The collected works of SAQ - Page 12

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Dec. 9, 2011, 5:22 p.m...

hamei wrote:

As for those who claim it doesn't matter, real customers will not be inconvenienced and no one cares about hobbyists, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

I don't think anyone here necessarily thinks "it doesn't matter," indeed many points on this thread have been about how it may matter. IBM doesn't care, true, and that certainly is a offshoot of the short-term business focus now. Get as much as you can from those who are "locked in", then retire with a bonus. Heck, you don't even need to retire - companies are apparently leaping on you if you've failed at the likes of HP, IBM, or any other big-name outfit.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of A nice term for XWindow... at Dec. 11, 2011, 8:45 p.m...

And the Indigo Magic terminal already has support for X11 paste.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Installing IRIX 5.3 / Indy / Exception & Panic at Dec. 21, 2011, 10:03 a.m...

kubatyszko wrote: Guys, I'm actually wondering, if there is any correlation between serial number and a mac address (at least stepping order),
say if supervinx doesn't have his MAC but has the serial number he might be able to find someone with relatively "close" serial number and somehow derive the original MAC he should have - not that it matters much, but you never know, the world is small, his Indy might end up next to another Indy with the same (originally) MAC and not work

I think we all here have enough of hardware to come up with some schema for that, any suggestions or comments ?

Cheers

Yep, there is. The SGI serial number is the MAC on desktop machines - on Indigo2 and Octane it's the full MAC, including the 0800, on Indy it might be just the end part, though I think it is still the whole number. Look for a yellow or white sticker on the back. Indy and Indigo2 stickers are long and narrow.

If you have a ASD machine (CHALLENGE, Origin or the like) you're not so lucky. For those (and Sun boxes) I like to copy down the MACs as soon as possible somewhere on the physical box - though do keep in mind that all SGIs with the exception of Indy/Challenge S don't suffer from the "MAC stored only in NVRAM" problem of Suns so it is more of a convenience than a necessity.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Dec. 21, 2011, 10:23 a.m...

bluecode wrote:

Agree. IBM doesn't care, since nobody runs AIX except on enterprise equipment on contract. Same thing with Oracle, nobody runs SPARC servers except for enterprise customers on contracts.

It does suck that we the hobbyists who have POWER or SPARC hardware are getting screwed from all angles, but it doesn't affect IBM or Oracle business. As far as they know we simply don't exist.

I'd imagine that given the economic situation there are probably a number of smaller companies who have AIX boxes to run some software, perhaps not mission-critical but something old that they still need, who are looking for ways to minimize recurring expenses. Of course, IBM obsoleting newer "old hardware" might render this a non-issue, since there's no point in paying for support that IBM will not provide.

I also heard that in the HP case it was done because there were companies offering HP-UX support who were cheaper and offered better service than HP, so HP is trying to choke them out. Now IBM support is (or at least was) top notch, so that might not be an issue.

Besides - figure that if 10 people/companies/whatever pick up service contracts or maintain service contracts that they would have otherwise let lapse IBM has probably "made money from the switch".

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of New to the scene but keen at Dec. 30, 2011, 10:36 a.m...

PymbleSoftware wrote:

smj wrote:

PymbleSoftware wrote: I happen to be waiting on fx.64 to partition a 146Gb disk, on a quad 1GHz Tezro displaying on a Samsung SyncMaster 710T, but that is not a recommendation from me.

You're such a tease, Regan. "Oh that old thing, that's just my five rack Reality Monster..."

No that would have been walnutwhen he was around on the forums.

R.

But weren't you the one with the "does anyone know what you can do with a 128-processor Origin3000?" Perhaps not a RealityMonster, but close.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NVRAM for Sparcstation 20 at Dec. 30, 2011, 11:06 a.m...

You're best bet would probably be to open up the existing NVRAMs and add a battery. An old PC CR2032 holder will epoxy to the top of the current Mostek unit just fine.

