IBM 3614 and 3624 ATM's
Henk Stegeman
Does anyone know what processor/technology IBM used in their
first generation ATM machines IBM 3614 & IBM 3624 ?
Thanks for all your replies.
Regards
Henk Stegeman
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone know what processor/technology IBM used in their
> first generation ATM machines IBM 3614 & IBM 3624 ?
>
> Thanks for all your replies.
i remember a couple of the people talking about development at the Los
Gatos Lab (which has since been torn down).
Part of it was getting the bill feeding right ... they had vault in
the basement with ATM-worth of bills ($50k us in 20s) from a couple
dozen different countries.
another story about trying to recognize when something other than
magstripe card was fed into the card slot.
i got email from one of the people earlier in the week ... they
had sent me URL pointer to boyd in
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#18 Boyd makes wikipedia
... one of the places i had sponsored boyd's talk in the early 80s was
at the los gatos lab.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html#boyd
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
another (los gatos) story was the airline res terminal that you see at
check-in counters and gates. the top service had slits for
ventilation. one of the fixes was a tray inside the case under the
slits ... designed to hold a quart bottle of coke.
keith
>
> another (los gatos) story was the airline res terminal that you see at
> check-in counters and gates. the top service had slits for
> ventilation. one of the fixes was a tray inside the case under the
> slits ... designed to hold a quart bottle of coke.
One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites was
performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything from
coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
--
Keith
jmfb...@aol.com
I am trying, and failing, to form a mental picture of how
this could happen. I am assuming that those cooling systems
were closed systems, IOW pipes?
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Mike Ross
Think of a nuclear reactor, with the CPUs taking the place of the
reactor core.
Actually, in view of the amount of power involved, the analogy is
particularly pertinent :-)
I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
contamination.
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
For sale: Al Qaeda rifle. Never fired. Dropped once.
keith
> On Sat, 27 Nov 04 13:32:08 GMT, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>
>>In article <pan.2004.11.26....@att.bizzzz>,
>> keith <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>
>>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
>>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
>>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites was
>>>performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything from
>>>coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
>>
>>I am trying, and failing, to form a mental picture of how
>>this could happen. I am assuming that those cooling systems
>>were closed systems, IOW pipes?
Pipes yes, but it is not a closed system. There is an "open" (i.e. not
sealed) reservoir/expansion tank in the Cooling Distribution Unit. This
is where the customer adds the appropriate water. The specification for
this water does not include coke or urine. ;-/
> Think of a nuclear reactor, with the CPUs taking the place of the
> reactor core.
>
> Actually, in view of the amount of power involved, the analogy is
> particularly pertinent :-)
I recently calculated the power density of a current microprocessor to be
1E9 times that of the sun. ;-)
> I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
> contamination.
Well, I guess it *could* have been an episode of SNL (perhaps along the
lines of "The Pepsi Syndrome").
> Mike
jmfb...@aol.com
The urea, certainly. Not the Coke if those workers were like ours.
But I can't imagine a male taking the chance of pissing around
electric wire.
Mike Ross
Given the quantity of Coke imbibed by many operators, it's entirely
possible the urea and Coke were introduced into the system
simultaneously, from the same errrrrr source...
Mike
--
http://www.corestore.org
"All I know is that I'm being sued for unfair business practices by Microsoft. Hello pot? It's kettle on line two" -
Michael Robertson
keith
The CDU is a "wet" area. Water is all around, and is designed like a
pump-house.
--
Keith
jmfb...@aol.com
Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>keith <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
>>On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 11:36:29 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>>> jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>>>>> keith <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>
>>>>>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't
work,
>>>>>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing
all
>>>>>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites
>>>>>>was performed to see what the water quality was. They found
everything
>>>>>>from coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
>
>don't identify the customer. (That's a HINT, a HINT I say...)
Hear, hear!
>
>>>>I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
>>>>contamination.
>
>>> The urea, certainly. Not the Coke if those workers were like ours.
>>> But I can't imagine a male taking the chance of pissing around
>>> electric wire.
>
>>The CDU is a "wet" area. Water is all around, and is designed like a
>>pump-house.
>
>Don't forget the tongue-in-cheek descritption of the water-cooled IBM
>360/91 as a "solid-state sprinkler system".
<grin> I don't remember seeing you guys say that. I think
computer types think up the best device descriptors. They
have a habit of describing the symptom, diagnosis and cure
in four words or less.
>
>And at least for the 3081 I worked with there was very definitely a
>specification for coolant purity. Building HVAC chilled water usually
>could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed system in
>the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the rejected heat to
>the building systems.
My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
the water pipe.
> .. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
>the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
>in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
The another one! :-))
Joe Morris
>On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 11:36:29 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>>>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
>>>>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
>>>>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites
>>>>>was performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything
>>>>>from coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
There's got to be some interesting tales surrounding this even if you
don't identify the customer. (That's a HINT, a HINT I say...)
>>>I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
>>>contamination.
>> The urea, certainly. Not the Coke if those workers were like ours.
>> But I can't imagine a male taking the chance of pissing around
>> electric wire.
>The CDU is a "wet" area. Water is all around, and is designed like a
>pump-house.
Don't forget the tongue-in-cheek descritption of the water-cooled IBM
360/91 as a "solid-state sprinkler system".
And at least for the 3081 I worked with there was very definitely a
specification for coolant purity. Building HVAC chilled water usually
could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed system in
the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the rejected heat to
the building systems. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
Joe Morris
Mikko Nahkola
> could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed system in
> the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the rejected heat to
> the building systems. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
> the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
> in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
I would have thought that the plant-side people would have been happy to
have an already-paid-for source of heat, if your winters are of any
meaningful strength ... or is it indeed that using this waste heat has
only become economical during the last decade or so?
Roman-style heating above the machine room, anyone?
--
Mikko Nahkola <mnah...@trein.ntc.nokia.com>
#include <disclaimer.h>
#Not speaking for my employer. No warranty. YMMV.
K Williams
says...
> keith <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
> >On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 11:36:29 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
> >> Mike Ross <mi...@corestore.org> wrote:
> >>> jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
> >>>> keith <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>
> >>>>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
> >>>>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
> >>>>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites
> >>>>>was performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything
> >>>>>from coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
>
> There's got to be some interesting tales surrounding this even if you
> don't identify the customer. (That's a HINT, a HINT I say...)
I wouldn't know the customer specifics. I was a newbie engineer
assigned (we were a cost-center engineering department) to the water-
works for a year or so. If I heard the specifics, I've long forgotten
them.
> >>>I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
> >>>contamination.
>
> >> The urea, certainly. Not the Coke if those workers were like ours.
> >> But I can't imagine a male taking the chance of pissing around
> >> electric wire.
>
> >The CDU is a "wet" area. Water is all around, and is designed like a
> >pump-house.
>
> Don't forget the tongue-in-cheek descritption of the water-cooled IBM
> 360/91 as a "solid-state sprinkler system".
Hadn't heard the term, but it was earned. ;-) This is why we attempted
to detect corrosion before it was too late. The methods we tried just
weren't reliable enough to be useful. A better idea was to not have it
happen at all.
> And at least for the 3081 I worked with there was very definitely a
> specification for coolant purity.
Yep, I worked on the 3081 CDU. I did the relay/switch logic for the
controls. ...all on unpaid overtime. :-( Our cost-center had to make a
profit somehow. ;-)
> Building HVAC chilled water usually
> could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed system in
> the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the rejected heat to
> the building systems. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
> the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
> in the winter.
In Poughkeepsie IBM uses the Hudson River water. It's not "quite" up
to the specs either, so IIRC there are two heat exchangers between the
river and the processor loops. It's been (almost 30) years since I did
this stuff, but I thought the spec'd water has corrosion inhibitors, so
all had heat exchangers between the cooling supply and the processor
complex.
> I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
and hard to cultivate.
--
Keith
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> writes:
> Don't forget the tongue-in-cheek descritption of the water-cooled
> IBM 360/91 as a "solid-state sprinkler system".
>
> And at least for the 3081 I worked with there was very definitely a
> specification for coolant purity. Building HVAC chilled water
> usually could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed
> system in the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the
> rejected heat to the building systems. (And at my PPOE I recall the
> fights to convince the Physical Plant managers that we needed
> cooling 24x7, even at night in the winter. I always thought of
> Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
there is the story of the customer that lost flow on the building side
of the system ... and by the time the thermal tripped on the closed
side of the system ... there was still enuf heat in the infrastructure
to fry some TCMs. all systems were then retrofitted so that there were
flow sensors on both sides.
K Williams
says...
and reports to the service processor. Also, each has its own
thermistor and reports temperature back to the service processor. If
cooling is lost[*] the system shuts down before any damage occurs.
[*] man do programmers get nervous when engineers with screwdrivers
walk onto their test floor! ;-) Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
seconds before the yelling started. oops!
--
Keith
Morten Reistad
>In article <cof97i$heh$4...@newslocal.mitre.org>,
> Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>>keith <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
>>>On Sun, 28 Nov 2004 11:36:29 +0000, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>>> Mike Ross <mi...@corestore.org> wrote:
>>>>> jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>>>>>> keith <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>>
>>>>>>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't
>work,
>>>>>>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing
>all
>>>>>>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites
>>>>>>>was performed to see what the water quality was. They found
>everything
>>>>>>>from coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
The system would literally be pissing then!
>
>>There's got to be some interesting tales surrounding this even if you
>>don't identify the customer. (That's a HINT, a HINT I say...)
>
>Hear, hear!
>>And at least for the 3081 I worked with there was very definitely a
>>specification for coolant purity. Building HVAC chilled water usually
>>could not meet those specs, so installations used a closed system in
>>the machine room with a heat exchanger to move the rejected heat to
>>the building systems.
