Re: Your worst project?

On 2007-11-26, Jon Elson <elson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
DoN. Nichols wrote:
Jon Elson wrote:

[ ... ]

So the 8" drive was SCSI, not SMD?

Yes, but the above was talking about a mag tape adaptor i got of
a Digi-Data streaming tape drive we had at work - the worst POS
I've ever seen. Brand-new drive, 4 months old, started burning
out read-amp chips, and they cost $100 each.

Ouch!

I have some
CDC-MPI Keystone 92185 tape drives, really good streaming
1600/6250 BPI drives, but these have the Pertec formatter
interface, and SCSI would be a lot easier way to connect to a
PC. I haven't tried this adaptor out to see if it will work
with the keystone drives, but I suspect it will.

Hmm ... HP made a nice front-loading self-threading tape drive
(which we had with the Solbournes), which was SCSI interface. And I've
got one which is AT&T branded, and which was thus slightly incompatible
with the Sun or Solbourne drivers of the time. I should try it with
Solaris 10 to see whether it can work properly there.

While I took to unix very happily -- through the OS-9 path.
I've never used VMS, but the flavor of the commands which I have seen
(and the ftp format needed to get things from the original Simtel-20,
which was a DecSystem 20, IIRC) kept me convinced that I would not like
it. :-)


Well, it didn't have the piping concept, but the command
language was VERY well constructed and uniform over all the
commands, unlike the way things are in the Unix shells.

Hmm ... while with unix you can pick the shell which you
particularly like. I use tcsh for a command-line shell, and zsh for
writing scripts -- because it will do the looping structures from tcsh,
but is a bit friendlier for certain other features. :-)

One major difference is VMS's Record Management System was part
of the kernel, so the file system was essentially a database, if
you needed to search on record keys.

Well ... I have known of people who use the long filenames
possible in the BSD FFS (also present in all versions of SunOs and
Solaris which I have used) as the first stage of a database, using the
shell's wildcarding to pre-select records form very ugly filenames. :-)

I cloned a National Semi 32016
system that I talked a department at work to buy, running Genix,
and used it for a while.


Hmm ... I've got a couple of Tektronix 6130s -- 32016 based,
with a BSD 4.2 flavor of unix.

I don't even know what a 6130 is. I have some Tek 9200 logic
analyzers that have 68030's in them, I think.

The 6130 was also built on the 32016 -- and its main claim to
fame is an IEEE-488 interface for controlling test equipment. All of an
80 MB internal disk drive, and no format command on the system -- but it
did have a plugin card to allow SCSI devices, which I used for backup
tapes -- but never found a way to format drives properly for mounting on
the system. It had the ability to be a workstation, but neither of mine
had the framebuffer cards, so I used them either via serial port and
terminals, or rlogin via ethernet. (Needless to say, these days I would
keep them on the protected side of a firewall -- though probably most
attack would be looking for newer systems. :-)


Hmm ... SunOs 4.1.x came with a Versatec driver as one of the
standard ones. I just never had the printer to use with it. :-) (And I
did write to a Versatec from a CDC 6600 long ago, writing some 3D view
graphics files -- and I was not impressed with the quality -- just the
length of plot which could come out of it. :-)

Yeas, as soon as the first under-$10K laser printer came out,
Versatec was DEAD! Horrible ugly-feeling paper, like handling a
dirty chalkboard.

:-)

I wonder what the technology which It used was? It looked sort
of like a raster scanned photo buildup. Was it wet or dry processed?

Now, if I could just find a good laser printer which could print
on a roll of paper, I would be happy. :-)

I've never really seen a linux that I like. I have been really
happy with both the old SunOs 4.1.x (BSD flavored) and the later
versions of Solaris -- especially Solaris 10, which you can download for
free from Sun's site. I also like OpenBSD for systems which are going
to be exposed to the outside net, though less so for workstations. They
make great firewalls, however -- and on just about any platform you have
around. :-)
Well, I have one app that NEEDS Linux, the EMC machine tool
control.

Maybe or maybe not. Solaris is supposed to be a real-time OS to
start with, and with a PCI version of the Servo-To-Go card it should be
possible to bring it up on any of the Ultra systems (which all have PCI
slots instead of Sbus.) I've been sort of considering trying that with
my Bridgeport. (The linux seems to not be stable with my current
hardware, and I've never finished the conversion of the machine -- which
started life as a Bridgeport Series-I BOSS-3 running on an old quad-wide
LSI-11. The system had a massive case of electronic Altzheimer's, and
would forget what it was doing within fifteen seconds of being reset.
Usually, that was not enough time to load a tiny progrma to test it. :-)

More about it later.

And another that is only supported on Linux and
Windows, I think, FlightGear. Is there a VMware version for
Solaris? I need that to run Windows apps under Linux.

That I don't know. I've never wanted to run Windows under
Solaris -- though I do have a card which should allow me to run it in
one of the PCI slots -- if I ever take the time to load the drivers and
then the OS.

O.K. You got into EMC rather early allright. Are you using the
Servo-to-go card and servos, or are you using steppers?
I used a Servo-to-Go card for years, but eventually had to
upgrade the PC hardware (going flaky) and move to more current
software, so I finally started using my own interface hardware
on it. (Something like the shoemaker's kids going barefoot.)
I am a stepper-hater, or servo-snob, so I don't have any
steppers on my machines.

Well ... I've got steppers on my Emco-Maier Compact-5/CNC lathe,
but it came with them.

I've been converting the controller to EMC based, and the
steppers to servo motors, with one serious hangup. The servos are a lot
longer than the original steppers. The Y-axis stepper fit into a recess
in the knee, and the servo can't fit. I've got to build an alternate
motor mount/belt guard which slopes at a 45 degree angle down to the
right, so the motor winds up beside the knee instead of trying to stab
through the knee's jackscrew. :-) And to do this properly, I really need
welding capability -- which I do not yet have. Or I need to get the
motor mount assembly from a later Bridgeport -- from after *they* moved
to servos.

I've got all the servos, and some nice self-powered servo amps.
It will all go into a (Plexi)glass-fronted relay rack to keep the chips
out of the electronics, and the vibration out of the electronics, too.
I plan to hang a dedicated VFD on the spindle motor, and use the
Servo-to-go card's 4th axis to feed it command voltage for the selected
spindle speed to keep from having to crank the pulley speed change
cranks as much. :-)

Enjoy,
DoN

--
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