Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jerry Kemp]

I know its too much to wish for, but as I look at your Sun 2000E comment, I 
can't but hope and wonder if you are anywhere near the DFW metroplex area?



Jerry


On 03/30/16 06:11 PM, Michael Thompson wrote:





I brought the Sun 2000E home, and its still here. I have to thin the herd a
little so I can make room for some DEC equipment.

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[drlegendre .]

Give him another thirty years, he'll be as jaded and cranky as the best of
us. ;-)

(Kidding aside, it's all very heartwarming.)

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 6:11 PM, Michael Thompson <
michael.99.thomp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 22:07:37 -0400
> > From: Brian Marstella <br...@marstella.net>
> > Subject: Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a
> > mainframe...
> >
> > I'm still kicking myself for passing up an IBM mainframe and a Sun 2000
> > that my previous employer no longer needed. I reasoned that I didn't have
> > space or power for them; never let logic and good sense dictate your
> > actions :)
> >
>
> I brought the Sun 2000E home, and its still here. I have to thin the herd a
> little so I can make room for some DEC equipment.
>
> --
> Michael Thompson
>

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/30/2016 10:51 AM, William Donzelli wrote:

Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought
two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box,
in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)

I assume you mean 370/145s/

Yes.

  Whatever happened to them? In 1979, they
would have been still usable machines.


Well, the problem with the 370's were peripherals and power. 
Although the lower level 370's had integrated channels, you 
still needed control units and drives.  To do any real work, 
you'd need at least a DASD controller and drives and a com 
controller.  Probably at least a tape controller and one 
drive to do backups and load software.  That won't fit in 
the bedroom of a 2-bedroom house, which was where this thing 
was!


Second was the 370s used a motor alternator set to convert 
50/60 Hz power to 415 Hz power.  To keep compatibility, they 
used the same size MG set for a range of machines.  So, the 
145 had a 17 KVA output alternator with a 20 Hp 208V 3-phase 
motor.  We tried to build a phase converter to run the motor 
off the guy's 60 A 240 V service, but the reactive current 
was over 60 A and would blow the main breaker.  The main 
logic supply for the /145 was 390 A at +1.3 and -3 V, so 
about 1.5 KW.  We should have just got a bunch of big 5V 
switcher supplies and tuned them down to the appropriate 
voltage.  But, that would have likely cost more than he paid 
for the machines, maybe even surplus.


The 145 was not a real high performance machine.  Although 
the memory was 64 bits+parity wide (for ECC) the main data 
path was only 16-bits wide, and the microcode word was 
rather vertical, so while 360/50 and 360/65 could execute 
simple instructions in about 4 microcode cycles, the /145 
took something like 7+.  A 32 bit add register to register 
was 1.4 us, add memory to register was 2.4 us. Floating 
point divide was 28 us (short) or 88 us (long).


Jon

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Pete Lancashire]

First access was when I was 16 and used the remains of 3 Teletype 33's to
make one working unit, the same neighbor who got me the machines help get
and fix a modem, I had access to the the HP 2000C at the local college from
home. (guess the year).

First oldie computer was a then not oldie Burroughs B720, I worked at the
plant where they were made and got one that was freight damaged. About
1,000 14+16 pin DIP 7400 TTL packages and ran at 2 Mhz.

Next was a Data General Nova (no suffix the original) with a Teletype 33
ASR, And a  high speed tape reader. Still wish I had it now. Love being
able to turn it off and back one without loosing data other then what was
in the registers.

One day I got a call, "do you want some minicomputers ?". Stupid question.
"Come down to Veterans Stadium (Philly) with a truck", the caller was a
friend who was an electrician. The company that won the bid to replace the
game board at the stadium had the remains of the old setup piled up ready
to go out for scrap. I filled the truck with General Automation SPC-16's
and I/O boards, cables, etc. enough to control over 100 individual 120V
lights.

The big regret .. 1975, get a call "do you want an IBM mainframe" .. but
was moving 3,000 west thee weeks after the call. Was a whole computer room
360/45, disks, tapes, etc. everything except the 1403 Model 5, but the
Model 2 was in the offer. If I had not accepted the job and was not moving
I actually had free use of a warehouse.

After moving, 1981 I paid $100 for a 4 Racks of DEC, Rack 1 PDP 11/45, Rack
2, RP03 controller, Rack 3 4 x RK05s, Rack 4 a TU?? two RP03's, VT100's,
etc, etc. Filled 1/2 of the basement. I ran RSX11M on it.

The last big box at home was a  SUN M5000, but its now gone to a good home.
The last offers I've turned down are a Sun/Fujitsu M9000 and a V890,
My employer would not let me or anyone have the IBM Z/?? and it went out as
E-scrap a couple months ago.

In storage there are twp DEC Alpha DS20E's and a older DS20 that I'll do
something with or find a home for.








