A little guidance - TI Xenix

From: Brett <danjo_at_xnet.com>
Date: Sun Jun 29 18:02:29 1997

On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Ward Griffiths and/or Lisa Rogers wrote:
> On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, Brett wrote:
> For the company Notes system, the NT Servers are in the same room. It's
> an insurance company -- they've gotten into the security habit strongly
> since they installed about the third production Univac I that was ever
> made back about the time I was born.

The people that you could REALLY hurt if you broke security!

[Section moved to end 8-)]

> > > > SPA initialization complete
> > > Yes, 'SPA' probably stands for 'serial port adapter'.
> > Aside - What the heck is that shorty card in there? All epoxied up.
> > Says TI on it. Metal shield. Any ideas?
>
> Damfino -- never did a TI Xenix system. Did Xenix on Tandy, Altos, and
> with SCO a shitload of 386 platforms, but not TI.

This is the SPA card. It has 3 20 pin chips and 1 24 pin chip in it (from
looking at the back). It has LAB1 as a part name and on the slot cover
it says "SPA ID NUMBER : 3531". On the drive is an installation script
to change SPA passwords. Three entries :

# cat /etc/softpwd
DFMX_1.0:052B46346E1F471943210A3344174B3D3D064C01:
TISAM2.4:024427482D315F1A3F2D572F6C006D1A21230B6B:
COBRT2.0:0B7125683B101E6B360D204A7B0717571C3F6F59:

Looks like some protection thingy for Cobol and a Database thing.

> > Don't recognize anything on it that has a name I know. Full 1/4 inch
> > on a DC600 tape (I now have one blank 8-) Yup - got the tape to work!
>
> Cool. Those mini-QIC drives have never given me _anything_ but grief.
> From the age, that drive is probable 60 MB, but could be as much as 150.

No problems - so far 8-)

> Well, Xenix is pretty rugged, even on an Intel box.

Definitely!

> > > So what utilities are on the machine? Does it have the Software
> > > Development package? (type 'cc' to check). Does it have the Text
> > > Processing package?

No cc 8-( Maybe time to turn it into a Linux Box.

> For text processing, look for 'troff' in a bin directory. Of course, an
> 'ls /usr/games' will tell you whether or not the machine is worth keeping
> for the long run. Especially if you've got 'rogue' or 'hack' (and if you
> don't, I suspect they can be tracked down).

No troff either &-( And no games! What the heck!

> > > To enter the machine room where I work I have to exchange the card-key
> > > that gives me access to the building for one that gives me access to
> > > that room -- and I have to trade back if I want to go outside to smoke
> > > a cigarette.
> > That's cool! Very professional. Do they body search you before you go in
> > and after you come out? Hmmm... Cigarettes - another thread!

> Well, I find much of the discussion about getting the yellowing from tar
> and nicotine off of the cases to be rather irrelevant -- for almost of
> twenty years, my nocturnal hacking has been with an overflowing ashtray on
> one side of the keyboard and a twelve-pack of something above 3.2% on the
> other.

Well, I also crank up Led Zeppelin and go for something in the 18 proof
range 8-) Sometimes I mellow out with Readers Digest "Big Band Era" - but
I'm strange. (Man can Christopher Columbus bang those drums!)

> Yes, I Windex the screens -- the yellowing of off-white cases I find
> relaxing. (I live in New Jersey, but I'm from Los Angeles -- that means
> that while the groundwater is fine, due to the lack of an inversion
> layer the air is lacking in essential vitamins -- two generations in
> L.A. and evolution worked. I _need_ the supplementary carbon monoxide,
> and jogging behind busses is too much like exercise.)

Not EXACTLY what I meant 8-) I was wondering - with all the secoandhand
smoke info flowing around - if you ever had a "hardware" failure directly
tied to cigarettes? I had one. The damn thing rolled off the ashtray onto
a 5 1/4 disk. Melted it before I could get to it. That's why I make
backups! But I use to teach computers in - oh 82-85. We used 8 inch drives
and thru a *design* flaw the fans sucked instead of blew. Used to flip my
ashes right in there. Used to throw the floppy up and then jump on it.
In all those years, I lost one disk. Had my boots reheeled after that 8-)
But smoking and computers are A BIG NO!NO! I can see a problem with maybe
CD-ROMS and floppies - tar gumming up the works - but I have never had a
failure that wouldn't have been as bad if it was Kool-Aid or something.
I think sugar based stuff is the worst for computers. Conductive and
fluid! Ouch!

BC
Received on Sun Jun 29 1997 - 18:02:29 BST