>
>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>the water pipe.
That is an old Janitor's and mechanic trick. Set aside some water,
a few cubic meters at least; and let it freeze. Remove the last 5%
of water when it is freezing; and let it thaw again in the spring.
Excellent low-corrosion water for use as coolants in motors, radiators etc.
You don't get the "siging" of air bubbles with such water.
>> .. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
>>the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
>>in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
>
>The another one! :-))
I always wondered of the designs that required active compressor cooling
at 60 degrees north in the winter.
Surely a long loop outside would solve the problem of removing heat?
-- mrr
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
some more topic drift ...3081 tcm paper from ibm (search engine
html'ed version of pdf paper):
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:NzZrbqd3ZakJ:www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/261/ibmrd2601H.pdf+%2B3081+%2Btcm+%2Bthermal+%2Bflow&hl=en
another packaging paper from ibm (search engine html'ed version
of pdf paper):
http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:NzZrbqd3ZakJ:www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/261/ibmrd2601H.pdf+%2B3081+%2Btcm+%2Bthermal+%2Bflow&hl=en
somewhat unrelated ,,,, but story from vmshare archive .... 3092
service processor ... actually a pair of 4361s running a highly
modified version of vm/370 release 6; ... following comment ...
at least nothing as slow as 3092 could be doing any mainline
computing for a 3090
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=3090&ft=MEMO&line=503
Append on 01/13/89 at 12:10 by Chris Thomas / UCLA 213-825-9308:
The 3092 has nothing to do with PR/SM, or with anything else (like IO)
that is part of normal computing. The 3090 CPs will run with the 3092
down. In fact, there are msgs in VM/XA and MVS/XA to the effect taht
"3092 processor controller has failed - system shutdown recommended".
We got it one day and everything continued running just fine; we ran
for an hour without the 3092. What you loose without the 3092 are
some important things like thermal monitoring, so it's not a good idea
to run without it. You can't do things that require the 3092 like
writing the IOCDS either, obviously. But nothing as slow as a 3092
could be doing anything important on a 3090!
*** APPENDED 01/13/89 12:10:38 BY UR/CST ***
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I don't see how you'd fry the TCMs. The CDU monitors water
> temperature and reports to the service processor. Also, each has
> its own thermistor and reports temperature back to the service
> processor. If cooling is lost[*] the system shuts down before any
> damage occurs.
>
> [*] man do programmers get nervous when engineers with screwdrivers
> walk onto their test floor! ;-) Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
> TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
> seconds before the yelling started. oops!
the story was that there was enuf (latent) heat in the system ... that
by the time the thermal sensor tripped ... it was already too late
... supposedly the processor side closed loop didn't have enuf
mass/dissipation to carry away the residual heat once the open loop
stopped flowing (and the temperature started to rise on the closed
cloop side) .... so systems were retrofitted with flow sensors on the
open loop side. the issue was what indicators were needed to shutdown
"before damage occurs".
Bob Abeles
Back in the day, I took part in a spot of reverse-engineering on an
IBM 3090. We powered down the machine, carefully attached probes,
powered up, ran tests, and repeated several times. About o-dark-thirty
in the AM we finished, wiped our fingerprints off all the metal parts
we'd touched, buttoned up all the covers, and tried to power up. The
SVP would sequence the machine up through the CDU circulation pump
start, and would then quit with an error code. After several attempts,
we put in a service call to IBM and went home. The next day, I walked
into the machine room to see several empty 5 gal. distilled water
bottles lined up along one of the walls near the 3090. The plumbing
between the CDU and the processor had sprung a leak, and our repeated
attempts to start the machine had pumped most of its water under the
floor. Lucky for us there was a drain down there.
keith
I don't buy it (sorry). The junction temperatures (where the heat
originated) by design were never to go above 85C or the system would
crash - hard. Like current, heat flows "down hill" from high
potential (temperature) to low, so even with an infinite thermal mass at
85C, the temperature will not exceed, 85C. Ok the regulators may have been
at 125C, but the water was not pressurized so it wouldn't go over 100C
before boiling, releasing the heat (and not conducting it to the TCMs in
any case). Even 125C wouldn't have fried any electronics in the TCMs.
Now, there were embarrasing instances of "magic smoke" release in the
303x, but they had nothing to do with the coolant.
--
Keith
keith
>
>
>
> some more topic drift ...3081 tcm paper from ibm (search engine
> html'ed version of pdf paper):
> http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:NzZrbqd3ZakJ:www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/261/ibmrd2601H.pdf+%2B3081+%2Btcm+%2Bthermal+%2Bflow&hl=en
>
> another packaging paper from ibm (search engine html'ed version
> of pdf paper):
> http://216.239.63.104/search?q=cache:NzZrbqd3ZakJ:www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/261/ibmrd2601H.pdf+%2B3081+%2Btcm+%2Bthermal+%2Bflow&hl=en
>
> somewhat unrelated ,,,, but story from vmshare archive .... 3092
> service processor ... actually a pair of 4361s running a highly
> modified version of vm/370 release 6; ... following comment ...
> at least nothing as slow as 3092 could be doing any mainline
> computing for a 3090
>
> http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=3090&ft=MEMO&line=503
>
> Append on 01/13/89 at 12:10 by Chris Thomas / UCLA 213-825-9308:
>
> The 3092 has nothing to do with PR/SM, or with anything else (like IO)
> that is part of normal computing. The 3090 CPs will run with the 3092
> down. In fact, there are msgs in VM/XA and MVS/XA to the effect taht
> "3092 processor controller has failed - system shutdown recommended".
Every system I've seen had two for redundancy (later machines ran OS/2 for
this purpose, if that makes you feel better - ...on *ThinkPads* ;-).
> We got it one day and everything continued running just fine; we ran for
> an hour without the 3092. What you loose without the 3092 are some
> important things like thermal monitoring, so it's not a good idea to run
> without it. You can't do things that require the 3092 like writing the
> IOCDS either, obviously. But nothing as slow as a 3092 could be doing
> anything important on a 3090!
You'd be very surprised what went on in the service processor. Perhaps
you don't think error recovery is "important"? ;-) I'm no service
processor guru (I was one of the "architects" of the power/thermal control
hardware before I left the mainframe group in '80) but I know of at least
one case where the service processor caught a hardware fault, backed out
the instructions, re-ran them on its own hardware, injected the results
back into the system. and then restarted the jobs with no one being the
wiser. It was caught in system verification test (DVT, I think) in a
system trace and only after showing that it was reproducable was the
hardware re-spun to correct the fault. The answer was ultimately correct.
--
Keith
keith
That's when we pulled the plate off the wrong TCM. Once we figured out
that the damned programmers laid out their system-room backwards ;-), we
fixed our hardware problem and were eating pizza and drinking beer in an
hour (It was 8:00ish PM on a Winter Sunday (thus *dark*) after working on
a *stupid* problem all weekend).
> in the AM we finished, wiped our fingerprints off all the metal parts
> we'd touched, buttoned up all the covers, and tried to power up. The SVP
> would sequence the machine up through the CDU circulation pump start,
> and would then quit with an error code. After several attempts, we put
> in a service call to IBM and went home. The next day, I walked into the
> machine room to see several empty 5 gal. distilled water bottles lined
> up along one of the walls near the 3090. The plumbing between the CDU
> and the processor had sprung a leak, and our repeated attempts to start
> the machine had pumped most of its water under the floor. Lucky for us
> there was a drain down there.
ROTFLOLPIMP!!! I was once asked to come up with ideas of a leak detector.
The PHBs were thinking along the lines of differential pressure monitors,
or some such high-tech nonsense. I made a mock-up of a detector out of
the guts of a toilet. The copper float was just *so* pretty next to all
the copper and brass inside the CDU. Alas, the PHBs were *not* ammused.
I'm quite sure it would have worked, though perhaps not soon enough. ;-)
--
Keith
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I don't buy it (sorry). The junction temperatures (where the heat
> originated) by design were never to go above 85C or the system would
> crash - hard. Like current, heat flows "down hill" from high
> potential (temperature) to low, so even with an infinite thermal
> mass at 85C, the temperature will not exceed, 85C. Ok the regulators
> may have been at 125C, but the water was not pressurized so it
> wouldn't go over 100C before boiling, releasing the heat (and not
> conducting it to the TCMs in any case). Even 125C wouldn't have
> fried any electronics in the TCMs.
>
> Now, there were embarrasing instances of "magic smoke" release in the
> 303x, but they had nothing to do with the coolant.
the story was told to me by somebody from cornell ... like it may
have happened there.
a possible indication would be if service processor monitored flow (on
open loop side) ... in addition to just temperature. if somebody has
3081 installation regarding where there were flow sensors (and/or
did later installations have flow sensors on the open loop side?)
this 3081 description (possibly original announcement?)
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP3081.html
talks about 3087 coolant unit and 3082 service processor monitoring
both temperature and flow ... but sort of implies that the flow
monitoring may just be the closed loop side. the story was that
infrastructure was retrofitted with open loop side flow sensors ....
which would imply that support for monitoring the open loop side flow
sensors might have also been added to the service processor.
from above ...
IBM 3087 Coolant Distribution Unit
The IBM 3087 incorporates heat exchangers, controls and two water
pumps to supply cooling water in a closed loop to the IBM 3081
Processor Unit.
The temperature and flow rate of the cooling water supplied to the
3081 is continuously monitored by the microcode-driven 3082 Processor
Controller. Any deviation from acceptable limits is signaled to the
system operator.
The 3082 also periodically switches between the two coolant water
pumps to help insure high system availability.
jmfb...@aol.com
That's because we know you're about to screw us.
> ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
>TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
>seconds before the yelling started. oops!
And you lived to tell about it?
jmfb...@aol.com
Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>the water pipe.
