04-Jan-1999 22:51:19 -0800,2462;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 22:51:18 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 21:04:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from East.Sun.COM ([129.148.1.241]) by mercury.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/mail.byaddr) with SMTP id JAA17251; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:22:35 -0800 Received: from gotham.East.Sun.COM by East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-5.3) id MAA29372; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:22:06 -0500 Received: from noho.East.Sun.COM by gotham.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA07231; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:21:50 -0500 Received: from shibuya.East.Sun.COM by noho.East.Sun.COM (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id MAA08099; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:21:47 -0500 Received: (from rossman@localhost) by shibuya.East.Sun.COM (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.0) id MAA05456; Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:17:26 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 12:17:26 -0500 (EST) From: Ken Rossman - NYC SE Message-Id: <199901041717.MAA05456@shibuya.East.Sun.COM> To: ji@research.att.com CC: mrc@Panda.COM, tpb@doctor.zk3.dec.com, TOPS-20@Panda.COM Subject: Re: R.I.P. PANDA: > > can actually interpret a DUMPER tape (or any other archaic software > > format) is increasingly difficult. And the DUMPER format is pretty > > trivial. > > The people at the computer center at Columbia University had written such a > tool (any of you guys on this list?). If there is interest, I will try > contacting them about releasing the source. If this is the tool I'm thinking of, that was work I did, and it was NOT originally my code. I merely took the code from a program called "read20", by Jay Lepreau. I just tried to put a Columbia C COMND Jsys emulation package wrapper around it (and sort of broke the code somewhat in the process -- it works, but not like it ought to). Look for "read20" out on the net somewhere. I still have some old source code lying around too if anyone wants it. Worked OK for most tapes, though you will likely have to do your own ANSI label processing independently of what read20 does if you have labelled DUMPER tapes. Ken Rossman, NYC SE 212-558-9182 || 212-558-9329 (FAX) Sun Microsystems Email: Ken.Rossman@Sun.COM One New York Plaza, 35th Fl. SUN Internal: http://noho.East/~rossman New York, NY 10004 INTERNET: http://www.columbia.edu/~rossman 21-Jan-1999 13:47:00 -0800,1491;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 13:47:00 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 13:46:42 -0800 (PST) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 13:46:40 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! Message-ID: Organization: Pandamonium Reigns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII TOIL (Ten On an Intel Laptop) is no longer a joke; it is reality. I finally bought a PC notebook (an NEC 120LT, a 100MHz Pentium-class CPU with 32MB RAM and 2GB hard drive for $1000), and spent a couple of hours porting the PDP-10 emulator (an old, KS-only, version of klh10) to Windows 98. It was surprisingly easy, once I found the Windows console routines. It runs TOPS-20 at about twice the speed of a real 2020. This is without any tuning; among other things I'm using POSIX calls. I think that I/O (especially console I/O) would run much better using native Windows calls. -- Mark -- * RCW 19.149 notice: This email address is located in Washington State. * * Unsolicited commercial email may be billed $500 per message. * Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate. 22-Jan-1999 20:31:54 -0800,1388;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:31:53 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:37:19 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp3.erols.com (smtp3.erols.com [207.172.3.236]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:36:57 PST Received: from erols.com (207-172-34-235.s44.as12.rkv.erols.com [207.172.34.235]) by smtp3.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA13384; Thu, 21 Jan 1999 18:36:07 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <36A7B792.318C03E9@erols.com> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 18:26:10 -0500 From: shsrms Organization: The tinker and the herbalist X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.07 [en] (Win16; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Crispin CC: Tops-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Crispin wrote: > > TOIL (Ten On an Intel Laptop) is no longer a joke; it is reality. Thanks Mark, now...how do some of us get our grubby little paws on it.... Hmmm I guess I might have to buy an intel .... bob -- real address is shsrms at erols dot com The Herbal Gypsy and the Tinker. 22-Jan-1999 20:32:05 -0800,1949;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:32:05 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 04:41:29 -0800 (PST) Received: from leofric.coventry.ac.uk (root@leofric.coventry.ac.uk [193.61.107.33]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 04:40:33 PST Received: (from ccx004@localhost) by leofric.coventry.ac.uk (8.9.2/8.6.11) id MAA09752; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 12:37:48 GMT Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 12:37:47 +0000 (GMT) From: Colin Bruce To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Mark Crispin wrote: > TOIL (Ten On an Intel Laptop) is no longer a joke; it is reality. > > I finally bought a PC notebook (an NEC 120LT, a 100MHz Pentium-class CPU > with 32MB RAM and 2GB hard drive for $1000), and spent a couple of hours > porting the PDP-10 emulator (an old, KS-only, version of klh10) to Windows > 98. It was surprisingly easy, once I found the Windows console routines. > > It runs TOPS-20 at about twice the speed of a real 2020. This is without > any tuning; among other things I'm using POSIX calls. I think that I/O > (especially console I/O) would run much better using native Windows calls. Dear All, Over the last few years several people have mentioned PDP-10 emulators but I've never been able to find one. Are they commercial only? Is such a thing available anywhere? I miss my old DECSYSTEM-20 (MR2172) so much and would love to see the @ prompt once more and be able to do SYSTATs etc. Best wishes.... Colin 22-Jan-1999 20:32:14 -0800,1861;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:32:14 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:53:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from opost.com (dlm@opost.com [207.22.41.2]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 07:53:07 PST Received: (from dlm@localhost) by opost.