Discussion Obsolete and Obsolescent: i286/386/486

[jnjnilson6]

Cheers.

Yes, I had omitted to mention, but I also ran Red Hat at the time, though it was out of curiosity rather than being put to serious use. My friend, who often called round to visit, was an IT professional and holds a doctorate in the subject always used to tell me, "For heavens sake, switch to Linux: as someone who has used UNIX in the past it will be right up your street"!

So, I was dabbling with Linux when AMD released their first 64 bit CPU. I grabbed one and one of the boards made for enthusiasts by the now long gone Abit manufacturer. I then, of course needed a 64 bit OS. I had heard good things about SUSE, and was particularly impressed by the documentation, so that became my OS of choice for the next decade.

Thanks for writing up!

Well, Fedora used to be really good, but they kinda messed it up. Debian is always very stable and Ubuntu is used as the mainstream Linux OS these days.

Windows NT and UNIX breathe the same air. NT was a huge step forward. Windows 95 and 98 were very cool, however Windows NT did bring the Windows OS to an entirely new level. Windows XP booted up on fast Pentium M laptops with Hard Drives for the same time Windows 11 boots up on fast SSDs today. Windows Vista and 7 had charm and beauty which got kind of lost in Win10 and 11; Windows 2000 and XP were very fast and lightweight, especially the former...

I remember how much 4 GB of RAM were in 2010. You could use Virtual Machines and multitask and play any game out there and it was plenty. Today, Windows 11 uses between 9-10 GB for me with nothing open but the drivers loaded and the few utilities that start on bootup.

Software is written by the masses and that's why it gets worse. The greatest software was conceived in single heads instead of thousands. It's like asking a hundred people to write out a great novel like 'The Great Gatsby,' in the end it would be a horrible mixture with neither brilliance, continuity, grace nor wisdom. The same thing is happening with Operating systems and software; people are writing software for money and that is the beginning of the end. And the few brilliant minds who shine out there are dimmed by the general monotony of the moneymakers and the high-paid position grabbers.

Thanks again for writing up. It seems you have a beautiful knowledge in the spheres.

 

[80251]

At my work we tasked an 80286 system to evaluating OS/2 Warp (the IBM OS), it was the first protected mode operating system for PCs and had certain BIOS requirements in order to run as well as an unheard of 8MiB to 16MiB of RAM (and this was when memory cost $45 a MiB), however the motherboard only supported some 640KiB of RAM when fully populated. Unfortunately, I was assigned to install 4 or 5 16-bit ISA RAM expansion cards in the AT so it would have the requisite memory. DIP switches had to be manually set on each card as to the amount of RAM installed and the beginning and ending physical addresses the RAM would occupy. This took forever and involved some trial-and-error because all the memory expansion cards were not of the same, exact type.

Interesting aside: the IBM AT was the first PC to utilize a switching PSU as opposed to a linear PSU. If you went with a IBM AT that didn't have a hard drive a large sandbar resistor was installed to provide the necessary minimum load on the +5V and +12V lines that the PSU required.

 

[Priscus]

At my work we tasked an 80286 system to evaluating OS/2 Warp (the IBM OS), it was the first protected mode operating system for PCs and had certain BIOS requirements in order to run as well as an unheard of 8MiB to 16MiB of RAM (and this was when memory cost $45 a MiB), however the motherboard only supported some 640KiB of RAM when fully populated. Unfortunately, I was assigned to install 4 or 5 16-bit ISA RAM expansion cards in the AT so it would have the requisite memory. DIP switches had to be manually set on each card as to the amount of RAM installed and the beginning and ending physical addresses the RAM would occupy. This took forever and involved some trial-and-error because all the memory expansion cards were not of the same, exact type.

Interesting aside: the IBM AT was the first PC to utilize a switching PSU as opposed to a linear PSU. If you went with a IBM AT that didn't have a hard drive a large sandbar resistor was installed to provide the necessary minimum load on the +5V and +12V lines that the PSU required.

I used to do that sort of thing back in the 8 bit (Z80/ 6502) days.

