My Vintage Dream PC

[Scott Lurndal]

There is no *the* unix filesystem. There's no reason why *a* unix
filesystem couldn't be written to do this. I'd certainly like to see it
done.

DAGS: Snapshot Filesystem.

Been around for years.

scott

 

[Scott Lurndal]

I don't remember if I've mentioned before that I've got a student
working on a FUSE filesystem on top of SVN. Looks like it's going to be
*really* slick when he's got it done.

Open source may make this viable.

IIRC, clearcase used to have a Unix filesystem like this (MVFS?), but it was
very proprietary - its biggest shortcoming.

scott

 

[FatBytestard]

There is no *the* unix filesystem. There's no reason why *a* unix
filesystem couldn't be written to do this. I'd certainly like to see it
done.

One should write an app that maintains a database that allows one to
plug in a single USB hard drive, and format it for this purpose only. It
would appear 100% encrypted to all other observers. The application
could also have data recovery tools for the file system.

It would be like a reiser 4 fs or the like. The application takes
care, just like an OS would, of all file writes, and where all previously
written file versions are at physically. The drive need never actually
overwrite the raw data segment of any project directory.

It could hold the entire set from the first release through the last
final with that one being "seen" by the user, and the others all being
"recoverable" if need be,

 

[Charles Richmond]

[snip...] [snip...] [snip...]

At a PPOE, I had spent half a day making changes to a FORTRAN program
on a Harris 800 system. Then I accidentally deleted the source
file. (When you delete using a wildcard in the filename, you can
sometimes hurt yourself.) I could get the back-up from the previous
day, but then I would lose half-a-day's work.
How do you should yourself in foot in a Unix shell?
% rm * .o
rm: cannot remove `.o': No such file or directory

I'm *not* sure what you mean here. The Harris 800 system was running
the Vulcan operating system; quite different from a Unix shell.

If it had been 'rm *.o', it would have been "remove every file in the
directory ending in .o" -- in other words, all the object files. But
since it was 'rm * .o' (with a space between the * and the .o), it says
"remove every file in the directory, and the file named .o". The second
line is the system responding that there is no file named .o, which is
how you know you just shot yourself in the foot.

Yes, Joe. I understand Unix, at least at a user level. I've been
using Unix/Linux for 20 years at a minimum. But back in the early 80's,
I was working on the Vulcan OS on a Harris 800. Some aerospace folks
back at that time like to use the Harris for real-time simulations, as
well as time sharing when *not* running the simulation.

Subject to the same typo, unfortunately.

Yes, but... with the "line editing" feature on Unix/Linux, you can bring
up the "ls" command again and just change the "ls" to "rm".

Thinking of Unix horror stories: check out the famous one at:

http://www.justpasha.org/folk/rm.html

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
[snip...] [snip...] [snip...]

At a PPOE, I had spent half a day making changes to a FORTRAN program
on a Harris 800 system. Then I accidentally deleted the source
file. (When you delete using a wildcard in the filename, you can
sometimes hurt yourself.) I could get the back-up from the previous
day, but then I would lose half-a-day's work.
How do you should yourself in foot in a Unix shell?
% rm * .o
rm: cannot remove `.o': No such file or directory

I'm *not* sure what you mean here. The Harris 800 system was running
the Vulcan operating system; quite different from a Unix shell.

If it had been 'rm *.o', it would have been "remove every file in the
directory ending in .o" -- in other words, all the object files. But
since it was 'rm * .o' (with a space between the * and the .o), it says
"remove every file in the directory, and the file named .o". The second
line is the system responding that there is no file named .o, which is
how you know you just shot yourself in the foot.

Yes, Joe. I understand Unix, at least at a user level. I've been
using Unix/Linux for 20 years at a minimum. But back in the early
80's, I was working on the Vulcan OS on a Harris 800. Some aerospace
folks back at that time like to use the Harris for real-time
simulations, as well as time sharing when *not* running the
simulation.

Sorry, when you said you weren't sure what I meant, I believed you!