On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:16 AM,  wrote:

> I started getting serious about collecting vintage computers when I was
>> about 20, so not much older. That was in 1993, and I was scrounging
>> PDP-11/23s and VT100s and VT220s, so most of what I was finding was
>> 10-15 years old at that point. The more things change, the more they
>> stay the same!
>> -Seth
>>
>
> IIRC My first large home computer (220v) was a SGI 4d/480VGX.
>
> It had the LED CPU usage meters on the front.
>
> Eventually I ended up with two Challenge XLs and four L's to replace it,
> and two Onyx's and a Origin 2000 full rack. SGI hardware was so cool.
>
>
> --
> Ethan O'Toole
>
>
>

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/30/2016 10:40 AM, Jon Elson wrote:

On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A 
friend of mine bought two 770/145s


Ugh, 370/145

Jon

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Liam Proven]

On 29 March 2016 at 21:34, geneb  wrote:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
>
> It's pretty entertaining. :)


I just Tweeted this. Great story, and a great presentation.

This is the link to the Share Songbook, BTW:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ot79z78u3zd6vxs/SHARE%20Songbook.pdf?dl=0

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) • +420 702 829 053 (ČR)

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[William Donzelli]

> Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought
> two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box,
> in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)

I assume you mean 370/145s/ Whatever happened to them? In 1979, they
would have been still usable machines.

While Connor's mainframe move is very impressive -try removing
something from a derelict ship. There is a certain beauty seeing an
800 pound box doing a slow ballet in three dimension using chain
hoists.

Did anyone here watch the original livestream, anyway? The idea was to
try install Minecraft on the thing. Not enough horsepower! That, or
shitty Mojang code.

--
Will

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Paul Koning]

> On Mar 30, 2016, at 11:40 AM, Jon Elson  wrote:
> 
> On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
> Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend of mine bought 
> two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  (I bought the other memory box, 
> in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of memory was a big deal!)
> 
> I am amazed we did not collapse the floor in his house!

Compared to waterbeds or pianos, computers aren't all that heavy.  Not even 
mainframes.

DEC's old headquarters (the "Mill" in Maynard) had prominent signs everywhere 
saying the floor load limit was 100 pounds per square foot, or something like 
that (perhaps less).  But they just planted their computers all over anyway, 
and I don't remember ever seeing floor reinforcements for that.  The stated 
limit was probably quite conservative.  After all, that building used to 
contain spinning and weaving machinery -- big hunks of cast iron.

paul

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jon Elson]

On 03/29/2016 10:01 PM, Jim Brain wrote:
Somebody mentioned a house with a collapsed floor.  A friend 
of mine bought two 770/145s and a GE/Intersil memory box.  
(I bought the other memory box, in 1979 or so, a **MEG** of 
memory was a big deal!)


I am amazed we did not collapse the floor in his house!

There used to be a picture online, but his page seems to 
have gone away.


Jon

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[ethan]

I started getting serious about collecting vintage computers when I was
about 20, so not much older. That was in 1993, and I was scrounging
PDP-11/23s and VT100s and VT220s, so most of what I was finding was
10-15 years old at that point. The more things change, the more they
stay the same!
-Seth


IIRC My first large home computer (220v) was a SGI 4d/480VGX.

It had the LED CPU usage meters on the front.

Eventually I ended up with two Challenge XLs and four L's to replace it, 
and two Onyx's and a Origin 2000 full rack. SGI hardware was so cool.



--
Ethan O'Toole

RE: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jay West]

John wrote
-
There's an IRC channel? What IRC network is it on?
-

Freenode, #classiccmp

It tends to be more of a hangout "water cooler talk" for us than a technical 
forum, but I'm there most every evening from 8pmCST onward.

J

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Camiel Vanderhoeven]

Yes, we're talking address space here. The 390 had 31-bit addresses.
Op 30 mrt. 2016 10:49 a.m. schreef "Mark Linimon" :

> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 08:34:00PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon 
> wrote:
> > > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> > >> they were strictly 31-bit only.
> > >
> > > Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.
>
> I guess I didn't highlight the joke.  Thirty-*one* bits?
>
> mcl
>

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mark Linimon]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 08:34:00PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon  wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> >> they were strictly 31-bit only.
> >
> > Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.

I guess I didn't highlight the joke.  Thirty-*one* bits?

mcl

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mike Ross]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 8:26 PM, Mark Linimon  wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
>> they were strictly 31-bit only.
>
> Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.
>
> mcl

Not in the least; when they were designed and built Z-Architecture
wasn't even a twinkle in a hardware engineers eye. Nothing hobbled
about them.

And by the time Z-Architecture did come alone it was no longer
necessary to use custom hardware to implement a usable mainframe CPU;
it could be emulated entirely in software - Hercules; Flex/ES; z/PDT
etc. - hence no 64-bit *hardware* successor to the P/390 was ever
built or seriously contemplated.

Mike

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mark Linimon]

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 03:54:40PM +1300, Mike Ross wrote:
> they were strictly 31-bit only.

Dang, I suspected they were hobbled, but that's painful.

mcl

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Seth Morabito]

Zane Healy writes:

> It reminded me of getting a PDP-11/44 & drives in a couple racks, from
> Paxton in the late 90’s when he still had the Warehouse in Portland,
> with the help of my Dad, and then installing it in my folks garage. My
> Mom was quite happy when my wife and I bought a house, and could move
> it into our own garage.
>
> Zane

I started getting serious about collecting vintage computers when I was
about 20, so not much older. That was in 1993, and I was scrounging
PDP-11/23s and VT100s and VT220s, so most of what I was finding was
10-15 years old at that point. The more things change, the more they
stay the same!

