Article note: Getting out of Sparc makes sense, no one gives a shit about commercial Unix anymore, Oracle has poisoned the waters around Sparc, and Fujitsu has seriously badass AArch64 designs that can take over in the remaining markets.
The mainframes though? That's an ...odd... move. There doesn't seem to be a ton of overlap between the "Mainframe customers" (serous mainframes, the GS21 family are basically modernized Amdhal ESA/390 compatible designs) and "Customers who will migrate to a new, small cloud provider."
Once Japanese giant's main squeezes, they're being ditched at end of decade
Fujitsu has confirmed the end of the road for its mainframes and Unix server systems. It will cease to sell both by the end of this decade, with support services continuing for a further five years.…
Article note: This is just weird. Yes, AMD has some compelling technologies in both the CPU and Graphics spaces, and recently acquired Xilinx, so they're well positioned.
Yes, Intel appears to be making some poor decisions. But they have a long history of terrible decisions that they've managed to get away with. More importantly, unlike AMD, they own an (expanding) ton of leading-edge fab capacity, and significant market dominance in almost every laptop-and-larger CPU category.
Article note: Very cool. The various RT patch-sets to Linux have always been under-maintained for how useful they are; there is a lot of industrial equipment out there that is really a RTLinux box, and it's generally not a bad solution.
An old friend of mine was moving cross-country and got in touch about taking “Some of his old computers” a while ago. I of course agreed, and it turned out to be quite a growth event for my hoard. There will be several posts about machines that arrived in this process as I get to them.
The list of things to be re-homed included “an Apollo” which I was hoping was a pre-acquision DN-something or a HP 300/400 series because I’ve had a long fascination with Domain/OS. What showed up is… not that. This is a later HP Apollo 9000/735 PA-RISC workstation, ca. 1992, which is easily the most exotic piece of hardware that transaction made me steward of. The OS options are HP-UX 7-10.20, a few BSDs, or a second-class NextStep 3.3 port; I’ll probably go with HP-UX10.2. It came with the requisite HP-HIL keyboard and mouse (thank goodness) and a DEC branded 5xBNC to VGA cable.
Processor board with 12x16MB Memory modules
This thing was serious rarefied-air hardware when it was new: PA-7100 99 MHz processor, 208 MB of RAM in 12 obscene proprietary 16MB RAM modules + 16 soldered to the processor board, a HP CRX-24Z video board, a full-height SCSI HDD, and an AUI Ethernet daughter card. Probably in the ballpark of $60,000 new. It is also built like a piece of high-end industrial equipment, with big sheet-metal frames with handles that pull out of the back of the system for every major component.
My first attempt to power it resulted in …a feeble blink of the power light. That suggested to me that the PSU was bad, probably due to defunct electrolytic capacitors. So, in standard “old electronics troubleshooting” fashion, I pulled the PSU, tore it down, read labels off the most suspicious capacitors, and ordered replacements. The HP Museum folk also suggest the AC line filter module is a time bomb on all of these, so since it’s still made, I grabbed one of those too.
List with Mouser links, since they were the vendor with everything I needed in-stock: 8x 2200uF 25V, 12.5mmD 40mmH, 5mm lead spacing , Nichicon UPJ1E222MHD 8@1.09 1x 220uF 35v, 10mmD, 20mmH, 7mm lead spacing, Nichicon UPM1V221MPD1TA 1@$0.72 1x 1x 22uF, 25V, 5mmD, 12mmH: Nichicon UPS1E220MDD1TA 1@0.30 1x 12uF, 35v, 5mmD, 10mmH, Panasonic EEA-FC1V120B 1@$0.39 1x AC Power Entry Module, Schaffner FN9222R-10-06, 1@$6.50 I also ordered a couple 470uF 25V, 10mmD, 20mmH, 5mm lead spacing caps, but ended up not installing them because there was no sign of damage and they were hard to get a good angle on.
I passed on dealing with a couple smaller electrolytics with no signs of damage, and also two gigantic 2x 1200uF, 250v, 35mmD, 47mmH, 10mm lead spacing input caps that cost $7.50 a piece, since they looked both fine and like a fight to get out without damaging the PCB. One of these days I really need to invest in a proper pump-driven desoldering gun to make this kind of task safer and easier.
