Peter BoschMar 30, 2025
Decided to display the VAX-11/750 at the @revspace open day yesterday. All the hard work repairing it seems to have paid off, managed to get 14 hours of uptime out of it before shutting it down at the end of the day! #unix #retrocomputing #dec #vax11 #minicomputer #unixhistory #bsd
Show threadPeter Bosch

@revspace After a few days of work, implementing 3 missing libc functions, repairing an extra 4MB of RAM, hacking around toolchain issues, we finally got Lynx 2.8.2 compiled and running on the VAX-11/750 (in 4.3 BSD Quasijarus)! That means we got to browse the (non-HTTPS) web using no equipment or parts newer than 1986 this side of the network (besides the AUI 10Base-T phy).

#retrocomputing #theoldweb #hackaday #dec #vax11

Mar 31, 2025 at 9:20pmWeb
Show threadPeter BoschMar 31, 2025
Compiling it took over 20 hours of CPU time, and we had to upgrade the machine to 10MB of RAM to get the buikd to work. Thanks to @neozeed 's prebuilt gcc and binutils tapes we avoided having to build our own toolchain, as the native compiler and assembler weren't modern enough.
Show threadPeter BoschMar 31, 2025
I just realised this might have reached your screen on April 1st. No jokes here, just the fruits of a weekend of hard work :)
Show threadEndlessMasonMar 31, 2025
@peterbjornx @revspace I consider myself pretty liberal, pretty relaxed, not a real uptight type character, but I really don't think you can embed a vax-11 into pretty much anything ...
Show threadSteven PigeonMar 31, 2025
@peterbjornx @revspace Back in college, the Vax 11/750 was our "big computer", with 4MB of RAM, IIRC.
Show threadhackadayApr 1, 2025
@peterbjornx @revspace
This is the way.
Show threadRed_Shirt_no2Apr 1, 2025
@revspace @peterbjornx
Yay Lynx! In the 90’s I found mice really irritated my wrist — screen(1) & lynx(1) were a godsend!
Show threadMonte FreemanApr 1, 2025
@peterbjornx @revspace Oh wow. How I do miss the sound and feel of the real DEC VT-100 keyboards. 😍