- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

HSC going out of business
by Bob Applegate 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

I got an email overnight from HSC, at one time known as Halted Electronics, about their going out of business. They were the classic electronics surplus stores with bins full of dusty components and strange secrets sitting on top of each other. The last time I was in Silicon Valley, I stopped there and grabbed some S-100 prototyping boards (they had dozens of them), and looked through their collection of other S-100 boards. They had a fair amount of other vintage computing stuff too. The web page can’t possibly show everything they have, but it’s worth a look: https://www.halted.com/commerce/index.jsp I have no involvement with them except as a customer. Always great people to work with. Bob

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Festivus Video Games
by Alexander 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

I was able to grab a few cartridges from my 2600 collection. Didn't have a ton of space to bring the lot of it. Mario Brothers, Gorf, Spacewar, Crystal Castles, Joust, Warlords, Miss Pac-Man, Tele-games Auto Racing. -Alexander 'Z' Pierson Sent from my pocket telephone.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] OT: modern cloud services
by Mike Loewen 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

On Fri, 30 Nov 2018, Laura S. Reinhard via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > "I may be opinionated and say things with conviction..." You and Evan will get along famously. :-) ...ducks and runs for cover... Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Popeyes chicken for Festivus
by Jeffrey Brace 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

I will be buying the food for Festivus Friday night from Shoprite and helping Evan Saturday morning move the books, floppy cases, grill, and t-shirts from the warehouse to the Festivus area. Then I have to finish setting up the Festivus area. Therefore I don’t have any time to buy Popeye’s chicken. Can someone else buy it? Send me a private reply and I can give you details. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Laura You Belong, Was Cloud was Snipe-It
by Christian Liendo 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

To Laura Yes you belong. This is a Vintage Computer Group and not a IT Group. When you get to Festivus you will meet many who will share your interest in old computers. Hopefully the only complaints will be how the pizza is cold and the beer is warm. Seriously though I hope you will come and we will show you that it's not all about IT. And as a person who has - Ben doing Networking since 1994 - Ran an ISP - Currently runs a Network for one of the largest newspapers in the world - Designed and built three datacenters for two different companies - Currently integrated his company with AWS and Google Cloud - and has actually met with and spoken shop to David Temkin who is the Vice President of Network Strategy and Architecture at Netflix I wouldn't touch this conversation with a 10 foot pole. So don't feel bad. Hope to see you there, I will be bringing Popeyes. Hope you like Popeyes. - Christian On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 1:22 AM Laura S. Reinhard via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > While I am beginning to doubt my “belonging” in this group, primarily > because my experience in IT has been limited to individual artists and > their Macs and developing databases for them in FileMaker to keep up > mailing lists (when people used to use mail). > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] OT: modern cloud services
by Laura S. Reinhard 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

Yikes. I am really sorry I got involved in this discussion. I do see benefits to the technology and admittedly used it to my advantage to telecommute in the mid 00’s via iDisc. I worked for Apple Store at the time and was given .mac for free and it was included. Then they got rid of it for cloud and in true ADD style I forgot when date to shift data was and lost a lot of stuff. I hadn’t considered how “not mine” that space really was. Honestly I am just very skittish after some really bad kernel level malware disrupted my life and has essentially halted my development technologically speaking. Basically, I don’t trust anyone. I know I need to adapt but don’t want to jump into any boat as blindly as I did before. I am not a programmer or expert. I am a user primarily and have spent time educating myself primarily since graduating school in 1998 with a now antique/ non-existent degree in photography. One of my primary attractions to this group is to learn. I may be opinionated and say things with conviction, but if I am proved wrong I will concede without incident. Seems this topic has become kind of a flame war. That helps no one imho. On Nov 30, 2018, 3:57 PM -0500, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org>, wrote:

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Festivus Video Games
by Jeffrey Brace 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

Ian will be bringing the following: N64 NES Sega Genesis TurboGrafix 16 Atari Jaguar Colecovision Atari 7800 Fairchild Channel F Nintendo Famicom Odyssey2 Pong Super Nintendo If you have 2600 or Genesis games, then please bring and label them. We are short of games for these two systems. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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OT: modern cloud services
by Evan Koblentz 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