-Seth

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jim Brain]

On 3/29/2016 9:54 PM, Mike Ross wrote:


Jim you mean the P/390? I have a couple of those yes. First ones were
Microchannel; later ones were PCI. S/390 CPU & memory on a card; all
other devices emulated under OS/2 or AIX. Could only run the earlier
versions of z/OS; they were strictly 31-bit only.
I think that was it.  I heard about it when I worked at Compuware in the 
early 90's.  The presentation took me back to those days, not so long 
ago, when it was expensive to put TCP/IP on OS/390, so much so that 
Compuware developed "HCI", which was a TCP/IP stack for the platform 
(not sure if they sold it, bundled it with apps, or it was just Andy 
Falvey's pet project.  I remember he borrowed my Comer books so he could 
implement TCP/IP...


Jim

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jim Brain]

OK, I have to admit, that video is impressive,  he held the audience 
attention better than people twice his age, and the sheer audacity has 
to be commended.


Sadly, my zOS days are long over, I don't even remember how to configure 
LU2 or LU6.2 anymore, and I got paid to do that.


That said, I do not regret getting into "home" computers :-)  Man, those 
machines are heavy and bulky.


Anyone have the zOS machine that was in a PC case (or is my memory off 
on that)?


Jim

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Matt Patoray]

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 29, 2016, at 7:28 PM, Jay West  wrote:
> 
> Evan wrote...
>> Connor is a member of our user group here in the Mid-Atlantic. He's 
>> been learning at an astonishingly quick rate!
> 
> He's been a member on this list for quite some time, and is a regular on the 
> evening crew of the #classiccmp irc channel as well.
> 
> He was working on a DG Nova 3 before the Z machine arrived, hope he gets back 
> to it as well :)
> 
> J

I got to see that DG just after he picked it up in Akron. He stopped by the 
Large Scale Systems Museum in New Kensington PA and we gave it a look over and 
also discussed the docs he got with it and what to tackle first.

Now if only it had come with some of those cool blue/green DG terminals :)

I still remover the day he sat down in front of the HP 2116B, he had never 
touched a blinking light front panel, he asked if Dave or I minded if he erased 
the program in memory, we said no, he powered it on and 2 min later was reading 
the programming docs for it and wrote a quick blinking lights program in like 
15 min.

Connor is a good guy!

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jan Adelsbach]

I got my two (Full-Rack) SGI Origin 2000's when I was around 16-17
years old. By comparison it wasn't much of an adventure, it was quite
boring actually.

Jan

On 03/29/2016 09:34 PM, geneb wrote:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
>
> It's pretty entertaining. :)
>
> g.
>
>

RE: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Jay West]

Evan wrote...
> Connor is a member of our user group here in the Mid-Atlantic. He's 
> been learning at an astonishingly quick rate!
>

He's been a member on this list for quite some time, and is a regular on the 
evening crew of the #classiccmp irc channel as well.

He was working on a DG Nova 3 before the Z machine arrived, hope he gets back 
to it as well :)

J

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Mike Whalen]

Wonderful video.

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 5:42 PM, Evan Koblentz  wrote:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
>>
>> It's pretty entertaining. :)
>>
>
> Connor is a member of our user group here in the Mid-Atlantic. He's been
> learning at an astonishingly quick rate!
>

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Evan Koblentz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk

It's pretty entertaining. :)


Connor is a member of our user group here in the Mid-Atlantic. He's been 
learning at an astonishingly quick rate!

Re: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Zane Healy]

It reminded me of getting a PDP-11/44 & drives in a couple racks, from Paxton 
in the late 90’s when he still had the Warehouse in Portland, with the help of 
my Dad, and then installing it in my folks garage.  My Mom was quite happy when 
my wife and I bought a house, and could move it into our own garage.  

Zane



> On Mar 29, 2016, at 1:37 PM, Pontus Pihlgren  wrote:
> 
> I watched it earlier today and it reminded me a bit about myself. At least 
> that 
> one time I, with help of friends, rescued a PDP-11/34, eclipse in two racks 
> and 
> VAX-11/750 with peripherals from a house with a collapsed floor.
> 
> /P
> 
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 12:34:09PM -0700, geneb wrote:
>> 
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
>> 
>> It's pretty entertaining. :)
>> 
>> 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: Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[Pontus Pihlgren]

I watched it earlier today and it reminded me a bit about myself. At least that 
one time I, with help of friends, rescued a PDP-11/34, eclipse in two racks and 
VAX-11/750 with peripherals from a house with a collapsed floor.

/P

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 12:34:09PM -0700, geneb wrote:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
> 
> It's pretty entertaining. :)
> 
> 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_!

Here's what happens when an 18 year old buys a mainframe...

[geneb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk

It's pretty entertaining. :)

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_!