>
>That is an old Janitor's and mechanic trick. Set aside some water,
>a few cubic meters at least; and let it freeze. Remove the last 5%
>of water when it is freezing; and let it thaw again in the spring.
How do you do that? You need a pipe or something to stick in
the middle of the ice block.
>Excellent low-corrosion water for use as coolants in motors, radiators
etc.
>You don't get the "siging" of air bubbles with such water.
It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
work was because it would introduce air and the best water
was dead water.
>
>>> .. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
>>>the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
>>>in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
>>
>>The another one! :-))
>
>I always wondered of the designs that required active compressor cooling
>at 60 degrees north in the winter.
>
>Surely a long loop outside would solve the problem of removing heat?
I'll give you another puzzle to wonder about. Our Marlboro plant
first cooled the air to a frigid temp then heated it up. In the
summer it would heat the air up to a lower temp than in the winter.
K Williams
LOL!
> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
>
> And you lived to tell about it?
We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
set in existence) on their processors. ...not to mention that we were
armed with sharp objects. ;-)
--
Keith
Dave Hansen
>In article <10vfoc...@via.reistad.priv.no>,
> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
[...]
>>I always wondered of the designs that required active compressor cooling
>>at 60 degrees north in the winter.
>>
>>Surely a long loop outside would solve the problem of removing heat?
>
>I'll give you another puzzle to wonder about. Our Marlboro plant
>first cooled the air to a frigid temp then heated it up. In the
>summer it would heat the air up to a lower temp than in the winter.
It's not the heat, its...
Regards,
-=Dave
--
Change is inevitable, progress is not.
MSCHAEF.COM
>In article <10vfoc...@via.reistad.priv.no>,
> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
><snip>
>
>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>the water pipe.
>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
>was dead water.
Huh? I don't follow why the bleed valve wouldn't work:
I have a radiator based closed water heating system where each radiator
has a bleed valve at the top. I was told to bleed the system by
feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
-Mike
--
http://www.mschaef.com
Mikko Nahkola
>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
><snip>
>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>the water pipe.
>>
>>That is an old Janitor's and mechanic trick. Set aside some water,
>>a few cubic meters at least; and let it freeze. Remove the last 5%
>>of water when it is freezing; and let it thaw again in the spring.
> How do you do that? You need a pipe or something to stick in
> the middle of the ice block.
There are ways to control the freezing process so that the last part to
freeze is on an outer edge. Like, at the bottom of the container, where
you can have a valve easily.
Insulating the container sides and bottom might be one such way.
There are other interesting things you can do by controlling the
freezing process. Like, digging a hole through a lake, so you can tow
out the car that you drove on the lake too early in the fall...
>>Excellent low-corrosion water for use as coolants in motors, radiators
> etc.
>>You don't get the "siging" of air bubbles with such water.
>
> It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
> a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
> work was because it would introduce air and the best water
> was dead water.
So put in a double valve. Everyone around here seems to do so, at least.
Of course, if you can't get valves that stay reliable even if you don't
exercise them at least once a decade, you might not want to...
Then again, our radiators come with air bleed valves by default. Letting
the air out is just another end-user task along with tweaking the
thermostats - _and_ the divider valve that controls how hot the main
lines out of the boiler room are.
>>>> .. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
>>>>the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
>>>>in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
>>>
>>>The another one! :-))
>>
>>I always wondered of the designs that required active compressor cooling
>>at 60 degrees north in the winter.
>>Surely a long loop outside would solve the problem of removing heat?
> I'll give you another puzzle to wonder about. Our Marlboro plant
> first cooled the air to a frigid temp then heated it up. In the
> summer it would heat the air up to a lower temp than in the winter.
That one is easy - humidity control. Didn't I wonder at the stupidity of
car air-conditioner design where the lowest setting was something like
17 C, when about half the time it should be used to get _dry_ 5..10C or so?
As to _why_ you'd want to do that _there_, I have no idea. Would make
sense in a place where the climate tends to be very humid, though, but I
understood this isn't the case _there_.
K Williams
says...
However, any TCM that exceeds its thermal limits (Tj = 85C) will cause
the system to crash in a most impressive way. There is no warning.
Once the power is gone, where is the heat coming from? What is at a
higher temperature (than the junctions) to supply *more* heat to the
TCMs?
> The 3082 also periodically switches between the two coolant water
> pumps to help insure high system availability.
Yep, and to make sure the pump seals stay wet.
--
Keith
Charles Shannon Hendrix
>>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
>>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
>>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites was
>>performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything from
>>coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
>
> I am trying, and failing, to form a mental picture of how
> this could happen. I am assuming that those cooling systems
> were closed systems, IOW pipes?
Some system expose the coolant to the air at some point though.
I keep trying to hope that the urea came from sweat and not urine...
--
shannon "AT" widomaker.com -- ["There is no such thing as security. Life
is either bold adventure, or it is nothing -- Helen Keller"]
----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! >100,000 Newsgroups
---= East/West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---
Charles Shannon Hendrix
>>I would presume the strange fluids found were the result of deliberate
>>contamination.
>
> The urea, certainly. Not the Coke if those workers were like ours.
> But I can't imagine a male taking the chance of pissing around
> electric wire.
I wonder if it could be caused by damage to the building's water system,
which might be common with the computer's cooling system in some cases.
I've heard of output getting in the input when there is water system
damage, for example, wether it is common or not.
Morten Reistad
> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
><snip>
>
>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>the water pipe.
>>
>>That is an old Janitor's and mechanic trick. Set aside some water,
>>a few cubic meters at least; and let it freeze. Remove the last 5%
>>of water when it is freezing; and let it thaw again in the spring.
>
>How do you do that? You need a pipe or something to stick in
>the middle of the ice block.
You let the ice expand, and push away the water. Just give it a degree
of freedom.
>
>>Excellent low-corrosion water for use as coolants in motors, radiators
>etc.
>>You don't get the "siging" of air bubbles with such water.
>
>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
>was dead water.
Water borne heating systems should have bleeding cocks in accessible
places. You can hear the singing when air starts to circulate, and that
lowers efficiency a lot, and accelrates corrosion too.
>>
>>>> .. (And at my PPOE I recall the fights to convince
>>>>the Physical Plant managers that we needed cooling 24x7, even at night
>>>>in the winter. I always thought of Physical Plant as a noxious weed...)
>>>
>>>The another one! :-))
>>
>>I always wondered of the designs that required active compressor cooling
>>at 60 degrees north in the winter.
>>
>>Surely a long loop outside would solve the problem of removing heat?
>
>I'll give you another puzzle to wonder about. Our Marlboro plant
>first cooled the air to a frigid temp then heated it up. In the
>summer it would heat the air up to a lower temp than in the winter.
That is easy. That was to dry out the air, and get rid of some
contaminants together with the moisture.
-- mrr
jmfb...@aol.com
TW would tell stories about walking into the Maynard plant
at 3:00 and find that he was working with a completely new
processor because the CPU architect had tweaked it. I think
he was talking about the KA.
>
>> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
>> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
>> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
>>
>> And you lived to tell about it?
>
>We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
>set in existence) on their processors.
Real programmers would wait until the gear work was done
then deal with the bug.
> .. ...not to mention that we were
>armed with sharp objects. ;-)
But who controlled the code that opened the doors? Besides,
all they had to do was chant a magic incantation and make
it appear that the gear was broken. Now you're trapped.
jmfb...@aol.com
msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) wrote:
>In article <SfWdnVuP2aN...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>In article <10vfoc...@via.reistad.priv.no>,
>> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>><snip>
>>
>>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>>the water pipe.
> ...
>>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
>>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
>>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
>>was dead water.
>
>Huh? I don't follow why the bleed valve wouldn't work:
Because air can get into the system. Apparently this is
a bad thing. It has to be an airless system.
>
>I have a radiator based closed water heating system where each radiator
>has a bleed valve at the top.
Then it's not a completely closed system. I don't have those kinds
of radiators. I have a pipe that runs alongs the walls through
flat pieces of metal; the water heat the pipe; the pipe heats the
flat pieces; the flat pieces radiate the heat.
> ..I was told to bleed the system by
>feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
>each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
>around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
>given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
>
>Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Charles Shannon Hendrix <sha...@news.widomaker.com> wrote:
> On 2004-11-27, jmfb...@aol.com <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >>One of my first assignments, atIBM, was a corrosion sensor (didn't work,
> >>BTW) to warn of cooling system corrosion before they started pissing all
> >>over the floor. Because of such problems a survey of customer's sites was
> >>performed to see what the water quality was. They found everything from
> >>coke syrup to urea in the cooling systems.
> >
> > I am trying, and failing, to form a mental picture of how
> > this could happen. I am assuming that those cooling systems
> > were closed systems, IOW pipes?
>
> Some system expose the coolant to the air at some point though.
>
> I keep trying to hope that the urea came from sweat and not urine...
It's a handy mechanism for an emergency top up.
K Williams
Aiming at a moving target...
> >> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
> >> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
> >> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
> >>
> >> And you lived to tell about it?
> >
> >We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
> >set in existence) on their processors.
>
> Real programmers would wait until the gear work was done
> then deal with the bug.
We had exclusive use of the A-Side of the system to install the
hardware. The problem was that the A-side console was next to the B-
Side (and verse visa). So when we decided that it was the TCM that was
bad (false conclusion because of the side reversal), we disconnected
the TCM on the *active* (B) side. The programmers showed us where to
set up shop, but neglected to tell us they'd mucked with the hardware.
> > .. ...not to mention that we were
> >armed with sharp objects. ;-)
>
> But who controlled the code that opened the doors? Besides,
> all they had to do was chant a magic incantation and make
> it appear that the gear was broken. Now you're trapped.