In the late 1970s, I was a student intern at Weyerhaeuser, working on
graphics for simulations of sawmills (actually, the "merchandiser", the
front-end of the mill) on a Harris /7 and an Adage vector graphics
display. Fun stuff...

Yes, but... with the "line editing" feature on Unix/Linux, you can
bring up the "ls" command again and just change the "ls" to "rm".

Yes, it does lower the odds.

Thinking of Unix horror stories: check out the famous one at:

http://www.justpasha.org/folk/rm.html

For reasons that made perfect sense at the time (but which didn't make
sense a fraction of a second later, and which I don't even remember
now), I once actually did type rm -r * as root, in the root directory.
This was on a DEC PRO 350 running Xenix, so it was going to be a while
(several seconds) before anything was actually written to the disk. I
jumped over my desk and hit the power switch -- and didn't lose
anything. *phew*

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Burrough's machines ran ALGOL, and never had an assembler. The Algol
compiler was written in Algol, and two guys hand-compiled the first
compiler directly to machine code.

WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
heard of.

Fine, as long as it never has bugs that corrupt the real database.


Then you've been lucky. And I guess careful.

Using a VCS is one of the most elementary ways of being careful.

 

[Charles Richmond]

[snip...] [snip...] [snip...]

Yes, Joe. I understand Unix, at least at a user level. I've been
using Unix/Linux for 20 years at a minimum. But back in the early
80's, I was working on the Vulcan OS on a Harris 800. Some aerospace
folks back at that time like to use the Harris for real-time
simulations, as well as time sharing when *not* running the
simulation.

Sorry, when you said you weren't sure what I meant, I believed you!

Maybe I was *not* clear with what I posted. I meant that I did *not*
know why you were talking about Unix when I was talking about a Harris
800 system.

I can see the *teaching* instinct coming out with your extended
explanation. Such an instinct has *not* served me well over the years.
When I was in college, I helped out a lot of students with their
computer programs. After I went to work, that was a hard habit to break.
I've found that when someone asked me a question at work, they wanted
the *short* answer... and did *not* care about learning anything.

In the late 1970s, I was a student intern at Weyerhaeuser, working on
graphics for simulations of sawmills (actually, the "merchandiser", the
front-end of the mill) on a Harris /7 and an Adage vector graphics
display. Fun stuff...

Our simulation lab had the Harris 800 and a couple of Megatek graphics
displays, along with a couple of strip chart recorders that could
display chosen values like altitude, heading, etc.

 

[ItsASecretDummy]

DAGS: Snapshot Filesystem.

Been around for years.

scott

Sounds cool

I had a version of Mandrake, IIRC, that when one booted the disc and
stepped through to the partition editor screen, one had well over 100 fs
choices to make. It was the best partitioner (choice wise) I have ever
seen, and haven't seen it (that function level) since. I think it was
like version 9 or before, which was pre-SATA. So, without a driver, I
cannot dig around my archive by booting to find it. Maybe I should just
boot Linux and start digging through the discs . Duh.

 

[ItsASecretDummy]

WHY? Why on earth didn't they write the first version as a
cross-compiler? Hand-compiling a compiler to machine code seems like
one of the most amazingly inefficient exercises in mascochism I've ever
heard of.

Burroughs Computer Systems was the first Mainframe I ever saw as a
field trip in high school vocational electronics course. That was back
when a 15 foot long dot matrix printout of Santa and His Reindeer was a
really big deal to them as they had it proudly displayed for us.

Turns out that over ten years later, it was the first mainframe
computer I worked with in an employment setting as well. Pretty
cool.They were talking about porting its MRP system to a 386, which had
just hit the scene. I was doing Lotus spreadsheets, and laying out PCBs
in 4X and via AUTOCAD v2 on a 286 onto mylar on a pen plotter, then to a
reduction camera, which we also had in house.

Ahh... the days of sepias and blueprints that really were blue.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Maybe I was *not* clear with what I posted. I meant that I did *not*
know why you were talking about Unix when I was talking about a Harris
800 system.