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id KAA09172 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:52:51 -0500 Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:52:51 -0500 From: Dan Murphy Message-Id: <199901221552.KAA09172@opost.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! But Mark! You wouldn't have had to do the porting work if you put a real operating system on your new laptop. Dump Windoze (or at least split the partition with FIPS) and put Linux up. Then you'll have all the good stuff. I have Redhat 5.1 running on an IBM laptop. It supports pcmcia, including my modem and ethernet cards, and I even run the XFree86 server on the 800x600 display. This is now to make a laptop really useful! I have to say, TOPS-20 was the best in its day, but the world has moved on. GNU/Linux is a very worthy successor. Don't leave home (or stay home) without it. dlm ===================== Mark Crispin writes: > TOIL (Ten On an Intel Laptop) is no longer a joke; it is reality. > I finally bought a PC notebook (an NEC 120LT, a 100MHz Pentium-class CPU > with 32MB RAM and 2GB hard drive for $1000), and spent a couple of hours > porting the PDP-10 emulator (an old, KS-only, version of klh10) to Windows > 98. It was surprisingly easy, once I found the Windows console routines. 22-Jan-1999 21:31:52 -0800,1246;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:31:52 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:43:42 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 20:43:31 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin To: Colin Bruce cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Organization: Pandamonium Reigns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Colin Bruce wrote: > Over the last few years several people have mentioned PDP-10 emulators > but I've never been able to find one. Are they commercial only? Is such > a thing available anywhere? I miss my old DECSYSTEM-20 (MR2172) so much > and would love to see the @ prompt once more and be able to do SYSTATs etc. There are at least two working emulators. I'm trying to see if at least one of them can't be made publicly available. 22-Jan-1999 21:32:04 -0800,1116;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:32:04 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:21:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from flipper.cisco.com (flipper.cisco.com [171.69.63.10]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:21:30 PST Received: (billw@localhost) by flipper.cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.2-SunOS.5.5.1.sun4/8.6.5) id VAA20632; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:14:09 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 99 21:14:09 PST From: William "Chops" Westfield To: Dan Murphy Cc: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! In-Reply-To: Your message of Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:52:51 -0500 Message-ID: >> GNU/Linux is a very worthy successor. Them's flaming words, Mr! I gotta admit, though, that the free source stuff happening around Linux and FreeBSD most closely resembles the old "tops community" as I remember it. BillW 22-Jan-1999 21:32:21 -0800,2172;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:32:21 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:30:38 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:30:28 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin To: Dan Murphy cc: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! In-Reply-To: <199901221552.KAA09172@opost.com> Message-ID: Organization: Pandamonium Reigns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Dan Murphy wrote: > I have to say, TOPS-20 was the best in its day, but the world has > moved on. GNU/Linux is a very worthy successor. Don't leave home > (or stay home) without it. This may sound heretical to some, but I'm starting to think that NT is a much more worthy successor than UNIX. Hidden underneath the GUI interface is a very powerful operating system, that does a number of things right that UNIX gets horribly wrong. Just off the top of my head: file locking, file/memory mapping, file name case. On the other side of the coin, UNIX very much betrays 1960s thinking. Alphabet soup command switches, outdoing early TOPS-10 at its worst (PIP may have had /Q, but TOPS-10 never had switches that were different based upon case!). Core dumps(!). TTY orientation. Mediocre operating system services; the shell is quite powerful, but it hides a weak OS (TOPS-20, of course, being a powerful OS hidden under a weak shell). Lots of things that are just plain wrong -- the locking system calls being outstanding examples. A network filesystem that sort of works, if you throw out all the advertised filesystem semantics. A repeat of TOPS-10's PRVTAB mistake. I've used UNIX as my primary OS for the past 11 years, and most of the machines that I own run UNIX. But I see no particular benefit to running UNIX on a laptop. I've done it, and decided that it wasn't worth it. 23-Jan-1999 01:01:00 -0800,2028;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 01:01:00 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 22:03:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from manya.curie.fr (manya.curie.fr [193.49.205.22]) by burton.curie.fr (8.9.1a/jtpda-5.3.1) with ESMTP id GAA23113 for ; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:05:59 +0100 (MET) Received: from (slt@localhost) by manya.curie.fr (8.9.1a/jtpda-5.2.9.1) id GAA15813 ; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:05:57 +0100 (MET) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 06:05:57 +0100 (MET) Message-Id: <199901230505.GAA15813@manya.curie.fr> X-Authentication-Warning: manya.curie.fr: slt set sender to slt@manya.curie.fr using -f From: Stephane Tsacas To: TOPS-20@Panda.COM In-reply-to: <199901221552.KAA09172@opost.com> (message from Dan Murphy on Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:52:51 -0500) Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! References: <199901221552.KAA09172@opost.com> Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 10:52:51 -0500 From: Dan Murphy [...] I have to say, TOPS-20 was the best in its day, but the world has moved on. GNU/Linux is a very worthy successor. Don't leave home (or stay home) without it. dlm Take a look at : http://www.jwz.org/worse-is-better.html or The Unix-Haters Handbook/Book and Barf Bag : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1568842031/qid%3D917067718/002-3961063-2322265 I was on the unix-Haters mailing list some years ago, does this list still exists ? , Stephane -- slt Stephane Tsacas, Institut Curie @curie.fr 26 rue d'Ulm, 75248 cedex 5 Paris, France http://www.curie.fr +33 (0)1 42 34 6772 / 6758 (Fax) Rem. devnul frm addr. <> 23-Jan-1999 01:01:15 -0800,2229;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 01:01:14 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 01:00:19 -0800 (PST) X-Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for mrc; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:59:32 -0800 (PST) X-Received: from uhura.concentric.net (uhura.concentric.net [206.173.119.93]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Fri, 22 Jan 1999 21:59:25 PST X-Received: from newman.concentric.net (newman [207.155.184.71]) by uhura.concentric.net (8.9.1a/(98/12/15 5.12)) id AAA19953; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:56:03 -0500 (EST) [1-800-745-2747 The Concentric Network] X-Received: from [206.173.12.76] (ts002d16.box-ma.concentric.net [206.173.12.76]) by newman.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id AAA08154; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:56:02 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: In-Reply-To: References: <199901221552.KAA09172@opost.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 00:56:05 -0500 To: tops-20-errors@panda.com From: Wexelblat Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! ReSent-Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 01:00:01 -0800 (PST) ReSent-From: Mark Crispin ReSent-To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers ReSent-Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! ReSent-Message-ID: Just to point out... ">but TOPS-10 never had switches that were different based >upon case!)." TOPS-10 didn't have case at all. ASR-33's were uppercase only (Yes, ultimately we got lowercase, remember, I did SYSDPY for the VT52 and VT100 even though we kept saying that SYSDPY was unsupported) but the CLI was created in an uppercase only world. But then the PDP-1 used the FLEXOWRITER FLEXO (FOO) and the BBN PDP-1/d-45 used an upper/lower case IBM typewriter Soroban? for a console terminal, and both the FLEXO and the soroban had the capability, but only used upper. ...wex 24-Jan-1999 14:31:49 -0800,3249;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:31:49 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 11:20:56 -0800 (PST) Received: from opost.com (dlm@opost.com [207.22.41.2]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 11:19:35 PST Received: (from dlm@localhost) by opost.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id OAA10576 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 14:19:23 -0500 Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 14:19:23 -0500 From: Dan Murphy Message-Id: <199901231919.OAA10576@opost.com> To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! Mark Crispin writes: > On the other side of the coin, UNIX very much betrays 1960s thinking. > Alphabet soup command switches, outdoing early TOPS-10 at its worst (PIP > may have had /Q, but TOPS-10 never had switches that were different based > upon case!). Core dumps(!). TTY orientation. Well, in my hindsight view, some of those things are the very reason Unix has succeeded so well. The simple command lines may be a pain for novice users, but that and the tty orientation allows very effective pipelines and program-calling-program. If you want a GUI, you can put it on top, but having the command line and stdio conventions as they are is enormously powerful. > I've used UNIX as my primary OS for the past 11 years, and most of the > machines that I own run UNIX. But I see no particular benefit to running > UNIX on a laptop. I've done it, and decided that it wasn't worth it. The only reason I ever run Windoze is the shrink-wrap apps. One of these days, a combination of apps being released for Linux (e.g. Word Perfect) and Wine getting to sufficient strength will eliminate even that reason. Now THIS may sound heretical, but the thing I can't see any reason to run nowadays is TOPS-20, by emulation or otherwise. Fate is fate. If I, or someone else back in the days of TENEX and early TOPS-20, had had the sense to recode it in a portable language, history might have turned out very different. That didn't happen, so it never made the jump to other -- particularly cheaper -- architectures. In the widely-circulated talk* by Ken Thompson upon receiving the ACM Turing Award, he observed that if TENEX had been written for the PDP-11, "Daniel Bobrow would be standing here instead of me." I suspect he was slightly off the mark. If TENEX had been written in, or ported to, a language at least as portable as early C, then his conjecture might have been more likely. The history of operating systems, especially MS-DOS**, show that they NEVER succeed or fail in achieving popularity because of their inherent technical strength. dlm * - Ken Thompson, "Reflections on Trusting Trust", ACM Turing Award Lecture, CACM, Vol 27, No. 8, August 1984. ** - Yes, I know it's not a real operating system, but that's the point -- it succeeded anyway. 24-Jan-1999 15:00:51 -0800,2155;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 15:00:51 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:51:58 -0800 (PST) Received: (from dlm@localhost) by opost.