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Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352687] Sun, 17 September 2017 14:06 Go to next message
Mike Spencer is currently offline  Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> Simon Turner wrote:
>
>> [0] learning to use the right tool; learning how to use the tool they're
>> already using in a more efficient way; writing a scipt to automate a
>> manual process; etc.
>
> And how are people supposed to learn? I've found no "getting started"
> books. There are no classes nor user groups to attend. The majority
> of people have been "trained" using Windows and there is no such thing
> as keystroke short cuts to do the "easy" things. Before one can learn
> Unix interfaces, one has to be an expert in Unix.

Maybe it's soooo last century? There are (or were) books.

My introdution to Unix went like this: I was a CP/M user at a home.
I'd bought a CP/M C compiler and had bought a book (in addition to the
Osborne 1 manual) on Z80 assembler. Did some very amateur
programming. Major achievement? Maybe Conway's Life in Z80
assembler.

Then I made a long visit -- 3 weeks or so -- to a friend working in a
Unix environment. Finding me more or less interesting and congenial
(I was not then as yet a cranky old geezer :-), he and is colleagues
put me in front of (what was then) a powerful DEC mini with a huge 19"
or 20" color monitor running Unix and X10 with uwm, gave me a manual
for their alpha-stage software and said, "Do something interesting."
The CP/M->Unix transition was a little like getting out of a 1953 VW
Beetle and into the cockpit of the space shuttle.

I went out the next day and bought a hard-copy Gnu Emacs manual and
The Unix C Shell Field Guide. Although I initially hated Emacs and
shingled off onto the fog a couple of times when there was no one
around to tell me what to do, in a couple of weeks what I was doing
was pronounced "interesting" by the career-techie folks in the venue.

So I just don't get why it is that you, a career techie, find it a
stone-wall problem to beat up enough Unix/Linux to fly a Linux PC.

After nearly 30 years, I have of course acquired many more books, read
some RFCs, installed my own Linux system, groveled through Linux admin
problems with my bodged together congeries of obsolescent hardware and
dialup internet. But, you know, books, eh?

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352780 is a reply to message #352687] Mon, 18 September 2017 09:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Mike Spencer wrote:
>
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>
>> Simon Turner wrote:
>>
>>> [0] learning to use the right tool; learning how to use the tool they're
>>> already using in a more efficient way; writing a scipt to automate a
>>> manual process; etc.
>>
>> And how are people supposed to learn? I've found no "getting started"
>> books. There are no classes nor user groups to attend. The majority
>> of people have been "trained" using Windows and there is no such thing
>> as keystroke short cuts to do the "easy" things. Before one can learn
>> Unix interfaces, one has to be an expert in Unix.
>
> Maybe it's soooo last century? There are (or were) books.
>
> My introdution to Unix went like this: I was a CP/M user at a home.
> I'd bought a CP/M C compiler and had bought a book (in addition to the
> Osborne 1 manual) on Z80 assembler. Did some very amateur
> programming. Major achievement? Maybe Conway's Life in Z80
> assembler.
>
> Then I made a long visit -- 3 weeks or so -- to a friend working in a
> Unix environment. Finding me more or less interesting and congenial
> (I was not then as yet a cranky old geezer :-), he and is colleagues
> put me in front of (what was then) a powerful DEC mini with a huge 19"
> or 20" color monitor running Unix and X10 with uwm, gave me a manual
> for their alpha-stage software and said, "Do something interesting."
> The CP/M->Unix transition was a little like getting out of a 1953 VW
> Beetle and into the cockpit of the space shuttle.

You had a support group to fix what you broke.

>
> I went out the next day and bought a hard-copy Gnu Emacs manual and
> The Unix C Shell Field Guide. Although I initially hated Emacs and
> shingled off onto the fog a couple of times when there was no one
> around to tell me what to do, in a couple of weeks what I was doing
> was pronounced "interesting" by the career-techie folks in the venue.
>
> So I just don't get why it is that you, a career techie, find it a
> stone-wall problem to beat up enough Unix/Linux to fly a Linux PC.

I don't have the energy. Undoing what I break is not an option.

I've been talking about the common population of computer owners in this
thread. I understand their point of view.


