Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:20:07 +0100 From: Arthur Chance <freebsd@qeng-ho.org> To: FreeBSD-Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Greybeards (Re: Netbooks & BSD) Message-ID: <4CBFE9A7.9060909@qeng-ho.org> In-Reply-To: <20101020220741.GC26611@thought.org> References: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1010171215030.96626@wonkity.com> <20101019074615.GA2183@current.Sisis.de> <alpine.BSF.2.00.1010191448390.6689@wonkity.com> <20101020022946.GA23035@thought.org> <20101020052601.GA1977@current.Sisis.de> <4cbe9e9a.3qT7q8JUqJxSD8/V%perryh@pluto.rain.com> <20101020165526.GA25310@thought.org> <4CBF21EB.1080003@tundraware.com> <20101020194605.GA78565@stainmore> <4CBF4CB4.6070902@qeng-ho.org> <20101020220741.GC26611@thought.org>
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On 10/20/10 23:07, Gary Kline wrote: > On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 09:10:28PM +0100, Arthur Chance wrote: >> On 10/20/10 20:46, Bob Hall wrote: >>> On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:07:55PM -0500, Tim Daneliuk wrote: >>>> On 10/20/2010 11:55 AM, Gary Kline wrote: >>>>> On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 12:47:38AM -0700, perryh@pluto.rain.com wrote: >>>>>> Matthias Apitz<guru@unixarea.de> wrote: >>>>>>> El d?a Tuesday, October 19, 2010 a las 07:29:46PM -0700, Gary Kline escribi?: >>>>>>>> PS: I really _was_ current on hardware stuff. Back in the VAX >>>>>>>> 780 days :-) >>>>>>> I booted my first UNIX V7 tape on a PDP-11 around 1982, I think. >>>>>> >>>>>> Gotcha beat :) UNIX V6, PDP-11/34, RK05 disk cartridge, 1975. >>>>>> The whole runtime fit on one RK05. The sources took a second one. >>>>> >>>>> I remember the 11/34 fondly. The whole EE department at Cory >>>>> Hall was running one one; then when I interned at Livermore my >>>>> job of porting the "Portable F77 Compiler" was done with vi and >>>>> the source code that Stu Feldman wrote. I love[d] those bloody >>>>> old computers, :-) Dunno why. Maybe because they really >>>>> *were* about computing. Not streaming [[whatever]] or having >>>>> php running. (Blah^9^9^9) >>>>> >>>>> :) >>>> >>>> Heck, when I started out, they didn't even have zeros and ones yet. >>>> We had to settle for "o"s and "l"s ... >>> >>> When I started out, we didn't have read/write heads for the hard disks. >>> We had to copy the data from the screen to the disk by hand using >>> magnetized sewing needles. In order to read the damn things we had to >>> pass a compass over the disk and see where the needle deflected. >> >> Enough Monty Python Yorkshiremen claims, already. :-) >> >> Getting back to reality, although I never did it (fortunately), a >> friend of mine who was about a decade older than me (I'm mid/late >> 50s) had the experience of programming microcode on a machine by >> inserting brass slugs for 0s and ferrite slugs for 1s on a pin >> board. Anyone got any idea what that was? He was (UK) military so >> maybe it wasn't a generally known box. >> > > This microcode programming sounds just vagely familiar; seems like > mid/late-80's or early-90's. Am i right? --Most uses for > supercomputers are mil/spooks/<<>>; that's the only reason the > idea might have floated past me. No, this was circa 1970. I met him in 1975 and and it was past history for him then. He was Royal Air Force, if that gives a clue, and certainly wasn't a super - he talked about it as if it were a fairly dumb mini. -- "Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, few know what a wombat looks like, but everyone knows what a dragon looks like." -- Avram Davidson, _Adventures in Unhistory_
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