I think that the Sun4m architecture works OK with the newer Mostek/whoever owns Mostek now units, but the Sun4c architecture doesn't. Check around to Mouser or the like.

Used ones aren't worth it - most of them will die soon. If you need to reprogram your MAC and serial it should be stored in the system log at bootup. It's also a good idea to write it out somewhere on the chassis just in case, because these machines are all gettting old.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of New to the scene but keen at Jan. 4, 2012, 8:54 a.m...

You'll need either the "Installation Tools, June 1998" or (better) an "Installation Tools and Overlays, Disk 1" to boot the machine into the miniroot (think of it as a small, limited "Live CD"). The "Foundations 1&2" disks have your base IRIX 6.5 on them, and the Applications disk has various demos, applications that make your life easier, and a chunk of the desktop. The Overlays disks are similar to "service packs" in Windows, containing updated versions of files that have changed in the releases of IRIX since 6.5(.0). You can download the 6.5.22 overlays free from SGI (support.sgi.com).

Other disks you might want that shipped in the full IRIX 6.5.x sofware library are:

Irix Development Foundations/ IRIX development libraries - these are headers and tools (but not a compiler) for building programs on IRIX.
ONC3/NFS v3 for IRIX 6.2, 6.3, 6.4 and 6.5. NFS - pretty self explanatory.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of What do you use your SGI for? at Jan. 10, 2012, 5:31 p.m...

I would never bet against an older engineer who's good. Today companies tend to throw lots of programmable devices and actives at problems, but many of the older approaches are very elegant and show a great deal of understanding of the underlying systems and science.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of ID Chip in Fuel at Jan. 15, 2012, 7:57 p.m...

I thought I remembered seeing that Fuel used a small encrypted EEPROM for the serial number.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of ID Chip in Fuel at Jan. 16, 2012, 11 a.m...

hamei wrote:

nicte wrote: Well, now I have a real mess...
So :
1. there's two chips -Atmel and Dallas

Search for some posts by pinball cf the Atmel. I believe the thread was about fixing the environment sensor chip, which is nearby.

2. which of them carries sys ID : Atmel or Dallas ? Both ??? The same ID ???

I replaced the mainboard years ago and had to move both. Not sure what that means or if it was a fluke or a screwup on my part, but something to be aware of.

3. Which of them can be reprogrammed and how?

The Atmel cannot be reprogrammed. Don't know about the Dallas. Are you trying to maintain an id for some licensed software ? You can't move both chips over just to be safe ?

It looks like he's trying to move over from an Octane or other NIC system.

Wasn't there a piece of software around that did a non-permanent change of the serial number after it was loaded into IRIX?

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NVRAM for Sparcstation 20 at Jan. 16, 2012, 11:08 a.m...

I've put coin cells on both Sun4c and Sun4m systems - it's not a big deal and I think the instructions in your guide will probably work almost exactly the same. The Bhargavaz page works as well for all Sun NVRAMs ( http://blog.bhargavaz.us/2010/12/idprom ... -page.html )

Yes, you do need to reprogram your MAC and serial numbers. Unlike SGI for all machines != Indy, Sun stored this information in semivolitile RAM and did not have any sticker with a physical copy of the information. Since you have a operable Solaris or SunOS install things are much easier, since looking through the system log will give you the correct values to reprogram. I write them on a part of the chassis as well, just to be sure.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NVRAM for Sparcstation 20 at Jan. 17, 2012, 8:41 a.m...

dir_marillion wrote: Hi SAQ thank you very much for the info.

I am afraid I cannot find the pins that coming inside the NVRAM chip (due to the small pictures), but which of those M48T02 could I buy for use with SS20 ?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R4 ... Categories

I think the T02 is the Sun4c model. Look for a M48t08 - but you can check your chip. The label/barcode on the top means nothing unless you have a service contract with Sun/Oracle or other way to get a look at their database, and given the way Oracle works I suspect the only way that would happen would involve the transfer of $$$$$$$$$.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NVRAM for Sparcstation 20 at Jan. 18, 2012, 2:42 p.m...

robespierre wrote: as long as you choose a sysid that is a valid unicast MAC address, the onboard ethernet should work with any address you want. the reason for keeping the same address is for software licensing, and to avoid confusing routers/switches that have the station MAC address stored, for VLAN assignment, proxy ARP, etc.