Once the barbarians are inside the gates, the city is lost. ;-)
--
Keith
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
> set in existence) on their processors. ...not to mention that we
> were armed with sharp objects. ;-)
internal corporate requirements was that all links leaving premises
had to be encrypted ... at one time, there was some claim that the
intenal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#internalnet
had over half of all link encryptors in the world.
in conjunction with hsdt
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#hsdt
i got involved with doing a daughter card that had some interesting
crypto properties and would operate at really high speeds. apparently
it was too good of a job because it was eventually decided that there
was possibly only one customer for such a product (but it was a
different world back then).
K Williams
I have the same sort of heat, but there *are* bleeders in the system.
They work automagically and sometimes they even work right. For some
reason I often get air in my system. Every fall when I turn the system
on it sounds like a waterfall all around the house. I recently drained
the system (accidentally working on the water supply to the laundry)
and it refilled and purged pretty well all by itself. I may have a
small bubble left that I have to chase out.
>
> > ..I was told to bleed the system by
> >feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
> >each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
> >around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
> >given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
> >
> >Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
>
> It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
> is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
Same as mine. Ithere is usually a bleeder on top of the widget the
expansion tank hooks to. There may be bleeders around the house on the
baseboard units too.
--
Keith
Nick Spalding
And heating the water will gradually liberate dissolved gases which will
accumulate in the high spots until it becomes the 'old' water that jmfbahciv
referred to.
> > > ..I was told to bleed the system by
> > >feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
> > >each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
> > >around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
> > >given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
> > >
> > >Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
> >
> > It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
> > is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
>
> Same as mine. Ithere is usually a bleeder on top of the widget the
> expansion tank hooks to. There may be bleeders around the house on the
> baseboard units too.
--
Nick Spalding
Nick Spalding
Mine has an expansion tank with a float valve in it to keep it topped up, all
completely separate from the house water circuits.
--
Nick Spalding
Morten Reistad
>In article <aaOdnUAi_pY...@io.com>,
> msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) wrote:
>>In article <SfWdnVuP2aN...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>In article <10vfoc...@via.reistad.priv.no>,
>>> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>>>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>><snip>
>>>
>>>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>>>the water pipe.
>> ...
>>>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
>>>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
>>>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
>>>was dead water.
>>
>>Huh? I don't follow why the bleed valve wouldn't work:
>
>Because air can get into the system. Apparently this is
>a bad thing. It has to be an airless system.
With water-based systems that use non-preprocessed water air _ALWAYS_ gets
into the system, and goes either to the highest point or to some point with
turbulence. It needs to get bled out of there.
Air has an amazing propensity to make friction at turbulence points, even
in minute quantities. It also contains much more reactive oxygen, and will
accelrate corrosion in the spots it accumulates.
>>I have a radiator based closed water heating system where each radiator
>>has a bleed valve at the top.
>
>Then it's not a completely closed system. I don't have those kinds
>of radiators. I have a pipe that runs alongs the walls through
>flat pieces of metal; the water heat the pipe; the pipe heats the
>flat pieces; the flat pieces radiate the heat.
No wonder it costs a bundle to bleed this system.
At my last place of residence there was radiators, and those needed bleeding
a few times a year. There was a little cistern on top, fed from the water mains
exactly like the cistern in a loo. That meant quite a bit of air got into the
system; it could be heard as singing in the pipes.
>> ..I was told to bleed the system by
>>feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
>>each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
>>around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
>>given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
>>
>>Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
>
>It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
>is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
Most new systems are.
Water from the mains contains quite a bit dissolved air, and as the water gets
agitated in the pipes, heated, cooled etc. this air gets released.
-- mrr
MSCHAEF.COM
>It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
>is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
That sounds familar. I have a pipe to the hot water system that comes in
from the house's ordinary water supply. The only time I use is it is to
keep the pressure up in the hot water loop while I'm bleeding the
radiators. If the system drained, presumably it'd be used to refill it
too.
I guess what I'm wondering is if I should be thinking I don't know the
whole story about bleeding my heater's hot water loop. (The radiator bleed
valves only do a partial job, etc.)
-Mike
--
http://www.mschaef.com
Philip Nasadowski
Our system is piped as such:
* There are two heating loops.
* The returns both go to the boiler.
* From the boiler, they go out, through an air sepperator (B&G IAS, FWIW
:) which has the fill/expansion tank hookup under it, and an automagic
air vent on top.
* Then the piping goes to the pumps, which are very close to the IAS.
This is a 'pumping away' scheme B&G has been advocating for a few
decades now.
* The two loops go through their respective pumps and off wherever.
As long as the system remains leak free, you never need to add much
water, and the IAS does an amazing job at collecting any air in the
water stream. Our system's dead quiet and after a few weeks of running
after the initial fill, there's virtually no air in it. The bulk of the
air was out at startup - just tiny amounts collect in the air vent every
now and then.
The trick is pumping away from the expansion tank, aparently. For some
reason that escapes me now. Anyway, once that's done, getting the air
out with a sepperator is easy and fun...
Mikko Nahkola
>>In article <SfWdnVuP2aN...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
>>>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>>>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
>>>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
>>>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
>>>>>the water pipe.
>> ...
>>>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
>>>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
>>>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
>>>was dead water.
>>
>>Huh? I don't follow why the bleed valve wouldn't work:
> Because air can get into the system. Apparently this is
> a bad thing. It has to be an airless system.
Yes, but getting airless water to begin with is a lot harder than to
let the air out once it has separated from the water.
You should only need to do this when you add new water, of course.
Otherwise it's broken, and likely to deteriorate faster after that
because it corrodes faster then.
But, the circulating water is often far from "clean" - it can eventually
become a saturated solution of whatever soluble stuff is found on the pipe
inside surfaces anyway. A single filling of air in the water only has
enough oxygen content to oxidize a rather thin layer of iron from the
iron pipes, and the non-oxidized iron isn't all that soluble, so it
works - and the pipes are good for a reasonable number of cycles, so you
should only need to replace them once or twice a century or so even when
playing it safe, if you do it right.
Plastic pipes can last forever, approximately...
>>I have a radiator based closed water heating system where each radiator
>>has a bleed valve at the top.
>
> Then it's not a completely closed system. I don't have those kinds
> of radiators. I have a pipe that runs alongs the walls through
> flat pieces of metal; the water heat the pipe; the pipe heats the
> flat pieces; the flat pieces radiate the heat.
The more common variation around here is where the radiators are
flat sections of pipe, roughly. And bleed valves on top of each. It's
closed if you keep the valves closed tight...
As bleeding the air out is only needed so rarely, possibly something
like once every two decades (which is about the typical boiler overhaul
interval), it effectively _is_ a closed system.
>> ..I was told to bleed the system by
>>feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
>>each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
>>around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
>>given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
>>
>>Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
> It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
> is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
Sure, my boiler is hooked to the water system via a pipe too. And via
another bunch of pipes to the heating circulation - the pipes of which
circulate inside the boiler too, in their own still closed loop.
Having a pressure tank with a diaphragm, or something similar, means
that you don't need to add more water to force the air out. These have
been available for some decades now.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
> I'm sure that was earlier. I worked on the 3090 and ES9000 ICRF
> hardware from '88-'93. The customers were primarily large banks and
> the Fed.
yep ... i wanted to be able to manufacture the card for under $100,
keep the markup as low as possible and handle a minimum of
2-3mbytes/sec and possibly as much as 6mbytes/sec. at the time, i
think i was paying something like $6k for link encryptors that would
just handle up to T1.
K Williams
says...
I'm sure that was earlier. I worked on the 3090 and ES9000 ICRF
hardware from '88-'93. The customers were primarily large banks and
the Fed.
--
Keith
jmfb...@aol.com
Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com writes:
>
>>TW would tell stories about walking into the Maynard plant
>>at 3:00 and find that he was working with a completely new
>>processor because the CPU architect had tweaked it. I think
>>he was talking about the KA.
>
>at IBM: the programmers would be working on the system during the
>days, and at night the greml^W design engineers would take the
>machine at night and change the way it worked.
The way (I think) the guys fixed this people communication
problem was to religiously write in the system log book.
The patch file necessary to get a week's edit up and running
was also typed on the CTY and taped into the log book (I have
the KI's).
I know that got fixed with KL development. There were two
machines.
Joe Morris
>TW would tell stories about walking into the Maynard plant
>at 3:00 and find that he was working with a completely new
>processor because the CPU architect had tweaked it. I think
>he was talking about the KA.
That's the same situation that Herb Grosch described from his time
at IBM: the programmers would be working on the system during the
days, and at night the greml^W design engineers would take the
machine at night and change the way it worked.
Joe Morris
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
the problem wasn't so much the raw rate ... it was being able to
handle minimum-sized packets and potentially have to change key
between every packet ... aka it wasn't just a raw bandwidth link
encrypter operating at lower level, it was supposed to operate at the
MAC level ... although it effectively could do the job of a link
encrypter if it had to.
Mikko Nahkola
Why am I reminded of the various automotive emergency stories... in one,
they stuffed mashed bananas in the oil reserve and that was enough to
get to civilization. Enough coolant stuff too to make up for anything...
And let's not get started in the heavy weapons direction. Some have
coolants, some have lubricants, some have dampener fluids...