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) id RAA10733 for TOPS-20@Panda.COM; Sat, 23 Jan 1999 17:50:22 -0500 Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 17:50:22 -0500 From: Dan Murphy Message-Id: <199901232250.RAA10733@opost.com> To: TOPS-20@Panda.COM Subject: Worse-is-better Stephane Tsacas writes: > Take a look at : > http://www.jwz.org/worse-is-better.html I think I've seen that before. It is a very useful insight. It is related to another old engineering aphorism - "the perfect is the enemy of the good". TENEX and TOPS-20 succeeded as well as they did, I think, because we were not obsessed with "the-right-thing" mentality most of the time. There were points in the TENEX design phase where we got some good advise, or had some good sense, and drastically cut back on complexity. VMS is an example of an operating system built mostly with "the-right-thing" thinking. Example: RMS (Record Management Services) is the Right Thing, so we'll force everybody to use it. Companies sometimes gain their initial success because they get out some products with the New Jersey approach, and the products are good enough to work for a lot of users. Now the company has a lot of money, worries about a lot of things, and decides that, from now on, they have to do thing "right". Thus, they shift into "the-right-thing" style. Somehow, they then find that their project are late and over budget. Code bases are bloated, and bugs are unending. Sound familiar? One Stratey, One... MS-DOS was New Jersey. Hell, it wasn't even New Jersey. It was Newark at most. NT. Now that's "the-right-thing". And it will be ready Real Soon Now. dlm 25-Jan-1999 10:00:13 -0800,2730;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 10:00:13 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 02:14:45 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 23:38:44 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! To: Dan Murphy cc: TOPS-20@panda.com In-Reply-To: <199901231919.OAA10576@opost.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sat, 23 Jan 1999 14:19:23 -0500, Dan Murphy wrote: > Well, in my hindsight view, some of those things are the very > reason Unix has succeeded so well. The simple command lines may > be a pain for novice users, but that and the tty orientation > allows very effective pipelines and program-calling-program. If > you want a GUI, you can put it on top, but having the command line > and stdio conventions as they are is enormously powerful. This wasn't my point. I don't think that UNIX succeeded because its user interface has commands such as "grep" and "awk"; or that because the "ls" command has -R and -r switches that do different things; or that when an application dies, all you get is a core dump (even TOPS-10 did better than this!!!). Rather, I contend that UNIX succeeded in spite of these deficiencies. It *is* an advance that the UNIX shell supports piping. As we all know, this could have been done in the Tenex/TOPS-20 EXEC, but it wasn't; and this led to programmers writing software that didn't pipe. On UNIX, an non-interactive application that doesn't pipe is roundly flamed. What I was thinking about when I said "TTY orientation" is that, to this day, UNIX thinks that all the world is a (Model 43) Teletype. Its sole concession to displays is that it deletes in the right way. The termcap facility very obviously comes from ITS; but it didn't go much further than ITS. [Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, ITS was *not* the "most display-oriented PDP-10 operating system"; WAITS had far more advanced display handling.] Of course, TOPS-20 had the same flaws. It's rather sad that in 1999, we're still stuck with the same TTY mindset as 1969. So we end up with clunky X windows to get very basic display facilities; which only helps if you have an X server. If you're not, you're hosed. > Now THIS may sound heretical, but the thing I can't see any reason > to run nowadays is TOPS-20, by emulation or otherwise. Retrocomputing. History. 25-Jan-1999 20:23:32 -0800,2418;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for t20arc; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 20:23:31 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(8) for tops-20; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 11:50:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from Zeke.Update.UU.SE (2026@Zeke.Update.UU.SE [130.238.11.14]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 11:49:16 PST Received: from localhost (bqt@localhost) by Zeke.Update.UU.SE (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id UAA19584; Mon, 25 Jan 1999 20:49:00 +0100 Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 20:48:59 +0100 (MET) From: Johnny Billquist To: Mark Crispin cc: Dan Murphy , TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Re: double, double, TOIL, and trouble! In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Mark Crispin wrote: > On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Dan Murphy wrote: > > I have to say, TOPS-20 was the best in its day, but the world has > > moved on. GNU/Linux is a very worthy successor. Don't leave home > > (or stay home) without it. > > This may sound heretical to some, but I'm starting to think that NT is a > much more worthy successor than UNIX. Hidden underneath the GUI interface > is a very powerful operating system, that does a number of things right > that UNIX gets horribly wrong. Just off the top of my head: file locking, > file/memory mapping, file name case. Hi, Mark. As a diehard pdp-11 and RSX fanatic, I can't help but start smiling. Anyway, I must say that I agree with your assessment of Unix. As for how well NT really will be, I guess NT5 will show if they have lost track of reality. From what it seems to me, they might be moving away from the clean and nice design that's hidden in there at the bottom, to an ugly, gargantuan GUI-loop. Maybe I'm just over-pessimistic, but since Cutler isn't in there anymore, I suspect that the usual MS-clowns will mess everything up. Johnny Johnny Billquist || "I'm on a bus || on a psychedelic trip email: bqt@update.uu.se || Reading murder books pdp is alive! || tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol 14-May-1999 21:54:57 -0700,701;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 14 May 1999 21:54:57 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for tops-20; Fri, 14 May 1999 16:23:40 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 09:07:32 -0700 (PDT) From: Mark Crispin Subject: a dark day To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII 16 years ago today, DEC cancelled Project Jupiter and decided not to build any new PDP-10 models. 