LOL, I had forgotten about DOS on the Rainbow, thanks for pointing that out.

Wait, the Rainbow was something they put together to compete against the PC. Early on it had some features that were very competitive but it was priced badly and was built around CP/M while everbody else went to DOS. The Micro-PDP project still lived on though in the PRO series which were meant to be higher end competitors to the IBM PC. I remember a couple of 8800s I was working with in the 80s that used a PRO-380 as a console subsystem. It ran that bastard Professional Operating System or P/OS and was there to boot the system and to capture console info. Maybe the acronym killed it. It really didn't do much more than a dumb terminal.

Every house move I've done has rendered less of my old hardware stash. At one point I had a 3705 front end from a mainframe housing my beer fridge in my garage. Alas, that went to the scrap heap in the mid 90s. All of that old UNIBUS, QBUS, MASSBUS and NI crap I had has long since been consigned to the scrap yards. That and all the old system manuals (big old three ring binders) for VAX, DECSYSTEM 20 etc.

Actually it's dose and stop snooping on my TV watching habits! NFW would I touch a Kardashian with a 10 foot pole either, too much fat. Also, I happen to take my freedoms seriously and yes, sometimes I do wish that everybody who had a vote actually cared and studied the issues. From Gerrymandering to people who go across state lines and vote twice we have a system that works but has some very serious flaws and any attempts at changing that result in court challenges and calls that somebody is disenfranchising some minority group. Shit if we gave the Snail Darter or Spotted Owl the vote we'd grind to a fucking halt. We've become all about perception and putting labels on things to make people feel special and so others with like attitudes or situations can rally around it and call everybody who isn't in their little clique barbarians. Which is what the Romans did...

And actually Rome wasn't all about keeping them fat and happy, that was the Senate which curiously sounds similar to today's situation. They had technology and a very well disciplined military that were highly advantageous but it's hard to maintain that for an extended period of time. That coupled with the size of the empire and a lot of barbarians getting smarter and an untrustworthy bunch in the Praetorian Guards (read mercenaries who were to protect the Emperor) didn't help either. More than one emperor fell at the hands of the Guards who were promised or paid off somehow. There's volumes on the subject, too much for a post here.

Did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night too?

Oh hell no! I'll tell you something, those Real Time systems that were built around a PDP-11 were great technology and were state of the art. A whole bunch of process control, nut just for the nuclear power industry, was driven by PDP-11 technology. It was reliable, parts were readily available and there were more options for controlling other devices with off the wall interfaces. Think about it though, the nuclear power industry has heavy regulation and if you start changing components, like control systems I'm sure the red tape will get heavy and thick quickly. Look at the whole San Onofre debacle and you'll see what I mean. Yes, if you were building a new plant you'd look to newer architecture to support it but not one designed or built back in the 70s, Which in terms of architecture is where the PDP-11 was in it's prime.

HP? HP threw DEC a lifeline after Compaq drove it into the ground because when they bought DEC out in the late 90s they couldn't absorb the operations. DEC was ripe for acquisition and had a ton of customers but those customers weren't the typical PC folks that Compaq was dealing with. As a result DEC products suffered and lost share. It was a $9 Billion blunder and they took on a lot of debt and responsibility that they weren't ready to handle. That's what eventually led HP to buy them out. To be sure though, DEC products under HP haven't fared well because of the competing lines of hardware, i.,e, HP9000s, 3000s and software (HPUX). It is valid business strategy to buy a competitor and dismantle it or milk it vs. letting it be bought by another competitor.

I started out programming on PDP 11s and it still amazing that those systems are still in operation especially in Real Time applications. I remember just before DEC was bought out by Compaq, the PDP 11 business was still doing a billion dollars a year. I guess that much value to Compaq for some reason even in the 90s. They sold the rights off to Mentec. I think Mentec is out of business or out of the PDP-11 business anyway. There are still lots of third party hardware solutions still keeping the architecture alive. It's been awhile though since I needed to find an enclosure or parts for a QBUS system. Maybe I should dust off some of that old code I have and install an emulator.

I tend to agree with that. He seems to be taking cues from Assange and his antics rather than completely coming clean. The whole chat thing was weird and the Guardian in this seems more like a breaker of the information rather than just giving us all of it wholesale.