At work I had been provided with a CBM 8096. It provided three banks of 32kB, of which two at a time could be switched in to the 64kB address space. So I copied the idea onto my homebrew constructions: decoded a single memory address to yield an enable signal which activated a one byte buffer, and the content of this buffer then demultiplexed to get the range of chip enable signals to switch in the pages of memory desired. It did work flawlessly, provided you did not make coding errors in relation to paging. (All too easy to do.) I had for simplicity used static ram, which was more costly. So affordability was a limiting factor.

 

[Priscus]

Thanks for writing up!

Well, Fedora used to be really good, but they kinda messed it up. Debian is always very stable and Ubuntu is used as the mainstream Linux OS these days.

Windows NT and UNIX breathe the same air. NT was a huge step forward. Windows 95 and 98 were very cool, however Windows NT did bring the Windows OS to an entirely new level. Windows XP booted up on fast Pentium M laptops with Hard Drives for the same time Windows 11 boots up on fast SSDs today. Windows Vista and 7 had charm and beauty which got kind of lost in Win10 and 11; Windows 2000 and XP were very fast and lightweight, especially the former...

I remember how much 4 GB of RAM were in 2010. You could use Virtual Machines and multitask and play any game out there and it was plenty. Today, Windows 11 uses between 9-10 GB for me with nothing open but the drivers loaded and the few utilities that start on bootup.

Software is written by the masses and that's why it gets worse. The greatest software was conceived in single heads instead of thousands. It's like asking a hundred people to write out a great novel like 'The Great Gatsby,' in the end it would be a horrible mixture with neither brilliance, continuity, grace nor wisdom. The same thing is happening with Operating systems and software; people are writing software for money and that is the beginning of the end. And the few brilliant minds who shine out there are dimmed by the general monotony of the moneymakers and the high-paid position grabbers.

Thanks again for writing up. It seems you have a beautiful knowledge in the spheres.

Once again, thanks for your comments. I was particularly interested in comments relating to UNIX and Linux from times past.

I was never proficient in UNIX, it had been a case of having to use it. My undergraduate project involved some heavy and very voluminous multiple regression analysis and Bayesian statistics.

Ended up needing to apply a DEC PDP12 mini computer to the analysis, which was my introduction to UNIX. I remember I had found UNIX without a GUI rather intimidating, so when My friend told me to switch to Linux because I had been a UNIX user, I took some time to accede to the suggestion.

When finally I did, I recall that I was quite impressed with SUSE, but do not recall why I had decided to move on from there, nor for that matter do I recall why I moved from Red Hat: maybe it is because SUSE 64 bit OS was getting all the attention at the time.

I had considered Ubuntu, but instead, I opted for the forked from Ubuntu, Linux Mint: I am lazy, so the included A/V codecs, that it found proprietary drivers for my Nvidia graphics cards, and it taking care of updating, sold it to me. I keep intending to try LMDE, the option forked directly from Debian and missing out the Ubuntu stage, but have not got round to so doing.

I do however use a number of Distros. I use AV Linux as it includes by default most of what I need for music and video, and I do like live Knoppix for fault finding, and Puppy or DSL for getting old hardware running!

But, I guess you are a fan , as you have chosen Tux as your screen pic. You have mentioned Red Hat and Ubuntu. What is your current distro of choice, and what journey have you encountered to get there?

(Edit)
PS. Or was it the PDP 11? I have managed to confuse myself. It was a long time ago!

Whichever, it was not the best machine for such a job, The Uni had a Cyber 72 mainframe, which I had also used, but they would only let me submit batch jobs, for which I used a statistical software package, but I needed interactive use, so it was the departmental PDP machines.

 

[80251]

@Priscus The PDP-11 those were the glory days of DEC. I still remember DEC's clunky "word processing" program MASS-11. PCs put a quick end to that DEC venture.
Did you ever use DEC's Rainbow? We had one at my work, it even had an OCR attached (the only one in the entire hospital) yet still no one ever used it.

 

[80251]

We had one (obsolete and unused) IBM AT system at my work that had a bizarre configuration of DIP memory: the DIP memory was stacked and soldered. I was told it was used to double the amount of memory that could be installed on the motherboard. I'm guessing the high order address bits were somehow used as chip selects for the stacked DIP memory chips. I was also told it was an old IBM mainframe trick (because they used DIP memory as well at some point).