15-May-1999 17:19:48 -0700,1286;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Sat, 15 May 1999 17:19:47 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Sat, 15 May 1999 08:07:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from kermit.futura.net (Kermit.futura.net [209.12.246.9]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Sat, 15 May 1999 08:07:11 PDT Received: from [209.194.158.168] by kermit.futura.net (NTMail 3.02.13) with ESMTP id ea823658 for ; Sat, 15 May 1999 10:03:15 -0500 Message-ID: <264E9F3C.EC9A676@futura.net> Date: Mon, 14 May 1990 07:06:21 -0500 From: George Markham Reply-To: gmarkham@futura.net X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.03 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Crispin CC: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: Re: a dark day References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Info: Mail gateway to the Futura And the world was a more mediocre place ever after to be sure. Mark Crispin wrote: > 16 years ago today, DEC cancelled Project Jupiter and decided not to build any > new PDP-10 models. 15-May-1999 17:20:03 -0700,1287;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Sat, 15 May 1999 17:20:03 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Sat, 15 May 1999 08:38:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from leofric.coventry.ac.uk (leofric.coventry.ac.uk [193.61.107.33]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Sat, 15 May 1999 08:37:56 PDT Received: (from ccx004@localhost) by leofric.coventry.ac.uk (8.8.6/8.6.11) id QAA16078; Sat, 15 May 1999 16:36:36 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 15 May 1999 16:36:36 +0100 (BST) From: Colin Bruce To: Mark Crispin cc: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: Re: a dark day In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 14 May 1999, Mark Crispin wrote: > 16 years ago today, DEC cancelled Project Jupiter and decided not to build any > new PDP-10 models. Funnily enough, 16 years on, DEC doesn't even exist anymore - just another part of Compaq. I wonder how much of the rot set in 16 years ago. Best wishes..... Colin Bruce 16-May-1999 16:43:33 -0700,1651;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Sun, 16 May 1999 16:43:33 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Sun, 16 May 1999 16:35:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from erols.com (207-172-34-84.s21.as10.rkv.md.dialup.rcn.com [207.172.34.84]) by smtp2.erols.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA27165; Sun, 16 May 1999 18:07:05 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <373F41ED.CC52F731@erols.com> Date: Sun, 16 May 1999 18:08:45 -0400 From: shsrms X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.51 [en] (WinNT; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Colin Bruce CC: Mark Crispin , TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Subject: Re: a dark day References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit in my less than humble opinion, the rot set in when DEC started trying to aclimate all the Honeywell folks into DEC. That was when it started moving towards digital. You know, the watch company. Everyone had those new digital watches back in the 70s. Just one ex-deccie's biased opinion. bob Colin Bruce wrote: > On Fri, 14 May 1999, Mark Crispin wrote: > > > 16 years ago today, DEC cancelled Project Jupiter and decided not to build any > > new PDP-10 models. > > Funnily enough, 16 years on, DEC doesn't even exist anymore - just another > part of Compaq. I wonder how much of the rot set in 16 years ago. > > Best wishes..... > Colin Bruce 14-Sep-1999 00:24:14 -0700,2192;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 00:24:13 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:18:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fornax.com (Joe-PC.US.Fornax.COM [199.100.71.136]) by Callisto.US.Fornax.COM (8.6.9/8.6.5) with ESMTP id UAA12378 for ; Mon, 13 Sep 1999 20:15:34 -0400 Message-ID: <37DD95E4.68FDD66E@fornax.com> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 20:25:08 -0400 From: Joe Dempster X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: The KL 10 is in the news again.... Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a reasonably well written article in the Saturday, September 11, 1999 New York Times (page A7 in the NYC Edition), John Markoff wrote about Louis Kao, the legendary proprietor of the Palo Alto restaurant Hsi-Nan (closed in 1995), and his pending retirement from the business of serving food to many of the icons of days gone by in the Valley. The final 5 paragraphs of this article nicely capture the flavor of things that we all miss regarding a once great computer company and an equally terrific user community: "Jeff Rubin, a systems programmer at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, even worked for Mr. Kao as a waiter in exchange for Chinese lessons. Which is why Mark Seiden, a veteran programmer, remembers one day when a manager of the laboratory (could this have been Les Earnest?) came to lunch with a Digital Equipment salesman. "At one point the two were arguing about a technical detail, and the manager called a halt to the debate. "There in no point in arguing," he said. "We can settle this very easily. Let's ask the waiter." "Can you tell us about the cache on the KL 10?" the laboratory manager asked Mr. Rubin. "It's a 32K two way associative cache," he replied, and then walked away, leaving the salesman's mouth hanging open." And that is how the article ended...... /joe 14-Sep-1999 14:20:02 -0700,1126;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:20:02 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:14:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from flipper.cisco.com (flipper.cisco.com [171.69.63.10]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:14:27 PDT Received: (billw@localhost) by flipper.cisco.com (8.8.5-Cisco.2-SunOS.5.5.1.sun4/8.6.5) id BAA17331; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 01:07:07 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 99 1:07:07 PDT From: William "Chops" Westfield To: Joe Dempster Cc: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Re: The KL 10 is in the news again.... In-Reply-To: Your message of Mon, 13 Sep 1999 20:25:08 -0400 Message-ID: Jeff Rubin, a systems programmer at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, even