September 2019 - vcf-midatlantic

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] ESIX System V
by Kenneth Seefried 19 Sep '19

19 Sep '19

TL;DR: Definitely worth preserving. If no one else, the guy at https://virtuallyfun.com/ is into various versions of i386 Unix. Long Version: I worked for a hardware OEM and some related firms in the golden days of SVR4 on i386. I ran daily pretty much all of them, installed them daily/weekly, beat my head on the desk frequently. We had source trees for virtually all of these which we spent a *lot* of time pouring through. Code was written and debugged. My $DAYJOB was driver/integration/testing/admin work on this stuff. > "*ESIX* - Esix System V Release 4.0 unifies all major versions and > derivatives of UNIX such as AT&T System V Release 3.2, Berkeley Software > Distribution (BSD) 4.2 and 4.3, SCO UNIX 3.2, and Microsoft XENIX. In > addition, key features of Sun Microsystems SunOS? have been incorporated. " > > That's pretty much a generic description of System V release 4 for i386. It was obviously replacing SVR3, Xenix & SCO. Hard to not pull in 4BSD. The reference platforms for SVR4 were i386 and SPARC, so yeah, key features of SunOS were in there. > Everex did more than distribute it; they started with AT&T SysV, wrote > most of the drivers, and integrated the BSD extensions. > > They might have written the the drivers for some Everex specific hardware, but unless you have some evidence, the Everex source code I saw was pretty much stock SVR4/i386. Certainly nothing I'd call "most" of the drivers. Or even "a few". I think there was was some Everex motherboard specific tweaks (didn't they have their own spin on a memory or cache controller? Something like that...I forget.) and a disk controller or two. But it's been nearly 30 years, so I could be wrong. And exactly what BSD extensions did they integrate that weren't part of stock SVR4? I don't recall that "#ifdef ESIX" was a thing. Wow. If all of that is true, then this would seem to be a very desirable > unix system. Maybe even the holy grail of unixes. However the devil is in > the details. Maybe it had some flaws? I hadn't heard of it, but with those > collection of features, you would think it would be extremely well known > (maybe it is, maybe I'm cloistered) > > Historical Context: Given a couple of competent Unix savvy hackers, it was pretty easy to bring up the reference SVR4 on any random, suitably generic i386 (486, 586) motherboard and common I/O boards; there were drivers already for the common chipsets and a lot of (E)ISA devices. And there were a number of consultancies who would do the port for you for a modest fee. So lots of vendors paid a few bucks so they could say "see....we got Unix too!". Good times. ESIX was an "you-get-an-A-for-effort" SVR4/i386. They had some really good, dedicated folks who worked very hard. They tried to take it up a notch above a generic SVR4 distro. Everex wanted to be considered more "workstation" than "bog standard generic PC box". But they never had very many folks working on Unix, and never with many resources. There were a tiny handful of technical support people (like, 3-4 maybe), which was rough (even for Unix savvy customers). For me, it wasn't the holy grail. YHGMV. Compare it to Dell SVR4, which clearly had much more investment and actually had things they did that no one else did: a reasonably well resourced support organization (mostly of the time), tuned drivers, a nifty and actually useful auto-configuration system, an X11 "office suite" of apps (admittedly, not that great), a curated selection of Open Source tools (like gcc, perl, emacs, tex) on the distro tape at a time when downloading and compiling such things wasn't always trivial (and, like Solaris 2, you otherwise had to pay for a C compiler). That was my daily driver for years...really nice for the time. Still turned out to not be a viable product in the long run, but that's a different story. KJ

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new acquisition: Intel SBC 80/10+SBC-108
by Glenn Roberts 19 Sep '19

19 Sep '19

I've acquired an Intel SBC 80/10 and the associated SBC-108 I/O RAM expansion board plus a card cage. These appear to date to '76 and, as I understand it, were the beginning of what eventually became branded as the Intel Multibus (later an IEEE standard). These have ceramic Intel chips. Look to be in pretty clean shape. I've found manuals/docs on the internet for the SBC 80/10 but not the expansion board. Intel marketing Brochure: http://www.dvq.com/docs/brochures/intel_sbc_80_10.pdf Pictures: SBC: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Wce5PACtp6JkkP5BA SBC-108: https://photos.app.goo.gl/UeRDbjihvvZnm7ZH7 cage: https://photos.app.goo.gl/o5rBtYn7kSxmuCjS8 Wondering if anyone has any particular insight, memories, experience, advice to share. Is this a particularly rare find? I'd like to power it up - I believe it has a simple monitor in ROM. Tx. * Glenn