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> That's the same situation that Herb Grosch described from his time
> at IBM: the programmers would be working on the system during the
> days, and at night the greml^W design engineers would take the
> machine at night and change the way it worked.
not quite that ... but, in part because of the same architecture
across all the machines ... the architecture manual was pretty
strongly followed. the architecture manual (or red-book because of
being distributed in red 3-ring binders) was a superset of the
principle of operations ... in fact, it was a cms script file with
conditionals that would either print the full architecture manual, or
the principle of operations subset (originally with the "dot"
formating commands, eventually evolving into gml).
cambridge science center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
had worked on the "h" and "i" cp67 systems with endicott. in fact
transferring files between endicott and cambridge was one of
the first uses of the technology that became the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
"h" systems were the modifications to the cp67 kernel to add
simulation support for the 370 architecture. the cp67h kernel could
run on a normal 360/67 machine and provide 360 virtual machines,
360/67 virtual machines (with relocate), 370 virtual machines (w/o
relocate), and 370 virtual machine (with relocate).
"i" systems were the modifications to the cp67 kernel to change the
kernel to run on a 370 machine with relocate hardware support (and
provide 370 virtual machines).
the 360/67 at the science center was operated as a generalized
timesharing service that had a number of non-employee accounts,
including students from various universities in the area (mit, bu,
harvard, etc). because all this was being done before 370 virtual
memory support had been announced to customers ... they typical
operation was running cp67h kernel in a 360/67 virtual machine ... so
characteristics of 370 architecture wouldn't accidently be exposred to
non-employees. the cp67i kernel was then run in a 370 virtual machine
provided by the cp67h kernel running in a 360/67 virtual machine ...
aka
360/67 hardware
cp67 kernel providing 360 and 360/67 virtual machines
cp67h kernel running in 360/67 virtual machine
cp67i kernel running in a 370 (relocate) virtual machine
cms running in 370 virtual machine
in any case, all of this was operational a year before the first 370
engineering hardware with relocate hardware (virtual memory) support
was operational.
when endicott engineers thot they had the first engineering 370 with
relocate hardware operational .... alan auroux took a copy of cp67i
kernel to endicott to test. this was real engineering hardware ...
with the ipl button a knife switch. they ipl'ed the cp67i kernel and
it aborted/failed. after a lot of diagnosing, they found out that the
engineers had switched the implementation of two of the new "B2"
opcodes (from memory, RRB and PTLB; from what was defined in the
architecture manual) ... the kernel was quickly patched to switch the
opcodes and from then on, the cp67i kernel ran fine (at some tiem the
engineers had to redo the opcodes to the architecture manual
definition).
jmfb...@aol.com
Yep. After that, DEC built _two_ breadboards (I think that's
the correct word)--one for software to play with and one for
hardware to play with. The tweak would happen in hardware's
system, and then when everybody was satified that the tweak
was Good, then it would happen to software's toy. One of the
jobs of somebody was to MAKE SURE THE DEVELOPER KNEW ABOUT IT.
IOW, no fucking memos but a walk down the aisle and a face
to face "by the way".
>
>> >> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
>> >> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
>> >> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
>> >>
>> >> And you lived to tell about it?
>> >
>> >We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
>> >set in existence) on their processors.
>>
>> Real programmers would wait until the gear work was done
>> then deal with the bug.
>
>We had exclusive use of the A-Side of the system to install the
>hardware. The problem was that the A-side console was next to the B-
>Side (and verse visa). So when we decided that it was the TCM that was
>bad (false conclusion because of the side reversal), we disconnected
>the TCM on the *active* (B) side. The programmers showed us where to
>set up shop, but neglected to tell us they'd mucked with the hardware.
Uh-oh. Software mucked with the gear?
>
>> > .. ...not to mention that we were
>> >armed with sharp objects. ;-)
>>
>> But who controlled the code that opened the doors? Besides,
>> all they had to do was chant a magic incantation and make
>> it appear that the gear was broken. Now you're trapped.
>
>Once the barbarians are inside the gates, the city is lost. ;-)
Only if you let them run amuck. I would close and lock the
gates; now I owned their sorry asses. :-)
I also have a feeling that we got onto a lot of Field Service
shit lists during the years because of hardware tweaking during
a debugging session.
jmfb...@aol.com
house.
jmfb...@aol.com
Yup. That sounds like what I have. Apparently it takes a
special pump to bleed trapped air such that connecting it
doesn't introduce more air. I don't know; that's what
I was told. This bunch of men don't seem to lie to me
like some do when they dismiss me a stupid broad who can't
boil water.
K Williams
>
> the problem wasn't so much the raw rate ... it was being able to
> handle minimum-sized packets and potentially have to change key
> between every packet ... aka it wasn't just a raw bandwidth link
> encrypter operating at lower level, it was supposed to operate at the
> MAC level ... although it effectively could do the job of a link
> encrypter if it had to.
>
We had a proposal to do exactly that on Ethernet controllers. In fact,
that's what I was hired into BTV to do, but it was too simple and cheap
to get much interest.
--
Keith
Charlie Gibbs
(jmfbahciv) writes:
And you get to feed their kids. :-)
--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
K Williams
> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
> > We had a proposal to do exactly that on Ethernet controllers. In fact,
> > that's what I was hired into BTV to do, but it was too simple and cheap
> > to get much interest.
>
> number of different ways .... including as link adapters (and not
> limit the market to just enet). the difficulty with this wasn't with
> it being too simple and/or cheap.
But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
--
Keith
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> We had a proposal to do exactly that on Ethernet controllers. In fact,
> that's what I was hired into BTV to do, but it was too simple and cheap
> to get much interest.
the reason for daughter card design was so that it could be used in a
number of different ways .... including as link adapters (and not
limit the market to just enet). the difficulty with this wasn't with
it being too simple and/or cheap.
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> another group we spent some amount of time talking to were a couple of
> the settop box vendors (both cable and sat. downlinks).
one had outsourced their manufactoring to a company in the far east
... which we visited; it was the first manufactoring line that i'd
seen (or knew of) doing surface mount technology ... with real surface
mount chips ... later i found some place in the us doing a form of
surface mount by taking regular chips and cutting the contacts off
flush; goes to show you how long ago some of this was.
CBFalconer
Not 20 years ago. I was quite proud of having a LAN interface
adequate for my needs that cost well under $100.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@worldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
<http://cbfalconer.home.att.net> USE worldnet address!
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
> But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
> and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
> companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
another group we spent some amount of time talking to were a couple of
the settop box vendors (both cable and sat. downlinks).
--
jmfb...@aol.com
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>In article <uZmdndU8yuC...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com
>(jmfbahciv) writes:
>
>> In article <MPG.1c17c2fdc...@news.individual.net>,
>> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>>
>>> Once the barbarians are inside the gates, the city is lost. ;-)
>>
>> Only if you let them run amuck. I would close and lock the
>> gates; now I owned their sorry asses. :-)
>
>And you get to feed their kids. :-)
>
is to get the gear fixed. Swing the key to the exit door in
front of them and a device that emits aromas of free beer
and pizza in the other.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
> and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
> companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
not way back when ... there were telco link adapters and pcnet
thingies (1mbit with head-end something like tv cable architecture).
my wife is one of the co-inventors on the ring token passing patent
(before token-ring product).
token-ring then started to be pushed ... and enet was still big heavy
cables. it wasn't until a little later that you started to see enet
take off with first coax and then star topology on twisted-pair,
unshielded, shielded, cat5, etc.
by '88 ... the token-ring and saa contingents were out in force
... there were all sorts of published reports about 10mbit enet not
sustaining 1mbit because of collisions compared to 4mbit token. As
close as i can tell, they may have been using the really old 3mbit
enet that simply transmitted ... before they implemented listen before
transmit ... and assuming really long aggregate end-to-end lenghts
(and therefor transmit latencies). '88 sigcomm proceedings had paper
on twisted-pari star-topology 10mbit enet with 30 stations all
configured in the driver to constantly transmit minimum sized enet
packets ... which dropped the effective aggregate media thruput from
95+ percent to something like 89 percent.
the new research bldg had gone in up the hill and was completely wired
for cat5 ... and there was some contention when a lot of the cat5
became connected with enet rather than token-ring. their measurements
showed that typical 10mbit enet had both lower latency and higher
effective thruput than even 16mbit token.
my wife and written the response to a gov. RFI where much of the
basics for 3tier architecture were laid out. we then expanded that and
put together marketing presentation for customers showing 3tier
architecture with enet implementation. we really started taking heat
from the t/r and saa crowd for that:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#3tier
a while ago there were some threads in some newsgroups about the
origins of middleware and 3tier architecture ... and we may be the
guilty parties.
remember i mentioned that at the time the internal network
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet
was larger than the (whole) internet .... and all the corporate links
had to be encrypted (while as far as I know, none of the public
internet links were encrypted) ... and the claim at the time was that
the internal network had over half of all the link encrypters in the
world .... to give you and indication of the market size in that era.
as a daughter card ... it would increase the cost of a basic enet card
... and it could be used with lots of other applications, links, t/r,
etc. While it was possibly clear in the academic and technical market
that enet would prevail, t/r was still quite dominent in the business
market and some sections of the gov. market. It wasn't just crypto
that wasn't playing in the academic and technical market ... there was
a number of security-related things ... that seem to have market
interest in the business and gov. sector ... that didn't show up in
the academic and technical market segment.
jmfb...@aol.com
K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>In article <41B00A24...@yahoo.com>, cbfal...@yahoo.com says...
>> K Williams wrote:
>> > ly...@garlic.com says...
>> >> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
>> >
>> >>> We had a proposal to do exactly that on Ethernet controllers.
>> >>> In fact, that's what I was hired into BTV to do, but it was too
>> >>> simple and cheap to get much interest.
>> >>
>> >> the reason for daughter card design was so that it could be used
>> >> in a number of different ways .... including as link adapters
>> >> (and not limit the market to just enet). the difficulty with this
>> >> wasn't with it being too simple and/or cheap.
>> >
>> > But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
>> > and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
>> > companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
>>
>> Not 20 years ago. I was quite proud of having a LAN interface
>> adequate for my needs that cost well under $100.
>
>controller (NSC ATlantic, IIRC) cost something under $10, maybe even as
>low as $5.