worked for Mr. Kao as a waiter in exchange for Chinese lessons. I thought it was in exchange for (Chinese) cooking lessons? BillW 14-Sep-1999 16:36:41 -0700,1389;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:36:41 -0700 (PDT) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:47:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sdf.lonestar.org (root@t3-d-static-237.adsl.directlink.net [63.68.131.237]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 14 Sep 1999 14:47:32 PDT Received: med sdf.lonestar.org via sendmail vid stdio Message-Id: From: smj@sdf.lonestar.org (Stephen Jones) Subject: Re: The KL 10 is in the news again.... To: billw@cisco.com (William "Chops" Westfield) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:50:18 -0500 (CDT) Cc: dempster@fornax.com, tops-20@panda.com In-Reply-To: from "William "Chops" Westfield" at Sep 14, 99 01:07:07 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Content-Type: text > Jeff Rubin, a systems programmer at Stanford's Artificial > Intelligence Laboratory, even worked for Mr. Kao as a waiter in > exchange for Chinese lessons. > > I thought it was in exchange for (Chinese) cooking lessons? Thats what I thought as well .. and I've actually taken chances like that with both Chinese and South Indian! (Will work for cooking lessons). Stephen Jones http://thevisitors.com 09-Nov-1999 17:57:15 -0800,4912;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 17:57:15 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:11:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from amdint2.amd.com (amdint2.amd.com [163.181.250.1]) by amdext2.amd.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/AMD) with ESMTP id PAA07767 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:10:46 -0600 (CST) Received: from dvorak.amd.com (dvorak.amd.com [163.181.10.9]) by amdint2.amd.com (8.9.3/8.9.3/AMD) with ESMTP id PAA24346 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:10:45 -0600 (CST) Received: from reverse.amd.com (reverse.amd.com [163.181.232.24]) by dvorak.amd.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA21578 for ; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:10:45 -0600 (CST) Received: (from clive@localhost) by reverse.amd.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA06205; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:10:45 -0600 (CST) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 1999 15:10:45 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <199911092110.PAA06205@reverse.amd.com> From: Clive Dawson To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: Fwd: Dave Poole may be lost at sea I'm not sure how many folks remain on this list, but I thought this message forwarded by MRC might be of interest, especially to those who remember Dave. Clive Dawson ------- Start of forwarded message ------- Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 18:44:51 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Subject: Dave Poole may be lost at sea If this is true, it is sad news. For those of you who don't know, Dave Poole was the heart and soul of the Foonly. When the Foonly project at SAIL died, many of his designs were subsequently taken over by DEC and became the KL10. Poole subsequently formed the Foonly company, and built a single Super Foonly (a.k.a. the Foonly F1), the fastest PDP-10 ever built, that was installed at III. The Super Foonly was used to produce the graphics used in the movie "TRON". He subsequently built smaller-scale systems, the F2 and F3 (which were KS10 scale), and the F4 which subsequently became Tymshare's 26XL PDP-10 clone that competed with System Concepts' SC-30M. ** Begin Forwarded Message ** Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 14:50:00 -0800 (PST) From: Les Earnest Subject: David Poole Lost at Sea? Vic Scheinman writes: KCBS said this morning that: The Coast Guard has abandoned a search off Alaska for a Mountain View man named David Poole. He's presumed lost after his 52ft. boat was hit by winds of 80-100mph in Glacier Bay. There is also an article in this morning's San Jose Mercury News on page 2B. I know that there is more than one David Poole in the world -- for example, I know another one in North Carolina -- but inasmuch as our former colleague was an avid sailor who was involved in two catastrophic sinkings while he was at SAIL, I would sadly guess that it is probably him. Martin Frost writes: The info below comes from the Coast Guard web site for Alaska, in a release dated yesterday. http://www.uscg.mil/d17/allnews/news99/23499.htm In an unrelated search also in southeast Alaska, the Coast Guard suspend efforts at 3:55 p.m. to find David Poole. Poole left Mt. View, Calif., in September aboard his 52-foot sailboat, the Bird, on a lone trip to southeast Alaska, according to his friend Barbara Aschenbrenner. Aschenbrenner reported Poole missing Friday after she hadn't heard from him in eleven days. Poole last contacted Aschenbrenner Oct. 25 after fueling in Hoonah. Friday afternoon, the Coast Guard used a Sitka-based helicopter to search Glacier Bay and issued radio broadcasts, asking mariners to report any information they may have about Poole's whereabouts. Saturday, a fishing vessel crew found a refrigerator from the Bird in Glacier Bay and contacted the Coast Guard. Coast Guard personnel talked with the craftsman, who custom built the refrigerator, and learned that it must be disassembled to be removed from the vessel. This lead Coast Guard officials to suspect the Bird broke apart and sank, according to Lt. Randy Sundberg, a rescue coordinator at the Coast Guard command center here. Saturday, the Coast Guard used a Kodiak-based C-130 to search for Poole throughout southeast Alaska. Pilots from the Juneau CAP squadron also searched Glacier Bay. Today the 110-foot Coast Guard cutter Liberty, a Sitka-based helicopter, CAP personnel and National Park Service personnel searched for Poole, finding chunks of blue fiberglass, an extra-large lifejacket, a blue tote and other debris suspected to have come from the Bird. Searchers logged more than 67 hours before suspending their efforts to locate Poole. ------- End of forwarded message ------- 12-Nov-1999 18:53:35 -0800,5626;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:53:34 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 21:07:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from nw.com (nw.com [128.177.248.4]) by Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU; Tue, 09 Nov 1999 21:06:23 PST Received: (from mkl@localhost) by nw.