I don't have a fraction of the IT experience that most of you do. I don't pretend otherwise. However, as a tech journalist, I've been covering enterprise IT for 20 years. I interview dozens of major corporate CIOs every year. Pretty much ALL medium/large corporations -- the Fortune 1,000 -- spend thousands or even millions of dollars annually on cloud services/storage. There are many reasons why they do it. None of those reasons include, "Because they're stupid." I chuckle a little when I read comments from people who think they know better than all the massive international conglomerates whose budgets fuel the many-billion-dollar cloud computing industry. On Fri, Nov 30, 2018, 1:22 AM Laura S. Reinhard via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org wrote: > While I am beginning to doubt my “belonging” in this group, primarily > because my experience in IT has been limited to individual artists and > their Macs and developing databases for them in FileMaker to keep up > mailing lists (when people used to use mail). > > I often sound like I know less than I do, because I am more interested in > big pictures than technical terminology (which is why Apple Store hired > me... my ability to “plain speak” technology. However many true tech folk > think I am an idiot when they first talk to me about it. > > Why say all of this? Two reasons. First, I didn’t formally introduce > myself to this list and since I will be at Festivus am worried that > “they’re all gonna laugh at me”. Second, I replied to this particular post > because of my complete distrust in cloud storage. There is no way to even > pretend they can be “safe”. Ever since I bought my 2010 iMac and had no > disc to boot from and had to rely on everything being web-based, I have had > nothing but horrible experiences, primarily because of my early Mac user > ignorance about viruses and malware. I realize that was not the clouds > fault, but the concept of “everything wireless” is mind-boggling naive and > this post seems to agree? Also, confirmed my thought that this shift to > such insecure methods of data management/storage is because young “bros” > are in charge lol. > > Hope this meandering response made sense and doesn’t serve to make me > appear even less tech nerdy to you all. Hopefully Festivus won’t be like a > middle school dance I have to call my mom from haha! > > See you all there. > > Laura > On Nov 30, 2018, 12:42 AM -0500, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org>, wrote: > > On 11/29/18 11:40 PM, W2HX via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > > > I dunno, Dave. Some pretty damn big companies like Netflix, AirBNB, > Atlassian, et. al., all seem to think its the right thing to use someone > else's toothbrush. Fact is, thousands of companies use AWS. Almost 100% of > start ups, my own included, with tens of millions of investment use cloud > systems (aws and azure - another toothbrush, not our own) all seem to think > it is a better idea to use someone else's toothbrush rather than using > their own. > > > > And of course they're free to do so. I would never deny that it's > > common, but I'm not too worried about that, as I've never been much of a > > "follower". I do (and recommend) what's right in my judgment, not what > > others tell me to do. > > > > That said, though, I don't build Netflix-sized networks. Netflix > > seldom asks for my advice. ;) If Netflix came asking, I'd have to say > > "I'm sorry, you're talking to the wrong guy, I cannot do what you need." > > I've built Netflix-sized networks, but that was a long time ago, and > > it's no longer in my area of expertise. But small organizations of 1-30 > > people with specialized needs do solicit my advice, and what I tell them > > in most cases is "keep your own data". In the present context, we're > > talking about an inventory database for a club, to keep track of a few > > thousand items. There is no earthly need to farm that out to a > > timesharing provider. Further, such a small organization is a lot more > > likely to be hurt by a hosting provider's outage than a company like > > Atlassian, which will have SLAs with big penalties, offsite backups, and > > DR plans to cover their asses. Is VCF prepared to set up all of that? > > If not, are they prepared to periodically start over from scratch? > > > > > As a CTO myself with 39 years in IT, if I were to go on a job > interview and insist that purchasing, depreciating, maintaining and > staffing my own data center (24x7) was a better idea than using a cloud > infrastructure (because that would be stupid), I don't think that would be > a winning interview 9 times out of 10. > > > > If you have 39 years in IT, that's six or seven years more than me, > > and that means both of us separately have been doing this longer than > > Netflix, AirBNB, and Atlassian, combined, have existed. In my > > experience, the vast majority of the kids managing those networks have > > no idea of what they're doing, and it shows in the downtime. I'm > > grateful that I, for any of MY important data, don't have to rely on > > them for anything. Most of the data stored on my network is generated, > > not downloaded (and thus easily replaced). I can't just start over when > > AWS burps and files disappear, and I can't afford to just take the > > afternoon off when the "cloud" service blows up. You can take that risk > > if you want, but I won't. For my work, there is zero benefit to farming > > it out. That's actually true of many small organizations, but most > > people have fallen for the "cloud" hype. > > > > (For added fun, ask Matt Patoray how well that works for the support > > department's cloud-hosted VoIP phone system at his place of work. > > Better get some popcorn, in case you get him started.) > > > > About job interviews...I generally don't go on job interviews, so I'm > > not too worried about what the right HR buzzwords are. My singular > > focus is uptime and data preservation, not "sounding right" to someone > > who has fallen for the hype in order to get a job. > > > > Please understand that this isn't a case of hiding one's head in the > > sand or not being aware of what's cool and trendy in I.T. this year. > > I'm not a hobbyist...I assure you that I know exactly what AWS is, and > > rare is a day when I'm not logged into a couple of AWS-hosted servers. > > My experience tells me that it is a colossally bad idea. If your > > experience has been better, that's great. I respect your opinion, but I > > do not share it. > > > > For years, we've all seen a great push to get rid of all internal I.T. > > infrastructure, datacenters in particular. This is driven primarily by > > economics, rather than technical merit. Being able to write it off as > > an operating expense for the tax benefit is a lot more palatable than > > shelling out the money for a big purchase and putting it on a > > depreciation schedule, and then there's having to employ all those > > inconvenient technical people who aren't team players, don't play golf, > > and aren't even decent enough to wear ties. There are no such concerns > > in the context of VCF's inventory database. > > > > > I dunno. Hard to swim against the tide on this one but YMMV. > > > > I have no need to swim against any tide. It's just that I learned > > very early on not to depend on other peoples' computers for any of my > > operations, and I don't recommend that others do it either. > > > > I realize that this is not a commonly-held opinion, but I'm not too > > worried about that. My clients do not come to me for commonly-held > > opinions. They can Google for those. > > > > With respect, > > -Dave > > > > -- > > Dave McGuire, AK4HZ > > New Kensington, PA >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] OT: modern cloud services
by Dave McGuire 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

