Stephen HoffmanThe decus·org domain registration is inaccessible and has changed (RIP WP), and that domain will probably be acquired by others. (RIP DECUS)
You will want to use the domain decuserve.org for your current and future connectivity requirements.
@grawity You’ve probably seen the (explosive!) HP OpenVMS “Disaster Proof” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUwthF9x210
💥💥 💥💥
BTS: They had a thunderstorm rolling in during filming.
#openvms #digitalequipment #disasterrecovery #retrocomputing #boomtoday
OpenVMS Server - Disaster Proof in 13.71 seconds
Silicium#silicium vous conseille :
C’est bientôt Noël, pensez à faire vos sauvegardes. Cette cartouche de donnée numérique Digital RL02K de 10 Mo est le parfait outil que nous recommandons. Le disque dur amovible est le futur.
💾⚙️🧠
#VintageTech #DataStorage #DigitalEquipment #1983 #RetroComputing
#heritage #geek #toulouse
C’est bientôt Noël, pensez à faire vos sauvegardes. Cette cartouche de donnée numérique Digital RL02K de 10 Mo est le parfait outil que nous recommandons. Le disque dur amovible est le futur.
💾⚙️🧠
#VintageTech #DataStorage #DigitalEquipment #1983 #RetroComputing
#heritage #geek #toulouse
For the six of y'all that might be interested in purchasing (new) DIGITAL “bricks" logo swag, somebody is running an online store:
The canonical part numbering description is on page 6.1:
https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/priceLists/US_Systems_Services_Price_List_Dec91.pdf
For those historians and retro-computing enthusiasts curious about Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and its standards and practices, including the 2-5-2 part-numbering system, an explainer I wrote a few years ago:
https://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/lmf/The_LMF_User_Primer_Apr90.pdf
The part numbering meant you could usually glean some details from even an unfamiliar part.
DEC had its own library of corporate standards, too.
One of the better known of those standards was the VAX architecture standard (including the VVAX virtualization support, which never shipped), all described in DEC STANDARD 32.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/vax/archSpec/EL-00032-00-decStd32_Jan90.pdf
शून्यताI worked for #DEC between 1985 and 1995. The only company I ever worked for that DEMANDED you to go on trainings for at least 8 weeks a year, all expenses paid. (j m) #DigitalEquipment
One of the lesser-known units of time measurement is the microfortnight.
The microfortnight unit exists in VAX/VMS because the console hardware clock interrupts used in the VAX-11/730 console measure elapsed time in a unitthat differs from a second. This hardware interrupt frequency choice affects timeouts related to console operations.
(Note: Once VAX/VMS is booted, things related to timekeeping and timers all work as expected, and seconds are a second in length. But when running the console program, not so much.)
This also led to the creation of the SD730 Fixed Head Solar Horologue option; a sundial intended to assist with tinekeeping.
Hall Of Technical Documentation Weirdness - Slashdot
The creator of that little gem was Dick Hustvedt, a brilliant engineer with a wicked sense of humor. He was one of the inventors of VAXclusters, as well as of the SD730 Solar Horologue Option - see end of this post. When in the VMS SYSGEN utility, and you asked for a list of the parameters, the list...
Apropos of nothing, VAX-11/751 was a rackmount variant of the VAX-11/750, and intended for OEM integration. Aside from reorganizing the internals to fit into the rack, it was otherwise identical to the VAX-11/750.
There’s a photo here:
https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/35731
While all released models of VAX were air-cooled, the VAX 9000 “mainframe” models were originally planned to be water cooled. Engineers were able to sufficiently cool the VAX 9000 with air and this avoiding the added plumbing, which led to the “Aridus“ variant of “Aquarius” shipping.
MUDs and the ability to reload new server without dropping connections (a “hotboot”)…
https://boston.conman.org/2025/02/11.2
…reminded me of an old RSX-11M application from an aeon ago, running part of a state government.
The app was too big for the PDP-11 (a common problem, as 32KW wasn't all that much even then), so the app removed the operating system from the computer, and ran, well, standalone.
Yes, you could do that back then.
That all worked swimmingly until somebody pressed ^C control-C on their terminal session, and the terminal driver then trapped into, well, nothingness.
Since the app code was too big for the PDP-11 it was running on, that smaller PDP-11 was shut down, the bigger local PDP-11 was switched over and re-booted and the app code loaded, and the bigger PDP-11 was then powered down.
The operator then pulled the core memory out of the bigger PDP-11, walked it over to the smaller PDP-11 and plugged it into the backplane, toggled in the address of the app's main loop onto the front panel switches, and toggled “go”, and off the smaller PDP-11 went running its too-big app.
Yeah, you could do a simple form of app checkpoint-restart with core memory, given core was persistent. And yeah, a bigger PDP-11 would have been helpful.
(Yes, SC was a creative administrator of those PDP-11 boxes. Swapping core never would have occurred to me.)