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id VAA05728; Tue, 9 Nov 1999 21:06:06 -0800 (PST) Date: Tue, 9 Nov 99 21:06:05 PST From: Mark Lottor To: TOPS-20@panda.com Subject: remembering Poole Message-ID: Hi- A long time ago, I worked with Dave Poole at the SRI Computer Science Lab. In 1984, SRI-CSL had 2 Foonly F4's running Tenex. I also worked for many years at SRI-NIC, where they had a Foonly running Tenex. It had an IMP interface and was directly on the MILNET. That machine was mostly used for generating MILNET TAC access cards and keeping audit info for MILNET billing information. In late 1984, Poole was contracted to upgrade the CSL machines to run TOPS-20 (a hardware and software upgrade), and I was contracted as a systems programmer to work with Poole and CSL transitioning them over to TOPS-20. When Poole came to work on the machines, he would always bring his bird along with him, and once in the machine room he would let it out of the cage (it couldn't fly). Often, the bird would sit on his shoulder as he hacked away on the VT100 consoles. The F4 used a 6802 (I think) as its front-end processor. It ran this small LISP like interpreter that was used to load the microcode from disk into the F4 processor and get things bootstrapped. It was said no two Foonly's were alike, as they were all hand built and mostly wire-wrapped. I believe he built around 35 Foonly's. One of the F4s, SRI-CSL, had an IMP/1822 interface and was on the Arpanet. We decided to switch things over to ethernet and Poole brought in these ethernet interfaces which I believe were closely related to the Stanford MEIS interfaces. The boards were 2901 powered and had hundreds of chips on them. Poole hacked away at the drivers and we finally got the two F4's talking TCP/IP to each other. Then we hooked things up to a PDP-11 router, but found that the F4s wouldn't talk to anything but themselves. Poole worked on the problem for days, looking at oscilloscopes on the ethernet, packet dumps and logic analyzers, and re-reading the DIX specs over and over again. During this debugging, the bird would often wander off, and many times it would climb up the ethernet transceiver cables, and get up into the cardcages of the F4s. Once we found it pecking away on some boards, and it had knocked out a number of capacitor decoupling chips. It also left a bunch of bird shit on the cables and cabinets of the Foonly's. After many days of work, Poole finally found the network problem. The ethernet boards were wired up wrong, and were sending the bits of each byte out in the wrong order! They could talk to themselves but no one else! Instead of rewiring the messy boards, he microcoded a new F4 instruction that reversed the bits of 4 bytes in a word, hacked that into the TOPS-20 drivers, and we finally were on the Internet. At one point during his months of work, someone complained to SRI management about him bringing his bird in. SRI told him he could no longer bring it in because it was a health hazard. Poole refused to continue working on the systems unless his bird could come with him. Finally, someone at CSL worked out a plan where he snuck his bird in and no one said anything about it. He was definitely an extraordinary hacker. In a single day he could go from hacking LISP console code, to writing new microcode, to hacking TOPS-20 driver code, to wire-wrapping backs of boards, and even to fixing pneumatic problems on the 1/2" tape drives. One day he was working on some new microcode, and ran this compiler called, I believe, SLO. I asked him what it stood for. He said nothing, its called that because its so damn slow! Around this period he lived on a sailboat in the Berkeley marina, and I got a chance to sail with him and some friends in the SF Bay one nice afternoon. Eventually, he got tired of fixing old Foonly's and gave up on them, leaving his spare boards and all the Foonly schematics in the CSL machine room. I thought they might be useful so I took them home one day to save them. A few years later, I ended up buying one of the CSL F4s for $222 at an SRI property auction (I think the original cost was around $100K), and I ran it at home for a short period of time (it used too much power for me then). Years later, maybe in 1994-1995, I found out he was working at Sun in Mountain View and his birthday was coming up. One night, I snuck the 6' backplane for my F4 (it was now a parts machine) with thousands of wirewrap connections on it over to his office and placed it in the window that separated his office and the hallway. I heard that when the young Sun engineers went by his office the next day, he would explain to them how they used to build computers in the good old days. A few months later he asked if I had any of the schematics, so I took him the entire box of drawings and he was happy to get them back. I recall one day in 1984 working with him, and I asked, "So, could you build a single board PDP-10?", to which he replied, "Sure, if the board is big enough". -Mark 12-Nov-1999 18:53:52 -0800,4917;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for t20arc; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:53:52 -0800 (PST) Errors-To: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Sender: tops-20-errors@Panda.COM Precedence: bulk Received: via tmail-4.1(11) for tops-20; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:38:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from shiva2.cac.washington.edu (shiva2.cac.washington.edu [140.142.100.202]) by mxout2.cac.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id SAA04804 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:38:20 -0800 Received: from localhost (mrc@localhost) by shiva2.cac.