The Retrocomputing Thread

[svx]

@Paul  Man, after this using this Model M...  I can't stand the racket!

I go to write some code, and I can't think at all :p
It's tough to listen to people spawning/getting items in Quakeworld, too...  Throws my timing all off...

I think I might need to go with the silent one!  But is Das Keyboard the best?  It looks cool, but I hear that it's a glossy black that keeps fingerprints easily like the phat Playstation 3's

RESEARCH TIME ENGAGE!

[Paul]

@svx: It's great! Sure it gets fingerprints easily but that isn't a major problem for me. The best... it's the only kb that uses those clicky Cherries AFAIK.

Finally OpenVMS shipped. I installed it (pretty straightforward procedure, except the fact that it somehow abbreviated the hostname to 4 letters) and then tried to get into the whole VMS thingy. Let me tell you one thing. VMS is definitely not like any other OS out there (though it shares CDE with Unices). Directory format is slightly obscure (for instance the system manager's home is in SYS$SYSROOT[SYSMGR] and subdirectories are after a comma then.

Commands are ...different. To change a directory there's no cd. Rather the command is called SET DEFAULT (VMS doesn't know lowercase btw).

And VMS is a license whore. It needs a license for everything. The hobbyist program provides those licenses but you have to renew them every year. And when there's 104 licenses, you have to enter them by hand, and the command looks like the text that comes after this sentence this takes a loooooong time.

$ LICENSE REGISTER ACMS -
/ISSUER=OPENVMS_HOBBYIST -
/AUTHORIZATION=DECUS-DEC-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx -
/PRODUCER=DEC -
/UNITS=0 -
/TERMINATION_DATE=29-AUG-2012  -
/ACTIVITY=CONSTANT=100 -
/CHECKSUM-x-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
(blanked out personal data since I'm not allowed to share the functional licenses)

I also figured out how to mount the VMS CD with the layered products... but WHERE is this thing mounted?!? I couldn't even find that out. Frankly, I feel like a total noob right now

[Bella]

Here's a link to a brief, but pretty good beginners' guide to working with VMS.  Though it's aimed at remote terminal users and absolute noobs so I don't know if anything within it will be of any use to you.

[Paul]

Thanks for the link! I'll take all the guides I can get my hands on

[Chocofreak13]

i don't really do much retrocomputing (unless 98SE counts as retro now), but since i play alot of vintage computer games, i thought you guys might find this interesting:
http://ski.ihoc.net/

i've always thought skifree was a pretty cool game (despite the damn snow monster), and the creator (on his site here) released an updated version that's compatible with 32 or 64-bit systems. ^^

[Red-Machine]

YAY SKIFREE!

[Chocofreak13]

it's so awesome, isn't it? there's even a tshirt for sale with the snow monster on it xD

[Bella]

Ski was originally a game for VAX/VMS .... I wish the VMS machines I've used had that installed on them, it looks fun. ;_;

[Chocofreak13]

i read the page, and i don't think it was really released to the public. maybe it was leaked to the net, but the main public version of ki was skifree. :\
it seems he left the fortrand code behind though, so if you have any coding knowledge maybe you can make it work.

and if all else fails, there's a "contact me" button on the page, so you could ask for it from the guy. :3

[Bella]

I own a tiny piece of one of these now.

[Nichi]

So, guess what I found out in my dad's truck, when I went out there to load up my lawnmower and Asagi?

There was a Trash-80!

Yep; my dad found an abandoned TRS-80 Color Computer II somewhere in the hospital's storage rooms, so he brought it to me. I plan on testing it out once I get back home :3

[Bella]

Nice find. : o

[Nichi]

Yep. Just tested it, and it is working ^_^

Now, to eventually track down a floppy drive and other cool stuff for it :3

[Nichi]

Um, Bella...I think there's a possibility of you taking a detour on your way home from visiting Stew in order to break into my house in the middle of the night and steal what my dad just brought home for me; which was buried in an old storage building owned by the hospital:

A copy of SCO Unix System V/386, circa '90.

In case that needs further emphasis:
I have Unix >:3

It looks like everything is there, but I'm not 100% sure; since I've never seen Unix install disks in person. If you're interested, I could sell it to you :3

[Bella]

Hey, it's XENIX's descendant!