>
> After nearly 30 years, I have of course acquired many more books, read
> some RFCs, installed my own Linux system, groveled through Linux admin
> problems with my bodged together congeries of obsolescent hardware and
> dialup internet. But, you know, books, eh?

I have 2 dozen books. I have a problem I need to solve. My energy
level for finding the solution last about 15 minutes.

Undoing something would take me a year to fix. It's been 6 months
since I was stopped sending email. I know the solution to my
problem. However, it requires a phone call to Comcast's 800
number to order the internet and TV options. I don't have the
energy to do that. I have another phone call to the IRS which has a
higher priority than getting Comcast services. The last time I
tried took 1.5 hours and they humg up on me.

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352821 is a reply to message #352780] Mon, 18 September 2017 16:18 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Spencer is currently offline  Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> I don't have the energy.

I understand the problem. The number of tasks, chores or projects I
have energy for in any given day has decreased substantially.
Yesterday I picked a bushel of tomatoes. harvested some broccoli,
repaired my cracked glasses case with JB Weld and a dental drill and
slacked off the rest of the day.

> Undoing what I break is not an option.

But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
confronted with that.

> I have another phone call to the IRS which has a
> higher priority than getting Comcast services. The last time I
> tried took 1.5 hours and they humg up on me.

My condolences.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352856 is a reply to message #352821] Tue, 19 September 2017 09:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Mike Spencer wrote:
>
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>
>> I don't have the energy.
>
> I understand the problem. The number of tasks, chores or projects I
> have energy for in any given day has decreased substantially.
> Yesterday I picked a bushel of tomatoes. harvested some broccoli,
> repaired my cracked glasses case with JB Weld and a dental drill and
> slacked off the rest of the day.

You did more than I could do in 2 months :-).

My mental capacities have diminished substantially. I used to have
a long-term push down list of thousands; now it's zero. My short-term
push down list is three but only if I concentrate. If my attention
is distracted, the PDL has been cleared. I've been trying to measure
the short-term one with knitting. It's dangerous to have a 5-count
pattern ;-).

>
>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>
> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
> confronted with that.

It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem and no real documentation
(where "real" is defined by DEC's doc standards).

>
>> I have another phone call to the IRS which has a
>> higher priority than getting Comcast services. The last time I
>> tried took 1.5 hours and they humg up on me.
>
> My condolences.

One of the problems is that the government's phone software hangs up
after one hour on hold. AMEX's software did the same so it may not
be strictly a government thingie. it's annoying.

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352868 is a reply to message #352780] Tue, 19 September 2017 13:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
pechter is currently offline  pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
In article <PM000559774A0C819B@aca41812.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Simon Turner wrote:
>>>
>>>> [0] learning to use the right tool; learning how to use the tool they're
>>>> already using in a more efficient way; writing a scipt to automate a
>>>> manual process; etc.
>>>
>>> And how are people supposed to learn? I've found no "getting started"
>>> books. There are no classes nor user groups to attend. The majority
>>> of people have been "trained" using Windows and there is no such thing
>>> as keystroke short cuts to do the "easy" things. Before one can learn
>>> Unix interfaces, one has to be an expert in Unix.
>>
>> Maybe it's soooo last century? There are (or were) books.
>>
>> My introdution to Unix went like this: I was a CP/M user at a home.
>> I'd bought a CP/M C compiler and had bought a book (in addition to the
>> Osborne 1 manual) on Z80 assembler. Did some very amateur
>> programming. Major achievement? Maybe Conway's Life in Z80
>> assembler.
>>
>> Then I made a long visit -- 3 weeks or so -- to a friend working in a
>> Unix environment. Finding me more or less interesting and congenial
>> (I was not then as yet a cranky old geezer :-), he and is colleagues
>> put me in front of (what was then) a powerful DEC mini with a huge 19"
>> or 20" color monitor running Unix and X10 with uwm, gave me a manual
>> for their alpha-stage software and said, "Do something interesting."
>> The CP/M->Unix transition was a little like getting out of a 1953 VW
>> Beetle and into the cockpit of the space shuttle.
>
> You had a support group to fix what you broke.
>
>>
>> I went out the next day and bought a hard-copy Gnu Emacs manual and
>> The Unix C Shell Field Guide. Although I initially hated Emacs and
>> shingled off onto the fog a couple of times when there was no one
>> around to tell me what to do, in a couple of weeks what I was doing
>> was pronounced "interesting" by the career-techie folks in the venue.
>>
>> So I just don't get why it is that you, a career techie, find it a
>> stone-wall problem to beat up enough Unix/Linux to fly a Linux PC.
>
> I don't have the energy. Undoing what I break is not an option.