If you have the proper MAC address go ahead and use it. That way you don't have to worry about keeping records of your MAC allocations (and you don't have to worry about taking your box to a different network where everyone has their dead Sun programmed with C0:FF:EE), and you get to keep the Sun MAC prefix so the machine comes up on NMAP et al as a Sun rather than whatever (because the other way of ensuring a "good MAC" across different unknown networks is to get a cheapo PC-type card, retire it, and use the MAC on your Sun - but then it comes up as "Netgear" or whatever...)

Note that you need to program two numbers for everything to be good: the MAC and the system serial number. On Suns they're different. SSN's big use is licensing.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of SCSI disk arrays? at Jan. 19, 2012, 4:35 p.m...

I'd go FC or one of the FC-{IDE|SATA} models.

If you want a straight SCSI one the only one I have any experience with is the DEC StorageWorks setups. They seem to be pretty good, but I haven't used them on SGIs - only Alphas/VAXes.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downloading IBM fixes will require a support contract! at Feb. 5, 2012, 11:27 a.m...

bgalakazam wrote:

The warehouse where I got my 7028 for free has been using AIX for some 15+ years. They upgrade their servers every 5 years or so, so technically they have that "support contract". Just an example of a non-enterprise company that uses IBM and AIX.

BTW, I uploaded the updates for 4.3.3 and 5L.

They may be "non-enterprise," but they're paying IBM, so IBM's happy. IBM sales is much smarter than SGI's salesforce from the '90s - they're happy to sell to anyone ready to give them money, rather than saying "You want to buy two?? Stop bothering us and come back when you're ready to buy 100."

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Wanted: IBM Aptiva (see image inside) at Feb. 14, 2012, 9:34 a.m...

Geoman wrote:

Finally the search came to an end - I got one: Model 2168-931 (75 MHz Pentium, 8 MB RAM, 0KB 2nd level cache, 540 MB Harddrive, 1 MB Onboard GFX RAM)

Now upgraded it to Pentium 166 (max possible), 64 MB EDO RAM, 256 KB Cache, 2 MB GFX RAM, 8 GB IDE, Ethernet. Runs the original Win31 configuration now + NT4 dual boot.

Attachment:

neko.jpg

I see the cat has good taste :lol:

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Irix 6.6/7? at Feb. 20, 2012, 6:17 p.m...

The rumors I've heard were that the next release would have been IRIX 7, and was planned for release around 2000/2001. I've never seen any hints of the plans.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Hedera project update (IRIX 5.3) at Feb. 22, 2012, 9:14 p.m...

Still working on my pet project, IRIX 5.3-XFS for Durn Near Everything, and since there have been some inquiries I thought I'd give an update.

The project now has a code name! Progress!! It's "Hedera" - a cheap ripoff of the code name for IRIX 6.5 (Kudzu). I figured that the objective was the same (a system that would run on pretty much everything from the time period), so why not.

Second: I'm still wrestling with several supposed "IRIX 5.3" patches for IMPACT graphics that don't seem to work with any version of 5.3 that was ever released. At this point they're probably going to be left out.

Third: I'm strongly considering some sort of revision control. I know it sounds somewhat silly for a single-person project, but I'm getting tired of having to start over from the beginning with packages, especially given some of the IRIX packaging utilities' penchant for zeroing out my IDB files now and then

. What systems have people used successfully with IRIX? I've never had to get involved with these before, but since XFS isn't a versioning file system I'm having problems.