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I'm New
by Ryan Burke 18 Sep '19

18 Sep '19

Hello all, My name is Ryan and I am glad to be a part of VCF. I've been collecting for over a year now and it quickly became my favorite hobby. I was turned onto this by some people I know in a discord server, and I'm glad to find some hands on help to some of my problems I've been having. I am looking forward to attending this workshop because there is nothing interesting going on in Maryland related to vintage computing. I've collected some interesting stuff over the past year including some IBM 5150s, an Xt and an AT, multiple C64s, and an Apple II. My interests are pretty much anything earlier than 1990 but I can't pass up a good deal. As I said earlier I'm pretty new to all this, but I'm getting the hand of soldering and I've fixed some small stuff and replaced chips in a C64. I'm quite eager to learn! Thanks for reading Ryan

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] I'm New
by Ryan Burke 17 Sep '19

17 Sep '19

Matt, This Apple ][+ functions great actually, I just needed to clean it. The monitor works perfectly as well.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] I'm New
by Ryan Burke 17 Sep '19

17 Sep '19

Thanks Matt I have an Apple ][+, in great shape. I've got all the paperwork and original sales reciepts for it, and some software. It has the Apple /// Monitor and stand. I've fixed 2 C64 so far, almost done with another 2. The IBMs I have take up a lot of space, I need to find more room

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Craigslist Commodore Monitor Box.. No Monitor
by Christian Liendo 16 Sep '19

16 Sep '19

For someone looking for an original box This is not mine, contact the person directly https://cnj.craigslist.org/sop/d/piscataway-commodore-cm-141-monitor-box/69…

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SGI Challenge
by Stephen A Edwards 14 Sep '19

14 Sep '19

Just found an SGI Challenge in the garbage. It's a deskside monster, too big for my collection, but it's a shame to let it just disappear. Let me know if you're interested in picking it up. FOB New York, Manhattan, Columbia University

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Welcome!
by Dean Notarnicola 14 Sep '19

14 Sep '19

Thank you, Steven! Hope to see you at a workshop soon! On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 2:15 PM Steven Mac84 <mac84tv(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Dean and everyone on the VCF list! > > Please allow me introduce myself, my name is Steve. I reconnected with > Dean and the lovely folks running the VCF east booth at the New Jersey > Trenton Computer Festival back in March of this year. I'm sorry it took me > so terribly long to send this email. I'm also sad I missed the past VCF > event this summer, but I hope to make it to the next VCF east! > > As I mentioned to Dean I'm mostly into older Apple machines, along with > some 8-bit Atari and Commodore stuff mixed in. I have a collection of over > 100 vintage Apple machines, ranging from the Apple II series, the infamous > Apple III, and various 6800-powered Macintoshes all the way up to the > PowerPC line, including G3s, G4s, G5s, and even some early Intel models. > Although I specialize in Apple stuff, I'm not a "fan boy" and enjoy many > other systems. > > I have a small YouTube channel where my focus is on the restoration, > history, and exploration of Apple Computer, Inc. - along with other > technological fun that interests me (which is pretty much anything!) You > can check out my channel here if you are interested: > http://youtube.com/Mac84 > > I've been going to TCF since the early 2000s and enjoy attending when I > can. I'm currently working with the TCF board to catalog, organize and > archive photos from past events, as there deserves to be a cool archive of > events past. Hopefully we'll have a collection of old photos to share soon. > But feel free to contact me if you have any pictures or videos you'd like > to contribute to the archive. > > Happy computing! :-) > -Steve (of Mac84) > > On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 3:11 PM Dean Notarnicola <dnotarnicola(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> Please introduce yourself to the list >> >> vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org >> >> >>

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[OT] Anyone From the DC Area Want a Ride to VCF MW?
by J. Alexander Jacocks 12 Sep '19

12 Sep '19

All, My daughter and wife are sick, and so are not going with me to VCF MW, this weekend. Does anyone from the DC area need a ride? I’m also up for picking someone up along the way from Maryland to Chicago. - Alex

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Sat. 14
by Dean Notarnicola 09 Sep '19

09 Sep '19

I will be there as Docent on the 14th, however I'm not sure how much help I can be, as I'm not intimately familiar with either system and I'm not extremely skilled in component level repair. Your best bet will most likely be to come to the next workshop on September 28 & 29. Regards, Dean On Mon, Sep 9, 2019 at 3:07 PM Fred Terry via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > I hope someone will be at the Museum Sat. 14 I could speak with > about help getting my Imsai 80/30 and Persci running again. I guess > I’ll be there after 11:00. > Fred Terry

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