 

[Priscus]

@Priscus The PDP-11 those were the glory days of DEC. I still remember DEC's clunky "word processing" program MASS-11. PCs put a quick end to that DEC venture.
Did you ever use DEC's Rainbow? We had one at my work, it even had an OCR attached (the only one in the entire hospital) yet still no one ever used it.

Hi.

Oddly enough, most of my working life was in a hospital were only myself, apparently, had the need to be using a computer until PCs became commonplace.

I only ever used the PDP, (probably both 11 and 12) for the statistical data analysis concerned with my project. I was interested in 'expert systems', though at the time that was a name which I had not yet encountered, I was trying to produce mathematical models of psychiatric diagnostic decision making.

So I had the need to revisit the multiple regression outcomes with revised weightings: I guess what more sophisticated analyses would allocate to machine learning. So I had to shift my work from the powerful CDC Cyber 72, to the department's PDP machines.

I have to admit that the experience did for a while put me off computers. I sat there in the evening, being the time they allowed me the interactive use, plonking away entering data, whilst seeing through the window, my contemporaries on their way to the bar. C' est la vie.

 

[80251]

@Priscus
Whatever happened to Cray supercomputers? I imagine they must be dead, just like DEC. I seem to remember IBM used to be developing their Power architecture, but I think they even gave up on that. I don't know what IBM does now. They sold off their PC, laptop and hard drive divisions.

Could you actually use external switches to set the values in the registers of the PDP-11? I never saw a PDP-11 myself, our shop was all Vaxes by them.

Your PDP-11 in all its glory:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...he-most-influential-minicomputer-of-all-time/

I never realized the PDP-11 was instrumental in the creation of both UNIX and C!

 

[Priscus]

Could you actually use external switches to set the values in the registers of the PDP-11

Not on a 'front panel', but you could do this from the operator's console.

The one which I had used was in a University department, so was modified and retrofitted in various ways, so I decided to look up the answer just to make sure I don't say something misleading and surprisingly found the PDP 11 handbook is online (as a PDF) here:

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/1170/PDP-11_70_Handbook_1977-78.pdf

(EDIT)

PS I decided to include the Seymour Cray quotation as it amuses me: I am no expert, but time and again come across users determined to buy latest, fastest, CPU, (often at quite some expense) only to hobble it by selecting a poor option for RAM, slow HDDs, thermal throttling etc.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Once again, thanks for your comments. I was particularly interested in comments relating to UNIX and Linux from times past.

I was never proficient in UNIX, it had been a case of having to use it. My undergraduate project involved some heavy and very voluminous multiple regression analysis and Bayesian statistics.

Ended up needing to apply a DEC PDP12 mini computer to the analysis, which was my introduction to UNIX. I remember I had found UNIX without a GUI rather intimidating, so when My friend told me to switch to Linux because I had been a UNIX user, I took some time to accede to the suggestion.

When finally I did, I recall that I was quite impressed with SUSE, but do not recall why I had decided to move on from there, nor for that matter do I recall why I moved from Red Hat: maybe it is because SUSE 64 bit OS was getting all the attention at the time.

I had considered Ubuntu, but instead, I opted for the forked from Ubuntu, Linux Mint: I am lazy, so the included A/V codecs, that it found proprietary drivers for my Nvidia graphics cards, and it taking care of updating, sold it to me. I keep intending to try LMDE, the option forked directly from Debian and missing out the Ubuntu stage, but have not got round to so doing.

I do however use a number of Distros. I use AV Linux as it includes by default most of what I need for music and video, and I do like live Knoppix for fault finding, and Puppy or DSL for getting old hardware running!

But, I guess you are a fan , as you have chosen Tux as your screen pic. You have mentioned Red Hat and Ubuntu. What is your current distro of choice, and what journey have you encountered to get there?

(Edit)
PS. Or was it the PDP 11? I have managed to confuse myself. It was a long time ago!

Whichever, it was not the best machine for such a job, The Uni had a Cyber 72 mainframe, which I had also used, but they would only let me submit batch jobs, for which I used a statistical software package, but I needed interactive use, so it was the departmental PDP machines.

Thanks for writing!

Well, I had used Debian for servers in the past and keep using it for synonymous activities up until this day. It is stable and quite good and things run well. Ubuntu is good for software development and a little easier if you have just started from scratch. Basically Debian and Ubuntu are currently the mainstream for me, despite I have tottered toward Windows as primarily my main OS.

