Comment Re:Cool beans. (Score 1) 68
They've got at least one 11/70...
I remember the VT11 on PDP's running Lunar Lander.
I remember VSV11's (qbus connecting to Unibus via an adapter) running on Vax11/780's. Was the VS11 similar to the VSV?
Comment Re:IT job from hell? (Score 1) 68
I used to be the guy who fixed this stuff.
TU77 tape drives, RP06 disk drives, VAX11/780's.
I'd kill to have a job doing that today. Much more fun than Unix Sysadmin.
Now the techs just do parts delivery -- if that. Now it's mostly customer swap with manufacturer sending the stuff via FedEX/UPS or courier.
Adjusting the TU45's on those PDP10's was a real PITA.
Comment Seamonkey's great (Score 1) 302
My kid and I both use it.
It's handy as both a browser, nntp and email client in one.
Even the html editor comes in handy for occasional quick stuff...
It's a good throwback to the old Netscape Navigator days and it's still being updated regularly.
I've been using that and Chrome.
Comment Re:Perfect for Kickstarter (Score 1) 80
Try something bigger. More lights and fun. And the fan noise. I had a PDP11 in my kitchen. Power up both 14 inch disk drives and watch the breaker for the 20 amp circuit blow. 8-(
The SIMH emulator can run PDP11 software and give you the 11/40 blinking lights in a window. I put up RT11 and did some toggle in programs to test it. Amazing. I just wish we had the 11/45 and 11/70 light panels to watch as well.
Comment Re: Ken Olsen -- Your values are missing today (Score 1) 172
I never met him, but I always admired the way he put values ahead of pure profit.
As a Field Grunt in Field Service I always was told to do what's right for the customer. In these days of call centers, untrained support personnel reading from scripts, software that requires a paid support contract to fix security defects in the releases... or to upgrade firmware which used to be free for buying the hardware (Oracle, HP).
We're in a world which views the customer as a consumer and pushes profit ahead of everything else.
VAX/VMS was a solid well supported product and Vaxclusters were revolutionary.
Ken Olsen made mistakes... but he never forgot he was an engineer first. Here's to the techie's techie who valued more than just the bottom line.
He missed the Unix boat and was late to the "Open Systems" camp -- but the folks at DEC put an awful lot of source stuff up for download on decwrl and market-20 on their dime before there were web browsers and download.com.
Here's to AltaVista, DECnet and BasicPlus. Here's to distributed computing to the desktop.
Comment Re:VMS (Score 1) 763
Boy... HP's done everything but driven a stake through the heart of VMS and it's still out there in places like chip manufacture.
VMS -- the Timex of operationg systems.
GoldenEye Source Conversion Mod Released 105
tekgoblin writes "Were you a fan of the original GoldenEye on the N64? Well, this Half-Life 2 mod called GoldenEye Source, five years in the making, has just come out of beta and been fully released for free. The game is a creation of fans with the objective to bring the original experiences from GoldenEye on the N64 back to life. I remember spending hours upon hours playing GoldenEye on the N64, and was sad seeing it go."
FBI and NYPD Officers Sent On Museum Field Trip 70
In an attempt to "refresh their sense of inquiry" FBI agents, and NYPD officers are being sent to a course at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Art of Perception hopes to improve an officers' ability to accurately describe what they see during an investigation by studying art. From the article: "Amy Herman, the course leader, said: 'We're getting them off the streets and out of the precincts, and it refreshes their sense of inquiry. They're thinking, "Oh, how am I doing my job," and it forces them to think about how they communicate, and how they see the world around them.' Ms Herman, an art historian, originally developed the course for medical students, but successfully pitched it as a training course to the New York Police Academy."
Selling Incandescent Light Bulbs As Heating Devices 557
Csiko writes "The European Union has banned by law trading of incandescent light bulbs due to their bad efficiency/ecology (most of the energy is transformed into heat). A company is now trying to bypass this restriction by offering their incandescent light bulb products as a heating device (article in German) instead of a light device. Still, their 'heat balls' give light as well as heating. So — every law can be bypassed if you have some creativity!"
Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts 487
In addition to helping decipher their Lil Wayne albums, the Justice Department is seeking Ebonics experts to help monitor, translate and transcribe wire tapped conversations. The DEA wants to fill nine full time positions. From the article: "A maximum of nine Ebonics experts will work with the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Atlanta field division, where the linguists, after obtaining a 'DEA Sensitive' security clearance, will help investigators decipher the results of 'telephonic monitoring of court ordered nonconsensual intercepts, consensual listening devices, and other media.'”
Apple, RIM, Google All Bid On Palm 117
imamac writes "It seems HP was only one of many bidders for the struggling Palm. The others included Apple, RIM and even Google. You may now commence speculation on why the various companies wanted Palm."
OpenSUSE 11.3 Is Here 156
lukehashj writes "The openSUSE Project is pleased to announce the release of the latest incarnation of openSUSE, with support for 32-bit and 64-bit systems. OpenSUSE 11.3 is packed with new features and updates including SpiderOak to sync your files across the Internet for free, Rosegarden for free editing of your audio files, improved indexing with Tracker, and updates to Mozilla Firefox, and Thunderbird."
36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist 268
Zerocool3001 writes "The recently featured 36-hour port of the original Palm version of Lemmings to the iPhone and Palm Pre has received a cease and desist letter from Sony. Only one day after submitting the app for approval on the two app stores, the developer has put up a post stating that he 'did this as a tribute to the game — we can only hope that Sony actually does a conversion for platforms like iPhone and Palm Pre in the near future.' The text of the cease and desist letter is available from the developer's website."
Comment Re:Age Discrimination is Reality in IT (Score 1) 543
As a 56 year old in IT... You're damned right.
But as an IT guy I'd rather be a Wal-Mart greeter than in management. I'd sleep nights because I won't have to be the guy doing the right-sizing.
I'm just looking to survive these days with a kid headed for college and a mortgage. Finding new and exciting challenges in IT is nice, but a steady paycheck beats a startup right now.
(Unless it's my own startup.)
Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.
Doctors Seeing a Rise In "Google-itis" 368
It's one of the fastest-growing health issues that doctors now face: "Google-itis." Everyone from concerned mothers to businessmen on their lunch break are typing in symptoms and coming up with rare diseases or just plain wrong information. Many doctors are bringing computers into examination rooms now so they can search along with patients to alleviate their fears. "I'm not looking for a relationship where the patient accepts my word as the gospel truth," says Dr. James Valek. "I just feel the Internet brings so much misinformation to the (exam) room that we have to fight through all that before we can get to the problem at hand."