Well the reasons for them doing it are simple: Self Preservation. If you had your E-Mail, Social Contacts/Pictures etc. in a system that was regularly tapped by the NSA and the FBI, then you might think twice about using those services. Google's freely available services that you can use but while you're using them, we'll mine every piece of information out of you that we can. They're a commercial NSA and when the real NSA steps on their toes, possibly driving users away that's not good for business. Facebook and Microsoft have the same problem, hell all free cloud based services have a problem now with this "215" section of the law. Yes, Google is an 800lb Gorilla and so is Microsoft, well 650lb now and Facebook, meh, 400lb. If they start pushing on those idiots like Feinbitch who as chairwomen of the Senate Intelligence Committee (boy there's an oxymoron for you) stating that the NSA has access to your phone conversations, when they want. If they start pushing on DC and getting all the masses lined up, maybe things will change. The EFF and ACLU have some pretty sharp lawyers as well and they haven't had much luck in cracking all of the intrusions into our privacy and the secrecy of why the government needs this information. Feinstein and others with her mentality in DC are the reason we have this mess to begin with, now the feign ignorance and shock or coyishly say "well it has thwarted terrorism." Funding comes from congress, there is no way in hell that She and members of her committee didn't have direct knowledge of what was going on, much less every member of the House and Senate for the past decade. They've written the laws that allow the secrecy and the pulling of information without warrants and because of that and the nature of the legal process in this country, lower courts bar cases from moving forward on "National Security" reasons. This is an affront to the 4th amendment yet alone the 1st amendment as Google is claiming. Like I said, good luck because those Federal Judges have to look at the law as written and do you think that stooge Holder isn't going to appeal his way up to the Supreme Court if an "activist" judge somehow rules against the Government?

Also anybody out here should remember back in 2007 there was an uproar because of the warrantless wiretapping going on. What happened then? Well the cases dragged on and then congress gave the telecomms immunity in a new piece of legislation.

Oh and the only case that is still moving forward since 2007 (it is 2013 now after all) is being held up by the Justice Department and that retard Clapper..

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=190892480

That case has EFF lawyers behind it, think they'll be successful?

So the constitution and out privacy violated in the names of National Security. Shit, Woz hit it on the mark the other day.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/06/apple-inc-aapl-co-founder-steve-wozniak-rethinks-america/

So, while this shitstorm is still hitting the fan we have two possible outcomes.. 1) Everybody goes "meh" and congress and the courts just start agreeing that Terrorism BAD, Ugh, Constitution BAD Ugh or 2) We end the Patriot Act, we start putting meaningful teeth into our court system to prohibit this kind of behavior from the Government that is after all put in power by us, not the NSA not a bunch of Contractors who sit at keyboards in DC listening and watching everything we do.

Good luck with that. If they don't get blown out of the first Federal Court who hears it, we may have an actual chance to hear what the Government is actually requesting, not the sanitized and approved verbiage that has been coming out. Somewhere between what Snowden has been saying and the Government is allowing people to comment on, the truth may be found.

The Patriot Act needs to go and so does this secret court bullshit where information is handed over on a whim, not on a true judicial review.

LOL, that should have been $5B... and don't be such a pessimist. When explorers went around the world in ships, there was disease, mutiny and other perils that they had to face. Some of the most successful explorers weren't seen sometimes for years during their journeys. Nowadays people want assurances that everything is safe, sanitized and is suitable for audiences of all ages. Screw that mentality because it's the mentality that government sponsorship buys you along with all of the other shit. Hell even the Astronaut Farmer made it to orbit. Okay that was a movie but if you have Scaled Composites building ships for a High Altitude Run, that means that LEO space is no longer the exclusive domain of governments or government funded transportation. All it will take is the right reason, the right group of entrepreneurs and some investment.

Fuck Political Correctness. If they're qualified, they're qualified but the Low Earth Orbit stuff, while risky, isn't as risky as going to the Moon or beyond. If Space is going to be a frontier for mankind then we have to be willing to take risks, invest in programs or industries that will get us there and go.

NASA is full of bloat and horsecrap. Shit, take $5 out of the NSA budget and put it into a one shot trip to Mars. There's already volunteers and I'm sure Musk and SpaceX can supply cargo ships once they're on the planet. If they don't make it, we'll send another crew. That's what happened to explorers since time began, either they made it or they didn't but they did keep on trying if they failed. If NASA fails, it's a shitstorm and years of congressional testimony with self-appointed protectors of the public good making political points. Get rid of NASA and co-opt the JPL stuff and other good science out to the NSF.

Good point but yes, you can go 100% virtual even on stock trading with paper being an analog to the process. If there are records or a trace of information the IRS will go after it.

If you haven't been around 20 to 30 of them in a park, then you won't understand the term "Plague." They poop everywhere and bite you when you're not looking. It's not a flock, it's a plague.