Fedora was very good in the past, but I think that the latter versions have been lukewarm.

I have been and still am in the software / hardware field, however, I have turned more on the literary side and blossoming gardens strewn with shards of surreal light and diamondlike cafes in Manhattan with vapid whispers lingering have become more and more my preoccupation. So I have stunted my growth in the software field for writing books and literature; it was a sudden turn which happened around 2015 and it is still going on to this day.

Thank you very much for the inquiry!

I am glad you're having a positive experience with Linux and its variable assortment of distros; it is really the OS for people more within the depths of software than without.

 

[80251]

Hi.

Oddly enough, most of my working life was in a hospital were only myself, apparently, had the need to be using a computer until PCs became commonplace.

I only ever used the PDP, (probably both 11 and 12) for the statistical data analysis concerned with my project. I was interested in 'expert systems', though at the time that was a name which I had not yet encountered, I was trying to produce mathematical models of psychiatric diagnostic decision making.

So I had the need to revisit the multiple regression outcomes with revised weightings: I guess what more sophisticated analyses would allocate to machine learning. So I had to shift my work from the powerful CDC Cyber 72, to the department's PDP machines.

I have to admit that the experience did for a while put me off computers. I sat there in the evening, being the time they allowed me the interactive use, plonking away entering data, whilst seeing through the window, my contemporaries on their way to the bar. C' est la vie.

Your last paragraph almost sounds like the beginning of a novelette. If it had a been a rain streaked window it would've even been more dramatic.

 

[Priscus]

Your last paragraph almost sounds like the beginning of a novelette. If it had a been a rain streaked window it would've even been more dramatic.

You put me in mind of Hemingway, 'Torrents of Spring': "the warm Chinook wind" I do not recall what it did to the window - maybe fluttered the drapes or similar. (Curtains to us this side of the pond)

 

[jnjnilson6]

Your last paragraph almost sounds like the beginning of a novelette. If it had a been a rain streaked window it would've even been more dramatic.

For me that paragraph immediately brought to mind,
"And many of us who have grown weary of admonitions to 'watch this man or that' have felt a sort of renewal of excitement at these stories wherein Ernest Hemingway turns a corner into the street." (How to Waste Material by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Those voluptuous iridescent sentences passing gaudily, breathlessly by the dusk-smothered room and casting a faded glory akin to manikins staring emptily on variable pavilions in the city in the night, their shadows strewn amorphously in corners, their empty faces illuminated by the moonlight...
-- My own interpretation of the beauty of Fitzgerald's language.

 

[jnjnilson6]

You put me in mind of Hemingway, 'Torrents of Spring': "the warm Chinook wind" I do not recall what it did to the window - maybe fluttered the drapes or similar. (Curtains to us this side of the pond)

This is how you fix the problem.

 

[Priscus]

Thanks. I posted a rather irrelevant message, which I then went on to delete. It got me out of the loop which I seemed to have trapped myself into.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Thanks. I posted a rather irrelevant message, which I then went on to delete. It got me out of the loop which I seemed to have trapped myself into.

Yeah, I've been in that loop myself. Took quite some clicking and searching before eventually I found out how to get out. It should have been made easier, but oh well, most software always has synonymous hidden quirks and qualms that eventually leave you writing them down in case of future forgetfulness and repetition of the problem.

 

[Priscus]

Thanks, perhaps a bit reassuring to know it is not only me. Though I have today taken delivery of a large Amazon order of Christmas booze, which might go some way to explain why I screwed up.

(I know it is early: taking advantage of some deep discounts)

 

[jnjnilson6]

Thanks, perhaps a bit reassuring to know it is not only me. Though I have today taken delivery of a large Amazon order of Christmas booze, which might go some way to explain why I screwed up.

(I know it is early: taking advantage of some deep discounts)

It's all about that Christmas mood and this time of the year. Whatever puts you there and makes you happy.

"Skeins from braided basket, mortals may not hold; oh, what young extravagant God, who would know or ask it?... who could give such gold.." Reminds me a little of the beauty we are trying to reach in poetry or in alcohol (by which the extravagant poets speak) or smoothly while sentences rhyme and "a drowsy numbness pains."

