HP/DEC/Compaq

duck wrote: My understanding is that SRM is for Unix and VMS while ARCS boots NT. Some firmwares include both, you just have to flip modes. So as long as an appropriate firmware is available, there's no real difference?

Not too sure though, please verify this independently, but if noone else steps up with better info perhaps this gives you some leads to start looking.

uunix wrote: How old do you want to go, my SUN BLADE 2000 was an excellent machine, Dual 900 MHz CPU, a PC Card, 4 Port Ethernet & XV500 Card. I may obtain a another one day (when I have the space) and rebuild it all.

duck wrote: My understanding is that SRM is for Unix and VMS while ARCS boots NT. Some firmwares include both, you just have to flip modes. So as long as an appropriate firmware is available, there's no real difference?

Not too sure though, please verify this independently, but if noone else steps up with better info perhaps this gives you some leads to start looking.

ivelegacy wrote: oh well, no doubts, they are fun, but ...

{
a lot of time ago I put an luna/88k in my wish list. Too hard to find, too expensive, too effort required made me so flighty of heart that I wanted to recant my wish to collect Luna because the peril was great: Gaga did true blood threats, something like ... " I will not kill you (I guess) but be sure I will bloody smash any Luna that gets in, there is no space for an other she here, especially if she will cost more than my boots "

So bad girl, she sings " boots are made for walking " (by Nancy Sinatra), she has up to 20 pairs of boots, but she does not understand my needs when I push a new toy into my wish list. Luckily she is books tolerant, with a pile of books, everywhere around the living room, kitchen, and bed room, so I converted my previous wish into datebook (88100/88200 ISA), but Amazon failed all the times, and every ebay search told me to " go fsck myself !!! ". Then my search had success when I received an email from a vintage drugs dealer of NewYork who is used to have old books in his shelf: " we have the book you are looking for, just 25 bucks shipped ". Oh, my goodness, christmas gift (and Gaga does not know that I am secretly cooking my Luna in VHDL (oh well, perhaps, just the 88100 CPU))
}

but ... what is your secret against vamp femme fatale, buddies ?
How can you collect workstations avoiding to be engaged into a bloody war against the girl/woman you live with, under the same roof ?

Vladio wrote: I'm thinking it's time to add a new-old computer to my collection, I like the old RISC machines. I picked up an SGI Octane 2, dual 600, a couple years ago and really enjoy using it. Next up on my list is something running either a Sparc, PA-RISC or Alpha processor(s). In reading up on the different DEC personal workstations that were made I saw that some were designated with an "a" for Windows NT or "au" for Digital Unix. My question is: can a box with an "a" designation be loaded with Digital Unix?

urbancamo wrote: I thought it was the posting of someone on drugs or maybe slight deranged

ivelegacy wrote: My definitive solution is: to rent a garage (or to buy it for cheap), then moving all my office over there.

jan-jaap wrote: Also, in the end computers don't like to live in garages.
If the humidity doesn't kill them, the unavoidable rodents will.

ClassicHasClass wrote:

duck wrote: My understanding is that SRM is for Unix and VMS while ARCS boots NT. Some firmwares include both, you just have to flip modes. So as long as an appropriate firmware is available, there's no real difference?

Not too sure though, please verify this independently, but if noone else steps up with better info perhaps this gives you some leads to start looking.

That is exactly right.

Note that some lower-spec machines can only be in one mode at a time and must be reflashed to switch; my 164LX is one of these. Since it exists to run Tru64, it runs the SRM console. Linux can also boot on the ARCS console, but most everything else needs SRM.

ivelegacy wrote: but ... what is your secret against vamp femme fatale, buddies ?
How can you collect workstations avoiding to be engaged into a bloody war against the girl/woman you live with, under the same roof ?

Vladio wrote: I like old but something that still has functionality. Something I can install some apps to play around with.

foetz wrote:

Vladio wrote: I like old but something that still has functionality. Something I can install some apps to play around with.

that's the main problem with everything but irix. for desktop use it's just nothing there with the exception of maybe some rather specific things you might have by accident such as cfd visualizers or some cad stuff.
for more common use solaris is your best bet. there you can have a quite recent firefox, openoffice and gimp but that's about it. with all others you're out of luck as far as the desktop goes unless you're fine with just a text editor and compiler i.e. a pure dev box.

Vladio wrote: I could swear Alias had 3d software that ran on the Alpha but I'm sure that's a tough find (if I'm right about it being available).

ClassicHasClass wrote: Right. NetBSD, Tru64, VMS, etc., need SRM. Only Linux, it seems, can tolerate ARCS.

ajw99uk wrote:

ivelegacy wrote: but ... what is your secret against vamp femme fatale, buddies ?
How can you collect workstations avoiding to be engaged into a bloody war against the girl/woman you live with, under the same roof ?

Rule 1 - say yes to pretty much everything except "will you PLEASE get rid of those d----d computers?!?"
Rule 2 - obey the "one in / one out" rule (or at least don't break it with anything big)
Rule 3 - do not try to impose a similar rule on boots / hats / whatever your significant other collects
Rule 4 - be patient; having shared a study for several years, I now have it to myself for 'putering (with more/better shelving and a second table/desk)
Rule 5 - don't mess up your significant other's computer (learned the hard way, after inadvertently leaving a laptop unbootable due to an incomplete GRUB installation)

To give my wife credit, she put up with another room being stacked half full with various computing equipment for far longer than had been anticipated when we offered some temporary storage for a small part of the TNMOC collection. Managed to hand that back shortly before our daughter arrived. But occasionally I come unstuck - the arrival of the Fuel (my second SGI box) about six weeks later did not go down well, so I had to try to sell the Indigo2 (no offers, shucks .

I keep within reasonable limits by going for smaller stuff - a Saintsong EspressoPC in place of a large Compaq desktop, and two Raspberry Pis - and making judicious use of KVM and VNC to do as much as possible from one monitor (or occasionally two), or from a laptop in the sitting room. Last year the girls were away for a few days so I had a chance to set up the old Acorn RISCiX boxes on the dining table for a session, and early this year an Octane snuck in on the premise that it was for someone else who then found two elsewhere .

foetz wrote:

Vladio wrote: I like old but something that still has functionality. Something I can install some apps to play around with.

that's the main problem with everything but irix. for desktop use it's just nothing there with the exception of maybe some rather specific things you might have by accident such as cfd visualizers or some cad stuff.
for more common use solaris is your best bet. there you can have a quite recent firefox, openoffice and gimp but that's about it. with all others you're out of luck as far as the desktop goes unless you're fine with just a text editor and compiler i.e. a pure dev box.