Ah -- I was just giving the canonical example of a wildcard oops.

I can see the *teaching* instinct coming out with your extended
explanation. Such an instinct has *not* served me well over the
years. When I was in college, I helped out a lot of students with
their computer programs. After I went to work, that was a hard habit
to break.
I've found that when someone asked me a question at work, they wanted
the *short* answer... and did *not* care about learning anything.

And a student who comes to me with a question better damn well be ready
to hear the complete answer! I'm not entirely sure whether this
encourages or discourages questions...

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

I had a version of Mandrake, IIRC, that when one booted the disc and
stepped through to the partition editor screen, one had well over 100 fs
choices to make. It was the best partitioner (choice wise) I have ever
seen, and haven't seen it (that function level) since. I think it was
like version 9 or before, which was pre-SATA. So, without a driver, I
cannot dig around my archive by booting to find it. Maybe I should just
boot Linux and start digging through the discs . Duh.

Sounds like cfdisk, the standard (well, closest thing to a standard
there is) partition editor to this day. One of those really, really
done programs.

 

[Joe Pfeiffer]

I still draw my schematics on vellum, and the blueprints are still
blue.

You have got to be joking. Doing real live blueprints today makes as
much sense as if I put out my assignments on ditto.

 

[FatBytestard]

Ah -- I was just giving the canonical example of a wildcard oops.


And a student who comes to me with a question better damn well be ready
to hear the complete answer! I'm not entirely sure whether this
encourages or discourages questions...

You should only give credence to those it would encourage.

 

[ItsASecretDummy]

I still draw my schematics on vellum, and the blueprints are still
blue.

John

I figured the delirium was due to something. Vapor phase degreaser
fumes and Ammonia fumes. Bwuahahahahahaha! You can take a joke, right?

You, the one that said I haven't been doing this for a living?

You deserve far less credence than I give you for that.

 

[Atsunori Tamagawa]

Good for you, because some people can't use them for long sessions.
I haven't seen a LCD monitor that I like.

Oh, so you are one of those 'picture tube' lovers... I see.
I use HP and Viewsonic monitors. I though they are pretty decent.
But then some people are very sensitive about screen quality.

I also picked up a
Pontiac 389 V8 short block one day, when the Adrenaline kicked in.

Sounds like it took little something more than adrenaline

In other words, why limit yourself. If you do, you will lose more
and more abilities.

That's true... well up to certain weight. The first time when I badly
damaged my back was when I picked up a Collins R-390A military receiver
at wrong angle. A MicroVAX2 also caused similar incident lately.

I want to buy one of these, some day.
<http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94822>

That seems a good deal.

Atsunori

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

Severe vision problems. The LCD monitors i've tried just don't look
right, and caused almost immediate eyestrain.

Bwuahahahahahahahah! Yer so full of shit. Why don't you just scream,
shit, and go blind? Then, we wouldn't have to see it/you.

 

[Archimedes' Lever]

Congratulations - this thread has just topped 1000 posts (according to
Google).

Is this a record??

The question you posted may be a record for how common it is. Think
about it. 6 billion people, over two billion of which are likely
connected.

 

[jmfbahciv]

Oh, there are code "bugs", but I'd call them blunders or just plain
negligence on the part of the code writer.

Nope. You can have working code and then crash boomers by just
adding a patch.

The operative word here, of course, being "should".

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Don't know. Maybe they didn't have a computer.

Or it was a master's class assignment.

/BAH

 

[jmfbahciv]

Oh, so you are one of those 'picture tube' lovers... I see.
I use HP and Viewsonic monitors. I though they are pretty decent.
But then some people are very sensitive about screen quality.


Sounds like it took little something more than adrenaline


That's true... well up to certain weight. The first time when I badly
damaged my back was when I picked up a Collins R-390A military receiver
at wrong angle. A MicroVAX2 also caused similar incident lately.

<snip>

I'm also getting things that I can pick up easily since I am getting
weaker. I'm also putting the thingies called Magic Sliders under
all my furniture.

/BAH