At worst a restore would return the system to usable. Backups
can be run automatically to generate full system backups automatically to the
external drive. The external can be bootable as recovery media.

>
> I've been talking about the common population of computer owners in this
> thread. I understand their point of view.

Screw the common population of computer owners. They need to find their
own way. Amazing how one windows disaster sends them to the Linux
group meetings I attend.


>>
>> After nearly 30 years, I have of course acquired many more books, read
>> some RFCs, installed my own Linux system, groveled through Linux admin
>> problems with my bodged together congeries of obsolescent hardware and
>> dialup internet. But, you know, books, eh?
>
> I have 2 dozen books. I have a problem I need to solve. My energy
> level for finding the solution last about 15 minutes.
>

One post to the internet with a description of the problem in
alt.folklore.computers would probably find an answer. Also... if the
internet is available ssh into the box could give me a shell to fix it for
you and show you what was broke.

I even do this for friends with Windows boxes... Fixing *BSD/linux is a
pleasure.

FreeBSD also has ZFS Snapshots for reverting to last working configuration.
Used that to fix my screw-up on Digital Ocean.

Broke pretty much all of my crap a couple of weeks ago... I was trying
to build IPFire from source on Ubuntu... I couldn't get the network startup
and other stuff to work. Damned if the change of /bin/dash to /bin/bash
as the shell (moved symbolic link needed to build IPFire broke many of the
Ubuntu scripts.)

Total time to fix was about 15 minutes once I realized what was up.
Should've kept a notebook next to the machine for this.


> Undoing something would take me a year to fix. It's been 6 months
> since I was stopped sending email. I know the solution to my
> problem. However, it requires a phone call to Comcast's 800
> number to order the internet and TV options. I don't have the

Nope... restore the backups to the laptop.

All config files you need for the networking all fit on one USB stick.
(Or you could save them on your Mac... over the net)...

They're all text files and usually less than 6 lines each...


> energy to do that. I have another phone call to the IRS which has a
> higher priority than getting Comcast services. The last time I
> tried took 1.5 hours and they humg up on me.

Ah yes. Been there.

Did all my communications by US Mail.

>
> /BAH

Bill
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352876 is a reply to message #352856] Tue, 19 September 2017 16:17 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mike Spencer is currently offline  Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>
>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>> confronted with that.
>
> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...

That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
not for on-the-fly problem solving.

> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
> standards).

That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
half a dozen spare machines.


--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352926 is a reply to message #352868] Wed, 20 September 2017 04:43 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charlie Gibbs is currently offline  Charlie Gibbs
Messages: 5313
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 2017-09-19, William Pechter
<pechter@lakewoodmicro-fbsd-tor1-01.lakewoodmicro.com> wrote:

> In article <PM000559774A0C819B@aca41812.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I've been talking about the common population of computer owners in this
>> thread. I understand their point of view.
>
> Screw the common population of computer owners. They need to find their
> own way. Amazing how one windows disaster sends them to the Linux
> group meetings I attend.

Equally amazing how one Linux disaster sends them scurrying back to Windows.

--
/~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352948 is a reply to message #352876] Wed, 20 September 2017 08:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Mike Spencer wrote:
>
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>
>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>
>>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>> confronted with that.
>>
>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>
> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>
>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>> standards).
>
> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
> half a dozen spare machines.

<grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
TOPS-20.

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352951 is a reply to message #352948] Wed, 20 September 2017 09:19 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 12:59:43 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:

> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>>
>>>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> confronted with that.
>>>
>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>
>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month, not
>> for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>
>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>> standards).
>>
>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>> half a dozen spare machines.
>
> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization was
> one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.

One version of VMS used orange too. 4 or 5.


