@eschaton@mastodon.social
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eschaton

@eschaton@mastodon.social

Work on tools for people to do work. Play with old computers in my spare time. Only ever speaking for myself.

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eschaton, to random
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There were a bunch of different systems in DEC’s PDP line, many mutually-incompatible (e.g. the PDP-1, 6, and 10 were somewhat compatible, the PDP-8 and PDP-11 were each their own complete universe, and then there were the 5, 9, 12, and 15, etc.) but they were all very well-designed.

My friend @fvzappa has a listing up on eBay for a PDP-8/m, which is a complete PDP-8/m minicomputer: https://www.ebay.com/itm/116163448173 This is an excellent turnkey system for joining the 12-bit world!

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@usul @fvzappa Oops, I had a typo in the link! But it might not help because it looks like eBay itself is down.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@jbrewer_jera @fvzappa Ah, but if only you’d known. :) The PDP-8 is actually a really friendly machine! It’s practically the first RISC system, and the HP 2100 series is basically a 16-bit version of the DEC PDP-8, as were a number of other systems of the 1970s.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@mepard @fvzappa Sounds like a wonderful time!

flargh, to random
@flargh@mastodon.social avatar

if someone made a nutritionally complete empanada I would live on them

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@flargh Isn’t that a calzone?

peterb, to random
@peterb@mathstodon.xyz avatar

My way of dealing with being in a bad mood is, instead of going to therapy, to make a video about an AppleSoft BASIC computer game that almost nobody has played.
@dosgameclub @dosnostalgic @Cdespinosa

video/mp4

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@hankg @dosnostalgic @dosgameclub @peterb @Cdespinosa Retrocomputing is not a coping mechanism, I say as I log into a new VMS 5.5-2 instance I set up in an emulator to compile some software released through DECUS in the 1980s…

eschaton, (edited ) to random
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

Jason Scott is stirring up some drama on the eve of because he donated some stuff to but doesn’t actually understand how “donation” and “archiving” work. He’s also taking at face value that someone was “driven out” of the organization when they actually ragequit rather than work within proper governance.

VCFed is a decent organization, especially now, and the VCF events are great. This drama is a tempest in a teapot, and absolutely not a reason not to participate or attend.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@hairyvisionary And at VCF, they were in a non-climate-controlled warehouse near the ocean!

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@cr1901 This is my understanding based on talking with others who were there when the steering committee was established. (Oh yeah, and Federation ≠ Forums ≠ Festival…)

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@cr1901 Indeed.

eschaton, to random
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

Ugh, iTerm2 doesn't have sufficiently good VT200+ emulation to use with VMS full-screen applications, and Terminal only supports VT100. Is there another native macOS terminal emulator that has good support for, say, VT240 or VT340?

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@penryu By “native” I mean “not a web page that’s pretending to be an application” e.g. some Electron or other JavaScript garbage.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@davepolaschek Ooo, since the (emulated) VAX is also running DECnet, I could use the Comm Toolbox VT320 tool—or even VersaTerm Pro!—over LAT from a classic Mac at home… Alas, that’s not quite a solution for SSH from a modern Mac.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@davepolaschek Maybe I should file a Radar to find the code and incorporate it into Terminal… ;)

drahardja, to retrocomputing
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Face it, you’ll never be this cool.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@drahardja “Tell me your family has money and your parents are having an ugly divorce without telling” &c.

eschaton,
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

@drahardja @afterconnery Man, that thing was so weird, a friend got one for his birthday when it was new and he had a sleepover birthday party so we spent the whole night playing Nintendo launch titles.

eschaton, to random
@eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

Is “The Fast & The Furious” a harem anime?

schwa, to random
@schwa@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @schwa Oh no!

    eschaton, to random
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    If it surprises anyone that “the Marquess of Chumley” has stolen Chinese antiques in her home, you should really look into the contents of the UK’s museums.

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    Hell, the UK has stolen whole countries and refuses to give them back in their entirety, like Ireland and Scotland.

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @below @whakkee Here’s hoping for the Irish Unification of 2024!

    thias, to retrocomputing
    @thias@mastodon.social avatar

    The Mac SE/30 had a 256 Kb ROM, that was expandable to 2MB. And Now is wonder if someone, somewhere is trying to create a 2MB ROM, with a boot file-system system like the Mac Classic had…

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @thias In fact it’s not only been made, it’s been made with flash so it can be reprogrammed and customized! https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator-ii/

    futurebird, (edited ) to random
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    What is it with fascists and speed? Always with the speed! Always being "anti-drug" then using up ALL the drugs.

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @futurebird We can certainly tell what drugs they weren’t using—like mushrooms or ayahuasca.

    jwz, to random
    @jwz@mastodon.social avatar

    TIL that SXSW still exists

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @jwz I only realized last week, when a comedian I enjoy said on a podcast she was headed to Austin “but for South By, not The Mothership.”

    eschaton, to retrocomputing
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    Are there any straightforward guides to setting up an SSH “jump server” for an old system? Let’s say I have a VAX VMS system I want to provide access to. People would ssh to cmhvax@mysite with a password I share, and each would produce a telnet connection to the VAX that they’d then have to log into with their real login and password. The past couple times I’ve looked into it, I got pretty lost in a forest of documentation…

    eschaton,
    @eschaton@mastodon.social avatar

    @philpem Hmm, a shell that does a chroot (and traps INT/HUP/QUIT might be useful. Right now I just have a user with /bin/sh as their shell and this as their .profile to prevent breaking out:

    trap "" 1 2 3
    telnet -E vax-ip-address
    exit

    This still has a tiny race, unless the shell actively fails upon a signal between sourcing .profile and executing its contents. Maybe I should just write a couple lines of C…

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