[cctalk] Re: 2 sets of IRIX, 2 Indys and I1
Missing details ? From: Chris via cctalk Sent: Friday, January 20, 2023 3:07 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Cc: skogkatt...@yahoo.com Subject: [cctalk] 2 sets of IRIX, 2 Indys and I1
[cctalk] Re: Identity of this PII PC Main board?
It's this one https://archive.org/details/main-board-pii-ii-i-440-lx-agpset-v-1.2 I think -Original Message- From: John Herron via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, September 13, 2022 10:35 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Cc: John Herron Subject: [cctalk] Re: Identity of this PII PC Main board? Maybe this pc chips m720 motherboard? http://hw-museum.cz/mb/69/pc-chips-m720 On Tue, Sep 13, 2022, 1:11 AM D. Resor via cctalk wrote: > > The seller has this listed as a Gigabyte GA-6BXU Rev 1.5 mainboard. > > https://www.ebay.com/itm/195259246091 > > According to Gigabyte's website the GA-6BXU has only one CPU slot. > This one as you can see has two. > > The only dual Pentium II slot main board I could find manufactured by > Gigabyte is the GA-6BXDS shown here: > > https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-6BXDS#ov > > Notice the number of electrolytic capacitors beside one of the CPU > slots is different from that shown in the main board for sale. > > The seller has not responded to my inquiries which may be a tip off in > itself. > > Thanks > > Don Resor > > > >
RE: Content of www.blacksheepnetworks.com
Actually seems that google cached part of the 5010 pages, so maybe 50% or more can be still saved. Means the site is down since not too long -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Rumi Szabolcs via cctalk Sent: Monday, December 13, 2021 5:16 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Content of www.blacksheepnetworks.com Hello, This site used to have a lot of very useful and rare information on Tru64 troubleshooting and Google still has the links to the articles but the content itself is inaccessible: http://www.blacksheepnetworks.com/security/resources/tru64/ Has anyone by any chance archived the content of this site while it was still alive? archive.org did not, unfortunately. Thank you! Kind regards, Sab
Originally from [rescue] : Jo"rg Schilling has passed (cdrtools, Solaris evangelist, etc.)
Going to forward what I read in another list : https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2021-October/024523.html
RE: Linux and the 'clssic' computing world
As I think others already mentioned, there's no difference between emulators run under windows or linux... they are both limited by the cpu and amount of ram used to run them, not by the host os -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Murray McCullough via cctalk Sent: Monday, September 27, 2021 3:55 PM To: cctalk Subject: Linux and the 'clssic' computing world To my knowledge the Linux kernel was released to the public 30 years ago around this time. My dear friend swears by it and will never go back to Windows even though WIN 11 is much more secure than previous Windows versions. Prior to Linux there were other much-earlier operating systems for 8-bit and 16-bit machines we classic computer users could use. For emulators now we have a choice but do they work better in Linux or Windows? Happy computing. Murray 🙂
RE: FTAG: AlphaServer DS15, Sun T5140, Sun Blade 10, HP Proliant DL380 G7, VT220 [London, UK]
Ach, If only I was in UK ☹ -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Andrew Luke Nesbit via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2021 2:27 PM To: The Rescue List ; cctalk@classiccmp.org; t...@tuhs.org Subject: FTAG: AlphaServer DS15, Sun T5140, Sun Blade 10, HP Proliant DL380 G7, VT220 [London, UK] Hello all again, With a heavy heart I need to find a new home for the following beautiful hardware: - AlphaServer DS15 server - Sun SPARC Enterprise T5140 1U rack server - Sun Blade 10 mini tower - HP Proliant DL380 G7 2U rack server - DEC VT220 with screen, keyboard, and various adapter cables Please note that the Sun T5140 and HP DL380 are deep (700mm for purposes of installation in a rack). I'm starting a new job next week and intend to focus on that and my family. I've stopped working on various projects and I am vacating my studio workshop, so I have a lot of things to give away or sell. The above items are all FREE FOR COLLECTION ONLY (a car will be fine to transport the above items). I am located in London, UK. Post code is N15 4QL (Seven Sisters and Tottenham Hale) in Haringey, London. Kind regards, Andrew
RE: Hard To Believe This Person Is Serious
Rofl, If he manages to find someone at that price, I will have to sell my micropolis 5"25 -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Rob Jarratt via cctalk Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 6:46 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Hard To Believe This Person Is Serious https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313467585213
RE: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany
There are people that tried, it doesn't work. There's something proprietary written at low level that gets erased doing a low level format ( required to change the sectors ). The specifics were never released... With this I mean that the trick is not the firmware of the disk, but low level bits on the platters About the automatic shutdowns/restarts , I agree but I think it's a feature that was mainly directed at smaller AS used in satellite offices to support the local workforce and that had nothing going on, as a consequence, outside of business hours -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Patrik Schindler via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2021 2:22 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany Hello, Am 06.01.2021 um 13:37 schrieb mazzi...@tin.it: >> What I understood from your last posting is that once you reformat an AS/400 >> disk for 512 Bytes per sector as used by commodity hardware, you can’t use >> it again on AS/400, even by reformatting. > > Yes, that's correct Hm, I never verified that claim. Maybe I once had such an ex-AS/400 disk in earlier times which might sit unrecognized in my hard disk drawer. I can’t confirm your claim but I doubt it’s true: Firmware extensions will not get overridden from a reformat, and you can always reformat with 522 Bytes/Sector. I bet it will work again. > And I doubt that there's an orderly shutdown from the panel… That’s exactly what I wanted to express. :-) > I remember being told of only one procedure, but it would not cause > damages/issues of sort. I’ve read about that procedure in an IBM (red)book and it’s „not recommended for regular use“. I would need to look up the source if you want a proof. > In any case we're speaking about something that was meant to be turned on and > never turned off unless some maintenance or a big issue. The OS has highly sophisticated scheduling for automatic start and shutdown, with possible exceptions per weekday and one-time exceptions like holidays. (Type GO POWER into the command line to see the menu.) I guess even one or two decades back, there was reason to save power. > and for a catastrophe where the terminal is not accessible That’s what I mean. The procedure is not meant to be used as a substitute for pwrdwnsys. :wq! PoC
RE: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany
> Yes, I know about that and can confirm. What I understood from your last > posting is that once you reformat an AS/400 disk for 512 Bytes per sector as > used by commodity hardware, you can’t use it again on AS/400, even by > reformatting. Yes, that's correct And I doubt that there's an orderly shutdown from the panel... I remember being told of only one procedure, but it would not cause damages/issues of sort. In any case we're speaking about something that was meant to be turned on and never turned off unless some maintenance or a big issue. For scheduled maintenance, the qsecofr / admin account could issue a pwrdwnsys , and for a catastrophe where the terminal is not accessible ... the panel does its job -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Patrik Schindler via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2021 1:27 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany Hello, Am 06.01.2021 um 02:04 schrieb mazzi...@tin.it: > Yeh, I know for a fact you cannot setup Hdds for an as/400 unless with > the ibm factory tool. ( saw people using AS for a lot of years > professionally discuss this ) You had an as400, you had to buy the > spares hdds sold by ibm and ibm only Yes, I know about that and can confirm. What I understood from your last posting is that once you reformat an AS/400 disk for 512 Bytes per sector as used by commodity hardware, you can’t use it again on AS/400, even by reformatting. > About the panel ... let me see... > > Press 1 time "arrow up" to get 02 on the display Press "insert" > > panel will show "02 BN" > Press 4 times "arrow up" so that it changes to "02 BM" > Press 2 times the white power on button, to start the > shutdown/poweroff phase This is *not* an orderly shutdown, but some kind of emergency shutdown procedure to prevent excess damage through RAM content not yet flushed to disk. A bit like doing a „sync“ and immediate power off on Unix/Linux. :wq! PoC
RE: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany
Yeh, I know for a fact you cannot setup Hdds for an as/400 unless with the ibm factory tool. ( saw people using AS for a lot of years professionally discuss this ) You had an as400, you had to buy the spares hdds sold by ibm and ibm only About the panel ... let me see... Press 1 time "arrow up" to get 02 on the display Press "insert" > panel will show "02 BN" Press 4 times "arrow up" so that it changes to "02 BM" Press 2 times the white power on button, to start the shutdown/poweroff phase -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Patrik Schindler via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, January 6, 2021 12:11 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany Hello, Am 05.01.2021 um 23:33 schrieb mazzinia--- via cctalk : > The hard disks are factory initialized with a specific number of sectors... > they are scsi, and you cannot use normal scsi disks there. Yap. See here for details (and further reading). https://try-as400.pocnet.net/wiki/Ordinary_Harddisks_on_the_AS/400 > the only way to initialize them for an as/400 is with an ibm tool that has > never been released. Do you have experience with this? Because, you certainly can format a disk in the „BIOS“ (Dedicated Service Tools) of a machine. And I suppose that doing this is doing the right thing. > and yes, you can otherwise use the small panel on the front to ipl it > up, and shut it down I know no safe way to initiate a proper shutdown from the panel. Do you have more information on that? > You can add more twinax terminals ( the cables are included ), or > connect to a twinax card in a pc ( isa/pci , depends what you find ) > and ibm client access... or client access on lan. > In any case you need that ( or a ) twinax terminal (emulator card > works) for maintenance/admin duties I guess it’s included, eventhough not mentioned in the text. And I fully agree, Console is important to have. :wq! PoC