--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352953 is a reply to message #352948] Wed, 20 September 2017 09:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
pechter is currently offline  pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>>
>>>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> confronted with that.
>>>
>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>
>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>
>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>> standards).
>>
>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>> half a dozen spare machines.
>
> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
> TOPS-20.
>
> /BAH

Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
VMS help worked for most non programming uses.

bill

..
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352954 is a reply to message #352948] Wed, 20 September 2017 09:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
scott is currently offline  scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>>
>>>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> confronted with that.
>>>
>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>
>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>
>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>> standards).
>>
>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>> half a dozen spare machines.
>
> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
> TOPS-20.
>

VMS used Blue, Orange and Grey over the years. I still have some
of the blue binders and perhaps one of the orange ones.
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352956 is a reply to message #352953] Wed, 20 September 2017 10:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:

> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >
>>>> > But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> > confronted with that.
>>>>
>>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>
>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>
>>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> standards).
>>>
>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>
>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
>> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization was
>> one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.
>>
>> /BAH
>
> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.

Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
(and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352970 is a reply to message #352956] Wed, 20 September 2017 14:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
pechter is currently offline  pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
In article <f2fap3Fds84U7@mid.individual.net>,
Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:
>
>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >> confronted with that.
>>>> >
>>>> > It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>>
>>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>>
>>>> > ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> > standards).
>>>>
>>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>>
>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
>>> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization was
>>> one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.
>>>
>>> /BAH
>>
>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>
> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!
>
>
>
> --
> Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...
>
> Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
> http://www.mirrorservice.org

May depend on the site. Sometimes I saw people putting updates in their old
binders...

Blue was 2.0-2.2 (when I was doing installs)
Orange was 3.x (IIRC)
I thought they started with the grey around 4.x...

Bill
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352978 is a reply to message #352970] Wed, 20 September 2017 15:56 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 18:52:07 +0000, William Pechter wrote:

> In article <f2fap3Fds84U7@mid.individual.net>,
> Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:
>> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:
>>
>>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >>> confronted with that.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>> >
>>>> > That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> > library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> > usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> > not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>> >
>>>> >> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> >> standards).
>>>> >
>>>> > That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I.
>>>> > But,
>>>> > circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and
>>>> > she was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying
>>>> > to solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back
>>>> > room, only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and
>>>> > orange, IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never
>>>> > did find the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very
>>>> > warmly of the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to
>>>> > get her through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis
>>>> > on an Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as
>>>> > well as half a dozen spare machines.
>>>>
>>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>>> TOPS-20.
>>>>
>>>> /BAH
>>>
>>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>>
>> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
>> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!
>
> May depend on the site. Sometimes I saw people putting updates in their
> old binders...
>
> Blue was 2.0-2.2 (when I was doing installs)
> Orange was 3.x (IIRC)
> I thought they started with the grey around 4.x...

I unpacked the boxes from DEC, containing the shrinkwrapped pages and the
binders...they definitely went together.



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352979 is a reply to message #352956] Wed, 20 September 2017 16:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Andy Burns is currently offline  Andy Burns
Messages: 416
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Bob Eager wrote:

> William Pechter wrote:
>
>> Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>
> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey.

Grey starting with 5.x is my recollection too, I have large chunks of
the orange and grey walls in the loft.
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352981 is a reply to message #352956] Wed, 20 September 2017 16:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Charles Richmond is currently offline  Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 9/20/2017 9:03 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:
>
>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >> confronted with that.
>>>> >
>>>> > It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>>
>>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>>
>>>> > ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> > standards).
>>>>
>>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>>
>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
>>> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization was
>>> one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.
>>>
>>> /BAH
>>
>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>
> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!
>

At one point late in the VMS lifetime, *all* the manuals were available
in CD set. (In case maybe you did not have room for a wall of manuals
in notebooks.)