>
I rated the Ethernet at the same level as the repeat key on the
TTY. :-) It was so much better than having to get RDH to
walk out to the comm rack so that his aura would make the
fucking DMC-11s to decide to behave. I swear...that's all it
took; I planned my certification script runs around his schedule
which was orthogonal to mine.
/BAH
Pete Fenelon
> The power of pizza and beer should never be under-estimated. In the
> example being reminisced over, that's exactly what my manager did.
> "Let's get this *#$@* thing working and get some pizza and beer". A
> couple of hours later we were eating pizza and swilling beer. ;-)
>
Work-funded pizza is no substitute for good planning and a sensible
working week. (Or for paid overtime if there's no alternative to putting in
daft hours).
pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "there's no room for enigmas in built-up areas"
K Williams
> > ly...@garlic.com says...
> >> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
> >
> >>> We had a proposal to do exactly that on Ethernet controllers.
> >>> In fact, that's what I was hired into BTV to do, but it was too
> >>> simple and cheap to get much interest.
> >>
> >> the reason for daughter card design was so that it could be used
> >> in a number of different ways .... including as link adapters
> >> (and not limit the market to just enet). the difficulty with this
> >> wasn't with it being too simple and/or cheap.
> >
> > But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
> > and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
> > companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
>
> Not 20 years ago. I was quite proud of having a LAN interface
> adequate for my needs that cost well under $100.
Not 20 years ago, 11. I moved to BTV in '93. At the time an Ethernet
controller (NSC ATlantic, IIRC) cost something under $10, maybe even as
low as $5.
--
Keith
K Williams
> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
> > The power of pizza and beer should never be under-estimated. In the
> > example being reminisced over, that's exactly what my manager did.
> > "Let's get this *#$@* thing working and get some pizza and beer". A
> > couple of hours later we were eating pizza and swilling beer. ;-)
> >
>
> Work-funded pizza is no substitute for good planning and a sensible
> working week.
Actually, it wasn't "work funded", in either case. It was "boss
funded". A little appreciation. ;-) I've been through the "work
funded" pizza drill too; pass the pizza under the door and "get back to
work". There is a difference (no beer in the latter;).
> (Or for paid overtime if there's no alternative to putting in
> daft hours).
Sometimes shit happens. Often it's planned that shit happens on
Sunday, since that's when the shit is available for happenings. Other
people have to get their shit together too. One doesn't have multi-
$million tools sitting around idle on purpose. In the case of the
crypto project one *couldn't* have more sitting around because they
didn't exist.
I've been a salaried professional (read; no overtime) for 29.5 of my
30.5 years here. While any $$ in the pocket is good, I wouldn't go
back to punching a timecard without kicking and screaming. There are
benefits to being salaried.
--
Keith
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> The programmer's system we crashed was the #2 system to get the
> hardware that was already flushed out on the #1 system. We only
> "upgraded" the hardware when we'd proven it on the hardware system,
> and likewise the software on the hardware system. Thre was version
> control on all this stuff, except the control code (embedded
> microprocessor) on the crypto key storage unit (we were late and
> they took what we had or nothing).
for 4341 the hardware engineers in endicott got #1 and #2 ... and
#3 was sent out to the disk product test lab in bldg. 15
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
since i had worked on redoing i/o subsystem ... so the disk engineers
could now run an operating system on their machines for disk
regression tests ... their machines were no longer dedicated
stand-alone (and could be used for various other things concurrently).
somewhat as a result, i had better early 4341 access ... than most of
the non-engineer groups in endicott (performance evaluation, software,
etc). in any case, i was kind and offered to run stuff for endicott
people on the 4341 in san jose (aka 4341 was developed in endicott).
some random references to making 4341 runs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#0 Is a VAX a mainframe?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#7 4341 was "Is a VAX a mainframe?"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#0 Microcode?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#7 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002i.html#19 CDC6600 - just how powerful a machine was it?
and for some total random slightly related endicott drift:
http://www.theregister.com/2004/12/01/secure64_itanium_arrives/
and
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003e.html#65 801 (was re: reviving multics)
K Williams
mnah...@trein.ntc.nokia.com says...
> In article <qf-dnQ_BxZW...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
> > msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) wrote:
> >>In article <SfWdnVuP2aN...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
> >>> Morten Reistad <firs...@lastname.pr1v.n0> wrote:
> >>>>In article <y-mdnfqQdrS...@rcn.net>, <jmfb...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> >>>>>My house has a closed water heating system. I learned that
> >>>>>the best water was "old" water; new water had air in it and
> >>>>>wouldn't be very effective because an air bubble could block
> >>>>>the water pipe.
> >> ...
> >>>It costs $75 to bleed my heating system. I wanted them to put in
> >>>a valve up here. That's when they said that the reason it wouldn't
> >>>work was because it would introduce air and the best water
> >>>was dead water.
> >>
> >>Huh? I don't follow why the bleed valve wouldn't work:
>
> > Because air can get into the system. Apparently this is
> > a bad thing. It has to be an airless system.
>
> Yes, but getting airless water to begin with is a lot harder than to
> let the air out once it has separated from the water.
>
> You should only need to do this when you add new water, of course.
> Otherwise it's broken, and likely to deteriorate faster after that
> because it corrodes faster then.
For some reason my system has to be bled (no intervention from me)
every heating season. I have no idea where the water goes but from the
sound of the pipes there is a significant amount missing.
>
> But, the circulating water is often far from "clean" - it can eventually
> become a saturated solution of whatever soluble stuff is found on the pipe
> inside surfaces anyway. A single filling of air in the water only has
> enough oxygen content to oxidize a rather thin layer of iron from the
> iron pipes, and the non-oxidized iron isn't all that soluble, so it
> works - and the pipes are good for a reasonable number of cycles, so you
> should only need to replace them once or twice a century or so even when
> playing it safe, if you do it right.
> Plastic pipes can last forever, approximately...
Plastic pipe isn't all that great at transferring heat though. My
system is all copper, except for the cast iron boiler. Copper should
last pretty much forever too (close enough for me anyway). Though
there was some defective copper pipe installed around 20ish years ago.
> >>I have a radiator based closed water heating system where each radiator
> >>has a bleed valve at the top.
> >
> > Then it's not a completely closed system. I don't have those kinds
> > of radiators. I have a pipe that runs alongs the walls through
> > flat pieces of metal; the water heat the pipe; the pipe heats the
> > flat pieces; the flat pieces radiate the heat.
>
> The more common variation around here is where the radiators are
> flat sections of pipe, roughly. And bleed valves on top of each. It's
> closed if you keep the valves closed tight...
Sort of like this? http://www.sheltertech.com/hydronic_radiators.htm
Ours is similar to the stuff in this PDF. The second page shows the
cross-section: http://www.argoindustries.com/pdfs/lotrim_brochure.pdf
> As bleeding the air out is only needed so rarely, possibly something
> like once every two decades (which is about the typical boiler overhaul
> interval), it effectively _is_ a closed system.
Apparently I have a fault somewhere, though am clueless about how to
find it. My previous house heating system never needed bleeding, other
than when I mucked with the system.
> >> ..I was told to bleed the system by
> >>feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down at
> >>each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
> >>around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
> >>given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
> >>
> >>Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
>
> > It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
> > is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
>
> Sure, my boiler is hooked to the water system via a pipe too. And via
> another bunch of pipes to the heating circulation - the pipes of which
> circulate inside the boiler too, in their own still closed loop.
>
> Having a pressure tank with a diaphragm, or something similar, means
> that you don't need to add more water to force the air out. These have
> been available for some decades now.
???
--
Keith
K Williams
Sure. Even different hardware groups have to worry about stepping on
each other though. One of the rules was to keep an accurate log of
what we did (sometimes it ended up not being so accurate, oops) and to
restore the system to the way we found it when turning it over to
others. Anything that changed had to be documented. I don't remember
what the exact mechanism was, but there was a process for documenting
errors and (intentional;) changes to the system.
The programmer's system we crashed was the #2 system to get the
hardware that was already flushed out on the #1 system. We only
"upgraded" the hardware when we'd proven it on the hardware system, and
likewise the software on the hardware system. Thre was version control
on all this stuff, except the control code (embedded microprocessor) on
the crypto key storage unit (we were late and they took what we had or
nothing).
> >> >> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
> >> >> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
> >> >> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
> >> >>
> >> >> And you lived to tell about it?
> >> >
> >> >We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
> >> >set in existence) on their processors.
> >>
> >> Real programmers would wait until the gear work was done
> >> then deal with the bug.
> >
> >We had exclusive use of the A-Side of the system to install the
> >hardware. The problem was that the A-side console was next to the B-
> >Side (and verse visa). So when we decided that it was the TCM that was
> >bad (false conclusion because of the side reversal), we disconnected
> >the TCM on the *active* (B) side. The programmers showed us where to
> >set up shop, but neglected to tell us they'd mucked with the hardware.
>
> Uh-oh. Software mucked with the gear?
Sorta. They installed it backwards from anything we'd ever seen. For
some reason the consoles were swapped from their normal layout. There
was likely a good reason, but... One of the results of the postmortem
from that "oops" was to clearly label all hardware, even on our test
floor.
> >> > .. ...not to mention that we were
> >> >armed with sharp objects. ;-)
> >>
> >> But who controlled the code that opened the doors? Besides,
> >> all they had to do was chant a magic incantation and make
> >> it appear that the gear was broken. Now you're trapped.
> >
> >Once the barbarians are inside the gates, the city is lost. ;-)
>
> Only if you let them run amuck. I would close and lock the
> gates; now I owned their sorry asses. :-)
No locks on the inside. Fire safety, and all that.
> I also have a feeling that we got onto a lot of Field Service
> shit lists during the years because of hardware tweaking during
> a debugging session.
