Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watcgl.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watcgl!dmmartindale From: dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) Newsgroups: net.micro,net.college Subject: Re: Free and undirected campus computing facilities Message-ID: <424@watcgl.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Nov-84 14:46:46 EST Article-I.D.: watcgl.424 Posted: Tue Nov 13 14:46:46 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 14-Nov-84 03:42:57 EST References: <457@utcsrgv.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 47 In case anyone is interested, this is further information on the 11/45 that Peter Rowley mentioned: The machine was not originally purchased for running UNIX - it was obtained for another project involving custom code running under RSX. But after several years, the project still wasn't quite working, and a group of interested people requested machine time to try to get UNIX up. UNIX was booted by building a root filesystem image on another UNIX 11/45 on campus, taking the RK05 disk to yet another 11/45 running RT11 which then transferred the disk image over a serial line to the target machine (which didn't have a DEC disk of any sort). For four months, UNIX and the other project were running 12 hours a day each. At the end of this period, UNIX took over entirely. After the first few years of running UNIX, the machine was increasingly used for teaching courses - it was the only UNIX machine available to the math faculty, and there was no other system that allowed the operating systems people to build groups of communicating simultaneous processes, and no other system that had tools as suitable for teaching a compiler course on. So it came to be heavily overloaded, and not really useable for kernel (or other types of) hacking. In addition, the professor who was responsible for the system seemed to object to people doing undirected hacking anyway - he wanted people to have specific goals, and demonstrate that the hacking wasn't affecting their schoolwork. Thus, for the last few years that the 11/45 was in general use, it really wasn't a hacker's machine anyway. Then, the faculty purchased its first VAX to replace the /45, but it was intended for teaching and research only, and was instantly overloaded too. The 11/45 was donated to the computer graphics group (it was the original "watcgl") where it was used for a year or so. Then the computer graphics people obtained their own VAX, and the /45 was donated to the Ontario Science Centre. I should note that I'm one of the group of hacks who maintained the /45, and in fact one of the last people who learned UNIX internals on that machine. I started using it in 1976, and the few years following that were the most productive in learning the system and experimenting with modifications to it. Then, almost nobody used UNIX for "serious" work and thus we could reboot it almost any time with little warning. (The fact that the hardware was a hodgepodge of obsolete stuff from various vendors with no maintenance support for most of it probably helped - it went through periods where it crashed so often that only the hacks could tolerate using it anyway.) Ah, the good old days! Dave Martindale