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW99.09/8.9.3+UW99.08) with ESMTP id SAA13554 for ; Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:38:20 -0800 Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 18:38:19 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin To: tops-20@panda.com Subject: Followup on Dave Poole (fwd) Message-ID: Organization: Networks & Distributed Computing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 16:45:43 -0800 (PST) From: Les Earnest Reply-To: les@CS.Stanford.EDU Subject: Followup on Dave Poole There was a followup article in the S.J. Mercury News on Wednesday (page 1B) saying that the Coast Guard had suspended the search for Dave Poole. It mentioned that his friend, Barbara Aschenbrenner, lives in Los Altos. We subsequently determined that she actually is in Los Altos Hills and John Chowning talked to her. She said she is planning some sort of get together (memorial) at the Baylands Center in Palo Alto at the foot of Embarcadero, perhaps a week from this Saturday and that she will confirm the time and date to John. John also sent email to the Coast guard and received the following information just now. -Les Earnest ---------------------------- Nov 12, 1999 Dear Mr. Chowning: . . . Regarding further information about the search for Mr. Poole, Commander Richard Stanchi of our search and rescue division here recently wrote the following to another of Mr. Poole's friends. "I am taking the opportunity to clarify some aspects of our search for David. You read information contained in our Public Affairs website, which only contained an overview of efforts to find David. There are many other facts, assumptions, and models (based on empirical data) that we evaluate before we suspend a search effort. While we release information to the website we believe to be factual, further examination of evidence may lead us to draw different conclusions at a later time. For example, the blue fiberglass pieces that were found in the search area were determined to not be connected to this search and were discounted as evidence. I can assure you that we conduct exhaustive searches and follow up on all reasonable leads. The storm that probably caused the S/V Bird to break up contained sustained 100 mph winds. David did not have any survival suits, so any immersion in the waters of Glacier Bay would lead to his incapacitation within minutes. Recognizing this, and having had such a delayed alert to his situation, we focused our efforts primarily on the shoreline where survival was possible, had he made it there. We searched all the shorelines of Glacier Bay, including all the islands as well as the shorelines of Cross Sound and Icy Strait (the bodies of water outside of Glacier Bay). There were several searches made by Coast Guard helicopters, National Park Service and Civil Air Patrol aircraft in addition to a Coast Guard cutter and a Park Service boat. During debriefs the pilots indicated the search conditions were such that had anyone been on the shorelines within the search areas, they would have found them. I did not suspend efforts until I received this confirmation as well the evaluating other evidence we had. I extend to you the condolences, the sympathy, and prayers of all the men and women of the Coast Guard in Alaska. Our sailors and airmen know the ferocity of Alaskan seas, and how fragile mariners are in their grasp. Whenever northern winds and seas take anyone, we feel the loss most personally. Everyone who worked the search last week wished we could have brought David back home safely. Sadly, however, our efforts and the efforts of many others were just not enough under the circumstances of this case. It is my hope that you will draw some small consolation from knowing the Coast Guard will remember David and continue to work as hard as we possibly can to prevent recurrence of tragedies such as this one." Mr. Chowning, if I can further assist you, please feel free to contact me again. Sincerely, Roger W. Wetherell Petty Officer First Class webmaster 17th Coast Guard District Juneau, AK 99802 21-Nov-1999 15:19:44 -0800,1238;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Sun, 21 Nov 1999 15:19:44 -0800 (PST) Date: Sun, 21 Nov 1999 15:07:01 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Sender: Mark Crispin Subject: TOPS-20 list goes unmoderated... To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Some of the last flurry of messages about our late colleague Dave Poole were delayed because the TOPS-20 list was moderated to stop spammers in general and "Krazy" Kevin Lipsitz (the Staten Island magzine spammer) in particular. It appears that Panda.COM's anti-spam filters are doing their job and keeping this garbage out, so as an experiment I'm removing the moderation. That way, any mail to TOPS-20@Panda.COM will go through immediately without waiting for me to approve it. We'll see if it works out. By the way, if you post to the list, it must be exactly "tops-20@panda.com". In particular, the old "tops20" alias is on many spammer mailing lists, as is the host name "ikkoku-kan.panda.com"; neither one works any more. 20-Dec-1999 09:48:16 -0800,665;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Mon, 20 Dec 1999 09:48:15 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 09:47:04 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Sender: Mark Crispin Subject: December 20 To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Happy DEC-20 day. Tell your DEC-20 that you still love it. Say, is there going to be a 36th anniversary of 36bits party next year some time? Anyone want to get something like that going? 31-Dec-1999 20:44:25 -0800,1240;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: via tmail-4.1(11) (invoked by user mrc) for t20arc; Fri, 31 Dec 1999 20:44:24 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 1999 20:30:23 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Crispin Sender: Mark Crispin Subject: countdown to Y2K To: TOPS-20 Hackers and Yackers Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Many years ago, I made a pledge, published in Datamation, that my 2020 system will see Y2K. In fufillment of that pledge, I have powered up my 2020 system (for the first time in a year), and TOPS-20 is running now as I'm typing this in. I fully intend to save the CTY printout showing it handle the Y2K transition without any problems. Meanwhile, I have the GIGI running the old demos. That isn't the only thing going on here at Panda. Given that this night has got to be the sleaziest night of the millennium, I have prepared an appropriately sleazy way of celebrating it: chilling in the refrigerator is a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon and on the counter ready for consumption at midnight is Gormay Kweezeen, otherwise known as four cans of SPAM.