@revspace After a few days of work, implementing 3 missing libc functions, repairing an extra 4MB of RAM, hacking around toolchain issues, we finally got Lynx 2.8.2 compiled and running on the VAX-11/750 (in 4.3 BSD Quasijarus)! That means we got to browse the (non-HTTPS) web using no equipment or parts newer than 1986 this side of the network (besides the AUI 10Base-T phy).
Decided to display the VAX-11/750 at the @revspace open day yesterday. All the hard work repairing it seems to have paid off, managed to get 18 hours of uptime out of it before shutting it down at the end of the day! #unix #retrocomputing #dec #vax11 #minicomputer #unixhistory #bsd
Hi all, we did our annual PDP-12 demo in Dr. Ted Pedersen's architecture class on Tuesday, and it went really well.
In cleaning up / reorganizing after showing off our artifacts, I realized that we have something that I haven't seen on @bitsavers, but I maybe just didn't know where to look. It's a big poster of PDP-12 instructions -- it's kind of like the pocket reference in poster format. It is about 9.5x30 inches (24x76 cm). I scanned it in two pieces on the office machine and stitched it together with GIMP. I'll try to make a PDF version with OCR text. @bitsavers #vintagecomputing #retrocomputing #pdp12 #pdp #dec #umdpdp12
I'd been a member of #SDF for about a year or so when I posted to #BBoard to get rid of a load of 10-12 year old #DEC workstations and a server that my wife's ex left in his house. Someone responded, and we met down in Lewisville or somewhere. I don't know if that person was able to get them going. I have this hope/wish that they're still running somewhere and now 30ish-year-old computers living their lives.
2/ This is why I have never been a fan of Linux, people should be writing their own OSs 
As an aside, I found this #USENET thread with some familiar names from 1987 about porting Minix to the Atari - I assume that would have been the ST then.
https://www.linux.co.cr/unix-source-code/review/1987/0108.html
1/ Just because, here's my LSI-11 desktop - It works, they used much better capacitors in those days.
Way back when, the LSI-11 was often used to teach people Operating Systems and Compiler Design, and in my CS degree in 1986 we'd fiddle with MINIX on these things, and deal with re-writing different low-level UNIX things. Life was much easier with only 50 instructions to work with.
This is kinda fun for ex-DEC / Digital UK alumni or users - They are making a movie too!
https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/digital60
I found it trying to find old DECUS programmes for the UK/Ireland when we did the annual conferences at Warwick Uni.
That whole Online Etiquette guide (written in January 1986!) is so good I'm going to post it all here. So much of it is still relevant today, but sadly ignored #Teams #dec #digital #notes #retrocomputing
Findings at my parents' house, part 3: Two AlphaStations.
They have SCSI disks of different sizes, and the last time I turned them on (2008), they were working perfectly.
They heated the room wonderfully, and the fans were strong enough to move the pictures on the wall 
I haven't turned them on again, but they should still have NetBSD installed.
til the DEC VT100 and VT220 terminals all had built-in pixel doubling circuitry that stretched compressed fonts into their proper size in realtime. this exceptionally well written post describes the mechanism and shows the various forms of output:
Sean Haas of @adventofcomputing has a fascinating episode out about #IDRIS, a reimplementation of #UNIX for a variety of early personal computers with #Intel8086, #Motorola68000 CPUs as well as #DEC #PDP11. Bizarrely, the OS seems mostly lost.
adventofcomputing: Episode 149 - IDRIS is Not UNIX
https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-149-is-119316624
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idris_(operating_system)
A version of IDRIS that starts from #DOS is available on GitHub, though!
https://github.com/hansake/Whitesmiths-Idris-OS/tree/main/co-idris_setup
If you have a warm spot in your heart for old #DEC gear, then you probably already know about Oscar Vermeulen's PiDP series including the PiDP-8, PiDP-10, and my personal favorite, the PiDP-11.
He has a year-end newsletter on his site that you'll want to check out: https://obsolescence.dev/obsolescence-newsletter-dec-2024.html
My PiDP-11 is pictured below, next to a couple of other replicas. Also pictured is my small-scale VT100 replica which runs @larsbrinkhoff’s very exact VT100 emulator.
Our well-equipped rack in the depot comprises:
Xyplex MAXserver 1600 terminal server
MiniArray III MultiTech communication server
KILIAN 486
DEC PDP-11/34 minicomputer
Cipher tape unit
DEC DECpack RKO5J disk drive
DEC PDP-11/44 minicomputer
One thing puzzled me slightly over the last couple of days. Watching the auth logs I see login attempts with the following user IDs:
2024-11-30 SSH ALLIN1MAIL
2024-11-30 SSH PDP11
2024-11-30 SSH PDP8
2024-11-30 SSH TELEDEMO
2024-11-30 SSH DECMAIL
2024-11-30 SSH DECNET
2024-11-30 SSH SYSMAINT
2024-12-01 SSH SYSTEST_CLIG
which to this #oldfart #greybeard sounds very #DEC #VAX-like.
Anyone else seeing this? Or is somebody out there actually running an Internet-accessible VAX somewhere?
@jasongorman As a 22-year-old in the mid-90s, I started my IT career as a Fortune 100 “webmaster.”
I adapted corporate content into #
HTML and wrote #Perl CGI code (#CSS and #JavaScript hadn’t been invented yet), did #SysAdmin for the web server (an #SGI Challenge S and #DEC VT220 terminal wired to a T1 line in a disused machine room rack), registered domains with VeriSign, analyzed site traffic for marketing using my own log parsing code, and answered `webmaster@…` email.
Just spent three days reorganizing the museum. The DECsystem10 is much more accessible, and (almost) all in one spot. A few other key items are also in much better locations than previously. #RCSRI #RetroComputing #DEC
Our PDP-12 (#435) is able to read tapes (but not yet write them). This OS/8 tape is close to 50 years old and still reads well. Here we use the TYPE command to print a long listing stored on multiple tape blocks. LINC and DECtape was able to be used as random access storage (like a disk). The block numbers were written forwards and backwards on the tape so that they could be read regardless of the motor's direction!
In this video, we have a tape mounted on the top drive and have already booted. Zach requests to print the file to the (virtual) teletype, and the blocks of the file are read in sequence.