RE: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany
These things are tanks, sort of... so technically troubles tend to be relative. The hard disks are factory initialized with a specific number of sectors... they are scsi, and you cannot use normal scsi disks there. Also you must not reformat these hdd elsewhere, or you end messing them up... the only way to initialize them for an as/400 is with an ibm tool that has never been released. This said, that auction has the terminal needed to operate it ( as admin ) included, it sits on top. (and yes, you can otherwise use the small panel on the front to ipl it up, and shut it down) You can add more twinax terminals ( the cables are included ), or connect to a twinax card in a pc ( isa/pci , depends what you find ) and ibm client access... or client access on lan. In any case you need that ( or a ) twinax terminal (emulator card works) for maintenance/admin duties -Original Message- From: Tomasz Rola Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2021 10:46 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Cc: mazzi...@tin.it Subject: Re: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 10:02:02PM +0100, mazzi...@tin.it wrote: > Well, > > The whole translation is more on the lines that it hasn't been started > since 3 years and they can't be bothered to check if it still works > with the mains not plugged since then. Thus the risk to turn it on is > on the buyer. Yep. I am used to this kind of description. I sometimes see it on certain Polish auctioning site. The seller is honest - they say it openly that they cannot take on the risk. "We also sell power supply to this laptop on separate auction but whatever stopped us from plugging one into another and into the wall"... I guess it is more complicated to check mainframe's correct operation. And I would want a very specific info about what is in the box. I am not sure, for example, if hard drives for it can be easily bought. Then again, if it worked perfectly and did not broke, there is good chance it might work for a long time. At least this is what older mainframes did (from what I have read). [...] > Another small thing... I helped carrying that model up into our > office, years ago... good luck to whoever purchases it because it's > some serious weight I would also make sure it could be powered on without blowing the fuses out of the wall... Ok, after consulting IBM page [ https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/printableversion.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/re p_sm/3/872/ENUS9406-_h03/index.html ] - it says, 300~~700 watts, depending on configuration. Last but not least, my limited understanding is, the owner would need either control panel or operation console (looks like a laptop... perhaps?) and cables to connect them into the black refrigerator. Without enabling js for this page I cannot see what is pictured on very small photos. I suppose it will not boot (ipl) without panel/console. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
RE: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany
Well, The whole translation is more on the lines that it hasn't been started since 3 years and they can't be bothered to check if it still works with the mains not plugged since then. Thus the risk to turn it on is on the buyer. This said, without the license codes is going to be a big decorative object, sort of way... so if someone is interested, he should make sure that they have still the licenses to give alongside. Another small thing... I helped carrying that model up into our office, years ago... good luck to whoever purchases it because it's some serious weight -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Tomasz Rola via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2021 9:54 PM To: Patrik Schindler via cctalk Subject: Re: DEDICATED HOBBYIST ALERT: IBM AS/400 9406-F2 for cheap sale in Germany On Tue, Jan 05, 2021 at 06:41:30PM +0100, Patrik Schindler via cctalk wrote: > Hello, > > to fellow readers in Germany and surrounding areas: > > HUGE 9406-F2, 300€, pickup in Heidelberg, Germany. Might be a > Multiprocessor-Machine. > > https://cgi.ebay.de/174577267021 > > I’m not related to the seller. Have seen this by chance. > > I requested more photos to see what machine it is. Would be very sad > if it will be scrapped. I can forward the additional photos as email > on request. > > :wq! PoC It says "Als Ersatzteil / defekt", which to my nose smells like "parts donor". Whoever would like to pick it, should verify this. I might be wrong. -- Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_r...@bigfoot.com **
RE: The best hard drives??
https://www.elinfor.com/article/E/l/Electron%20and%20temperature%20diagram.jpg In theory. In any case it would not be wise to keep an ssd unpowered for various years. -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis via cctalk Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2020 11:57 PM To: Steven M Jones via cctalk Subject: Re: The best hard drives?? Tangential to this, I've long wondered about some things relating to SSDs. Are there any solid figures on their retention period after years of being unpowered? The reason I ask is that I've long been in the habit of simply shelving an old hard drive when I upgrade or replace a system. I've got hard drives that still work that hail back to the days of OS/2 1.1; some larger ones go back to the 1970s. --Chuck
RE: The best hard drives??