--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352984 is a reply to message #352981] Wed, 20 September 2017 17:04 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 15:41:25 -0500, Charles Richmond wrote:

> On 9/20/2017 9:03 AM, Bob Eager wrote:
>> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:
>>
>>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >>> confronted with that.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>> >
>>>> > That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> > library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> > usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> > not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>> >
>>>> >> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> >> standards).
>>>> >
>>>> > That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I.
>>>> > But,
>>>> > circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and
>>>> > she was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying
>>>> > to solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back
>>>> > room, only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and
>>>> > orange, IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never
>>>> > did find the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very
>>>> > warmly of the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to
>>>> > get her through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis
>>>> > on an Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as
>>>> > well as half a dozen spare machines.
>>>>
>>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>>> TOPS-20.
>>>>
>>>> /BAH
>>>
>>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>>
>> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
>> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!
>>
>>
> At one point late in the VMS lifetime, *all* the manuals were available
> in CD set. (In case maybe you did not have room for a wall of manuals
> in notebooks.)

I have that set now, downloaded. The set resides as a separate share on
the server (I do have three VAXes).




--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #352986 is a reply to message #352978] Wed, 20 September 2017 17:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rich Alderson is currently offline  Rich Alderson
Messages: 489
Registered: August 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> writes:

> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 18:52:07 +0000, William Pechter wrote:

>> In article <f2fap3Fds84U7@mid.individual.net>,
>> Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> wrote:

>>> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:

>>>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>>>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.

>>> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
>>> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!

>> May depend on the site. Sometimes I saw people putting updates in their
>> old binders...

>> Blue was 2.0-2.2 (when I was doing installs)
>> Orange was 3.x (IIRC)
>> I thought they started with the grey around 4.x...

> I unpacked the boxes from DEC, containing the shrinkwrapped pages and the
> binders...they definitely went together.

I believe that 3.x was WHITE binders, and 4.x was orange/terracotta/"Chinese red",
but I may have those reversed. I'm too lazy to walk downstairs to the computer
room to look at the white wall to verify.

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353035 is a reply to message #352953] Thu, 21 September 2017 10:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
William Pechter wrote:
> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >
>>>> > But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> > confronted with that.
>>>>
>>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>
>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>
>>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> standards).
>>>
>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>
>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>> TOPS-20.
>>
>> /BAH
>
> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.

I did not know that. Was the orange TOPS-20's orange?

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353037 is a reply to message #352956] Thu, 21 September 2017 10:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Bob Eager wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:28:52 +0000, William Pechter wrote:
>
>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >> confronted with that.
>>>> >
>>>> > It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>>
>>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>>
>>>> > ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> > standards).
>>>>
>>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>>
>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
>>> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization was
>>> one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.
>>>
>>> /BAH
>>
>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>
> Pretty sure 4.x was orange, and 5.x was grey. I had the entire base set
> (and a few of the ones for layered products) in my own office!

Could someone give the dates of of first ship for the orange and grey colors?

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353044 is a reply to message #353035] Thu, 21 September 2017 11:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
pechter is currently offline  pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
In article <PM000559B39D65A3AD@aca403b5.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
> William Pechter wrote:
>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >> confronted with that.
>>>> >
>>>> > It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>>
>>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>>
>>>> > ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> > standards).
>>>>
>>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>>
>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>> TOPS-20.
>>>
>>> /BAH
>>
>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>
> I did not know that. Was the orange TOPS-20's orange?
>
> /BAH

Yup... aka China Red IIRC.
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353056 is a reply to message #353035] Thu, 21 September 2017 16:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Rich Alderson is currently offline  Rich Alderson
Messages: 489
Registered: August 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:

> William Pechter wrote:
>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >> confronted with that.
>>>> >
>>>> > It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>>
>>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>>
>>>> > ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> > standards).
>>>>
>>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>>
>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>> TOPS-20.
>>>
>>> /BAH
>>
>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>
> I did not know that. Was the orange TOPS-20's orange?

Yes, it was that same terracotta shade. Also used by one release of RSX-11M+.

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353061 is a reply to message #352948] Thu, 21 September 2017 16:54 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Peter Flass is currently offline  Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
Senior Member
jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>
>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>
>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>>
>>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>>
>>>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> confronted with that.
>>>
>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>
>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>
>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>> standards).
>>
>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>> half a dozen spare machines.
>
> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
> TOPS-20.
>

We had orange for VMS.



