microcode, compilers, and supercomputer architecture

From: Huw Davies <H.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Fri Apr 9 09:48:56 1999

At 09:55 08/04/99 -0400, allisonp_at_world.std.com wrote:

>Say PDP-8e now, most would be terrified by the likes of a SMP KL10
>cluster.

One somewhat amusing DEC FS incident. A few years ago La Trobe was hosting
a DECUS event and a couple of us at La Trobe decided that we should do
something to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Unix (however we measured
this). We acquired a PDP-11/44 and installed BSD 2.11 on it. As DECUS were
sponsoring the event, we had a promise that if we had a hardware failure,
FS would be called at Digital's expense. Well, the RL controller failed so
I logged a call. It took quite a while to convince telephone support that
Digital did in fact manufacture PDP-11s and the look on the (fairly young)
FS engineer's face when he arrived on site was priceless. Fortunately he'd
brought along a replacement card which I installed (helps if you know a bit
about hardware :-).

We were asked not to log any more calls.....

 Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au
 Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479
1999
 La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
 Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
Received on Fri Apr 09 1999 - 09:48:56 BST