On the plus side this gives me the opportunity to move things over to the O300 for speedier packaging. The patience of the software teams at SGI astounds me - I'd have gone on strike for them to rewrite gendist and swpkg to use more than one CPU if I'd have been packaging IRIX in the R3000/R4000 days.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5631 notes

Wrote on the subject of Project Nedryland... at March 2, 2012, 3:50 p.m...

6.5 was the last major release of IRIX, released in 1998. I'd have to check what the copyright notices were for the various versions of IRIX, but for the timeperiod of Jurassic Park it'd probably be 4.0.5, 1991-1993 era. 6.5 didn't run on R3000s or on Crimson.

If you really want the IRIX experience you'd need to code ElectroPaint as a screensaver in the Flash environment.

_________________
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There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Indigo 2 Extreme graphics option, for cost of shipping at March 2, 2012, 3:53 p.m...

If nothing else pull the GE7s and put them on display.

Lemme think about it - do I want a spare EXtreme? hmm...

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of What HP/DEC/Compaq do we have. at March 4, 2012, 4:19 p.m...

Alver wrote:

Apart from that, MPE/iX isn't really the system you would *want* to run at home, I think... I honestly can't think of a single proper use for it

if someone does, do tell.

Database stuff. MPE was in the same league as OS/400/ System "i"

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Hedera project update (IRIX 5.3) at March 16, 2012, 5:50 p.m...

The other thing I've started considering would be maybe exporting the files over NFS from an OpenVMS box.

It would get the job done (ODS-2/5) is versioning, and also the supreme geekiness of it all has begun to appeal to me.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of The new iPad at March 19, 2012, 9:01 a.m...

hamei wrote:

87Porsche wrote: That display is niiiiiice.

Almost as nice as my eight year old IBM monitor

But a lot smaller ........

I know what you mean. I've got a 21" Eizo Nanao CRT on my desk - big, heavy, hot, but very nice display.

It was also very free - even better.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Onyx2 IR3 Deskside in germany (near Mannheim) *UPDATED* at March 26, 2012, 8:30 a.m...

Alver wrote:

BetXen wrote: I'd like to pick it up, but my wife would kill me.

That's the main problem here too also, I don't think it'd fit in my stationwagon... and it's a 5 hour drive... and I have no place to put it... I guess I'll have to pass *sigh*.

That's why a Volvo 240 or 740 wagon is the best car for big computer geeks.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5632 notes

Wrote on the subject of Convince me to keep this iMac G5 at March 31, 2012, 7:12 a.m...

You can put 10.4.11 on it and have a small, fast machine that will run Classic mode.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5631 notes

Wrote on the subject of Downtime at April 12, 2012, 9:55 a.m...

nekonoko wrote:

kubatyszko wrote:

some other means of communication so that jan-jaap doesn't get into withdrawal ?

Hey, you're welcome - glad I spent all that time on the phone getting things running for you again.

That said, I may look into using Twitter for notifications again. But you have to realize this is my hobby, not a professionally paid for site with advertising and income and all the other neato stuff (currently runs me about $3000/yr out of pocket). Going on right off the bat about how I could do things better isn't very endearing.

We could go super-retro and have an IRIX UUCP link. All we'd need to do is find a way to encapsulate it over Skype computer:computer to eliminate phone long-distance charges (with a failover to local telephone calls).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Socket 959 (UltraSPARC IIIi) heatsink question at April 15, 2012, 6:07 p.m...

Why would you need it? Sun has good engineers, and unless you're doing something odd their thermal system should work just fine. I guess that fan noise could be one reason to muck around with it.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of A few Sun questions at April 20, 2012, 10:23 p.m...

hamei wrote:

So if it were I, I'd take that graphics card and see how plastic and solder hold up to thirty-eight caliber projectiles

.38, not so interesting. .357, meh. .45ACP? Yawn. High-power rifle? Much more interesting.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Do older HP 9000s need HP-specific firmware in the CD-ROM? at May 28, 2012, 8:03 p.m...

