--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Wed, 17 May 2017, jim stephens via cctalk wrote:

If someone had done such, it might have been in boardwatch if anywhere.  I 
tossed tons of those in previous moves, so can't help with that.  Plus as has 
been stated it would have been rare, and looking  thru paper copies would be 
a long process and probably turn up little.


hopefully if you find Boardwatch digitally somewhere, or information derived 
from there you can turn up some things.



http://www.bombjack.org/generic/generic-magazines-telecommunications.htm

If anyone out there reading this has more copies of Boardwatch or those 
other magazines, please consider sending them to bombjack.org for 
scanning.  He does excellent non-destructive scanning.


g.


--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[william degnan via cctalk]

>
>
>
> There may have been Rainbow BBS programs, but I doubt anything for the
>> 11/34.  You may have to write this.
>>
>
> That reminds me of a bit of obscure trivia...
>
> Back in the early days of FidoNet, one or more of the Fido BBS sysops had
> DEC Rainbows.  The machines could run Fido just fine, but the serial port
> address/port didn't follow the convention laid down by the IBM PC.  At the
> time, there were other MS-DOS compatibles that also had a similar issue
> with the serial port and some of those folks wanted to run Fido.
>
> Tom Jennings, Wynn Waggoner III(sp?) and Thom Henderson(sp?) got together
> to create the FOSSIL standard.
>
> FOSSIL is Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer and provided a mechanism
> via INT 14 for any MS-DOS compatible computer to run any BBS or mailer
> software that had FOSSIL support and a FOSSIL driver available for it.
>
> FOSSIL continued to be a thing long after the issue of serial port
> incompatibility was a thing of the past.  In fact there's modern software
> out there now such as NetFossil that telnet-enables software that can talk
> to a FOSSIL driver.
>
> The two popular FOSSIL drivers that I recall from back in the day were BNU
> and Ray Gwinn's X00.
>
> As an aside, if anyone has or knows where I can find the source code for
> Opus BBS, I'd be interested in hearing from you!
>
>
>
That's what I was thinking.  I have some FidoNET files and mail from the
Rainbow.  My guess the BBS would have been written in Pascal or C if for
the Rainbow (guess only) so if you wanted to attempt to port, after you
find a Rainbow BBS?  I'd start with a Rainbow BBS disassembly/decompile and
see if you can convert to the PDP 11 running the same language/compile it.

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Wed, 17 May 2017, william degnan via cctalk wrote:


There may have been Rainbow BBS programs, but I doubt anything for the
11/34.  You may have to write this.


That reminds me of a bit of obscure trivia...

Back in the early days of FidoNet, one or more of the Fido BBS sysops had 
DEC Rainbows.  The machines could run Fido just fine, but the serial port 
address/port didn't follow the convention laid down by the IBM PC.  At the 
time, there were other MS-DOS compatibles that also had a similar issue 
with the serial port and some of those folks wanted to run Fido.


Tom Jennings, Wynn Waggoner III(sp?) and Thom Henderson(sp?) got together 
to create the FOSSIL standard.


FOSSIL is Fido Opus Seadog Serial Interface Layer and provided a mechanism 
via INT 14 for any MS-DOS compatible computer to run any BBS or mailer 
software that had FOSSIL support and a FOSSIL driver available for it.


FOSSIL continued to be a thing long after the issue of serial port 
incompatibility was a thing of the past.  In fact there's modern software 
out there now such as NetFossil that telnet-enables software that can talk 
to a FOSSIL driver.


The two popular FOSSIL drivers that I recall from back in the day were 
BNU and Ray Gwinn's X00.


As an aside, if anyone has or knows where I can find the source code for 
Opus BBS, I'd be interested in hearing from you!


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Systems Glitch via cctalk]

> BSD 2.11 should run fine on a 34 or 23

You need split I for 2.11BSD, that rules out the 11/23 and IIRC the 11/34 as 
well. I want to say 2.9BSD will run though.

Thanks,
Jonathan

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[geneb via cctalk]

On Wed, 17 May 2017, devin davison via cctalk wrote:


I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
the whole machine.

Any suggestions? i have not had much luck finding anything.


I'd be surprised if you did.  This is however, an excellent opportunity to 
write your own. :)  (At least to me, it would be a fun project.)


g.

--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby.  Geeks collect hobbies.

ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Paul Koning via cctalk]

> On May 18, 2017, at 1:26 AM, John Wilson via cctalk  
> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 08:45:39PM -0400, devin davison via cctalk wrote:
>> I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
>> to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
>> the whole machine.
> 
> A krillion years ago I wrote about half of a BBS for my 11/34a, which
> ran (as an RTS) under RSTS V7.0-07.  I'd love to finish it ...

As an RTS?  Wow, that's doing it the hard way.  In either RT or RSX emulation 
it would be easier, you have a friendlier development environment that way.  
I've done an application as an RTS in the long-ago past (an implementation of 
QUBIC, 3D 4x4x4x tic-tac-toe for a classmate) but that was on V5B, where an RTS 
was the only way to do assembly programming on RSTS.

paul

Re: BBS software for the PDP 11

[Toby Thain via cctalk]

On 2017-05-18 1:26 AM, John Wilson via cctalk wrote:

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 08:45:39PM -0400, devin davison via cctalk wrote:

I have both a pdp 11/34 and 11/23 and am trying to find some bbs software
to run. Preferably something that will run under an os and not monopolize
the whole machine.


A krillion years ago I wrote about half of a BBS for my 11/34a, which
ran (as an RTS) under RSTS V7.0-07.  I'd love to finish it ...



Throw it up on github and invite contributors?

--T


John Wilson
D Bit