[Simh] Hobbyist license

[Andrew Balaam]

Villy,

> I can't remember the name of the other machine, but it had a non standard

Perhaps it was Sirius? The guy that designed the 6502 microprocessor and 
the PET went on to design the Sirius. Chuck Peddle was his name I think.

The PET also used a variable numbers of sectors - more on the outside 
than on the inside.

Andrew.


>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

On 02/04/06, 04:15:01, Villy Madsen <Villy.Madsen at shaw.ca> wrote regarding 
[Simh] Hobbyist license:


> Greetings

> not wanting to bother the hardworking volunteers - does anyone have any
> experience with the length of time it takes to get the VAX OPenvms 
license
> pack....


> Further - a History Question...

> Anyone remember what the first Version Upgrade  was AFTER the 750 was
> announced....

> I was at the Decus in San Diego where it was announced.  I still have the
> mug - although if one didn't know what it was supposed to say, you
> probably wouldn't have a clue.....

> I also had a mug from the rainbow announcement..  It broke years ago
> (actually the box that I received had a broken mug in it - which they
> cheerfully replaced)
> but at tat it outlasted the rainbow...

> Having had some experience with another non-standard PC, I had absolutely
> no use for another non-standard machine (with hard sectored buy from dec
> only floppies), and I told them as much...  Much better, more 
reliable.....
> <G>

> I can't remember the name of the other machine, but it had a non standard
> drive in it, soft sectored but with a variable number of sectors - 
further
> out the more you had...
> They were built in Scotts Valley - I fact that I probably only remember
> because I dropped in at Borland and arranged a education license for 
Turbo
> Pascal - a product that they used at the Community College where I worked
> at that time ('83-'86 or so) for at least 10 years... (Yes I loved that
> product).


> Anyone have any experience with the TS11 - It was on the first 750 that 
we
> took delivery of (the first delivery in Alberta) and it was a jewel...
>  THAT ONE was a jewel.  After a couple of experiences trying to do fresh
> installs on subsequent machines we learned to hate it with a passion.  
The
> TU-58 standalone backup had not much in the way of error recovery - I
> remember once having to reload it about a dozen times until it occurred 
to
> me to see if we had enough of the system across to boot it and run
> VMS/Backup..

> Lots of good memories - like the 3 hour job to convert 10,000 lines of
> Fortran so that It would compile dim a(1000);;   a=5 instead of a(1)=5;

> Compile and ran a rainfall simulation for San Diego (it was a canned 
test).
>  I think that it took 20 minutes.  A quick comparison of the outputs and 
a
> request for a quote resulted in a sale two days later..

> We later discovered that the price of the 11/750 and assorted odds and 
ends
> was recovered after the first 3 months of operation.  They had been 
paying
> 1/3 of their final bill to the local university to run the application
> (overlayed 3 ways from Sunday) on their Amdahl mainframe.....  The clock
> time on the '750 was not much longer than took on the Amdahl - due 
probably
> to the extensive overlays required to let it run....


> The good old days!!

> Villy Madsen CISA ISP

> (and I was actively support a vax until about 2 years ago... When I shut 
it
> down last year - permanently, some of the RA81s had pegged their run time
> meters at 30,000 hours.  After wiping everything except the system disk, 
I
> shut the system down to do the same to the system disk - 2 of the old 
RA81s
> would NOT spin up.....  I guess there is a limit to anything...  One of 
the
> drives with 30,000 hours on it had been power cycled only 10 times during
> it's life time.....)




> Villy Madsen
> www.members.shaw.ca/villy.madsen



> Villy Madsen
> www.members.shaw.ca/villy.madsen


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