IIRC, field service wouldn't service our equipment. ...or if they did
it was only some parts of it. Which made sense since they didn't have
the parts. We hadn't invented 'em yet. ;-)
--
Keith
K Williams
The power of pizza and beer should never be under-estimated. In the
example being reminisced over, that's exactly what my manager did.
"Let's get this *#$@* thing working and get some pizza and beer". A
couple of hours later we were eating pizza and swilling beer. ;-)
My son is a manager of a retail software store. I told him long ago
that when they have to be open late (often *open* at 12:00AM for game
releases) to buy pizza for his people (beer wouldn't work on the job).
It's amazing what a difference in attitude $15 worth of pizza makes.
--
Keith
Joe Morris
> this was real engineering hardware ...
>with the ipl button a knife switch.
ROFL! Now *that* is something I would like to see a picture of...
Joe Morris
wondering how many people these days have ever *seen* a
knife switch except in horror flicks on late-night TV
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> But Ethernet controllers are *everywhere*. It would have been simple
> and cheap. Alas no interest, other than from a couple of other
> companies we disclosed to (Enet chip maker and networking company).
one of the things that started to make 3tier architecture
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#3tier
was when the new 16bit ("fast", rather than 8bit interface) enet cards
started showing up supporting twisted pair (& cat5); list around $100
and sometimes street price around $60.
this was at a time when the 16mbit t/r cards were going for around $1k
and the recommendations were having something like 300 sharing the
same 16mbit.
there were two issues from this era
1) 300 sharing the same 16mbits help promote the saa/terminal
emulation paradigm ... since it was hard to do more than that with
16mbits didvided 300 ways
2) austin had done its own 4mbit t/r card (16bit/isa ) for the
pc/rt. however they were told they had to use the standard
microchannel 16mbit t/r card for the 6000. there are two separate
issues, one is the aggregate sustained effective sbandwidth
utilization on the media ... and the other is the sustained bandwidth
thru a single card. turns out evaluation of the standard microchannel
16mbit t/r card showed that the sustained thruput of a single card was
actually less than the custom pc/rt 16bit/isa 4mbit t/r card. again
the traide-off supporting the saa/terminal emulation paradigm (huge
numbers sharing the same 16mbit, no single one able to utilize a
substantial portion).
3) you could configure high-speed (enet, tcpip) router as backbone
with 10 enet subnets, each with 30 stations .... for an aggregate
100mbit (10*10mbit, and normal effective aggregate media thruput was
95 percent) and 300 stations ... with a couple dedicated extra
dedicated subnets, with a single server per dedicate enet .... all
for lower total cost than 300 16mbit t/r cards. the enet scenario was
that each client could get approx. 1/30th of 9.5 mbits ... while in
the saa scenario, each client was getting something less than 1/300th
of <8mbits (again promoting the saa/terminal emulation paradigm)
... and there was no additional bandwidth for server operations.
one of the practicalities is that 2tier and 3tier traffic can be quite
asymmetrical .... high speed router as backbone with dedicated enets
(or, if needed fddi) to/from servers supported the asymmetrical
bandwidth paradigm ... while still leaving lots of individual enet
subnets configured for client configurations.
say all the enets are cat5 twisted pair into hubs in some wiring
closets ... with the closet hubs connected to ports on high-speed
router. there is currently option of upgrading from 10mbit to 100mbit
to 1gbit enet. back then with star-wired and high-speed router
backbone ... and still stuck with 10mbit enet ... you did have the
option for doing things like putting more hubs in the wiring closet,
increasing the number of subnets and reducing the number of clients
per subnet (or for custom operations providing dedicated subnet to
specific places). one of the big expense items has been doing any sort
of rewiring ... having a single wire going to the wiring closet and
then being able to do all sorts of variations in the wiring closet for
customized configurations.
the issues were that typical 10mbit enet provided more aggregate media
thruput than 16mbit t/r (roughtly 9.5mbits vis-a-vis 6-8mbits), it was
much easier to configure subnets and still provide single network
connectivity using high-speed routers (drastically increasing total
aggregate infrastructure bandwidth), individual enet cards were
showing up that individual could sustain the same as media capacity at
about 1/20th the cost (compared to the $1k 16mbit t/r cards that
individually were possibly in the 1-2mbit range).
NoSpamForMe
"Joe Morris" <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote in message
news:coppni$7v9$2...@newslocal.mitre.org...
>
> ...snip....
>
> wondering how many people these days have ever *seen* a
> knife switch except in horror flicks on late-night TV
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3038806
for those who haven't :-)
jmfb...@aol.com
K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>In article <l_ednQ1uk7y...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com says...
>> In article <648.832T22...@kltpzyxm.invalid>,
>> "Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>> >In article <uZmdndU8yuC...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com
>> >(jmfbahciv) writes:
>> >
>> >> In article <MPG.1c17c2fdc...@news.individual.net>,
>> >> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Once the barbarians are inside the gates, the city is lost. ;-)
>> >>
>> >> Only if you let them run amuck. I would close and lock the
>> >> gates; now I owned their sorry asses. :-)
>> >
>> >And you get to feed their kids. :-)
>> >
>> <grin> Not my problem; that's a function of payroll. My problem
>> is to get the gear fixed. Swing the key to the exit door in
>> front of them and a device that emits aromas of free beer
>> and pizza in the other.
>
>The power of pizza and beer should never be under-estimated. In the
>example being reminisced over, that's exactly what my manager did.
>"Let's get this *#$@* thing working and get some pizza and beer".
Yup. IOW, we're not going play the blame game, we're just going
to get the job done and then celebrate. That's how we worked.
Maybe that's why DEC was so much angst and fun.
> .. A
>couple of hours later we were eating pizza and swilling beer. ;-)
And it's difficult to remember to stay pissed off at the hardware
guy who fucked up your edit when you're swapping horror stories
over pizza and beer. That way hardware learns about software woes
and software learns about hardware woes. And if there's a problem
that needs solving, it gets designed right then and there.
>
>My son is a manager of a retail software store. I told him long ago
>that when they have to be open late (often *open* at 12:00AM for game
>releases) to buy pizza for his people (beer wouldn't work on the job).
>It's amazing what a difference in attitude $15 worth of pizza makes.
Of course. Laboring immediately turns into playing.
jmfb...@aol.com
K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>In article <qe4qoc...@fenelon.com>, pe...@fenelon.com says...
>> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>> > The power of pizza and beer should never be under-estimated. In the
>> > example being reminisced over, that's exactly what my manager did.
>> > "Let's get this *#$@* thing working and get some pizza and beer". A
>> > couple of hours later we were eating pizza and swilling beer. ;-)
>> >
>>
>> Work-funded pizza is no substitute for good planning and a sensible
>> working week.
>
>Actually, it wasn't "work funded", in either case. It was "boss
>funded". A little appreciation. ;-)
That is very important. It makes the boss a part of the workteam
rather than a PHB.
> .. I've been through the "work
>funded" pizza drill too; pass the pizza under the door and "get back to
>work". There is a difference (no beer in the latter;).
It's always come across as grudgingly, "Wweellll, I guess you do
have to eat."
>
>> (Or for paid overtime if there's no alternative to putting in
>> daft hours).
>
>Sometimes shit happens. Often it's planned that shit happens on
>Sunday, since that's when the shit is available for happenings. Other
>people have to get their shit together too. One doesn't have multi-
>$million tools sitting around idle on purpose. In the case of the
>crypto project one *couldn't* have more sitting around because they
>didn't exist.
>
>I've been a salaried professional (read; no overtime) for 29.5 of my
>30.5 years here. While any $$ in the pocket is good, I wouldn't go
>back to punching a timecard without kicking and screaming. There are
>benefits to being salaried.
Oh, yes. I worked very hard to get salaried. I got so fucking tired
of being told I couldn't do this or I couldn't work more because
I always had to clock the card. I got into trouble if I lied (didn't
write down my hours).
It's one of the reasons, I couldn't stomach factory work. Union
never let you get the job done.
jmfb...@aol.com
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> writes:
>> The programmer's system we crashed was the #2 system to get the
>> hardware that was already flushed out on the #1 system. We only
>> "upgraded" the hardware when we'd proven it on the hardware system,
>> and likewise the software on the hardware system. Thre was version
>> control on all this stuff, except the control code (embedded
>> microprocessor) on the crypto key storage unit (we were late and
>> they took what we had or nothing).
>
>for 4341 the hardware engineers in endicott got #1 and #2 ... and
>#3 was sent out to the disk product test lab in bldg. 15
>http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
>
>since i had worked on redoing i/o subsystem ... so the disk engineers
>could now run an operating system on their machines for disk
>regression tests ... their machines were no longer dedicated
>stand-alone (and could be used for various other things concurrently).
I don't think anybody understands that this is a vital part of
CPU soft/hardware development cycles and is a part of the evolution
of the technology. This is why I keep claiming that separating
hardware from software with a corporation barrier is not a good
idea.
>somewhat as a result, i had better early 4341 access ... than most of
>the non-engineer groups in endicott (performance evaluation, software,
>etc). in any case, i was kind and offered to run stuff for endicott
>people on the 4341 in san jose (aka 4341 was developed in endicott).
This was the kind of stuff that our benchmark system was supposed
to do. Stuff was supposed to be tried on the system to if it
would work and how well (or badly) it would work. I just don't
see how this stuff can get done (and communicated back to
the hardware and software people) with our current PCitis infection.
Have you noticed this in your side of the world, Lynn?