Just going through my collection of way too many slow SCSI CD-ROM and came across a HP-labelled Toshiba that still identifies as a Toshiba. Do early HP9000 machines need special firmware bits to boot successfully off of CD-ROMS (talking HP 9000/887-G70 era and HP9000/400s), or will any CD-ROM work? The Usual Suspects seem to be silent on the issue - other than any CD-ROM will work for DOMAIN/os (which doesn't support booting off CD-ROM anyway).

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Indigo CR2032 mod at May 29, 2012, 6:04 p.m...

pentium wrote: For a moment I was all confused why your battery was in a different position than mine. Then I realized you are rocking it with an R4K Indigo.

I find that you can get as many CR2032's as you need from any PeeCee you get your hands on. It's about a penny each if you get them and most of the time they are still good.

And they come with the holder, which can usually be hacked into place.

I like mounting it on the DMUX - I have mine on the GIO blanking plate leg, and it just doesn't have a nice look and feel.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Do older HP 9000s need HP-specific firmware in the CD-ROM? at June 1, 2012, 7:11 p.m...

Ah, good - then I don't have to worry about keeping around a couple spare ancient HP drives for the 9ks.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of Do older HP 9000s need HP-specific firmware in the CD-ROM? at June 2, 2012, 7:08 a.m...

Alver wrote:

There's plenty HP9000s that use IDE for cd/dvd too - and those will also take just about anything. But those may not suit your idea of "older" HP9000 then.

They'd suit my idea of HP-9000, but none of my machines have IDE interfaces.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of HP-UX on x86 soon? at June 14, 2012, 12:28 p.m...

yetanother**ixuser wrote:

yes, we absolutely need another derivate on x86, because there is so much to sack up in this area :lol:

Almost all of which are the same old thing with a different sticker on the front. If HP spends the time and money to really do something first-class then there could be a definite reason to have it. NonStop AMD64 hardware could definitely have a market, something built really well running OpenVMS, sure.

I do admit that, of all the HP proprietary O/Ses, HP-UX is probably the least compelling of them to move over. x86 already has xBSD and Solaris which are both good UNIX systems (excluding Solaris' licensing from the discussion). Sure, HP-UX is fairly solid, but it's really nothing special or new in the x86 world.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thoughts on the new macbook? at June 17, 2012, 9:45 p.m...

Proprietary, probably-just-about-impossible-to-get-ahold-of battery (that will die in 3-5 years), same deal for the main flash storage (except hopefully longer lifetime - though if you page it might not be), fixed RAM size...

I don't know about others, but on every computer I've owned I've upgraded RAM, upgraded, replaced or added drives, and generally mucked about with them. Sure, the screen looks neat - but I certainly don't want to pay a premium for something that seems to be designed as a "throwaway" system.

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SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Building an Onyx 200. Success at June 17, 2012, 10:27 p.m...

I did a short play-around with the idea, but I was hoping to eliminate the Gigachannel tower and go straight from the O200's XTOWN to the IR pipe. After getting the O200 XTOWN it became apparent that the BaseIO XIO feed went through the Gigachannel's XBOW and back, so that idea was shelved.

I have a O200 XTOWN/Gigachannel adapter if anyone needs it!

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5590 notes

Wrote on the subject of Thoughts on the new macbook? at June 18, 2012, 7:43 a.m...

WolvesOfTheNight wrote:

...256GB would work for a 1-3 years, and after that I could buy 1TB for half the cost of an upgrade today....

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple factored this in, so people have to buy the RAM/drive they think they'll need in a couple of years at today's Apple profit margins.

Quote:

R-ten-K: Yep, this is very true. Actually, I don't think they were ever Apple's target market. At least not since Woz left. They are simply targeting where they think the market will go. And I think Apple is (again) slightly ahead of the game. They realize that computers are quickly becoming disposable. As a friend pointed out years ago: They used to have stores that sold nothing but microwaves and technicians that made a good living fixing them. Computers will go the same way

Before the return of Jobs Apple was much more open. After he came back things immediately started closing, and Apple seemed to be actively discouraging tweaks that did not fit with his vision (remember all the INITS you could get to tweak the UI?)