On 11/30/18 1:55 PM, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > I like to fall back to “mom’s” favorite saying. > Just because your friends are doing it doesn’t mean you should." That's a great one, but I suspect it's falling on deaf ears. We are mostly a society of "followers". Leading is harder than following. Leading means taking a stand based on what you know is right despite inertia or perception, and it takes testicular fortitude and the willingness to take a risk. These things are very unpopular within the ranks of huge corporations. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Snipe-It
by Eric Rangell 30 Nov '18

30 Nov '18

Hello all, Evan and I were looking at Snipe-It as a solution for maintaining an inventory of the items in the museum and warehouse. I did some work configuring it by adding custom fields, but it looks like additional coding will be needed to customize the UI to meet VCF requirements. Unfortunately I haven't had the time lately to devote to this effort. I was able to get it to run from a docker container but have not modified the underlying code. I will be at Festivus if anyone wants to discuss the project and how we can collaborate to make it work. Look for the Apple //c+ games to find me. Eric Rangell erangell(a)gmail.com > Message: 6 > Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2018 20:38:01 -0500 > From: dillera(a)gmail.com > To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> > Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Intro > Message-ID: <5B03AF6A-1D3B-493B-9524-F8EEF480B2A6(a)gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > No photo- the photo is at the link I posted. > > So was my college - UMCP (university of MD @ College Park) I actually had > 2 IBM RTs - that had the original ROMP RISC chip, pre-POWER. They were in > an instructors closet (the were old by the time even I was there) and they > had the SystemV Academic Version of UNIX - not AIX. Of course they are long > gone from me.. really should have kept that one. > > The asset management app is really nice - Snipe-IT - > https://snipeitapp.com/ and code is https://github.com/snipe/snipe-it > > I looked for a long time and it's the nicest totally free, linux/php/mysql > based package out there. I've used it with their vagrant install to play > around with on my mac, and then just set it up on a small linux server I > keep around. There are USB scanners on amazon for $20 and a set of 500 > asset bar-code tags for like $10 I think. It works very nicely. > > -andy > > > > On Nov 28, 2018, at 1:43 PM, Jameel Akari via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > > > If you attached/embedded a photo, I think it got stripped from the > mailing list. > > > > Nice, I'm also into 90's *nix workstations. My college was deep into > IBM, so as a result of working in the buildings where we threw out > machines, I have a pretty deep stack of RS/6000s and parts. ;) Also SGI, > Sun, and DEC. I feel like I need an HP PA-RISC box to round it out. > > > > What are you using for your asset-management app? I keep meaning to > write something to keep inventory... > > > > -- > > Jameel Akari > >

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