Interesting read, What is your opinion of the Seagate exos 7e8 units ? (and does SED make any difference in ensuring a bit more quality of the platters) -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Peter Corlett via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 10:27 AM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: The best hard drives?? On Tue, Nov 17, 2020 at 12:37:23AM -0500, Ethan O'Toole via cctalk wrote: [...] > HGST. 4TB seem really good. I have a half-dozen of those in raidz2 on my workstation and can confirm. HGST disks are good enough that WD bought them, declared them to be so good that they are clearly Enterprise drives, and doubled the price overnight. Which is why I stopped at six. The current wheeze is to "shuck" (remove the internal disk from) externals such as the WD Elements and MyBook. They'll contain the worst of whatever happens to be in stock at WD and the units up to 6TB are therefore to be avoided -- in particular, you will get atrocious DM-SMR disks or other consumer-grade junk -- but 8TB and above will get you something decent. The downside is that they nobble the firmware slightly to have aggressive powerdown and other tweaks to suit the intended use cases of external USB disks. The upside is that the hardware is the same. Well, another downside is that you have to spend a few minutes carefully cracking open the cases without breaking the tabs so that they can be reassembled in case the disks need to be RMAd. We've all got spudgers, right? (You can also shuck Seagates, of course, but then you end up with a terrible Seagate. Lacie and Intenso externals will also contain nasty Seagate disks. Good Seagates exist, but are expensive enough that you might as well get SAS disks and be done with it. I'm still running a (dwindling) fleet of shucked 2TB Seagates from a decade ago when they didn't yet suck.) Five MyBooks bought 18 months ago had debranded He8 disks in there: very nice. The three Elements a few months back have (non-SMR) WD Reds in them, which is OK. Three more are supposedly turning up tomorrow. I'm generally getting 8TB disks for €120-140 each from either amazon.de or amazon.nl. Sometimes the best prices only appear when they're on backorder and then they randomly turn up a month or two later after I've forgotten I've ordered them, but that's fine for my needs. It beats paying €300 full retail for the same disk just so I can have it sooner. The shucking landscape does shift over time as shown by me getting "only" Reds in the last batch instead of He8s previously. If you need a disk in several years time you should do a bit of research and double-check before taking this advice lest WD have started doing a DM-SMR line of 8TB disks specially for these enclosures. It also turns out that £1 ≈ €1 ≈ $1.
RE: Looking for suggestions for this
Hello, Were the license documents included in the auction ? otherwise you can only install it with a temporary license and reinstall every , I think, 6 months. If the hdds you got are from an as/400, it should work ( remember to never format them in a normal pc, if you change the factory sector setting, you will turn them into normal disks ) -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Kevin Parker via cctalk Sent: Tuesday, September 8, 2020 8:40 AM To: 'General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts' Subject: Looking for suggestions for this Hi folks - quite some time ago I picked up this little beauty (well I'm sure some may agree or disagree with me) off of ePAY. I happen to like black IBMs of any type. Of course I got gouged at the checkout paying the princely sum of $1.04 AUD - some might say I got robbed. In the photo with the other machines it's the big one. Included was the machine of course, the tape drive, the monitor (the keyboard is somewhere) and a heap of connectors and cables - and I did get the key with it too. What was missing were the HDDs (which they trashed to get rid of the data) and all the documentation (which they tossed before they realised that they could flog it on ePAY and get someone else to take it away). http://koken.advancedimaging.com.au/index.php?/albums/as400/ But as I rationalise space in my increasingly small collection facility I need to make some decisions about things so I'm looking for some suggestions as to what I can do with this machine. At the risk of being applauded for some ideas and being flamed for others some suggestions are: 1. Do nothing - it's a very interesting conversation piece and its worth preserving. 2. Someone is looking for one of these for parts and will pay me a fortune. 3. Dump it. 4. Donate it to a museum - they'll need a truck and four big guys. 5. Trade it for scrap value. 6. Get it running - now there's a big leap I suspect!! I did manage to procure some HDDs from another AS/400 but as to whether they are suitable or this would even work is not even remotely my bailiwick. 7. Gut it and build a cluster inside it so at least it looks and runs like a big computer so I can get some WOW factor from those who don't know any different. 8. Gut it and turn it into a bar fridge. 9. Anything else... Thank you Kevin Parker
RE: Spam
Not me -Original Message- From: cctalk On Behalf Of Peter Coghlan via cctalk Sent: 01 September 2020 00:55 To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Subject: Spam Anybody else on cctech/cctalk receive a blatant spam today from an outfit called "SparkPost" with "OptIn Live" in the subject? Regards, Peter Coghlan.