<snip list>
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I don't think anybody understands that this is a vital part of CPU
> soft/hardware development cycles and is a part of the evolution of
> the technology. This is why I keep claiming that separating
> hardware from software with a corporation barrier is not a good
> idea.
that was where the rubber met the road type of the thing ... but
it was part of the official plan. i've told the story about 3880
disk controller before.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
the transition from 3830 to 3880 disk controller went from a fast
horizontal microcode engine to a much slower vertical microcode engine
(jib-prime) that just handled commands and there was special hardware
assists for the data flow.
the problem was that command processing latency on 3880 increased
significantly ... and there were product acceptance guidelines about
newer product thruput had to be with 5-10 percent of the replaced
product. this wasn't happening ... total elapsed time for each disk
operation was exceeding the requirements. so they did a kludge ...
they had the 3880 signal operation complete to the channel/processor
before the 3880 had finished all the command cleanup/termination.
the "official" acceptance tests were done with a two-pack VS1 system
that was essentially single-threaded doing one i/o operation and then
doing some work and then doing the next i/o operation. by the time the
VS1 system had gotten around to starting its next io operation, the
controller had finished doing what ever it was doing.
so one monday morning, i get a call from the engineers in bldg. 15
product test lab ... wanted to know what i did over the weekend to the
3033 system in their machine room, that performance had totally gone
to pieces. I said "nothing", and asked them what they had done; they
said "nothing". so a little more checking ... they had a string of 16
3330 disk drive for their general (engineers & their friends)
time-sharing use with a 3830 disk controller. it turned out, somebody
had replaced the 3830 with a new test 3880 disk controller over the
weekend.
the time-sharing system on the 3033 get have loads of concurrent
operations going ... and if the 3880 controller got busy doing
something, there could be several operations queued up until it was
free.
when the 3830 signaled complete, it was really free ... and the system
would immediately start the next queued disk i/o and it would be
accepted. when the 3880 signaled complete, it was really free .. and
when the system went to immediately start any queued disk i/o
operation ... the controller would signal control unit busy (aka cc=1,
csw-stored, SM+BUSY). So the processor has to requeue the operation
and wait for the controller to really be free. The architecture
requires that for all processors/channels that a control unit has
signaled "control unit busy" ... when the control unit finally does
become free ... it now must signal "control unit end" to all the same
processors/channels. Compared to 3830 operation, the 3880 (moderate
load sequence) operation was having to go thru i/o initiation twice,
take twice as many interrupts, and the redrive of the control unit
with pending i/o was significantly delayed (lots more processor
overhead and much longer delays).
Fortunately, this happened well before the 3880 disk controlers were
to ship to customers .... so there was time to tweak the insides to
get the thruput up compareable to 3830 ... even under heavy load
conditions. note, however, it wasn't part of the standard process.
the standard process had been the hardware engineers worked in a
totally stand alone environment ... and hardware typically wasn't
really exposed to real production type operations until very close to
time to ship to customers. It was the finagling that went on behind
the scenes and outside the process ... that saved the day.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> Fortunately, this happened well before the 3880 disk controlers were
> to ship to customers .... so there was time to tweak the insides to
> get the thruput up compareable to 3830 ... even under heavy load
> conditions. note, however, it wasn't part of the standard process.
> the standard process had been the hardware engineers worked in a
> totally stand alone environment ... and hardware typically wasn't
> really exposed to real production type operations until very close to
> time to ship to customers. It was the finagling that went on behind
> the scenes and outside the process ... that saved the day.
putting the 4341 into early/psuedo production in the disk labs and then
doing stuff for the guys back in endicott was similar finagling:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004p.html#58
there was the joke about pulling 4-shift weeks; 1st shift in research,
2nd shift in disk engineering,
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#disk
3rd shift at stl, and 4th shift at hone
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#hone
providing and supporting heavily enhanced hone system for nearly 15
years was also behind the scenes and outside the process (but it
helped keep the company running).
Brian Inglis
jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <MPG.1c17c2fdc...@news.individual.net>,
> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>>In article <qf-dnQzBxZV...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com says...
>>> In article <MPG.1c163d575...@news.individual.net>,
>>> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>>> >In article <fvydnYVr4I1...@rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com says...
>>> >> In article <MPG.1c1524919...@news.individual.net>,
>>> >> K Williams <k...@att.bizzzz> wrote:
>>> >> >[*] man do programmers get nervous when engineers with screwdrivers
>>> >> >walk onto their test floor! ;-)
... or electricians, or plumbers, or welders, or telco guys ... they
all have the capability to shut you down hard without warning by
making foolhardy assumptions!
>>> >> That's because we know you're about to screw us.
>>> >
>>> >LOL!
Always a high probability!
>>> >> > ..Yep, we pulled the cold-plate off a
>>> >> >TCM on the wrong side of a 3090. It got strangely quiet for a few
>>> >> >seconds before the yelling started. oops!
>>> >>
>>> >> And you lived to tell about it?
>>> >
>>> >We were doing them a favor by installing the crypto hardware (second
>>> >set in existence) on their processors.
>>We had exclusive use of the A-Side of the system to install the
>>hardware. The problem was that the A-side console was next to the B-
>>Side (and verse visa). So when we decided that it was the TCM that was
>>bad (false conclusion because of the side reversal), we disconnected
>>the TCM on the *active* (B) side. The programmers showed us where to
>>set up shop, but neglected to tell us they'd mucked with the hardware.
>
>Uh-oh. Software mucked with the gear?
I miss the mucking around with the physical hardware side of systems
work: who knows the whole installation better than the guy who has to
get the OS installed and running efficiently on the gear?
Sometimes we corrected installation "oversights" that prevented the
system running continuously for more than a few hours (installed
grounding straps), or tape drive design problems that prevented
backups being completed (tape label over vac pump spigot). ;^>
Sometimes we were just a useful extra pair of hands when FS had to
resolder a 50 pin connector to fix a flaky connection, or install
modem control jumpers on a bunch of DH/DM distribution panels.
>>> > .. ...not to mention that we were
>>> >armed with sharp objects. ;-)
>>>
>>> But who controlled the code that opened the doors? Besides,
>>> all they had to do was chant a magic incantation and make
>>> it appear that the gear was broken. Now you're trapped.
At a PPOE we had to declare a system dead in the water to get FS to
fix the frigging TUxx crap that hadn't been able to complete a backup
since system install.
>I also have a feeling that we got onto a lot of Field Service
>shit lists during the years because of hardware tweaking during
>a debugging session.
Some of us customers got on FS shit lists because we knew the HW
failure modes better than the regional HW specialists, who didn't like
to be told which diags they might want to run when they arrived, or
reminded after they'd been screwing around with the system dead for a
day or two.
--
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian[dot]Inglis{at}SystematicSW[dot]ab[dot]ca)
fake address use address above to reply
Philip Nasadowski
news:coppni$7v9$2...@newslocal.mitre.org...
>wondering how many people these days have ever *seen* a
>knife switch except in horror flicks on late-night TV
I think the NYC subway system still has, or had until recently, a few in
their electric substations, some of which date to 1900 or so. LIRR
electric trains also have a very large one under the car, used to turn
off the car's power. I've only seen it used once.
They were common on old electrical equipment in some circles - electric
RRs seemed to be one of them (I have a 1917 or so vintage PRR
instruction manual that actually suggests clicking the 900 volt heat
circuit one on the car open and closed a few times to verify lack of
electrical power (!)) that retained them far longer than you'd want.
They mount easy to panels, too. Modern breakers aren't any better in
some places - I believe even to this day, NYC subway crews are taught to
not operate some 600V supplied breakers with their bare hands, but
rather use a third rail slipper board, aseven modern breaks are known to
clog with steel dust and do Bad Things(tm) when thrown...
Mikko Nahkola
> Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> wrote:
>>jmfb...@aol.com wrote, in <qf-dnQ_BxZW...@rcn.net>:
>>> msc...@io.com (MSCHAEF.COM) wrote:
>>> > ..I was told to bleed the system by
>>> >feeding it with tap water to keep the pressure up and bleeding it down
> at
>>> >each radiator to release accumulated air. (Being sure to keep pressure
>>> >around 15psi). So far it seems to work, and the costs were minimal,
>>> >given that the radiators already have bleed valves.
>>> >
>>> >Do you have a different kind of heater, perhaps?
>>>
>>> It's a different water system. I never add water. The boiler
>>> is hooked up to my water system via a pipe.
>>
> all
>>completely separate from the house water circuits.
> Yup. That sounds like what I have. Apparently it takes a
> special pump to bleed trapped air such that connecting it
> doesn't introduce more air. I don't know; that's what
> I was told. This bunch of men don't seem to lie to me
> like some do when they dismiss me a stupid broad who can't
> boil water.
Yes, well, apparently your system _does_ work that way then.
Apparently your kind of system was designed for the end user who _is_ too
stupid to boil water - no user serviceable parts, just call the FIELD
SERVICE ... ;-)
Us others seem to have the kind where the user is required to know about
how it works but doesn't have to pay as much for the service.
Didn't we have a similar dichotomy about computer systems too recently?
And don't tell me that it's all different because the other case had
computers in it, you should know better than that.
--
Mikko Nahkola <mnah...@trein.ntc.nokia.com>
#include <disclaimer.h>
#Not speaking for my employer. No warranty. YMMV.
jmfb...@aol.com
So far, that's OK. I'm perfectly happy to call my _local_ furnace
doctor. I'm thinking about the day when they go out of business and
fuel and service become a generic chore.
>
>Us others seem to have the kind where the user is required to know about
>how it works but doesn't have to pay as much for the service.
>
>Didn't we have a similar dichotomy about computer systems too recently?
>And don't tell me that it's all different because the other case had
>computers in it, you should know better than that.
Oh, MUTTER. Don't get me started. One of the repeated
breakages is that the fucking computer board in the boiler
breaks. I suppose I should look at the bright side--it
doesn't have a damned clock display that has to be
reset every time the power takes a glitch break.