I really like the stability and usability of the Mac System software, it's almost as good as xBSD with much more software, but the hardware is a joke for anything but basic use. I have enough cables on my desk without having a bunch of external disk enclosures, the current keyboards have that awful laptoppy feel (and the wireless one manages to blend the worst of the original Mac keyboard with the worst of a laptop keyboard), and on the Mac Pro they want a top-end price on something that's two+ years old, perhaps to cover the difficulty of actually finding the components. I guess that's why Apple is tolerating "Hackintoshes" as much as they are, so people interested in a Mac but who want something expandable can have one. That's probably the way I'll be going.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
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Wrote on the subject of Thoughts on the new macbook? at June 19, 2012, 8:57 a.m...

josehill wrote:

... I guess Apple decided this is a case where gee-whiz marketing is more important than customer convenience.

Has this ever not been the case in the last 15 years?

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
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Wrote on the subject of SunOS 4.1.4 Admin Documentation / Advice? at June 19, 2012, 9 a.m...

Yep, 4.1.4 is probably the way to go. 4.1.3_U1B also has Y2k patches, but Oracle pulled access to both of them the last time I checked (well, not Oracle - it was the immediately pre-Oracle Sun).

I have the 4.1.4 and 4.1.3_U1B AnswerBook CDs. Another SunOS reference I use is The System Administrator's Guide to the Sun Workstations and the Unix Admin Red-book, but neither of these are electronic or out-of-copyright.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5538 notes

Wrote on the subject of SunOS 4.1.4 Admin Documentation / Advice? at June 19, 2012, 9 p.m...

jpstewart wrote:

SAQ wrote:

Another SunOS reference I use is The System Administrator's Guide to the Sun Workstations and the Unix Admin Red-book, but neither of these are electronic or out-of-copyright.

Aha! That first one sounds like somethng I should look into. Another source also mentioned the "Red" book and now that you've recommended it too, I'll look into it some more. It looks like both books are available cheaply from an on-line used book store here in
Thanks all!

The first book is written in the SunOS 4.0.3 era, but most of the concepts are valid through to the end of SunOS4.

If you get the red book make sure it is the red book (second edition). The later "Purple Book" is much reduced in the variants of UNIX it covers.

Aeleen Frisch's Essential Unix Administration is another good one, but I pick it up less than the red book.

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SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
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Wrote on the subject of Thoughts on the new macbook? at June 24, 2012, 12:03 p.m...

Yes, I understand that I'm in the minority. Most people only have their computer's covers off a couple of times during the entire time they own it (maybe), whereas I muck about in mine fairly often. Yeah, it's personally a bit irritating at the substantial reduction in options for people like me, but that's because I'm weird.

There is an issue that is more general. Apple crows all about their build quality, and how their machines last longer than many other ones. As others have pointed out, machines today are generally not short CPU cycles, but look at how rapidly the RAM requirements are increasing. 1-2GB 2 years ago, 4GB now, who knows what next. RAM-bumping midlife is pretty much expected now, unless you buy a new machine every two years. Economically, you're best off buying a quality machine with decent RAM now (4GB or so), then planning on RAM-bumping in 2 years or so and replacement in 5. Apple's newest designs do not acknowledge that reality, and while their reality is profitable it doesn't make much sense, unless you're in the corporate market where the labor of mass memory upgrades negates most of the economic benefits (Apple isn't in that market).

The fixed storage issue isn't as big a deal if you view your machine as a satellite with a "semi-archive" storage at home on another server/NAS/external device, but since it is flash-based you could run into problems with the non-upgradable memory forcing paging which kills your device - though there have been hints that perhaps the flash module will be available from third parties, which beats the memory. If you view it as your main machine and use it around the house (thus limiting the use of external storage) and store lots of video on it then the small storage capacity could become limiting, especially if you try to offload daily-use stuff to one of the glacial consumer NAS devices.

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