--
Pete
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353070 is a reply to message #353061] Thu, 21 September 2017 17:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Anonymous
Karma:
Originally posted by: Bob Eager

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 16:54:14 -0400, Peter Flass wrote:

> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >
>>>> > But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> > confronted with that.
>>>>
>>>> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>
>>> That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>> library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>> usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>> not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>
>>>> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> standards).
>>>
>>> That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>> circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>> was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>> solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>> only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>> IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>> the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>> the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>> through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>> Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>> half a dozen spare machines.
>>
>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over the
>> phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set. Organization
>> was one of the things standardized. The orange was TOPS-20.
>>
>>
> We had orange for VMS.

As noted earlier, 5.x (and I think 6.x and 7.x) were grey.



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
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Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353111 is a reply to message #353044] Fri, 22 September 2017 09:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
William Pechter wrote:
> In article <PM000559B39D65A3AD@aca403b5.ipt.aol.com>,
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>> William Pechter wrote:
>>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >>> confronted with that.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>> >
>>>> > That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> > library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> > usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> > not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>> >
>>>> >> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> >> standards).
>>>> >
>>>> > That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> > circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> > was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> > solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> > only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> > IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> > the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> > the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> > through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> > Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> > half a dozen spare machines.
>>>>
>>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>>> TOPS-20.
>>>>
>>>> /BAH
>>>
>>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>>
>> I did not know that. Was the orange TOPS-20's orange?
>>
>> /BAH
>
> Yup... aka China Red IIRC.

I don't know how the -20 product line became orange. If I ever
knew, I've forgotten the who, when, where, and why. I still
can remember the snafus w.r.t. naming the blasted thing. More
engineering time was wasted on naming than doing development.

/BAH
Re: progress in e-mail, such as AOL [message #353114 is a reply to message #353056] Fri, 22 September 2017 09:20 Go to previous message
jmfbahciv is currently offline  jmfbahciv
Messages: 6173
Registered: March 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Rich Alderson wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>
>> William Pechter wrote:
>>> In article <PM0005599EA8A81463@aca40e80.ipt.aol.com>,
>>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> wrote:
>>>> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Mike Spencer wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> writes:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>> Undoing what I break is not an option.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> But that is a terrible position to be in. So far, I've not been
>>>> >>> confronted with that.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> It's a side effect of having a dial-up modem...
>>>> >
>>>> > That's all I have. I *can* take my newish laptop 14 miles to the
>>>> > library's wifi and d/l dialup-unfriendly blobs of stuff but it's
>>>> > usually more trouble than it's worth. Do it maybe once in a month,
>>>> > not for on-the-fly problem solving.
>>>> >
>>>> >> ...and no real documentation (where "real" is defined by DEC's doc
>>>> >> standards).
>>>> >
>>>> > That's something other afc'ers will know much more about than I. But,
>>>> > circa 1990, my wife went back to school for an advanced degree and she
>>>> > was confronted with using a terminal on a VAX with VMS. Trying to
>>>> > solve a problem for her, I weaseled my way into the admin back room,
>>>> > only to be confronted with a wall of manuals (both grey and orange,
>>>> > IIRC; y'all DEC folks have a name for that, right?) I never did find
>>>> > the answer to the problem in that room, did not think very warmly of
>>>> > the standard it evinced. In the long run, we managed to get her
>>>> > through all the required VMS stuff but she wrote her thesis on an
>>>> > Osborne 1 for which I had lots of readable documentation as well as
>>>> > half a dozen spare machines.
>>>>
>>>> <grin> And I could have walked you through to find the answer over
>>>> the phone even though I've never opened a VMS notebook set.
>>>> Organization was one of the things standardized. The orange was
>>>> TOPS-20.
>>>>
>>>> /BAH
>>>
>>> Actually, Vax/VMS 2.x was blue. 3.x Orange... 4.x Grey... IIRC.
>>> VMS help worked for most non programming uses.
>>
>> I did not know that. Was the orange TOPS-20's orange?
>
> Yes, it was that same terracotta shade. Also used by one release of
> RSX-11M+.
>

What jerks. I'll bet a dime that they did was use up the books
which had been in stock for TOPS-20 and TOPS-10. the color
of the Notebooks was the first analytic step when searching for information.

/BAH
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