I of course picked up an extra 1-2 of each since it was noise over paying for shipping, and it’s a good thing because I dropped one of the new 220uF/35V parts and it instantly disappeared forever, presumably to wherever my cat has been hiding toys recently. The new input filter is slightly longer than the original and required a bit of creative terminal bending to fit around the caps, but it made it back into the case. After the recap, it powered right up, and on a second try after giving the hard disc a gentle thump to unstick the heads from park, everything spun right up.
Full Status LEDs. 8,6,3,1 = “Autoselection Failure to Find Boot Device”
It booted to status LEDs at that point, and shows “8,6,3,1” which according to the service manual indicates “Autoselection Failure to Find Boot Device” – probably meaning the HDD is dead and/or wiped. The appropriate HP/UX media is easy enough to find. Unfortunately, the monitor on my basement bench doesn’t seem to want to sync with the presumed 1280×1024@72Hz Sync-on-Green coming out of the video card, so I’m stuck for now until I can find a workaround. There is a 4th BNC labeled “Stereo” that might somehow be useful for sync? Or I need a scan converter/sync stripper gadget? … further research required.
Now that Windows 11's first major post-release update has been issued, Microsoft has started testing a huge collection of new features, UI changes, and redesigned apps in the latest Windows Insider preview for Dev channel users. By and large, the changes are significant and useful—there's an overhauled Task Manager, folders for pinned apps in the Start menu, the renewed ability to drag items into the Taskbar (as you could in Windows 10), improvements to the Do Not Disturb and Focus modes, new touchscreen gestures, and a long list of other fixes and enhancements.
But tucked away toward the bottom of the changelog is one unwelcome addition: like the Home edition of Windows 11, the Pro version will now require an Internet connection and a Microsoft account during setup. In the current version of Windows 11, you could still create a local user account during setup by not connecting your PC to the Internet—something that also worked in the Home version of Windows 10 but was removed in 11. That workaround will no longer be available in either edition going forward, barring a change in Microsoft's plans.
While most devices do require a sign-in to fully enable app stores, cloud storage, and cross-device sharing and syncing, Windows 11 will soon stand alone as the only major consumer OS that requires account sign-in to enable even basic functionality. Apple's Macs still allow for local account creation during setup, and you can skip signing in when you set up iPhones and iPads (an Internet connection is sometimes required for device activation, though). Android likewise needs an Internet account for activation but doesn't require signing in to get you to the home screen. Even Chrome OS has a guest mode that you can use to enable basic browsing without a user account.
Article note: Nice step. Now we just need it so _whole geographic areas_ don't have effective monopolies, and the definition of "broadband" isn't so watered down as to be meaningless.
The Federal Communications Commission has voted to ban the exclusive revenue-sharing deals between landlords and Internet service providers that prevent broadband competition in apartment buildings and other multi-tenant environments. The new ban and other rule changes were adopted in a 4-0 vote announced yesterday.
Although the FCC "has long banned Internet service providers from entering into sweetheart deals with landlords that guarantee they are the only provider in the building," evidence submitted to the commission "made it clear that our existing rules are not doing enough and that we can do more to pry open the door for providers who want to offer competitive service in apartment buildings," FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in her statement on the vote. The broadband industry has sidestepped rules that already exist with "a complex web of agreements between incumbent service providers and landlords that keep out competitors and undermine choice," she said.
With the new rules, "we ban exclusive revenue sharing agreements, where the provider agrees with the building that only it and no other provider can give the building owner a cut of the revenue from the building. We also ban graduated revenue sharing agreements, which increase the percentage of revenue that the broadband provider directs to the landlord as the number of tenants served by the provider go up," Rosenworcel said. Rosenworcel had circulated the proposal to commissioners in late January.
Article note: I've long been an advocate of walking and/or exercising as the best thing for getting one's mind (back) in order... but I'm not sure if I could physically do their sample exercise, that's intense.
The world is full of things that upset people. But most of us deal with it and move on and don’t try and burn the planet down. There is no right in the world not to be offended. That right simply doesn’t exist