I have not drunk myself; but I have heard it enrichens the sensation of writers to the point they reach the highest beauty.

 

[Priscus]

It's all about that Christmas mood and this time of the year. Whatever puts you there and makes you happy.

"Skeins from braided basket, mortals may not hold; oh, what young extravagant God, who would know or ask it?... who could give such gold.." Reminds me a little of the beauty we are trying to reach in poetry or in alcohol (by which the extravagant poets speak) or smoothly while sentences rhyme and "a drowsy numbness pains."

I have not drunk myself; but I have heard it enrichens the sensation of writers to the point they reach the highest beauty.

Most of this shipment will go as Christmas presents to friends and neighbours, so the pre Christmas discount does afford me a huge saving on the cost. I drink very little myself. Been a bit naughty though today. Did consume more when I was much younger, but now, I have CKD, so have to keep to extremely modest consumption.

 

[jnjnilson6]

Most of this shipment will go as Christmas presents to friends and neighbours, so the pre Christmas discount does afford me a huge saving on the cost. I drink very little myself. Been a bit naughty though today. Did consume more when I was much younger, but now, I have CKD, so have to keep to extremely modest consumption.

That's great! A little early, but who knows where we'll both be at Christmas. (Probably not here.) Hope you have a wonderful holiday season! And this to your neighbors and friends!

On my side, I was thinking on quietly sinking within the spirit of the holiday, watching some old movies; writing some prose and poetry... Seeing the snowy streets jingling happily a snowflake here and there and thinking about all those Christmases heretofore which were cool and exuberant. A magical time, even when you don't do much. Brings back memories.

 

[Priscus]

I am getting on a bit now: in my third decade of retirement. Thanks to all who have responded, I do enjoy the occasional wallow in past glories, but casting my memory back to my earliest encounters with computers, and having contribution from others has been a really enjoyable experience.

Also, the allusion to the relation between alcohol and creative writing was spot on.

I recall a number of writers who seemed to over-imbibe!

Anyway, that is how I got into my difficulty. I have oft heard it said that alcohol lubricates conversation between people: perhaps when no other people are around, then relating to constructs within your own head, enjoys the same lubrication. So, what happened was ........

I had typed a couple of lines in when I censored myself. "You can't say that"! "It's completely untrue: just a fantasy which has formed in your head"!

I had for a moment began to believe my own fantasy, and almost posted it, but checked myself just in time. When I deleted what I had typed, I found that typing nothing was not an option, got trapped in some weird loop!

(Oddly enough, 'Strangeloop' is my username on some other sites)

 

[jnjnilson6]

I am getting on a bit now: in my third decade of retirement. Thanks to all who have responded, I do enjoy the occasional wallow in past glories, but casting my memory back to my earliest encounters with computers, and having contribution from others has been a really enjoyable experience.

Also, the allusion to the relation between alcohol and creative writing was spot on.

I recall a number of writers who seemed to over-imbibe!

Anyway, that is how I got into my difficulty. I have oft heard it said that alcohol lubricates conversation between people: perhaps when no other people are around, then relating to constructs within your own head, enjoys the same lubrication. So, what happened was ........

I had typed a couple of lines in when I censored myself. "You can't say that"! "It's completely untrue: just a fantasy which has formed in your head"!

I had for a moment began to believe my own fantasy, and almost posted it, but checked myself in just in time. When I deleted what I had typed, I found that typing nothing was not an option, got trapped in some weird loop!

(Oddly enough, 'Strangeloop' is my username on some other sites)

Yes, it is a wonder to contemplate from afar, drearily, dreamily, and envision life and conversation as a mute assortment of figures jingling along in a forgotten dance as in a smoke-colored barroom to an infinite dismal song. I suppose few conditions are like that and the sensation is vouchsafed only for moments of extreme exuberance.

You have been very kind and enlightened. Few people can write sentences filled with wisdom and subtle serene glory like that; I suppose that when we get older we all achieve this beauty to a certain point; depends on the books we've read and the things we've seen - life passing on an endless reel of ups and downs and glorious incalculable colors; like the serene reddened dragginess of an exuberant glance, an exuberant glare... And then the sighs and the beauty and the revelations; tinged like a quote from Oscar Wilde never-ending, forever reverberating:

Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.